Guild Wars 2

Ok, this question is for you long time mesmers. In the cases where a ranged weapon is needed, which is better, GS or staff? I got a Sunrise on my guard which I never really use anymore since I got Juggernaut for him and I love hammer much more than GS on my guard. So I’ve been debating throwing it on my Mesmer or just buying him a staff. My main weapon on Mesmer is ascended sword and focus but like I said, which is better as the offset? GS or staff?

Oh btw this is purely for a PVE dungeon running deal, not PVP.

IF range is required, go for GS if there are just trashmobs. If the enemies are harder or if it’s a boss mob, take the staff. Nothing outdamages the iWarlock against a boss with a good amount of conditions. If there aren’t any good condition stackers like Engi, Necro etc. and the enemy is dangerous, you also may take a scepter for the block and take a useful offhand, either the pistol or the sword for another block. Mossman is a perfect example for Scepter + Sword, after he went invisible.

But in general you can melee almost everything, going for Sword + Focus and Sword + Sword is the best damage output you can make.

Wait, I was under the impression that legendaries are soulbound. Is this not the case?

Either way ranged combat is kinda crappy for mesmers in dungeons. Sword with offhand swaps (focus, pistol, sword) is the preferred, and dungeon groups hate mesmers that camp a GS or staff, and honestly don’t like either on the rotation (because your dps or build is bad as a result).

Neither. Use scepter so that you can get good off hand skills. If you insist though, staff. Range is generally terrible though, you could clear pretty much 99% of content on sword/sword + sword/focus.

Yea atm like I said, I’m using sword/focus as my main and was using sword/sword or sword/pistol as secondary but figured I’d put in 1 ranged weapon for those rare occasions.

And as for legendaries being soulbound, you can transfer them using a transmutation splitter. Just transmutate the legendary to a white weapon and then bank it. Pick it up on the toon you want the legendary on and use a transmutation splitter and wham you transferred it. You will lose any infusions you had on it though.

I would only use ranged like staff or GS in WvW not in pve.

Someone on reddit datamined a new legendary staff, so you might want to plan ahead. :P

That being said, GS is a horrible PvE weapon, in any case. The damage is always inferior to alternatives.

Well noone said the truth in this thread yet.

Staff is a 1200 range melee weapon. GS is ranged, that’s all you need to know. I’m being dead serious the staff is an overextended melee weapon

Staff = AoE range.

GS = Utility; damage is limited as it’s difficult to keep a mob at max range, and if you do, your offhand sets become kind of useless.

Single target damage at distance is maximised with Scepter/Pistol.

WvW is a different story, where max range attacks are common, then the GS becomes a bit more useful. But in PvE, anti-mob group attack damage is maximised by Staff/Sword + X where X is anything except Torch, and single attack damage is maximised by Sword/Sword + Scepter/Pistol.

Since most PvE encounters in dungeons are in groups, you’ll find Staff/Sword+X to be stronger more of the time, while the Sword/Sword | Scepter/Pistol will be stronger against bosses specifically.

GS with Superior Sigil of Fire for AOE if you running zerker build. Staff too slow.

curtegg.5216:

GS with Superior Sigil of Fire for AOE if you running zerker build. Staff too slow.

That’s not even close to optimal. You’d be using a sword for that, not a GS. GS does too little damage in an AE situation.

I feel sword auto attack rarely outdamages GS (semi-berserker build). I use sword/sword on bosses, and go to my other weaponset, greatsword when it gets messy (to buy time). If it’s trashmob, and more then a few, i change offhand sword for focus (or if i need speed).

GS auto attack, doh sword is better. GS rotation, 1 (let the full channel happen), instantly followup by fast cast 3 (it’s low damage but if chained right after a skill it’s faster then any auto attack, even sword auto), and the berserker is great. And you got an interrupt, wich is great for trash mobs, or to group them.

And on easy bosses, yes, i swordman is very good. But one aoe at the wrong time and they are dead, i feel sometimes, Gs berserker survives a lot more because he dodges while doing the animation, and stays behind (in safe spot) when bosses moves ,and only moves further when the next attack loads up again. Gs also has faster shatter creation imo (with both GS and sword -20% traits).

Sword is definitely good at dredge and alike for removing their boons (like protection and regeneration).

Staff imo is bad for power damage build in pve. slow animations, hard to find a good rotation, only good for condi build imo.

• The iZerker doesn’t dodge during it’s animation.
• Sword deals about 30% more damage than a full range GS ignoring the fact of boons and cleave
• GS rota is the best if you do 2, 4, 3, 2 and switch. After 3 you probably need to do 2 aas.

Imo, the Scepter and Pistol is the best range option for a full warrior / guard team, however if there is even one condition spammer (doesn’t mean condition dd !!) then the staff iWarlock outdamages everything else, even if the staff itself deals lower damage, it’s aa passive damage is still quite strong. I use the GS only for openings against large groups or at some situations where I need a range safe precise dd, like when you need to focus a mob between others (CoF p2 like). Or sometimes at dredge fractale.

