Lifesteal mesmer experiment.
how are you self buffing fury?
how are you self buffing fury?
30 in dueling gives me 4s fury for every target I interrupt, on no cooldown. Illusionary wave can generate 20s under literally impossible ideal situations, but normally, I can use OH sword’s daze, a quick rolling shatter, or Illusionary wave to pop 4 seconds of fury whenever I see an incoming attack.
Contrary to what you’d think, interrupt triggers regardless of if you stopped the skill, just as long as you fired a CC while they were using it, so CC immunity doesn’t block it. It’s by no means 100% uptime, but it’s easy to get some measure of uptime with a little awareness (and illusionary wave is basically a wide angle heal with this setup too).
Pistol offhand would be better for the fury, but really, sword offhand just feels better to me.
Unless this has been ninja-buffed, my tests with interrupt traits shows that they do not proc unless the target is actually interrupted.
Regardless, the best way to get permanent Fury is to use a Staff. Three Staff Clones can easily stack permanent Fury plus a few stacks of Might on you (assuming there are no allied targets to steal them), not to mention Vulnerability and damaging conditions on their target.
Ah, but Staff’s attack rate is exponentially lower than Greatsword. 20% crit chance doesn’t compete with potentially 5 hits out of mirror blade on a quick cast, and spatia surge getting about 2 to 2.5x the hitrate since the animation speed buffs. Chaos storm being an on demand extreme self heal generator doesn’t make up for the lack of tools that trigger heals rapidly in the rest of the kit. And GS/Staff doesn’t have the multi hit options of sword or the invun for destroying burst combos.
I tested it today on bosses. It procs “Interrupt” If a CC hits during an attack and either chips CC immunity, or outright CC’s it.
Depending on how you play this build, you may want to tale only 10 points in domination and 30 in illusions. While you lose the 20% gs trait, and the vulnerability on daze trait, you would gain illusionary persona, which would allow short range instant fury buffing without needing clones.
As a side note, if you hit a boss with a full 3(4) clone daze, does it give the fury for each clone that dazes? It seems like if the game is counting an interrupt as any cc landing during an attack, a 3 clone shatter into high stacks of defiant could produce massive fury uptime.
Another option would be 20 Dom, 20 dueling, 30 illusions, ditching greatsword for staff. This would be more optimal in pvp than pve, because if you are walking around nuking with a greatsword in pvp, you’re probably at high hp anyway. You’ll have decent fury uptime from the staff autos, you can take a more interesting Dom trait (remove boon on shatter is my favorite), and you’ll still get decent healing procs from burst combos with shatters and blurred frenzy.
Edit: for the crit stacking sigil, don’t put that on your main sword. Get 2 random green swords, drop the sigil on both of them. That way, you can equip both, stack up very fast, then put on normal weapons to maximize your build’s effectiveness. I highly recommend using the sigil of leeching, which is steal health on first attack after a weaponswap.
sigh Edit 2: consider dropping knights gear for precision major/ power and toughness minor gear. I believe you can get that in several dungeons. This would lower your toughness of course, but could buff your crit chance to the extent that fury is not necessary. Also remember to always use the master maintenance oil for more crit chance. If you can get your crit really high without additional fury, it really opens up your build to more variations. I really like this thing though. I may have to make a modified bunker build focusing on crit healing with this basic form.
Dem edits: I just calced the full build with all precision/tough/power gear, emerald accessories in full. Also using master maintenance oil, the omnomberry pie, and including the 50 precision from having a sword equipped. I calced it assuming only 20 points in dueling. You come out to a 74% crit chance with no crit stacking sigil, and an 85% chance with a fully stacked sigil. For me, that would be high enough to sacrifice fury on interrupt for more interesting traits, but that is my personal opinion.
(edited by Pyroatheist.9031)
Good analysis Pyro, let me break down some of the logic in play.
GS gets used ALOT in WvW, as it ignores any projectile defenses. Mirror blade is immensly effective at midranges for fury buffs, and with the lifesteal being the brunt of it, it can actually be useful.
Staff is bad on this build because, for WvW application, getting 20s fury is pretty much as easy as breathing, illusionary wave is going to proc it every time.
