Guild Wars 2

Kelesti.2458:

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 isn’t know for it’s aoe either, chaos storm has the longest cooldown of any mesmer skill, what happens when it’s on cooldown? As a mesmer you can still use your boon removal for a small aoe, and your phantasm really doesn’t have that high of a cooldown. Generally i just swap to sword/focus and burst the enemies to 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

Sword is so defensive in itself i really never need chaos storm to escape, the 2s invulnerability is amazing. And if you like to melee and are dieing, well switch to greatsword, use your phantasm then knock them back, boom. Theyre crippled and far away. The 2 skill is also a random bounce on GS, and it does a lot more damage than staff!
Staff isn’t bad, but it’s damage can’t come near GS, it is more defensive though.(although the cripple is a lot better vs bosses imo.)

Kelesti.2458:

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).

1. You are making a random assumption that a player would use Diversion and Distortion on cooldown. Said player would be an idiot. You are projecting your own habits on said player. QED.

2. There is no such thing as a triple-clone Mind Wracking on cooldown build. Any intelligent shatter build will utilize phantasms along with clones.

3. The Swordsman does more power-centric DPS than the Duelist which does more damage than the Berserker.

4. Unlike inferior players, I actually utilize the phantasm damage concurrent with shatters. Therefore, the comparison is:

(a) 3 Phantasms versus
(b) 2 Phantasms, 3-4 Mind Wracks, 3-4 stacks of confusion, 12-13 stacks of vulnerability, Mirror Blade every 4.8 seconds, 6 stacks of Might, and a partridge in a pear tree

This comparison is pretty one-sided.

GS is a burst weapon for Mind Wrack based builds, usually traited for extra bounce in the last line and following the standard [summon phantasm > swap to GS > domi signet > 2 > 4 > 3 > F1] combo with high precision, critical damage, and power.

If you throw in Power Spike from Mantra of Pain few professions can survive that combo in sPvP unless they have protection up.

But it’s such a kitten to remember to charge MoP all the time.

You get used to charging it.
I ran mantras for so long I still use Ether Feast at the start of the match some times. xD

Illusionary Wave is the #1 reason to use sword in pvp. It allows me to at least neutralize a capture point when its covered by a guardian. You just need to observe the guardians buffs and make sure he doesnt have stability when you use it.

Also, Phantasmal Berserker is damage-through-a-wall. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t feel this is the best Illusion the mesmer has except maybe the high DPS from the pistol illusion. Its recharge sucks without trait points spent though.

I think the biggest issue with great sword is the animation freeze from Mind Stab. I get slaughtered by a couple of sins in the duration of that animation.

While I love the idea and the feel of the Greatsword on a Mesmer, I have to agree the experience is lackluster at the moment.

The 3 changes I would like are:

1) Allow the “auto-attack” to damage multiple targets
2) Either decrease the lockout time on the post-cast of Mind Stab or increase it’s damage radius
3) Up the damage of Illusionary Wave & change it to a knockdown instead of a knockback*

One general Mesmer change I would like is allowing Illusions to do more damage. Not anywhere near Phantasm damage mind you, but something more compelling. Just oh so annoying at low levels seeing your illusion rocking the Greatsword dealing 0 damage :P

Overall damage might need to be tweaked if the above were implemented but I think overall it would improve the situation.

*Note – the knockback when it works it great but in my experience in PvE its reliability is sketchy at best. My guess is this is due to terrain and since that is a more prominent issue in PvE changing it to a knockdown would make the skill more effective for PvE, IMO.

1) Allow the “auto-attack” to damage multiple targets

This would require that the 1 ability be reduced in damage. 1spam is already weak for most weapons (except Staff). This seems silly. GS already has significant AOE/multi-target capability. I see negatives with few, if any, positives.

