Guild Wars 2

As far as what you bring to a group with a greatsword, pretty much everything is already covered by a 1-handed Sword.

Boon Removal from Mind Stab? Covered on 1-chain on a much shorter cooldown, without having to rely on rooting ourselves to telegraph we’re hitting a 2 yard radius.
Vulnerability? 1-chain.
AoE from the Phantasm? Everything from the Sword itself cleaves, without worry of a target dying and forcing it on cooldown.
Cripple from Phantasm? Illusionary Leap.

So that leaves us with Might, and a Pushback. A pushback, I should add, that almost everything in PvE seems to be immune to. So is two seperate triple stacks of Might (on a random target) worth giving up Blurred Frenzy’s 8 second cooldown, plus whatever bonus customization we can get from our particular choice of offhand?

Am I wrong, or is Greatsword bringing pretty much everything that a 1h sword comes from (except the damage) and saying “But I can do it from ranged, pew pew!”? Because for the Profession to only have two reliable Power Weapons, this seems like far too much overlap.

I don’t like the distance damage factor. It makes the GS really difficult to do damage on anything close by.

However, the sword does look pretty badkitten slung over the back of my Sylvari XD

Only the second greatsword skill worth it, with a 4.8 sec cooldown and maybe the bouncing improve. Gives tons of boons and conditions (3 stacks of Might or 3 stacks of vulnerability for 10 freakin’ seconds) for up to 5 targets. In a 1v1 situation this is up to 10sec of 9% vulnerability and 10sec of 210 Power-Condition Damage.
:D

darqwonders.5308:

I don’t like the distance damage factor. It makes the GS really difficult to do damage on anything close by.

Even at max distance the damage is pretty pitiful.

I consider the Mesmer’s GS to be the worst weapon in the game.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

I consider the Mesmer’s GS to be the worst weapon in the game.

which is a shame because it’s awesome to see a magic user wield one.

Not me, I see it as a retreat weapon. it good for how I use it. I am sworrd/focus and when needed to get dis, I use GS and it does the job I want it to do. very well

when needed to get dis, I use GS and it does the job I want it to do. very well

Use staff instead, way better.

Greatsword has been my leveling and WvW weapon of choice mostly because of the control I have over the distance between me and the enemy. The phantasm has a cripple, which has 100% uptime if you have more than one berserker out. The knockback is also nice for creating distance, but I wish I could knock mobs off of cliffs (oh well, can’t have everything i guess).

For traits, I go with crippling dissipation (cripple on illusion death) to add more control over enemy movement speed. The result is a very nice setup for kiting in PvE.

I tried this in sPvP for the first time today, and was quite pleased with the results. I run this setup with a sword/focus as well, to give me more control over enemy movement with the sword 3 root and the focus 4 aoe pull/knockdown. It has its limitations, but it certainly wrecks a group trying to cap your node.

Malakree.5912:

when needed to get dis, I use GS and it does the job I want it to do. very well

Use staff instead, way better.

First dont tell me what to use, second no it not. Not how I use it. When I need to get distance fast. The staff cant do that, it can a bit with number 2 and 5 can, but fear is low%.

Ive play with both a lot, and for how I use a secondary weapon. I dont use it for damage are support. just use it for a fast get away. It the best there is.

EsLafiel.4517:

Malakree.5912:

when needed to get dis, I use GS and it does the job I want it to do. very well

Use staff instead, way better.

First dont tell me what to use, second no it not. Not how I use it. When I need to get distance fast. The staff cant do that, it can a bit with number 2 and 5 can, but fear is low%.

Ive play with both a lot, and for how I use a secondary weapon. I dont use it for damage are support. just use it for a fast get away. It the best there is.

Staff hasn’t feared in quite awhile. It’s a 1 second Daze that replaced that effect. But dropping Chaos Storm and running through it is a great way to put distance between yourself and your target. Because you’ll get buffs, and Swiftness to GTFO, they’ll either take a fair bit of damage and a LOT of debuffs, or have to go around. Second, as you’re leaving, you do a 180 and phase retreat out (it’s instant, no cast time) for Chaos Armor. Even if he’s ranged and plinking away at you, you’re the winner here (and still have a second Chaos Armor on #4 in reserve).

Plus staff doesn’t feel kittened if/when the enemy finally does get to you (you can’t mean to tell me that a Greatsword’s pushback will never let a target reach you).