20 in domination gets you 20% Greatsword cooldown reduction. This is IMMENSLY important, as 20% more mirror blades = 20% more might, and more rapid cast bounding heal tools, as well as more fury uptime in WvW from the knockback. 30 in illusions gets me illusionary persona.
Precision main is the effect of Emerald orbs, though not of emerald orichalcum gear itself. I use emerald orbs in all but 5 slots, where I swapped after the fact for ruby to get a 10% crit damage boost.
Staff has a MUCH lower return on health than Greatsword. Given each heal proc also does armor piercing damage, you get less damage and less healing from staff with this setup.
Each daze clone gives fury last I checked. I haven’t run enough tests.
Ah, but Staff’s attack rate is exponentially lower than Greatsword. 20% crit chance doesn’t compete with potentially 5 hits out of mirror blade on a quick cast, and spatia surge getting about 2 to 2.5x the hitrate since the animation speed buffs. Chaos storm being an on demand extreme self heal generator doesn’t make up for the lack of tools that trigger heals rapidly in the rest of the kit. And GS/Staff doesn’t have the multi hit options of sword or the invun for destroying burst combos.
I tested it today on bosses. It procs “Interrupt” If a CC hits during an attack and either chips CC immunity, or outright CC’s it.
You do not need to stay on the Staff, you only need to generate three Clones with it. Then you can switch to your preferred DPS weapon.
On the other hand, Winds of Chaos is a spammable attack that can hit up to three targets, so it’s not too shabby; plus the Staff has three excellent defensive skills (Phase Retreat, Chaos Armour, Chaos Storm) that fits well with a defensive playstyle (which a lifestealing build would be). Invest in condition damage and you and your Clones can inflict significant DoT on enemies.
Interrupt traits may be passable in PvE due to mobs having long and obvious cast animations, but I definitely would not waste slots on them in any kind of PvP.
My only comment here is <3 to OP, testing out new gamestyles and build is what keep this class evolve. Instead of the qq threads you read in other class forums you come into mesmer forums and find ppl accualy work togetehr to find new ways to make the class work.
Cheers mate and keep up the good work, see if you can get some vids up when you test your theorycrafting live. It always increase the value of a theory build.
/Osicat
The Shatter Cat Mesmer guide:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-WvWvW-Pve-Shatter-Cat/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-WvWvW-Pve-Shatter-Cat/
Osicat, part of the reason I posted it is precisely because I know I’m not going to be able to build a ideal build or setup for this. It’s still experimental, and quite frankly, I want to see others try and refine the idea as well. I’m a pretty good mesmer, but I don’t play nearly enough to see this through to perfection. Also lack the gold to go testing things like full divinity runes and such with it.
I’d love to see lifesteal attrition mesmer turn into a viable WvW/PvE build, but I simply don’t do enough to accomplish that myself.
What I did test though had a very constant influx of health to match the extremely high vigor uptime.
…Can someone test if food procs off of feedback damage?
Osicat, part of the reason I posted it is precisely because I know I’m not going to be able to build a ideal build or setup for this. It’s still experimental, and quite frankly, I want to see others try and refine the idea as well. I’m a pretty good mesmer, but I don’t play nearly enough to see this through to perfection. Also lack the gold to go testing things like full divinity runes and such with it.
I’d love to see lifesteal attrition mesmer turn into a viable WvW/PvE build, but I simply don’t do enough to accomplish that myself.
What I did test though had a very constant influx of health to match the extremely high vigor uptime.
…Can someone test if food procs off of feedback damage?
That would be an interesting thing to do, but really situational, feedback food. For pvp though, this build really needs 30 in illusions. I can’t see doing any sort of shattery attrition based build without illusionary persona. Ideally, you max out crit so that you don’t need the fury from the interrupts, but if absolutely necessary, you could go 10/30/0/0/30 I suppose. Another advantage to the staff is that it is a far more defensive weapon that the greatsword, which synergizes far better with this build.