2) Either decrease the lockout time on the post-cast of Mind Stab or increase it’s damage radius

Pretty sure everyong agrees that the animation of GS3 is the pits. But, this doesn’t break GS. Edit: On this one, I think the AOE size is fine — the ability does decent damage and it strips a boon, so a large AOE would be OP. The most glaring issue here is the length of the kitten animationQQQQQQQ.

3) Up the damage of Illusionary Wave & change it to a knockdown instead of a knockback*

Disagree mostly for PvP reasons. Mesmers already have a spread of stuns and dazes, but a knockback is priceless.

In PvE the knockback is very consistent, but NPCs are not allowed to be knocked off of terrain (e.g. off a cliff), unlike players. So, it is slightly less useful. Never had any “random”/unexpected terrain issues with GS5.

Mind Stab needs serious help. Other than that GS is fine.

Making Illusionary Wave a knockdown would be broken. I can already lock people down for 6+s w/o moa and you want to give us a kd. I wouldn’t complain if it happened, but it wouldn’t be balanced.

Oh man, it’s o-da-man. You playing a Mesmer?

Yeah, you’ve seen me on guru as well. =p Name there is Xionix.

Haha. Rock on! This class is insane man, so fun.

Greatsword in the tooltips should tell you exactly what its for.

You get more damage from the main attack by being further away. That should be the biggest hint ever.

GS optimal range is around 900 for GS2 bounces.

The 1 attack for most weapons are pretty lackluster and ignorable for the purpose of your build / playstyle.

Odaman.8359:

Making Illusionary Wave a knockdown would be broken. I can already lock people down for 6+s w/o moa and you want to give us a kd. I wouldn’t complain if it happened, but it wouldn’t be balanced.

Could be a candidate for works one way in PvE and another in PvP. I agree knockdown would be totally OP in PvP.

But in PvE I think a knockdown would give more predictable results and would also stop the occasional accidental mob pull :P

That would work, as long as “PvE” does not apply to [players in] WvW.

EasymodeX.4062:

This would require that the 1 ability be reduced in damage. 1spam is already weak for most weapons (except Staff). This seems silly. GS already has significant AOE/multi-target capability. I see negatives with few, if any, positives.

I definitely don’t think GS for Mesmer is broken but compared to other weapons & classes it is lacking a tiny bit. (noting this is only from a PvE perspective, 0 complaints on the PvP side)

What I’d like on the #1 is a damage spread like: 1 Target = 100%, 2 Targets = 80/20, 3 Targets = 70/15/15, Spec’d for Illusionary Elasticity 4 Targets = 70/10/10/10

It was multi target at one point in Beta and frankly I thought it played a lot better that way.

EasymodeX.4062:

Pretty sure everyong agrees that the animation of GS3 is the pits. But, this doesn’t break GS. Edit: On this one, I think the AOE size is fine — the ability does decent damage and it strips a boon, so a large AOE would be OP. The most glaring issue here is the length of the kitten animationQQQQQQQ.

Yeah I have a Charr Mesmer so if their animation is worse than most, fixing that would be the best solution :P

EasymodeX.4062:

Disagree mostly for PvP reasons. Mesmers already have a spread of stuns and dazes, but a knockback is priceless.

In PvE the knockback is very consistent, but NPCs are not allowed to be knocked off of terrain (e.g. off a cliff), unlike players. So, it is slightly less useful. Never had any “random”/unexpected terrain issues with GS5.

Again here I’m only talking from a PvE perspective but it certainly isn’t limited to just cliffs. Pretty much any time there is an elevation difference between me and a mob the chances of the knockback actually working is less than 50/50. Maybe because I’ve been running around a lot in caves lately I’ve noticed it more but it certainly doesn’t provide the sense of reliability I would like to see. A knockdown, in PvE only, would IMO.

EasymodeX.4062:

That would work, as long as “PvE” does not apply to [players in] WvW.

Agreed. Mobs and mobs only.