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the Greatsword recently and my verdict is actually it’s a LOT better than it looks, but it needs a lot of support.

I’ve got a full 2k words on the Greatsword over on my blog, actually but the short form of it is Stack Power, get Illusionary Elasticity(Illusion:VII), get some precision. With that in mind your Mirror Blade will do HUGE damage. With illusionary Elasticity you can maintain 6-15 stacks of Might which is a STUPID STUPID STUPID amount of might along with 9-15 stacks of vulnerability, also a stupid amount and suddenly you’re doing thousands upon thousands of damage each Mirror Blade. The phantasm does a ridiculous amount of damage especially against small groups of enemies. The trick to it is maintaining enough distance.

Important note although I am just repeating my guide here : Mirror Blade bounce distance to you is about 600 range, which is half it’s max range. If you’re not getting those bounces it loses so much power.

Been doing some thinking on the problems with greatsword, and even keeping the “flavor” of doing more damage the farther you are away from a target, there are a few.

First, buff management, as noted above. So much overlap that assuming you can play a Melee, you’re better off doing so. Few ideas on this below.

Second Your Might stacker (should feel awesome to push) creates clones that overwrite your Phantasms. This is pretty uncool. Your Berserker is on a much longer cooldown than this, so unlike other weapons (blocks, whatever) you can’t replace them the second they’re no longer necessary.

Third You can’t actually hit anything with Mind Stab. No really, this is ridiculous. The hit radius is too small for the fact it roots you to try to skillshot it. It either needs a bigger radius, or to go back to auto-fire.

Fourth The attack speed is way too slow. There’s such a disconnect between when you start and when you finish, it feels more like watching than playing. Can we go back to the BWE1 speed, adjust numbers as needed?

To fix the buff placement to reduce some of the sword overlap, and to keep Might Stacking from overwriting your Phantasms (which is stupid), here’s probably what I’d do.

*Remove Clone generation from Mirror Blades, Remove Vulnerability. Replace it with Blind, increase cooldown (and range).
*Fix Mind Stab with either a bigger radius or auto-fire. Either works. Put clone generation on this one.
*Remove the Cripple on Berserker. Instead she should get Weakness. Put Cripple on Illusionary Wave, since it serves the same purpose.

What’re your thoughts?

In response to your post.

The clones only overwrite phantasms if you have 3 phantasms up. Otherwise they will always prioritise clones. In this regard to be honest I don’t see it as an issue. Essentially if you’ve got 3 phantasmal berserkers up and they’re not doing, you’re probably against a what am I saying. You can’t get and keep 3 phantasmal berserkers up and keep them alive.

As for mind stab? You just have to pick your moment. It has a -slightly- larger to hit radius than you see, but generally speaking I wait until the foe is beating on my clone to throw it out.

On the attack speed, yeah…This is a definite issue. There is an Escape key cancel function that allows you to attack faster and that’s just wrong. You shouldn’t have to be hitting escape on every primary attack.

If you add cripple to illusionary Wave you’ve just beaten every melee in sPvP ever. That would be absolutely broken. The reason why it’s on the berserker is it’s a balance play issue. It forces the other player to make decisions where they take out the berserker or try to focus you. It encourages smart choice and clever management of phantasms by both us and them. Putting vulnerability on the berserker and cripple on the wave would just mean whenever a melee gets to us we throw them away and have them on half health before they ever get back to us. Not balanced at all.

djones.4751:

If you add cripple to illusionary Wave you’ve just beaten every melee in sPvP ever. That would be absolutely broken. The reason why it’s on the berserker is it’s a balance play issue. It forces the other player to make decisions where they take out the berserker or try to focus you. It encourages smart choice and clever management of phantasms by both us and them. Putting vulnerability on the berserker and cripple on the wave would just mean whenever a melee gets to us we throw them away and have them on half health before they ever get back to us. Not balanced at all.

That’s fair enough. What about removing Cripple altogether, but replacing it with Weakness?

I think, thematically, the cripple fits the idea of the greatsword, although the jury is out on whether or not it fits the practice.

The point of the cripple is that it allows you to constantly keep distance from your foe thus maximising the damage from your Spatial Surge and ultimately the distance scaling on Spatial Surge is worth a hell of a lot more than vulnerability, AND hell you get to keep the enemy away from you too.