Also, even if you don’t want to take illusionary persona, the aoe diversion from 30 in illusions would be unbelievable with the fury on interrupt, since you can potentially do interrupts on upwards of 15 targets in a decent size aoe with a 3 clone diversion shatter.
Edit: One more thing. You seem to be under the impression that in a pvp environment, normal attack speeds on the staff and greatsword are going to matter at all. As I mentioned before, if you are simply chewing on people from max range, then you don’t need lifesteal stuff, and feel free to swap that greatsword you have in your inventory for that very purpose.
Once you actually get into fights, however, you will be doing massive amounts of shattering, staying mostly in sword/sword and going into staff only for defensive purposes. In a close range fight like that, going into greatsword isn’t immensely helpful, as the only interrupt you have (for your fury) is greatsword 5, whereas when you go into staff at close range, you will have permafury from the bouncing autos from both you and your clones.
The vast majority of your lifesteal procs, however, will be achieved from mind wrack, cry, and blurred frenzy. Each one of those attacks do a very high number of individual hits, assuming 3 clones out, and are going to be doing a far better job of getting lifesteal procs than either the greatsword or staff.
Your only arguments for greatsword is that it has an interrupt, ignores projectile shields (legitimate argument), and has a higher attack rate, but you are completely forgetting that none of these three things outclass the staff in a short range nasty attrition fight, which is what this build is created from the ground up specifically for.
(edited by Pyroatheist.9031)
Osicat, part of the reason I posted it is precisely because I know I’m not going to be able to build a ideal build or setup for this. It’s still experimental, and quite frankly, I want to see others try and refine the idea as well. I’m a pretty good mesmer, but I don’t play nearly enough to see this through to perfection. Also lack the gold to go testing things like full divinity runes and such with it.
I’d love to see lifesteal attrition mesmer turn into a viable WvW/PvE build, but I simply don’t do enough to accomplish that myself.
What I did test though had a very constant influx of health to match the extremely high vigor uptime.
…Can someone test if food procs off of feedback damage?
That would be an interesting thing to do, but really situational, feedback food. For pvp though, this build really needs 30 in illusions. I can’t see doing any sort of shattery attrition based build without illusionary persona. Ideally, you max out crit so that you don’t need the fury from the interrupts, but if absolutely necessary, you could go 10/30/0/0/30 I suppose. Another advantage to the staff is that it is a far more defensive weapon that the greatsword, which synergizes far better with this build.
Also, even if you don’t want to take illusionary persona, the aoe diversion from 30 in illusions would be unbelievable with the fury on interrupt, since you can potentially do interrupts on upwards of 15 targets in a decent size aoe with a 3 clone diversion shatter.
Again, Greatsword Training directly feeds into your might pool, has a massive damage effect at closer than 900 range, and gives you more fury from your knockback being up more.
Shatters aren’t the focus on this build. They’re nice, but they are NOT a core component. They’re something you do as needed. The AoE daze IS strong, but too situational compared to everything else. It does nothing in boss fights. In WvW pitched battles, they won’t get close half the time due to AoE spam. They’re a bonus with this build designed to be useful regardless of the situation. + Mind Wrack damage would be swapped over to + Illusion damage if I was using Sword/Pistol/Staff, but as is, Zerk is still buggy at times, and Swordsman is still a melee minion (though it hits HARD as an ambush tool). Duelist, Likewise, could deserve the + illusion damage, but I personally prefer OH sword as I’m more dungeon focused. OH Pistol is definately better in WvW where you can instantly generate 8s fury. The idea is tht they’re nice to have up when you do, but just as nice to shatter when you get an opening. You’re not spamming them to shatter them, but more likely holding them for distortion shatter, or the enemy to get too close.
Staff has an IMMENSLY lower lifesteal proc rate. Spatial surge gets 3 procs within the time staff gets 1.5 (Factoring for projectile speed). Mirror blade up closer gets 2 procs and instantly gives you 9 might, on a tiiiiny cooldown. Mind stab can AoE at a distance for a few free procs but isn’t important. Illusionary wave can give multiple procs, alot of fury, and gets everyone off of you.