However in the end it doesn’t only depend on the enemy, it also depends on the allies if you can melee or wich ranged weapon to take.

Phantasmal Warlock isn’t nearly as good as people here seem to think so far as I can gather. Haven’t seen good numbers in practice either.
Warlock deals base 438 damage, unknown power scaling, and an additional 10%per condition for a maximum of +120% damage. It has an attack frequency of 6.8, or 5.7 traited. Under ideal circumstances, discounting crits and power scaling, that’s 169dps. It’s ranged.
Take a look at Phantasmal Swordsman, who deals 672 damage per strike, has a 2.0 power scaling, and an attack frequency of 4.5 without the need for Haste, and that’s 149dps. With 2k power, that’s 1038dps . It evades during it’s leap.
Duelist deals 118dps, 8 strikes per attack, 0.4 scaling. With 2kpower, that’s 1129dps.
Chances are, you don’t have all 12 conditions(which includes imob) on your target all the time in a 5 man group, and while I’m not at home to test it, I strongly suspect the Warlocks power scaling is the worst of the three phantasms I just mentioned.

Only reason to bring staff is for it’s defensive capabilities.
And I’m not sure why people would use scepter in a power build, it hits like a wet noodle, even worse then great sword.

Arewn.2368:

Phantasmal Warlock isn’t nearly as good as people here seem to think so far as I can gather.

None of the Mesmer weapons are “good” compared with other classes. The attacks are designed to poke the enemy hard, not consistently.

In open PvE vs bosses I’ve seen up to 12-13K damage on hits with my 2K toughness zerg survival build. Maybe that’s not good compared to what a berserker output but its decent enough for me. That said, the staff is a defensive weapon and incidently, one of the best defensive weapons in the game (if not the best).

Dawdler.8521:

Arewn.2368:

Phantasmal Warlock isn’t nearly as good as people here seem to think so far as I can gather.

None of the Mesmer weapons are “good” compared with other classes. The attacks are designed to poke the enemy hard, not consistently.

In open PvE vs bosses I’ve seen up to 12-13K damage on hits with my 2K toughness zerg survival build. Maybe that’s not good compared to what a berserker output but its decent enough for me. That said, the staff is a defensive weapon and incidently, one of the best defensive weapons in the game (if not the best).

I wasn’t comparing the mesmer to other classes though, I was comparing one mesmer ability to another mesmer ability. And when it comes to mesmer abilities, Warlock isn’t that good for damage (not to say it’s bad either, just normal).
As you mentioned if you want it for defense then staff is ok, but people shouldn’t be trying to sell it as a great damage weapon, and they certainly shouldn’t be trying to sell it as the highest damage phantasm.
And I say the staff is only “ok” because in a 5man dungeon group(which is what the OP wants it for) you probably already have many of the staff’s boons already, unless you’re the group’s boon provider.
The only outstanding part of the staff for a damage build in 5man group content is Phase Retreat.
Scepter is even worse for that purpose. Which is really unfortunate because it’s a cool weapon and the only thing holding it back is the kitten -poor power scaling.

Hmmhmm, the highest crits I’ve seen from my iWarlocks were around 18k iirc. That’s on worldbosses and the like, of course. Or at temple-events… well, situations where there are a lot of different conditions on mobs who actually last a while. For those situations, 3 iWarlocks are by far the highest dps you can get.

For AoE, things like chaos-storm, iWarden and sword-cleaving do the trick much better than the greatsword, imo. In fact, the only place where I could imagine the greatsword to be the optimal choice right now, is to kill tentacles at the maw-fight in fractals. If your group doesn’t like it if you use phantasms to do so, that is. That being said, the auto-attack also can be used to kill those uhm… no idea what their english name is… well, those crystal-mobs from range (they reflect projectiles), thus making it possible to continue attacking them while you’re not on sword (with staff, you wouldn’t be able to do that cause of the reflect). But yeah; that’s about the only reason why I would ever consider bringing a greatsword to a fight.

The highest crit I had with iWarlock was 25k on Dwayna with a luck 25 stacks of might and vulnerability. However in PvE dungeon bosses I only take the staff with condition spammers where the iWarlock simply crits with 10-15k. There is no better phantasm with spammers.

btt:

Arewn.2368:

Phantasmal Warlock isn’t nearly as good as people here seem to think so far as I can gather. Haven’t seen good numbers in practice either.
Warlock deals base 438 damage, unknown power scaling, and an additional 10%per condition for a maximum of +120% damage. It has an attack frequency of 6.8, or 5.7 traited. Under ideal circumstances, discounting crits and power scaling, that’s 169dps. It’s ranged.
Take a look at Phantasmal Swordsman, who deals 672 damage per strike, has a 2.0 power scaling, and an attack frequency of 4.5 without the need for Haste, and that’s 149dps. With 2k power, that’s 1038dps . It evades during it’s leap.
Duelist deals 118dps, 8 strikes per attack, 0.4 scaling. With 2kpower, that’s 1129dps.
Chances are, you don’t have all 12 conditions(which includes imob) on your target all the time in a 5 man group, and while I’m not at home to test it, I strongly suspect the Warlocks power scaling is the worst of the three phantasms I just mentioned.