Kelesti.2458:

Third You can’t actually hit anything with Mind Stab. No really, this is ridiculous. The hit radius is too small for the fact it roots you to try to skillshot it. It either needs a bigger radius, or to go back to auto-fire.

I’ve been running greatsword/staff in group PvE situations, but I rarely end up using Mind Stab at all. Not only do I agree with your point, but the aftercast on it is insane. Literally almost two seconds of being completely open and useless, just so you can complete an animation where you pull your sword out of the ground and toss it back to a vertical grip.

I’ve gotten used to leading with it, since I can pretty well feel how a kiting baddie will move and match it with the damage timing. But in PvP I don’t think that would work at all.

I believe taking it back to an auto-target skill would make much more sense. I like being able to thrust it out of walls and other non-horizontal surfaces at will, but the only reason I’d have to do that would be to hit turret-like targets, and an auto-target would accomplish that anyway. Not sure that increasing the damage area would be a good idea; it’s kind of weak for that large of a striking range. Might be justifiable if it Crippled instead of boon-stripped, though.

The only real problem I find with Mind stab is it’s post animation…animation. Which people are hitting escape to dodge out of anyways. If they fix that, problem solved.

djones.4751:

I think, thematically, the cripple fits the idea of the greatsword, although the jury is out on whether or not it fits the practice.

The point of the cripple is that it allows you to constantly keep distance from your foe thus maximising the damage from your Spatial Surge and ultimately the distance scaling on Spatial Surge is worth a hell of a lot more than vulnerability, AND hell you get to keep the enemy away from you too.

While I may agree with you, you’re missing that I never said I wanted Vulnerability here. I think it’s wasted on the greatsword. I said I wanted Weakness. Two different conditions.

Well, I mean, what does it really do? It’s not a good spike skill, just gives a moderate amount of damage to a target and a certain number of nearby foes. It strips one boon (which for its recharge is to my mind low anyway), but in PvE what baddies are generally booned anyway; and in PvP, as has been mentioned, the aftercast makes it so much of a death trap that the advantage of the boon-strip is basically nullified.

It just feels to me like it takes up space on the bar so that the greatsword has five skills to use, and so the caster can feel cool because DUDE I STABBED MY SWORD IN THE GROUND AND IT CAME UP OVER THERE!!!

…which is actually cool. But not enough to mitigate.

your right there Kelesti, I did misread you and I apologise for that. Although I don’t think weakness changes anything really.

I think if you took away the vulnerable time after cast, it would be a nice engagement tool, and occasionally useful against clumped up foes not looking at you. I’m not saying it would be a great skill at that point, but a passable one.

Kelesti.2458:

*Remove Clone generation from Mirror Blades, Remove Vulnerability. Replace it with Blind, increase cooldown (and range).

Blind on a 4,8-10s CD. Chaining. Right.
Also, no Clone generation? It’s the fastest non-autoattack move of the GS, it needs that Clone. Not like you shouldn’t use it. As always, if Clones overwriting your Phantasms is a problem, you’re not shattering enough to begin with.

As always, if Clones overwriting your Phantasms is a problem, you’re not shattering enough to begin with.

You do realize that over the course of a Mind Wrack cooldown, that multiple Phantasms would be outdamaging (and depending on build, outsupporting) Mind Wrack’s AoE splash? Not everyone plays nuclear holocaust, some of us actually try to keep our Phantasms alive for, y’know, what they actually bring to the table more than just a combo point that enables mediocre splash.

Carighan.6758:

Kelesti.2458:

*Remove Clone generation from Mirror Blades, Remove Vulnerability. Replace it with Blind, increase cooldown (and range).

Blind on a 4,8-10s CD. Chaining. Right.
Also, no Clone generation? It’s the fastest non-autoattack move of the GS, it needs that Clone. Not like you shouldn’t use it. As always, if Clones overwriting your Phantasms is a problem, you’re not shattering enough to begin with.

Clones don’t overwrite Phantasm’s anyways anymore. Its a non-issue.

Also Shatter isn’t worth it to use for a Phantasm build. You get more damage from the summons.

Nadril.7510:

Carighan.6758:

Kelesti.2458:

*Remove Clone generation from Mirror Blades, Remove Vulnerability. Replace it with Blind, increase cooldown (and range).

Blind on a 4,8-10s CD. Chaining. Right.
Also, no Clone generation? It’s the fastest non-autoattack move of the GS, it needs that Clone. Not like you shouldn’t use it. As always, if Clones overwriting your Phantasms is a problem, you’re not shattering enough to begin with.