Staff has two moves on it’s kit that generate Lifesteal procs. Auto attack and Chaos storm. chaos storm has a LONG cooldown. You’d be severely underusing the core mechanic of this setup. Greatsword has 4, and a faster generation via auto attack. The sheer AoE lifesteal power of Chaos storm isn’t worth it’s obscene cooldown.
And if you’re in that close, sword/offhand is the best bet you have. Cone leech is powerful, blurred frenzy is a mass of self healing goodness and damage immunity.
(edited by AnemoneMeer.7182)
If you’re purely going to be doing dungeons or long range zerg battles, then greatsword definitely wins, with the caveat that in long range zerg battles you will be massively better off with a max crit setup without fury on interrupt, because you won’t be getting any interrupts from that range.
At close range however, greatsword simply doesn’t measure up to staff. As you said yourself, at close range you want to be sitting in sword/offhand, only swapping to the other weapon when necessary. Since this build, when push come to shove, is a defensively focused build, you want the extra defense from chaos storm, chaos armor (instant 5 seconds of protection), and phase retreat. The fury from autoattacks is simply a bonus. You don’t want to swap to staff unless you know you’ll need that burst healing + aegis + regen from chaos storm/armor, but when you DO need it, you want to have that defensive capability instead of swapping over and realizing you are worse off than before.
While not entirely on topic, grats for thinking outside the box and finally someone is using sigils and traits to do something other than Shatter Cat.
On the note of using Sigils to change a fight and fill in holes.
Mesmers should Check into Sup Sigil Of Generosity for condition removals if your build is lacking there or you want to bring a few different utilities.
~Elyssion~
“Gw2, It’s still on the Table!” – Anet
“Gw2, It’s still on the Table!” – Anet
As a few counterpoints to that.
Lifesteal is unaffected by range. GS up close in the rare case where you’re forced to will still do acceptable damage via proccing up to 1k or so in armor ignoring damage and healing.
Mirror blade actively feeds off of being close. And it has a TINY cooldown.
Chaos Storm’s rapid heal rate comes from throwing it into a group of people, knowing some will trip it enough to heal you. 1v1, it’s going to get dodge rolled, as it’s obnoxious.
Staff’s constant +20% crit rate buff does not accomplish nearly as much to feed into lifesteal as spatial surge does naturally. It simply does not make up the gap.
Mirror blade has a absolutly tiny cooldown at about 4.7 seconds. for 9 vuln, 6 might, and up to 4 lifesteal procs if you’re up close, you can, and will benefit immensly from it.
100% vigor uptime is a fact regardless, so you can easily dodge roll to defend yourself. It cuts into your damage a bit, sure, but the clones CAN go towards shatters.
Given the build is designed to be capable at all ranges, and staff thrives off of closer engagements, and the build can safely slot multiple tools to keep distance (Blink, Null field, Feedback), Staff isn’t required.
In your average WvW battle, you’re not going to be close enough to the enemy most of the time to actively use the fury buffs from staff. Getting the might buffs from mirror blade is risky, but you don’t lose out as much if you don’t, as you add an extra 2 lifesteal proc chances. Staff demands you stay closer to get the crit, instead of popping in for just an instant.
This isn’t simply a defensive focused build. The lifesteal procs blatantly ignore any sort of defenses, such as protection, armor, or any character skills. It’s more designed around being able to safely transition between melee and range, and have an extremely fast recovery time when wounded. It’s defensive in places, but hardly a bunker or turtle, you’re still relying on hitting the enemy with alot of damage over speccing to defend yourself. Vit is ignored because it would cut into damage. Toughness both increases your durability, and effectively increases the value of each point of life stolen.
Staff has a higher clone dependancy. In WvW… good luck with that. Really, I can’t keep them up in a decent battle for any length of time.
I can see the value of staff as a weapon, but it simply doesn’t excel in using lifesteal, and the armor ignoring bonus damage that comes with it.
Remember, EVERY proc of lifesteal does bonus damage to the target as well. 375 from Omnom pies. This only scales with attack speed, and doesn’t proc from clones at all. Shatters can, sure, but in WvW, clones die fast.
While not entirely on topic, grats for thinking outside the box and finally someone is using sigils and traits to do something other than Shatter Cat.
