(edited by DrDivine.5378)
Gs +sword/torch builds?
[ROSE] – Fissure of Woe
Chronomancy works, I am proof of it. Now stop asking me questions. Time must be preserved!
Chronomancy works, I am proof of it. Now stop asking me questions. Time must be preserved!
(edited by TyPin.9860)
I use sometimes this shatter build for WvW roaming:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8flknpNtlpxRNcrNSrxg6tyqMSGQBlciqB-TlCFwAy3fYpSFAPAgrKBFcEAQqMwpSKaq/kR3wiLCApAMXZE-wGood survivability due to the additional stealth + condi removal from torch and nice melee shatter damage with The Prestige’s reappearance effects. With the proper weapon swaps after going invisible with torch you can do some pretty amazing melee shatter dmg with GS.
However, don’t expect to catch anyone, who’s running away. I much rather prefer GS/Sw+F with Domination IV (chattered concentration) over IX (Cleansing Conflagration) to be able to CC my targets more and remove protection and stability.
EDIT:
For PvP I guess GS/Sw+T shatter would work too. You are losing the boon stripping from traditional shatter build though. Also melee shatter in PvP is very risky. Double ranged shatter would be safer imho. Well… but I usually also go for GS/Sw+F in PvP. The additional pull is very strong and can screw up anyone’s rotation nicely^^
Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag.
I do all the time (need to correct my sig link tbh).
Only time cleansing conflag truly shines is when fighting thieves – more stealth uptime to survive/setup bursts and also not having to break down a great wall of boons. Otherwise shattered concentration is better, especially if taking mantra of resolve.
As for not contesting a cap due to stealth – well we’re never staying on point for too long anyway, more moving in and out depending on the situation – and on the flipside I personally think blurred frenzy is better at holding one’s ground than untraited chaos armour/storm with it’s long cooldown.
The main benefit staff has going for it is phase retreat and kiting around terrain and also not having to decide between 1200 blink and blade training (I prefer blade training when using sw/t in pvp because 9s blurred frenzy and ~7s ileap are life savers), otherwise I believe Sw/T to be marginally superior when it comes to direct confrontation in open ground and vastly superior when fighting a thief (ie, you don’t have to run away from them unless they are godlike – and even then, all it takes is one good prestige → mirror blade → mind wrack or whatever way the situation calls for a surprise shatter to share the humble pie).
The thing to note with GS and sw/t is that you only have one decent power phantasm which on the flipside is not good in a condition build.
So you kind of have to play a power build, and then you have to balance between damage sources (yourself, your illusions and shatters). There’s not much room for variety with that weapon set. Take whatever traits you like, but damage will have to revolve around GS pew pew, the izerker and shatters.
Swapping torch for a different offhand instantly opens up other possibilities (phantasm, interrupt, etc).
Recently I’ve been trying to make my own builds, one thats been fairly effective centered around phantasms that uses gs and sword/pistol. After seeing the traditional shatter build that uses gs and sword/torch I wondered if maybe there were other weird options to use to make it effective. Im guessing it’s not possible?
Maybe the hybrid build Ross linked, although there your main damaging conditions would be bleeding from sharper images, a little bit of confusion and a tiny bit of burning from the prestige.
It’s hard to force the GS into a hybrid (power/condition) build compared to simply going raw power, and especially if sword is your other mainhand (again rubbish at conditions), so yeah as you say GS+Sw/T does severely limit your methods of dealing damage so no matter what traits you take, in order to be even semi efficient you will be forced to play in a certain way.
And as others have said – taking a different offhand (sword/pistol/focus) instantly opens up what you can get away with both in gear and in traits.
(edited by Curunen.8729)
Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag.
No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…
[ROSE] – Fissure of Woe
Chronomancy works, I am proof of it. Now stop asking me questions. Time must be preserved!
Chronomancy works, I am proof of it. Now stop asking me questions. Time must be preserved!
Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag.
No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…
Yes sir!
Is that before or after greatsword training? :P
Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag.
No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…
Yes sir!