Clones don’t overwrite Phantasm’s anyways anymore. Its a non-issue.

Also Shatter isn’t worth it to use for a Phantasm build. You get more damage from the summons.

Almost a non-issue. If you have three Phantasms, one of them will be replaced with a Clone should you use a Clone summoning skill. Unfortunately, Mirror Blades stacking Might summons clones, and it does so faster than you can re-replace them with fresh Phantasms. So you either give up Might duration, or you give up being able to use a third Phantasm. Lose-lose

GS is the best WvW Weapon, because it’s the only weapon you can do anything up on the wall of a keep or in siege fighting against many luring up the wall.

Sword, Focus, Torch = Useless Melee
Pistol = Short range
Scepter = only single target dmg, usless low dmg. Clones spawn on the wall and thus cannot be shattered.
Staff = Winds of Chaos does no DMG to fight this hordes. Chaosstorm has a too long cooldown and it the only AoE of this weapon.

There is only GS left. The Berserker Phantasm needs NO LoS and can hit multiple enemies for some thousand dmg. Mirror Blade and Mind Stab are both AEs and can do somewhat damage.

So my conclusion: GS = WvW Weapon

i personally like the GS since i like playing a ranged caster so that just throws Swords out the window. Also swords cant really help me on top of a Keep/tower wall where im normally always at max range. And im not fond of the staff skills, at least GS my clones are on the ground chasing the enemy, clones on the wall with me are useless.

For my Second weapon i use the Specter focus again its not the best but i like the focus for the number 4 ability (speed buff + cripple + pull) the pull really helps when pulling/knocking ppl off of walls/cliffs. The specter is again my need to be ranged since im building glass canon and csnt take hits very well but can hit like a truck, and produce clones and phantasms quickly. Only time i use Mind Wrack is when that down player gets out of my reach but only have a little bit of health left so then i just use them to shatter the rest away. Other wise i prefer the daze and distort.

For the most part my build is pretty good against light and medium classes, so i just made it my ability to keep casters and rangers off siege weapons since im pretty good at finding the source of attacks and returning damage making them fall back.

But i do find the GS’ Mirror Blade will give might to you only if your close enough but you have to be at max ranger for your Surge to do full damage to be really off…

From personal playing around the opinon I came to about the greatsword is this.

It’s to schizophrenic, it’s 1 wants you to be at absolute max range to do reasonable damage while its mirror blade want’s you to be within 600. The cast time on the 3 is so long it’s just bad relatively and the berserker itself is one of the weakest phantasms we have, it’s only use is for tagging large numbers of mobs. Which brings us to the fact you want the mirror blade to bounce between yourself and 1 other mob, essentially wasting the aoe damage from the berserker. Then to cap it all off you have the knock back on greatsword which is ok but again feels kinda weird since your trying to maintain this near perfect distance for your mirror blade and autoattack. It’s also almost strictly worse than the teleport backwards from the staff or a chaos storm+chaos armor combo.

It feels like its supposed to be our ranged power weapon but it just ends up being mediocre in pretty much every area.

Kelesti.2458:

So you either give up Might duration, or you give up being able to use a third Phantasm. Lose-lose

And I say again: If we all end up using 3 Phantasms, the devs will just make it so that only 1 Phantasm can be up a time (something they should do anyhow, and remove their inter-attack delay entirely, and make them have 3x the normal Shatter effect).

You’re not supposed to run perma-Phantasm. The design of shatter or details like how Clones replace the third Phantasm make that very clear. They redesigned Clones vs Phantasms, and deliberately made it so that you can’t have 3 Phantasms up for long without overwriting one.

You’re not supposed to run perma-Phantasm.

So basically what your saying….you think we’re not supposed to run the only truly viable build which also happens to be the one best support and arranged in our trait tree.

Do you look at a train track and see a park or something?

EDIT:

They redesigned Clones vs Phantasms, and deliberately made it so that you can’t have 3 Phantasms up for long without overwriting one.

Actually it used to replace them in order of when you summoned them, so phantasm—>clone—>clone—>clone would end up with 3 clones. They changed it so that it prioritised clones first giving you phantasm—>phantasm—>clone—>clone—>clone is 2phantasms and a clone. I’d say that’s a pretty clear message against what your arguing.

