Guild Wars 2

I notice other people (in wvw videos) seem to be doing much more damage than I am. For eg, other people seem to do 2-3k for each greatsword 1, whereas I’m only doing 1k damage at most (bit more for a critical), although confusingly the number on the tooltip only says about 750 or so.

I’m currently using berserker rares only, with green accessories, and in a 20-20-0-0-30 build.

Is exotic gear really that much better? I notice from a stats perspective it only seems ~20% better than what I’ve currently good (more for accessories of course), but surely not to the extent of double the damage? Can somebody explain?

20% better stats doesn’t equate to 20% more damage.

If I have 20% more power than you, then yes, I will do 20% more damage. Now add 20% more precision and critical damage.

They tack on and increase your damage by large amounts. Also using damage runes/sigils helps enormously. (Ghastly Weapons with Sigils of Night are VERY strong.)

Also in WvW there are other things to take into consideration such as high Might stacks that the Mesmer would not be able to achieve normally, also high Fury uptime and high Vulnerability stacks on the enemy. Without a link to the video your referring to I cant confirm this but it I would say at least in some of the clips this is whats giving them so much additional damage.

Assuming you’re also using a rare greatsword, you’re missing out on a total of:

167 Power, 107 Precision, 10% critical Damage and anywhere from 113-125 base weapon damage for not having exotic gear.

For reference in what your’e missing out on: 175 power is 5 stacks of might.
107 precision is 5% crit chance
10% crit damage is… 10% crit damage.

In total, you’re seem to be short the equivalen 8-9 stacks of might + 10% damage, which is a pretty significant loss in output.

Also greatsword damage on the phantasm was bugged out this patch… He misses most attacks.

The % damage loss from downgrading the base weapon damage on the GS multiplies the damage loss from power, and prec, and crit damage %.

Really, you should copy people’s armor rather than their builds. Their armor stats are well research to the point where they will rarely lose on 1 vs 1 on WvWvW. Please note: Osicat and the immortal Mesmer build creator usually run with food buffs and other nourishment or else their 1vs 3+ would not be as possible.

Confusion does 2 times more damage in pvE than in pvp

It is not uncommon for WvW videos to use premier footage.

It’s difficult to gauge, and not everyone who posts videos is trying to cast themselves in a super-Mesmer light. But footage is meant to demonstrate the abilities of a person, so showing clips of ideal situations happens.

So far the responses here have been about Mesmer abilities and gearing. Again, without a video or two you’re talking about it’s hard to speculate. It could be that the videos are showing a fully geared Mesmer going after under-geared or glass cannon enemies. As with most things, it’s probably a combination of the two.

Exotic gear isn’t difficult to obtain, and you’ll see the biggest gain by upgrading those green accessories. Jewelcrafting is worth the investment, though there are multiple ways to get Ascended accessories as well.

If it makes you feel any better, I have full exotics/ascended (mostly Carrion) and I do about 1300 without crits on the GS. I don’t run full glass cannon builds though. (10/20/0/10/30. So much more vigor by moving 10 points )