Yeah, I would just be generally concerned because as far as I’m aware, WvW is coded as a PvE zone (does not allow “PvP gear” a la sPvP). If the PvP vs. PvE ability coding is based on zone, then this might be a problem. If it’s based on actual target, then yeah it should probably be easy.

I’m pretty sure they overcame that problem during beta when they made the change to the confusion condition since in BWE1 it was insanely OP in sPvP :P

But worst case if it remained a knockback in WvW that would be fine too.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

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

I agree strongly with you. I think this too. GS is in Mesmer’s hands so much bad with damage. But what I have seen in PVP it is very popular weapon used by many Mesmers.

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.

Warlock scales of the amount of dot’s on a target, I can get mine to hit harder than my duelist by a long way especially given a party setting.

I agree strongly with you. I think this too. GS is in Mesmer’s hands so much bad with damage. But what I have seen in PVP it is very popular weapon used by many Mesmers.

I used it for a while because I wanted a ranged weapon and didn’t know any better, I then switched to the staff (which I had considered to be the condition damage weapon) and realized just how good the staff was and how totally trash the GS is.

4. Unlike inferior players, I actually utilize the phantasm damage concurrent with shatters. Therefore, the comparison is:
(a) 3 Phantasms versus
(b) 2 Phantasms, 3-4 Mind Wracks, 3-4 stacks of confusion, 12-13 stacks of vulnerability, Mirror Blade every 4.8 seconds, 6 stacks of Might, and a partridge in a pear tree

So then we make a fair comparison which is
(a) 3 phantasms, 15-20 stacks of bleed, 4-6 stacks of vulerability, 8-16 stacks of confusion, potential stacks of burning, bleeding, vulnerability,confusion, cripple, blind, poison, weakness, chilled. With buffs of might, fury, swiftness, regen, protection, retaliation and aegis.

Your right it IS fairly onesided. Maybe your just not using a phantasm build right?

Its great in WvW, firing down on zergballs from battlements, or for dealing damage from safe distances within your own zergball – it’s what I like to do when I don’t have a siege weapon handy.

So then we make a fair comparison which is
(a) 3 phantasms, 15-20 stacks of bleed, 4-6 stacks of vulerability, 8-16 stacks of confusion, potential stacks of burning, bleeding, vulnerability,confusion, cripple, blind, poison, weakness, chilled. With buffs of might, fury, swiftness, regen, protection, retaliation and aegis.
Your right it IS fairly onesided. Maybe your just not using a phantasm build right?

All those particular effects are also mirrored in option (b), which makes listing them superfluous. E.g. I listed the actual differences.

Sir, please roll a Mesmer and play one and/or l2analysis prior to posting.

djones.4751:

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.

This 100%. I really feel the intent of the GS is to act like a nice ranged weapon. However, the bounce seems too shallow. I’d really like to see Illusion VII also increase the range of the bounce to 900.

Pretty sure the bounce range is actually 900.

I can tell because I use Sword3 all thekittentime which is 600. There is a clear difference.

Edit: Or it may be my perception error due to the delay where the GS bounce is calculated while moving towards the target.

Is it actually all swearwords which get replaced by “kitten”? Or just some of them?

Carighan.6758:

Is it actually all swearwords which get replaced by “kitten”? Or just some of them?

Enough of them, to where you really shouldn’t bother caring about it.

(Unless you want someone to report a post for censor bypass out of spite.)

When using GS on boss events/large group/some WvW a lot of damage goes down the tube as mirror blade hits your target once and then gets lost in the crowd on someone who may or may not be using an attack skill (might), and also you lose credit for the damage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for buffing other people but I find I really need to use skills from my weapon swap to manage a gold in boss events with GS.. and gold in these events usually isn’t terribly difficult.

Solo/small group is nice because of the multiple mirror blade bounces, stacking a fair amount of might, vulnerability and damage.

Pretty sure I can autoattack in a DE and get gold.

