Guild Wars 2

Currently doing a 20/0/0/20/30 build on my mesmer with rabid gear to maximize confusion and try to stay alive. Weapon is Staff/scepter/focus. Now what i was curious on is rabid gear you arent getting much use from the precision its the CD and Toughness that you are wanting. with 20 in our first trait, i was thinking of dropping the focus for a sword..or if anyone else would think itd work and can explain why my scepter for a sword.

Pros for sword on main hand: Clone/switch/immobilize/cripple which can keep them in glamour field, An invuln with good crit because of rabid gear, and the fact that with all the toughness i already have I can stay in their face for a little bit until switch

Cons for sword on main hand: Lose the 3 on scepter to stack confusion, no clone generation, and i lose a counter/blind where as i have it to whenever i blind they get confused.

Now for offhand sword, its no secret that confusion exist, and if someone isnt paying attention is a hard nuke….but anyone with skill will wait out the confusion, so a good mesmer would counter this by making him either take damage while just standing there or take confusion damage.

Pros:Has a block/clone summon or a daze, phanstasmal swordsman to do good damage AND while confusion is stacked keep pressure making them choose what damage to take and either way u are getting closer to your goal of killing them.

Cons: Lose speed up/slow down and pull from focus(with my traits also causes confusion/blind if put on top of them) and I lose a reflection/slight damage phantasm that if put out at the right time can completely change a fight.

Im very on edge about these as I feel once everyone wises up to confusion we will need other pressures to make them look silly =P(I also realize we have other pressures to add to them with staff/shatters/etc etc just trying to think of something to keep really hard pressure and be something they can choose to kill) for ex. 2 hits for swordsman+chaos armor while at 10-12 confusion can ruin someone squishy and pretty badly hurt someone on the tankier side.

Dont mean to start a fight about what skills are better, just put ur input here thanks for reading!

-Yep Tastes Purple

PvE, sword is generally better. PvP, scepter has more potential.

Regardless, you’d want Toughness moreso than Vitality as the amount you’ll get from heals (regeneration and 6 skill) will be more if you have Toughness versus Vitality (assuming we calculate both of them to be effective healths and not just health vs armor).

The problem lies in Condition Damage that you take, which can be negated by running null field/iDisenchanter whatnots. But that’s a risk you’ll have to run.

Regardless, I feel like my post is somehow going to not pertain to your subject, as is the case most of the time due to some unforeseen question being asked without actually being written down in words…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/New-Ascended-Gear-for-glamour-mesmer/

Would help you understand the stats you’re benefiting from more, whereas for the weapons…

They are also somewhat answered inside that threat, but I will re-iterate and dumb it down:

Scepter is not so good for PvE because Confusion will hit most mobs ~1-2 times due to their slow attacks (and even the “fast” attacks aren’t that fast… like Son of Svanir Fractal boss using Ice Breath, it will only trigger Confusion once for that entire skill, right at the beginning, if I’m thinking about this right).

Rarararara…

Sword, on the other hand, will allow you to mitigate damage in both PvE and PvP with Blurred Frenzy, regardless of being Melee. It also gives you combo leaps which are nice.

In WvW, Scepter is better because most people don’t pay attention to confusion. I’ve won many down-battles due to the enemy spamming 1 with confusion (not that they have much choice). There is general agreement that Confusion shines the most in WvW as opposed to sPvP and PvE, which allows the Scepter to be used well in this situation.

Also, blocking/blind is fun.

Thanks for posting! maybe i said it wrong in my post, I love confusion on the scepter for WvW and have timed it right for pve that I do to make it effective also. Sword on the mainhand wasnt something I necessarily wanna do it was more of a (as you stated in ur post about confusion) is that people dont pay attention but given enough time and deaths to a conf mesmer im sure anyone would put 2 and 2 together ya know? Thanks for your input though, mind telling me what you think of dropping the focus for an offhand sword PvP and PvE wise. THANKS!

While still keeping the scepter on your mainhand

I haven’t dabbled too much in MH Scepter (gathering Rabid gear… very slowly…), but from what I’ve read, Offhand Sword with Scepter is nice blocking in PvP if done properly.

In general, offhand Sword is nice, but I tend to be bipolar about it. One day I’ll be using Focus offhand, the next I’ll be using Sword. It depends on whether I want to be fast, or if I want to do high single-target damage. Most of the time, your Warden won’t get all of its damage off. Your swordsman will most likely get one auto attack before dying. This is assuming they’re both going to die relatively fast.

As for Focus offhand… in WvW, I tend to only really use the skills when trying to pull someone off a keep (doesn’t happen often) or when breaking gates because it also hits old siege weapons (free exp yayyy). In Zergs, the phantasm will die before striking. The swordsman will usually get a strike off with the relatively fast leap, but I’m talking about Focus. In PvE, I use it a lot because Phantasms don’t really die and I can keep a high stack of Retaliation on myself. Oh yeah, in WvW small battles that retaliation is great, but since you use a Scepter mainhand, it’s only a speed boost/pull.

In PvP, I’d probably go with Sword offhand for the (I might be wrong, but it FEELS to be) lower cooldowns. In between battles, use Focus for swiftness.

In PvE, I’d probably go with Focus unless you want to RP/look cool/don’t need to go fast.

Only time I really felt the need to go fast in PvE was for SC through CoF other than that my tele plus staff 2 gets me around quite fast. I think i may go with sword because the way i was thinking it is, put pressure on him with swordsman after i put confusion stacks on chaos armor combo the swordsman so regardless its either stand still and let the swordsman get off multiple attacks or kill him in 2 hits but take mass confusion damage from the 2 hits. Now I want to ask just to make sure, swordsman benefits from Precision correct?

Bump cause i love you

I’m not a fan of the scepter at all, the sword has a 2 second invulnerability and immobilize/gapcloser.

The scepter 3 skill is too easy to avoid, as soon as players see the big lazer they will either dodge to stop its effects or just wait for the confusion stacks to drop off…..

Maybe check this video out for an overview of all weapons…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elrrtXPDXtY