EDIT2:

something they should do anyhow, and remove their inter-attack delay entirely, and make them have 3x the normal Shatter effect

This would cripple us in all aspects of the game rendering us a null class.

Malakree.5912:

something they should do anyhow, and remove their inter-attack delay entirely, and make them have 3x the normal Shatter effect

This would cripple us in all aspects of the game rendering us a null class.

It would, if anything, insanely boost mesmers. Too much infact.

Having thrice the shatter effect would be a huge buff for myself atleast.
I’m basically running the same build in both PvE and tournaments, works like a charm all over the place:
Greatsword + Sword / pistol, the damage is mediocre at best, the survivability is simply insane.

The greatsword has utterly terrible damage, true. But did you ever think it may just not be useful for your particular playstyle? It works like a charm for me atleast.

What I’d like to see is a even more confusion heavy build for mesmers tho.

Malakree.5912:

This would cripple us in all aspects of the game rendering us a null class.

Ofc, because having 1 stronger Phantasm on top of 3 Clones is clearly inferior to having 3 weak Phantasms and 0 Clones. I see your logic, and raise you a banana.

You misunderstand my reasoning why the Devs can’t have intended perma-3-Phantasms, too. The point was not whether it isn’t the strongest PvE build (it is) or PvP build (it can work well in sPvP random matches, it’s entirely pointless in WvW since you can’t keep your illusions up that long anyhow unless you’ve already won and the enemy is fleeing), the point was about how our abilities are designed.
Very few abilities we have tell you to not shatter. In fact, I can’t think of any. Yes, there are plenty traits which augment Phantasms, but none do so the longer they are up, something which would clearly indicate that you’re supposed to keep them around.
On the other end we have shatter-enhancing effects left and right and centre, we have various ways to speed-produce clones to feed more shatters, and, and this is the really really important part, and I think I wasn’t clear enough on this:

When they re-designed replacement-priority, they could have made it so that Clones don’t overwrite Phantasms.

“Clones will not replace Phantasms.”
Done. Exactly what you want, right there. Trivial change too, count # of Phantasms, if 3, don’t spawn Clone. Much easier than the current one.

Instead they did this:
“Clones will replace a Clone, if possible”.
Notice how the slightly different wording precisely points out the key difference to a simple always-preserve-Phantasms version: No support for 3-Phantasm-setups. And code-wise (I code for a living :P ), this version is more complex since I need to actually identify the index of the illusion to replace, instead of just counting their total number before aborting. In the above version I’d add one check above the older code, illusionCount == 3, then skip the remaining code. In this version I always execute the code, but fiddle with the selection mechanism since I still replace the most recent illusion, just if cloneCount > 0, I only select the most recent one among the clones, ignoring the phantasms.

There is nothing to indicate this was chance or incompetence, really. This seems very deliberate, which makes sense since a lot of things about our class promote the whole “Don’t keep ’em, shatter them!” idea. Except the DPS number, and I bet you that we’ll see nerfs to perma-phantasm setups.

I prefer staff > GS the defense and condition stacking is a amazing! And staff has the only clones (other than siren song trident clones) that do something untrained.

I remember when clones did dmg and you could burst a guy down with iberserker and mirror Images.

The fact that the clone from mirror blade spawns next to the foe it hits first shows its errors in the design…

For PvE dynamic events, GS/Staff is the best combo imho.. loads of quick AOEs to get that gold contribution (we all know that DE is all about spamming as much AOE as quickly as possible).

Chaos Storm, switch to GS, phantasm beserker, Mirror Blade, Mind Stab, Illusionary Wave (all do AOE dmg).. Mind Wrack, back to Staff.. rinse and repeat.

As for WvW.. Phantasm Beserker is too good to give up.. long range AOE crowd control.. and as has been mentioned, spawn it up on a wall, do a Mirror Blade for another wall clone.. and using focus put up a Phantasm Warden on the wall too.. then shatter those… big AOE damage to people on walls. (combine it with Feedback.. and you get some nice confusion stacking too + confusion from the ethereal field combo)

And while sword’s blurred frenzy will also do AOE.. I wouldn’t want to be in melee range of a zerg… and in PvE the phantasm bezerker does his AOE thingy AND it’s AOE shatter fodder.

Ofc, because having 1 stronger Phantasm on top of 3 Clones is clearly inferior to having 3 weak Phantasms and 0 Clones. I see your logic, and raise you a banana.