On the note of using Sigils to change a fight and fill in holes.
Mesmers should Check into Sup Sigil Of Generosity for condition removals if your build is lacking there or you want to bring a few different utilities.
Null field is pretty much the ultimate condition remover. Poison doesn’t affect lifesteal, and other conditions tend to be either rare, or bleeds, which are normally massed by people with no cond damage.
(edited by AnemoneMeer.7182)
I love the idea, though I have built it much differently it definitely has the ability to work. In PvP it doesn’t work quite as well since you don’t have food and such to power out the extra lifesteal but it was still good when I tried it a long time ago, though admittedly there were better alternatives for PvP purposes. I wasn’t lvl 80 at the time when playing with the idea and have since been sidetracked by many other builds and never got back to it for WvW.
If I get the money to afford a set for this I’ll definitely have to give it a try in WvW, but I’ll also test it again in sPvP.
“I’m sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.”
- Dr. Alfred Lanning, fictional character of great intellect.
- Dr. Alfred Lanning, fictional character of great intellect.
I love the idea, though I have built it much differently it definitely has the ability to work. In PvP it doesn’t work quite as well since you don’t have food and such to power out the extra lifesteal but it was still good when I tried it a long time ago, though admittedly there were better alternatives for PvP purposes. I wasn’t lvl 80 at the time when playing with the idea and have since been sidetracked by many other builds and never got back to it for WvW.
If I get the money to afford a set for this I’ll definitely have to give it a try in WvW, but I’ll also test it again in sPvP.
Don’t even bother with it for sPvP. You only have Blood Sigil, and Knights gives Vit, not Toughness there, which SEVERELY nerfs the blood sigil. Not to mention Blood as a whole is basically just a second proc chance for it, and not as good on it’s own at all.
It also relies on a stacking sigil to really push the crit chance, so you can’t rely on that either in sPvP.
Also. Pyro. I’d like to thank you for being willing to debate this with me for so long. It really helps iterate on the strengths and weaknesses of the build, and helps others see how it works, and what to look for, and what can be tweaked.
I’ve actually moved away from using null field for almost all situations. Its an immensely powerful tool, but the problem is that if you have a lot of conditions on you, it is simply inadequate to remove them. The field pulses, and removes a significant number of conditions over time, but if you need conditions off you NOW, there’s no guarantee it’ll remove the right one first. Arcane thievery is quite a bit more fun, since you can use it highly offensively as well, such as stealing the 30 second stability from lich form (or the one from dagger storm). Unfortunately, arcane thievery can be borked by line of sight, dodges, facing the wrong direction (I think), so it’s not a perfect tool either. In my tank build, I take the condition removal mantra. However, that only works well because I can easily take the 3 seconds to recharge it without taking much damage, and that’s not as true in a glassier build.
Also, I’m not sure you’ve played a shatter build much in wvw, but in all but the largest fights (where greatsword wins handily, I’ve acknowledged) landing your shatters is quite easy, with a little bit of effort. By far the largest number of raw hits is going to be coming from shattering all the time. The way I play with staff really doesn’t involve leaving clones sitting around. You swap over, phase retreat, phantasm, dodge, and shatter. If you were swapping to it because you were in a bad spot, then chaos storm on top of you for aoe denial and aegis. The staff just does a better job of close range fighting, while still allowing you to keep up a high hitrate through the use of shatters.
One other problem with the greatsword is that a few of its mechanics are sorta clunky in terms of directional usage, mirror blade in particular. I find that mirror blade often fails and goes into (reduced) cooldown extremely often vs a highly mobile enemy, unless I actually stop moving and allow my char to throw the blade while stationary. A similar problem occurs with the wave, where if you aren’t really careful, you can toss it in entirely the wrong direction. Those two issues just make greatsword a bit more annoying to play, combined with the fact that mind stab is sorta useless in any kind of active fight.
Mindstab isn’t that bad if you force cancel it’s recovery animation, but that’s clunky still. I can land it constantly. I have a bit of experience with stuff like rapid cancelling in Blazblue, so it’s pretty easy for me to reflex a forced cancel, but that’s just me. The buff removal is nice though.