Only reason to bring staff is for it’s defensive capabilities.
And I’m not sure why people would use scepter in a power build, it hits like a wet noodle, even worse then great sword.

This whole post makes me realize you don’t know how damage calculation in this game works.

• There is no base damage – with 0 power you deal 0 damage with every skill (exept conditions of course).
• Every skill with the same damage when the player has X power has the same scaling. 10% more power = 10% more damage on a skill. There aren’t any skills who are scaling %tual better than others.

This is the reason why the iWarlock even scales the best of all phantasms with enough conditions. At 4+ conditions the iWarlock outdamages already every other phantasm in single target dps.

For any and all aoe situations, your best bet is going to be mêlée. This requires coordination because you’re going to be squishy. Thieves running sword/pistol with permablind makes for some nice and easy area damage.

However. For single target, I’ve not been impressed by sword as the main option for damage dealing. The auto attack, while fantastic in aoe doesn’t so vastly outperform greatsword auto attack that it justifies the need to be in mêlée combat.

Running a phantasm/reflect build, most of your damage comes from your summons anyway. Of the phantasms, I’ve found that for most mobile targets, berserker is durable, high damage compared to the other alternatives. I’ve also found GS3 to be invaluable for boon stripping. Every time I clear a protection, that’s a 33% increase in damage for the entire group. I’ve not seen another weapon with this ability not tied to also spawning a clone and thereby destroying a phantasm resulting I lost damage.

While there is something to be said for optimum throughput, there is also something to be said for consistency and safety.

Additionally, none of this actually matters. If you’re playing the mechanics, any old WVW zerg build with PVT gear will down content. Its going to be a bit slower, but you’re still going to down it. Understanding how to maximize your role in the group to make the dungeon smoother is all you need to worry about.

Learn what you can from people who have the experience, but don’t forget to get your own experience too. Short of a damage meter or other real form of evidence, all of this ‘theorycrafting’ is mostly conjecture anyway.

Duelist is better against moving targets since it only has to chase in to 900 range. In case you hadn’t noticed, the final attack on the sword auto chain strips a boon too, which means you can remove a boon every 2.5s, and if you have three sword clones up, that’s solid boon removal. So let’s see, better phantasms, higher auto dps, better boon removal, cleave, evade (blurred frenzy and then riposte on oh sword). So… Why are you using Greatsword still? Do you enjoy lasers or is there some other justification for playing a weapon strictly inferior to its alternatives in almost all content? If you prefer it, that’s fine, just don’t go and claim it’s worth using from a practical point of view.

It amuses me that people like you will condescend to others when it is impossible to judge true dps fight by fight in this game. Seconds lost to dodging and moving in and out of mêlée stack up quickly. Without a definitive accounting of damage done and the various encounters which will skew the results in favor of one weapon set over another, there is no basis for determining who is right or wrong in this.

Again, not that it matters. All content in this game can be pugged. The difference in what you seem to consider viable or impractical, isn’t being able to down content, it’s being able to down content hypothetically faster without the ability to prove it.

In a group really concerned about damage and speed runs, the group would be better off replacing you with a warrior anyway.

This thread is not about if ranged is viable nor if GS is viable. It’s about if you have to stay ranged, what weapons do you use? I mean – see the new fractale endbosses, that charr and dredge. I would never ever try to melee them, the dps falls too much off by dodging. It’s one of the ultra rare situations where I took GS and Staff. Well was my first time tough.

Out of the OP’s requested options, it honestly depends on how far back you plan to stay.

• 600 range, Staff (with Scepter/Pistol swapout); you’re in boon range for WoC bounces and SC/P does ok at that range.
• 900+ range, GS (S/F for clumping trash, or when you’re forced into melee.)

No, neither of these options are “dungeon optimal,” but that’s the curse of ranged attacks in this game. As GW2 is coded, melee > range for DPS, and Mesmers pack a good deal of tricks to stay alive in most melee fights.

I personally keep every possible weapon on my own Mesmer (and my other 80s), simply to retain options for whatever I’ve got to fight. But that’s just how I do business. /shrug

notabot.3497:

Wait, I was under the impression that legendaries are soulbound. Is this not the case?

Either way ranged combat is kinda crappy for mesmers in dungeons. Sword with offhand swaps (focus, pistol, sword) is the preferred, and dungeon groups hate mesmers that camp a GS or staff, and honestly don’t like either on the rotation (because your dps or build is bad as a result).

All weapons/armour can be transferred to alts as long as they are not race/class specific.
White armour is account bound, you can use those to transfer them to and from characters.