And I say again: If we all end up using 3 Phantasms, the devs will just make it so that only 1 Phantasm can be up a time (something they should do anyhow, and remove their inter-attack delay entirely, and make them have 3x the normal Shatter effect).

Just because a phantasm is stronger for shattering doesn’t make it more useful for a phan……wait a min….

and remove their inter-attack delay entirely

You can’t mean……sorry I see what you mean now, I initially misread this due to the fact that taking it literally would be sokitten it’s unreal. What’s that a continually firing phantasmal duelist….You’d have a hard time defending that against any of the other profs because it would make hundred blades look like a baby hitting you with a blanket. Yeah that’s a stupid idea.

but none do so the longer they are up, something which would clearly indicate that you’re supposed to keep them around.

I see your incorrect statement and raise you

Phantasmal Haste – Phantasms recharge 20% faster.

A trait which is specifically based around the idea that you will get more than one volley out of your phantasm, a core part of the PvE phantasm build just fyi. 20 points into illusion. Then for indirect hints they want them out for a while.

Phantasmal Fury – Your phantasms have fury.

This originally had a duration of 2 hours, that’s right 2 hours. It now has a duration of 10seconds and is instantly refreshed every 10seconds as a counter measure to someone stealing a TWO HOUR FURY BUFF off your phantasm.

Persisting Images – Phantasms have 20% more health.
Signet of Illusions – Passive: Grants more health to your illusions ( Illusion Health Bonus: 50%)

Both of these massively increase the longevity of your phantasms, both heavily hinting that they want you to keep your phantasms (cos a 50% hp bonus on a clone is useless) out for much longer.

Basically there are several key things which a phantasm build is based around that specifically increase the effectiveness of phantasms with the aim being to keep as many of them out for as long as possible.

“Clones will not replace Phantasms.”
Done. Exactly what you want, right there. Trivial change too, count # of Phantasms, if 3, don’t spawn Clone. Much easier than the current one.
Instead they did this:
“Clones will replace a Clone, if possible”.

While at this point I don’t expect you to realize this I’ll go ahead and explain it anyway. There is this core mesmer SPvP talent which creates a clone when you dodge, there’s an almost mandatory mesmer utility that causes you to create a clone and go invisible. Both of these are crippled if you can’t replace that third phantasm, this is why they chose the second one, so that it doesn’t smash apart other core abilities and utilities.

6k+ on Berserker, 2,4k per autoattack (max range), 1800-1900 each Mirror Blade hit. That seem pointless to you?

How about the awesome AoE knockback? That certainly does not seem pointless to me.

Now Mind Stab in its current condition is probably the worst weapon skill in the entire game, I’ll give you that.

Problem with Greatsword as I see it is that you have to stack immense +damage stuff to reach anywhere close to these numbers. For a Greatsword it certainly has incredibly low base damage. Please note that the above numbers are taken from a gimmicky specc with 16% more damage from Mantras and so on, I still think it’s probably the strongest weapon in our arsenal, but that only speaks to what the other weapons are really :P Scepter for instance… bleh!

6k+ on Berserker, 2,4k per autoattack (max range), 1800-1900 each Mirror Blade hit. That seem pointless to you?

Your gear is far better than mine….which is sad because my duelist appears to hit for the same damage as your berserker and my warlock is getting WAY more.

Scepter for instance… bleh!

Yeah name the one godawful weapon.

Our MH weapon teir list atm is sword/staff at the top, the GS, then sceptre. The staff provides you with defences and aoe damage along with the warlock while the sword gives you the direct power damage and option for a real phantasm off your OH.

EDIT: The one situation this is sometimes not true is in PvE for which you can run GS instead of either of the other two weapons without taking to much of a hit, it can be worth it for a ranged power weapon though.

Remove the stupid distance feature on the auto attack or change it so that instead of punishing being close to the target it rewards being far away (do the same for Ranger longbow too, the entire mechanic is really stupid), change the friendly bounce range of Mirror Blade to 1200, increase damage and radius of Mind Stab and remove aftercast. There I just fixed GS, medal please.

I really hope Anet doesn’t listen to the rest of this thread though because all the other changes seem to be nerfing the good skills while doing nothing to the bad ones.

Also how are people sitting with three Phantasms out? Outside of mass health boss they only way I can see you doing this is if you have made the fight last way too long, you are using one the incredibly rubbish utility phantasms or the guy you are fighting in PvP is stupid.