Mirror blade can likewise be a little iffy occasionally, but I find that if I stop pressing buttons (It has low priority), it goes off easily.
You’re right that I don’t run a heavy shatter build in WvW. As I said, I have terrible luck keeping the things alive unless I’m in melee, and sword sword can instantly 3x shatter someone as is. Something like Staff which has a bit of a run distance for them just screams dead clones to me. But we can do the sword 3x shatter on both builds easily.
I like Null more as it creates a buff killing field around me as well, which gets people to back off, and it’s lingering, and a team support tool. Arcane thievery is better if I’m legitimately in a 1v1 though.
The only time I regularly run with null field is when I’m in my confusion stacking build, and I use it as an opener for my pistol phant to shoot through for 8 stacks of instant confusion. Other than that, I find that it has a similar effect to shadow refuge, as either run out of it, or pile aoes into it where it becomes impossible to stay there.
As far as staff clones for shatter, trying to use the staff at long range is an exercise in utility. The little balls move so slowly that you can sorta outrun them, and so you have be well within 900 range to have autoattacks hit a runner. On the other hand, at close range, the clones shatter just as well as sword clones. You actually get a bit more control over the staff clones, because they won’t chase the target as much, so you can try to place them in safer areas or more beneficial areas than simply chasing the target.
Sword counter to clone leap to dodge roll the moment it lights up (Clone is out WAY before the animation completes), deploys all 3 within a quarter second of it starting, so you don’t need to worry about controlling placement.
It gets bombed with AoE’s at times, sure, but you can quickly use it to cure allied conditions as well as your own. Or use it to mass purge after a For Great Justice, on multiple targets.
Be careful with mashing illusionary swap. Many many many times the clone derps around for a few seconds before deciding to actually leap. This happens really often on uneven surfaces, or when it is trying to go around corners. Always try and watch the clone itself, and leap as soon as you see it get close to the target.
Clone placement is very important after your first shatter burst is done. Generally, I save the combo you described until I know it will instakill them, preferring to initiate with the daze shatter for the MASSIVE vulnerability stacking, and then following up with cry of frustration, and a few autoattacks. Once they’ve lost a bit of health is when I do that combo, because having no or fewer evasions gives a much higher chance of that illusionary leap landing properly, and allows you to just completely finish a fight unexpectedly, with no chance of a heal to counteract the damage.
Null field without a doubt has the best group utility, which is why I almost always run with it in s/tPvP. In my glassier builds, I actually don’t run with condition removal at all. Risky, but I don’t want to give up the three stunbreakers I take (blink, mirror images, decoy). For group utility, or all around best utility pick in wvw, feedback has to take the prize, with portal getting the honorable mention in niche situations.
Be careful with mashing illusionary swap. Many many many times the clone derps around for a few seconds before deciding to actually leap. This happens really often on uneven surfaces, or when it is trying to go around corners. Always try and watch the clone itself, and leap as soon as you see it get close to the target.
Clone placement is very important after your first shatter burst is done. Generally, I save the combo you described until I know it will instakill them, preferring to initiate with the daze shatter for the MASSIVE vulnerability stacking, and then following up with cry of frustration, and a few autoattacks. Once they’ve lost a bit of health is when I do that combo, because having no or fewer evasions gives a much higher chance of that illusionary leap landing properly, and allows you to just completely finish a fight unexpectedly, with no chance of a heal to counteract the damage.
Null field without a doubt has the best group utility, which is why I almost always run with it in s/tPvP. In my glassier builds, I actually don’t run with condition removal at all. Risky, but I don’t want to give up the three stunbreakers I take (blink, mirror images, decoy). For group utility, or all around best utility pick in wvw, feedback has to take the prize, with portal getting the honorable mention in niche situations.
I’m normally firing leap right after the counter, then cancelling it into dodge roll, and swapping as I shatter there as well. So I’m in melee the entire time.