Is that before or after greatsword training? :P
GS is different. Everyone knows that. GS is awesome by itself, while torch looks ugly, so it needs to be flavored with a tasty torch trait… now go out there and do as I say.
[ROSE] – Fissure of Woe
Chronomancy works, I am proof of it. Now stop asking me questions. Time must be preserved!
Chronomancy works, I am proof of it. Now stop asking me questions. Time must be preserved!
Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag.
No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…
Yes sir!
Is that before or after greatsword training? :P
GS is different. Everyone knows that. GS is awesome by itself, while torch looks ugly, so it needs to be flavored with a tasty torch trait… now go out there and do as I say.
As a somewhat rookie mesmer (started a month or so ago, after 1,5 years on guardian), I can already tell you that long drawn out fights are not amongst the shatter’s strengths.
Generally, you either snipe and land that burst, or you’ll be eaten alive – unlike thieves, that have the ability to reset fights anytime via on-demand-stealths. Sure, you have a fair share of survival skills on Sw main hand (btw anyone who uses it offensively over defense is doing it wrong imho – unless it’s a finishing move), but apart from that, you have not much room for errors.
My experience is that fights rarely draw out for so long that I’d need my Torch skills to come up again. That 1 cleanse is kinda ‘meh’ and tbh Torch skills have kinda long cd, even with the traited reduction, that its not really worth to lean on that defense-wise.
Sure the stealth is nice to have up when you are suddenly getting outnumbered and need to get the hell outta there, but apart from that I always tend to use it offensively.
Open with iZerk + stealth, get in melee range and MB+shatter his face off >> usually tends to be my strategy (obv has a large variety of different applications). Then again, each have his own playstyle, whereas I tend to play mesmer really aggressively (not saying that it’s always optimal btw!)
Bottom line is, I’d say it’s much better to have boonstrip and mitigate dmg by stripping that Fury/X stacks of Might, or just use torch stealth to remove target and set up your own burst. Not to mention that removing that Protection is also kinda neat, considering having that up pretty much negates your dmg.
Sure, you could wait for the enemy’s boons to wear off, but I found that it has key importance to control fights on mesmer, otherwise you will be worn down. You can’t be sitting and walking around without doing constant pressure, otherwise most classes will outsustain you.
just my 2c’s
IGN: Skúgg – currently on Far Shiverpeaks
(edited by glorius.1235)
Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag.
No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…
Yes sir!
Is that before or after greatsword training? :P
GS is different. Everyone knows that. GS is awesome by itself, while torch looks ugly, so it needs to be flavored with a tasty torch trait… now go out there and do as I say.
As a somewhat rookie mesmer (started a month or so ago, after 1,5 years on guardian), I can already tell you that long drawn out fights are not amongst the shatter’s strengths.
Generally, you either snipe and land that burst, or you’ll be eaten alive – unlike thieves, that have the ability to reset fights anytime via on-demand-stealths. Sure, you have a fair share of survival skills on Sw main hand (btw anyone who uses it offensively over defense is doing it wrong imho – unless it’s a finishing move), but apart from that, you have not much room for errors.My experience is that fights rarely draw out for so long that I’d need my Torch skills to come up again. That 1 cleanse is kinda ‘meh’ and tbh Torch skills have kinda long cd, even with the traited reduction, that its not really worth to lean on that defense-wise.
Sure the stealth is nice to have up when you are suddenly getting outnumbered and need to get the hell outta there, but apart from that I always tend to use it offensively.Open with iZerk + stealth, get in melee range and MB+shatter his face off >> usually tends to be my strategy (obv has a large variety of different applications). Then again, each have his own playstyle, whereas I tend to play mesmer really aggressively (not saying that it’s always optimal btw!)
Bottom line is, I’d say it’s much better to have boonstrip and mitigate dmg by stripping that Fury/X stacks of Might, or just use torch stealth to remove target and set up your own burst. Not to mention that removing that Protection is also kinda neat, considering having that up pretty much negates your dmg.