Levetty.1279:

Remove the stupid distance feature on the auto attack or change it so that instead of punishing being close to the target it rewards being far away

While I agree, that’s what the current implementation is doing. You do extra damage if you’re far away.

Carighan.6758:

You’re not supposed to run perma-Phantasm. The design of shatter or details like how Clones replace the third Phantasm make that very clear. They redesigned Clones vs Phantasms, and deliberately made it so that you can’t have 3 Phantasms up for long without overwriting one.

Staff, Pistol offhand, Focus offhand, and Sword offhand all beg to disagree that you CAN have three Phantasms up for long. If you need to use a utility skill (like a block, or a defensive Phantasm) to replace a single damaging Phantasm, the fact you’ve been running 3 solidly all along means that you have no issue pushing that button again to bring your running total back up to 3.

You can, and should, be running 3 Phantasms whenever possible. Unfortunately with Scepter and Greatsword, that’s just not possible.

Zylo.6597:

The fact that the clone from mirror blade spawns next to the foe it hits first shows its errors in the design…

Yeah, I’ve been thinking this too.

Kelesti.2458:

You can, and should, be running 3 Phantasms whenever possible.

You are wrong.

That aside, GS is an excellent weapon.

Kelesti.2458:

Carighan.6758:

You’re not supposed to run perma-Phantasm. The design of shatter or details like how Clones replace the third Phantasm make that very clear. They redesigned Clones vs Phantasms, and deliberately made it so that you can’t have 3 Phantasms up for long without overwriting one.

Staff, Pistol offhand, Focus offhand, and Sword offhand all beg to disagree that you CAN have three Phantasms up for long. If you need to use a utility skill (like a block, or a defensive Phantasm) to replace a single damaging Phantasm, the fact you’ve been running 3 solidly all along means that you have no issue pushing that button again to bring your running total back up to 3.

You can, and should, be running 3 Phantasms whenever possible. Unfortunately with Scepter and Greatsword, that’s just not possible.

This really has nothing to do with the greatsword, the sceptre is at fault. The sceptre is pretty much completely and utterly useless. You never use it, ever.

I used to think the GS was horrible too, but once i got to endgame i started using it over staff. Now at first i thought it was horrible, and i thought the mesmer was bad at PvE too. I switched to a full glass cannon build, power precision crit damage% on everything. I’ve got a full exotic set now. Greatsword works a lot better than staff with that build. If you time the GS phantasm right it will hit multiple mobs for a LOT of damage. A lot more than staff’s chaos storm could ever do, because in the whirl it strikes everything around it 3 times. More than 5 mobs with chaos storm. The 2 skill has like a 2second cooldown and is great for burst, and the boon removal is only every useful for aoe or boon stripping, the added cc of 5 is nice.
Staff really has nothing for endgame pve, sure chaos storm is amazing. But besides that? The autoattack does less damage than GS with a glass cannon build, and with condi damage the staff’s damage is still less, the teleport is ok and the phantasm is probably the least damaging phantasm after torch offhand.

The glass cannon build is possible on mesmer because you’re a mesmer, high base health and clones for survivability. i’ve completed every explorable mode with this build, and the GS definitely has more uses than the staff. ( the clone on 2 is great for distracting bosses too)

Sure 1h sword will always do more damage, but it is melee after all..

I want to add, that shattering is possibly the worst mechanic ever in PvE. 1/4 of a burst from one phantasm outdamages a mind wrack with 3 illusions up, why would you ever use shatter. The only time i ever use it is against very difficult bosses where i need the 3 second invulnerability to survive, which isn’t often.

Malakree.5912:

I see your incorrect statement and raise you

Phantasmal Haste – Phantasms recharge 20% faster.

A trait which is specifically based around the idea that you will get more than one volley out of your phantasm, a core part of the PvE phantasm build just fyi. 20 points into illusion. Then for indirect hints they want them out for a while.

Phantasmal Fury – Your phantasms have fury.

This originally had a duration of 2 hours, that’s right 2 hours. It now has a duration of 10seconds and is instantly refreshed every 10seconds as a counter measure to someone stealing a TWO HOUR FURY BUFF off your phantasm.