Agreed on the rest though ^^
sPvP gives you a ton of good information about lifestealing builds and such. . . For instance, I threw the Sigils of Blood on with a Rampagers Amulet (a little extra vitality couldn’t hurt) with a slightly modified version of my usual build, 0/30/30/5/5 just to see how annoying free healing over time with stealths while it’s heal proc is on CD coupled with Protection from many sources and Chaos Armor works out with Condition damage and clones exploding.
I’m going to say that I should have been doing this all along. The loss of energy sigils to dodge roll more doesn’t really affect this build at all since you’ll be using almost every stealth option outside of torch (Focus or Pistol is just better for displacing people or stunning them). I personally run with Focus and am hooked on the extra 30 sec CD condition removal (Warden+Curtain), along with all the other utility you gain from Focus.
I am tempted to say you could pretty much run lifesteal on any build of Mesmer without negative consequence if you can live without the extra clones on dodge that energy sigils provide (I don’t have them anyhow for WvW so I might throw these or Leeching Sigils on my WvW build). Swapping Leeching or Blood Sigils as needed to get the desired effect, Leeching may actually be better for my build since it’s less reliant on actually getting in there to hit. Keep in mind that the Sigils of Blood appear to be glitched and don’t proc every 2 seconds but instead every 5, so roughly they are the same as Sigils of Leeching with proc on weapon swap. Healing from Sigils of Blood is about half that of Leeching, and procs about 2 times every 10 seconds provided you have uptime on the target.
I was running Staff, Sword/Focus for this build with Runes of Lyssa (both for condition removal since I run Mass Invis and for the Precision for Crit chance). Traits were Deceptive Evasion, Fury on Interrupt (great with Chaos Storm), Sword CDR, Staff CDR, Prismatic Understanding, Debilitating Dissipation, and passive traits for hurting enemies when they kill my few phantasms and Illusionists Celerity.
I build to troll people out of their game, and force them into a mode of playing which they are not familiar. This coupled with attrition play style and displacement often will lead you to be able to counter just about anything 1v1 and allow you to stall and toy with people 1vX for quite some time, maybe make them make mistakes and actually beat them both.
“I’m sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.”
- Dr. Alfred Lanning, fictional character of great intellect.
- Dr. Alfred Lanning, fictional character of great intellect.
Delo, I don’t have much to say beyond thanks for giving it a try, and I’m glad you like the concept. It’s nice to see others trying it besides me, and trying it in different builds.
Edit: Note to self, don’t type when half awake.
(edited by AnemoneMeer.7182)
I’m running Osi’s hybrid build but with little different gear than he uses (majority of my gear is rabid except my two swords, which are zerker, because I like using a more glamour build and using sword/focus if I’m running with zerg for siege in wvw). Swapped out my sigil of force on one sword for blood and put leeching on my staff, didn’t use any food buffs, and did some dungeon runs last night and that worked pretty slick. I was getting hp back often, I’ll have to do some more experimenting with it to see how well it works in wvw but so far I like it.
Jalliel [AI] – Yak’s Bend
Just gave it a real stress test in WvW.
me vs a Thief, Ranger, and Engineer all at once, plus a vet hylek. I came out on top. Second thief joined while the last guy was downed, got him too.
Cut close towards the end, but I’m willing to bet a better player would have done better.
Also, GS Spatial surge’s damage when using lifesteal food isn’t even comparable to the damage without. at shorter ranges it doubles it or more.
(edited by AnemoneMeer.7182)
I’ve been using these pies with a phantasm build, and toughness gear.
It does work well with GS in WvW, not other weapons.
I’ve always found GS to be a decent WvW weapon but it was difficult to optimize
the gear and build.
Also it works fine with 0/30/30/0/10.
For a glass cannon it could be worth considering rampagers with a shatter/confusion build as this makes your GS clones do some extra damage via bleed stacking.
However a tank/crit build maybe optimal.
I have been trying to figure out a build that we can use mantra’s for extra burst with this food, but I cant seem to give up any slots for mop.
While not entirely on topic, grats for thinking outside the box and finally someone is using sigils and traits to do something other than Shatter Cat.
On the note of using Sigils to change a fight and fill in holes.
Mesmers should Check into Sup Sigil Of Generosity for condition removals if your build is lacking there or you want to bring a few different utilities.