Sure, you could wait for the enemy’s boons to wear off, but I found that it has key importance to control fights on mesmer, otherwise you will be worn down. You can’t be sitting and walking around without doing constant pressure, otherwise most classes will outsustain you.
just my 2c’s
I love double ranged shatter, the major problem I’m having with it is team coordination and effective. Whenever I solo or team que, nobody really uses the portals I set despite them being a tremendous shortcut, whenever I am pitted against a team of one or two thieves there is little to no room for recovery from my team. Which brings me to my biggest issue, light armors cannot be played in solo que ranked.
Whenever I want to bring out my mesmer using something like double ranged or lockdown, I am ALWAYS put with a team of no heavies, usually a bunch of light or mediums that have a similar glass cannon roaming motif. Because of this, there are countless times where I have to cap home or mid myself (as in being on point with a glassy build) because everybody is roaming like I’m suppose to be and end up not capping anything.
I played about 14 games yesterday and only got heavies on my team once, which consisted of 2 warriors and guardian. I was thinking “Awesome, maybe now I can roam and fight off point like I’m suppose to!” lol nope, two glass cannon gs warriors and one glass cannon meditation. I’ve been having to switch back to osicat’s 3k armor sword/torch gs build because of this and sacrifice boon stripping and damage burst just to win.
Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag.
No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…
Yes sir!
Is that before or after greatsword training? :P
GS is different. Everyone knows that. GS is awesome by itself, while torch looks ugly, so it needs to be flavored with a tasty torch trait… now go out there and do as I say.
As a somewhat rookie mesmer (started a month or so ago, after 1,5 years on guardian), I can already tell you that long drawn out fights are not amongst the shatter’s strengths.
Generally, you either snipe and land that burst, or you’ll be eaten alive – unlike thieves, that have the ability to reset fights anytime via on-demand-stealths. Sure, you have a fair share of survival skills on Sw main hand (btw anyone who uses it offensively over defense is doing it wrong imho – unless it’s a finishing move), but apart from that, you have not much room for errors.My experience is that fights rarely draw out for so long that I’d need my Torch skills to come up again. That 1 cleanse is kinda ‘meh’ and tbh Torch skills have kinda long cd, even with the traited reduction, that its not really worth to lean on that defense-wise.
Sure the stealth is nice to have up when you are suddenly getting outnumbered and need to get the hell outta there, but apart from that I always tend to use it offensively.Open with iZerk + stealth, get in melee range and MB+shatter his face off >> usually tends to be my strategy (obv has a large variety of different applications). Then again, each have his own playstyle, whereas I tend to play mesmer really aggressively (not saying that it’s always optimal btw!)
Bottom line is, I’d say it’s much better to have boonstrip and mitigate dmg by stripping that Fury/X stacks of Might, or just use torch stealth to remove target and set up your own burst. Not to mention that removing that Protection is also kinda neat, considering having that up pretty much negates your dmg.
Sure, you could wait for the enemy’s boons to wear off, but I found that it has key importance to control fights on mesmer, otherwise you will be worn down. You can’t be sitting and walking around without doing constant pressure, otherwise most classes will outsustain you.
just my 2c’s
I love double ranged shatter, the major problem I’m having with it is team coordination and effectiveness. Whenever I solo or team que, nobody really uses the portals I set despite them being a tremendous shortcut, whenever I am pitted against a team of one or two thieves there is little to no room for recovery from my team. Which brings me to my biggest issue, light armors cannot be played in solo que ranked.
Whenever I want to bring out my mesmer using something like double ranged or lockdown, I am ALWAYS put with a team of no heavies, usually a bunch of light or mediums that have a similar glass cannon roaming motif. Because of this, there are countless times where I have to cap home or mid myself (as in being on point with a glassy build) because everybody is roaming like I’m suppose to be and end up not capping anything.
I played about 14 games yesterday and only got heavies on my team once, which consisted of 2 warriors and guardian. I was thinking “Awesome, maybe now I can roam and fight off point like I’m suppose to!” lol nope, two glass cannon gs warriors and one glass cannon meditation. I’ve been having to switch back to osicat’s 3k armor sword/torch gs build because of this and sacrifice boon stripping and damage burst just to win.