Persisting Images – Phantasms have 20% more health.
Signet of Illusions – Passive: Grants more health to your illusions ( Illusion Health Bonus: 50%)

Aww, you forgot Phantasmal Healing, which gives you pulsing Regeneration from your Phantasms (after an initial delay), and each individual pulse from each individual Phantasm not only adds duration, but it also re-triggers Protection from Illusionary Membrane.

While at this point I don’t expect you to realize this I’ll go ahead and explain it anyway. There is this core mesmer SPvP talent which creates a clone when you dodge, there’s an almost mandatory mesmer utility that causes you to create a clone and go invisible. Both of these are crippled if you can’t replace that third phantasm, this is why they chose the second one, so that it doesn’t smash apart other core abilities and utilities.

Or skills like Decoy and Mirror Images both would be broken the second that they didn’t overwrite Phantasms.

EasymodeX.4062:

You are wrong.

That aside, GS is an excellent weapon.

Running with Multiple Phantasms means that you’re not shattering on cooldown, which means if you need an emergency daze or distortion (or even a heal) immediately after, you don’t have to wait to resummon clones to get one off.

Give a Power Build, triple Phantasms offer much more damage than triple-clone Mind Wracking on cooldown (even if you can manage to pull that off). Have you been ignoring how hard the Berserker shreds? The Duelist? The Swordsman itself is pretty solid. 3 Warlocks that don’t need you to manage your debuffs (because they’re already up there, EDEs) will outdamage two Phase Retreat clones that hope they can put up Burning on RNG. So nope, not really wrong here.

It’s certainly a subjective thing to say you don’t like the playstyle, it’s another to address my point as false, without backing it up (because you can’t).

Malakree.5912:

6k+ on Berserker, 2,4k per autoattack (max range), 1800-1900 each Mirror Blade hit. That seem pointless to you?

Your gear is far better than mine….which is sad because my duelist appears to hit for the same damage as your berserker and my warlock is getting WAY more.

Scepter for instance… bleh!

Yeah name the one godawful weapon.

Our MH weapon teir list atm is sword/staff at the top, the GS, then sceptre. The staff provides you with defences and aoe damage along with the warlock while the sword gives you the direct power damage and option for a real phantasm off your OH.

EDIT: The one situation this is sometimes not true is in PvE for which you can run GS instead of either of the other two weapons without taking to much of a hit, it can be worth it for a ranged power weapon though.

The berserker is a weak phantasm, but out damages warlock by a mile, with a full exotic berserker set it hits for about 10k on anything, my duelist hits for about 20-25k on any boss, and my focus phantasm usually hits for over 40k(they are so op lol.), it used to be not even half of that damage.

Also, greatsword has much more aoe than staff could ever have if you use it right.

Bibidiboo.6409:

I used to think the GS was horrible too, but once i got to endgame i started using it over staff. Now at first i thought it was horrible, and i thought the mesmer was bad at PvE too. I switched to a full glass cannon build, power precision crit damage% on everything. I’ve got a full exotic set now. Greatsword works a lot better than staff with that build. If you time the GS phantasm right it will hit multiple mobs for a LOT of damage. A lot more than staff’s chaos storm could ever do, because in the whirl it strikes everything around it 3 times.

I may agree with you on Scepter’s complete and total uselessness. My problem with the Greatsword is Might Stacking (something you want to do) prevents you from using multiple cooldowns (and that the only real way to AoE is on that Berserker, what happens when the target dies, it’s on cooldown and you have nothing )

Staff really has nothing for endgame pve, sure chaos storm is amazing. But besides that? The autoattack does less damage than GS with a glass cannon build, and with condi damage the staff’s damage is still less, the teleport is ok and the phantasm is probably the least damaging phantasm after torch offhand.

The Phantasm itself is actually designed for a Power Build, it doesn’t scale with condition damage. I tend to run staff for the mediocre non-target-limited AoE, as well as using it as a defensive point for Chaos Armor. If I can get a teammate to blast it off on us, amazing. If not, I Phase Retreat out of it, and still have my normal Chaos Armor waiting for me.

But then again, I use it primarily as a defensive weapon, because I like melee whenever possible :p

As long as you never ever use mind stab, GS is excellent. I only don’t use it in some dungeons, when berserker likely to draw agro. The only time I ever use mind stab is to remove regen from PVE mobs. The root is suicidal in PVP. If GS3 did decent damage, I might put it in rotation, but its single target damage is less than auto attack and the aoe radius isnt’ large enough to hit more mobs, unless they are standing close enough that their shoulders are clipping into each other.