In RvR I have issues in keeps with weapons like staff, 1hsword, pistol/etc because they create the clones at my side. In a keep or attacking a keep this means (far as I have experienced) the clone never attacks the person. With the 2hander (and scepter and focus offhand) I can create the illusion at the person.

I also find swapping to 2hander useful when chasing down a group due to the cripple effect on the 2hsword phantasm.

Otherwise I agree with most folks. I prefer the staff but unfortunately I cannot use it all the time.

EasymodeX.4062:

Pretty sure I can autoattack in a DE and get gold.

As I said, for most group events getting gold is very trivial but some of the more difficult ones (end zone temple of the gods type thing) I’ve found much easier to get higher credit with other weapons or swapping continuously from GS to to mirror blade’s “lost in the crowd” nature. Staff at least has better clone spawning capability, condition stacking and a good deal of even tingle target damage from chaos storm.

Woohoo GS just got a very nice buff! It’s finally on par with the staff.

Marxo.3829:

Woohoo GS just got a very nice buff! It’s finally on par with the staff.

I think it’s more accurate to say it’s on par with what you’d expect from a game of this quality in general. #3 felt like something that was made with the best of intentions but QA dropped the ball on.

Personally I really enjoy the Greatsword set on the Mesmer; but they really need to rework Spatial Surge. Even at max range and getting all three ticks off the damage is really weak and most of the time you will not be experiencing those scenarios.

It depends a lot on your build, but dont expect high damage with greatsword, or any other weapon basically, if you dont go very high power.
I think its more or less the same for any class.
With the right build u dont often switch off GS, only to refresh other phantasm or utility/cc.

If you run condition build I guess ur raw weapon damage is very low but then once u apply conditions it should even out (again depends a lot where u put ur trait points)

Marxo.3829:

Woohoo GS just got a very nice buff! It’s finally on par with the staff.

Been using it in PvE since the buff. I still don’t think it stands up in SPvP to the staff but for PvE it’s now a very solid weapon. Ironically the No3 (and to some extent No1) feel now like they did before when you had quickness.

I personally loved GS when i switched to it, i get the Staff alone is great for PVE/AoEs but along with the GS its good for me. Im not extremely well knowledgeable when it comes to the weapons and such but i find that especially in the Main story quests 60+ that GS has been the most reliable when it comes to group mobs

- The 2nd skills short cooldown and summoning distracting clones great
- The 4th skill deals plenty of damage across the field, unless what i wished the 3rd staff skill could do
- The 5th skill is great for just throwing mobs off you

and switching back and forth staff is don’t see too much fault with it unless in PVP. Though the 3rd skill is kinda useless to me, cursor target aswell whats the point of that

I use GS / Staff in PvP, awesome build that’s all I can say, with the right build this is a great if some what tanky build.

If it doesn’t fit your play style don’t use it but all I can say is that if you want survavability and great control ( you sacrifice dps but conditions are not affected by toughness so it makes for a more productive build) give it a go.

There are not a lot of builds I can’t take down with a GS / staff build in pvp.

The GS seems quite a bit better after playing solo PVE with it for a day since the buffs. I actually feel like I can use the abilities to do some good damage.

GS is ranged Sword is suicide and requires a more tanky build to even be remotely viable.

They tuned up the attack speeds of the first and third button on GS. Even before the buff it was very viable now it’s just plain awesome.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgUQJARWlwzCoHVzpGa9IhpHFH5+GlitndSKaNrB;TgAKvMdJ6yujzL5OrNGkA

Here ya go.

After this last patch GS is much more viable, even mind stab can have a decent time hitting. Before I would just use it for the 2 and the 4, maybe 5 to another 2 before going into sword. But now it’s pretty viable to try and kite my target with the GS before having to switch for sword 2 for melee.

Also what’s awesome about the zerker is you can cast it without line of sight, so I can poke folks on walls with it. Now it just needs to have the CD redux from the illusions line.

Also something interesting: I can summon my duelist and switch to my GS without hitting the in combat weapon swap penalty before my duelist starts shooting.