Ironically, I’ve been using that Sigil … and the one that removes boons on crit.(ScepTorch set). I don’t usually loadout with much condi removal, so those help a lot.
Then Sup. Fire on Staff, since I’m never without one.
Malegryne (Sylvari Mesmer), Lannka (Asura Thief) – Ferguson’s Crossing: [PRD/BRB/OMFG]
Other 80s: Any but Warrior
Other 80s: Any but Warrior
Just wanted to bring this topic back from the dead. I’ve been running it for 2 weeks now and will likely not switch back to another setup for straight dps. I’ll record some dungeon runs, fractals and some WvW to post. The healing is just astonishing.
20/20/0/0/30 3k attack, 50%base crit. Use an extra weapon to charge up the accuracy sigil then swap to blood sigil mh and air oh. GS with blood sigil on ranged off set.
Black Ops supply line disruptions.
Is anyone 100% positive this food actually steals life? I had heard that it’s only a heal, NOT life steal.
Is anyone 100% positive this food actually steals life? I had heard that it’s only a heal, NOT life steal.
Yes. I can confirm it does damage. I was lasering down a supply camp leader with the buff on alone, without applying Vuln. It was takign zero damage from the laser, but additional numbers were popping up alongside the primary damage, and it’s health was going down.
Likewise, i can also confirm the damage ignores defense.
Was running it in WvW today, I was scoring double kills and triple kills on my own with little issue, even when the enemy was smart enough to focus me over the clones. The sheer amount of health you get back over a fight is absurd, as is the bonus damage on GS auto attacks.
I wouldn’t spend money getting equipment for this build. Not because it’a a bad build, but ALL the classes are now putting up lifesteal pie builds. Even the poor engineers are putting up lifesteal flamethrower builds.
It might survive this coming patch without getting a cooldown, but it won’t survive the next.
I wouldn’t spend money getting equipment for this build. Not because it’a a bad build, but ALL the classes are now putting up lifesteal pie builds. Even the poor engineers are putting up lifesteal flamethrower builds.
It might survive this coming patch without getting a cooldown, but it won’t survive the next.
If it doesn’t, I’ll just swap to Ghost pepper poppers and hit 25 might on a whim. It’s running off of the results of foods as a whole having no cooldowns, it works with most every food buff that ramps damage.
Besides, it, and all other food buffs are available to everyone equally. Unless they nerf all the foods, this build is easy to re-tool for a different food.
(edited by AnemoneMeer.7182)
Adding CD’s to all the foods is EXACTLY what I think they’ll do.
They’ve been as busy as bees adding CD to almost every profession skill, and stopping at food would constitute an oversight from that point of view.
Adding CD’s to all the foods is EXACTLY what I think they’ll do.
They’ve been as busy as bees adding CD to almost every profession skill, and stopping at food would constitute an oversight from that point of view.
If you’re referring to shatter getting a GCD, that’s because of the multishatter bug, leading to instant kills. I don’t see them completely nerfing all foods to the floor, given so few people bring them to WvW as is, they don’t break the game, and they don’t affect their e-sports.
Yah this is definitely going to get nerfed. It’s just too good. There is no way they intend for higher crit chance to also give unending food lifesteal procs. This heal is better than regen, better than any healing sigils and is right now available for only 6 silver.
Traiting/gearing for high crit chance should have a tradeoff with survivability to a certain degree. This screws with that dynamic pretty hard.
Fun though. At least for the moment.
Food buffs should never have been allowed in WvW and this is exactly why. Only an idiot would argue this kind of build was specifically intended and/or considered by the devs and frankly, I don’t think they did any kind of balance testing with food buffs in mind. They’re struggling trying to balance things as it is, but just like the Golem in a Box, food buffs being creatively used by the players is something they never anticipated and never expected to be this useful and I would fully support removing food buffs just as they’re removing the Golem in a Box from WvW in the end. Even this build, as creative as it is, simply goes against the basic concept of balance and the reason is better explained one post above mine.
i think everybody should stop posting on creative build in public forum like this one since somebody else will think it is OP and too good and would give Anet idea to do another nerfing