Looking Staff build for fractals

Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Catalyst.4862

Catalyst.4862

The Topic of title says everything. Could anyone give me a Staff build for fractals like lvl 30-40

Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Catalyst.4862

Catalyst.4862

is this build good gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWlwzipHUzoGb9IipHBHyBckUUavWJF22FC-TsAAzCpIaS1krJTTymsNN+Y9xcBA ?

Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: maxinion.8396

maxinion.8396

I don’t think there exists a good staff build for PvE. The one you link is particularly bad; torch is an awful weapon and 30 points in chaos is useless in PvE.

For PvE, and that’s fractals included, you want maximum DPS and reflects. So that means something like 10/30/0/20/10 or 0/30/0/25/15 with sword+focus and sword+sword. The wardens are critical for reflect uptime. You should be using zerker gear + ruby orbs or scholar runes for maximum damage.

Staff’s iWarlock is actually fairly good DPS, but the autoattack on staff is such trash that you will be hurting your group with it. If you must range, use greatsword or scepter/pistol, or scepter/focus.

Things hit so hard in 30/40 fractals that toughness, vitality, healing power, all don’t matter anymore. Groups will expect zerker gear from your mesmer, and mostly melee.

Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Miku Lawrence.6329

Miku Lawrence.6329

Staff isn’t good for pve. Sorry.

Snow Crows [SC]

Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Xaylin.1860

Xaylin.1860

Staff makes sense when facing certain bosses where you might prefer the iWarlock over other Phantasms. Besides that I rarely run Staff in Fractals although I don’t like the Greatsword. There are too many enemies who will reflect your Staff#1 at range and Sword should always be preferred for close combat.

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Posted by: Saturn.6591

Saturn.6591

Staff in PvE is indeed mainly used for bosses with loads of conditions on them (iWarlock hits like a truck there), or in fights where you feel a need for additional defense and utility. Or of course if you decide to play a condition build, though that’s often not what people prefer. It can work, though; and also depends on who you run with.

For PvE, and that’s fractals included, you want maximum DPS and reflects. So that means something like 10/30/0/20/10 or 0/30/0/25/15 with sword+focus and sword+sword.

I vote for 10/20/0/25/15, with weapons changing according to the fights.

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Posted by: maxinion.8396

maxinion.8396

10/20/0/25/15 is also nice, but does less reflect damage at the benefit of more phantasm DPS. It’s also a nice choice.

Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Saturn.6591

Saturn.6591

10/20/0/25/15 is also nice, but does less reflect damage at the benefit of more phantasm DPS. It’s also a nice choice.

Yeah well, I personally find reflects to be highly situational. Wherever you can not reflect, phantasm dps will be where the damage is at. And I personally don’t really find that many opportunities to reflect anyway. I know there are some, but I’ve never really managed to get them to work reliably (well, except for young Karkas; they always open the fight the same way lol). The timing has to be perfect, and that’s not possible unless you EXACTLY know what to look out for and when to push the button. And yes, I’ve read that thread about it, but it didn’t really help much. “You can reflect this and this attack”… yeah okay, but how do I know the mob is going to use this attack next? And how do I reflect if Feedback is on cooldown, iWarden spawns on a random location around the mob (sometimes even doesn’t attack at all) and Temporal Curtain doesn’t reflect unless you’re really lucky? Looks kinda like RNG to me.

(edited by Saturn.6591)

Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: maxinion.8396

maxinion.8396

10/20/0/25/15 is also nice, but does less reflect damage at the benefit of more phantasm DPS. It’s also a nice choice.

Yeah well, I personally find reflects to be highly situational. Wherever you can not reflect, phantasm dps will be where the damage is at. And I personally don’t really find that many opportunities to reflect anyway. I know there are some, but I’ve never really managed to get them to work reliably (well, except for young Karkas, they always open the fight the same way lol). The timing has to be perfect, and that’s not possible unless you EXACTLY know what to look out for and when to push the button. And yes, I’ve read that thread about it, but it didn’t really help much. “You can reflect this and this attack”… yeah okay, but how do I know the mob is going to use this attack next? And how do I reflect if Feedback is on cooldown, iWarden spawns on a random location around the mob (sometimes even doesn’t attack at all) and Temporal Curtain doesn’t reflect unless you’re really lucky? Looks kinda like RNG to me.

This is why 10/20/0/25/15 is an easier build. Learning the tells for reflect opportunities is not easy, and I certainly don’t have them all memorized, but I try.

Warden reflect is most bugged when the ground is sloped. You can usually predict when it won’t go off, and in flat areas where bosses are out, it will usually work. Far too much “usually” in this sentence, but what can you do. #gogoanetbugs

Temporal curtain depends on the height of the incoming mob. It will often not work on mobs that are taller than you, since the projectiles come in “over” your curtain.

Again these things take some time to learn, but they’re mostly not RNG, and end up helping your damage at the end of the day since there are so many reflect opportunities. If you feel more comfortable learning the reflect timings with a build that’s less dependent on them, that’s probably fine too~

But anyway we’re getting way off topic.

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Posted by: Bumbler.7581

Bumbler.7581

Yeah well, I personally find reflects to be highly situational. Wherever you can not reflect, phantasm dps will be where the damage is at. And I personally don’t really find that many opportunities to reflect anyway.

I’ll agree that 10/20/0/25/15 is fine but…..not that many opportunities to reflect? You say you read the guide on it, and it may be you just need to learn the fights. There are an excessive amount of places to reflect.

At some point in every fractal is reflecting useful. Let’s take swamp: Bloomhunger has a HUGE tell (raises left arm in the air), so you can save feedback when he does it (and yes, feedback will be on CD when he does this move sometimes, but it is 120k damage when it is not, as well as preventing a missed-dodge insta-down). Mossman is harder, but he cycles through moves so as you learn the fight, it can become semi-predictable to reflect his axe. Essentially, every single fractal has a portion where reflects are needed.

As for dungeons, whether it is trash or a boss, most dungeons have times where you can reflect: TA UP (Malrona) and FW, SE p1, CoF p1, HotW p1, all of Arah, CoE.

There are tons of opportunities you can reflect to help out your team, making them hardly situational. I can see the arguments for 10/20/0/25/15 versus 0/30/0/25/15, but reflects being situational is not one of them. And frifox did dps tests between 10/20/0/25/15 and 0/30/0/25/15. In situations where you cannot reflect, they do equivalent damage, so the main thing you should use as the deciding factor is whether or not mantras are for you.

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Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Bumbler.7581

Bumbler.7581

Also, at the OP: If you must use a staff, then the above builds will work fine, and you would just use staff on the swap from sword/x.

You should note though: some groups kick mesmers who pull out a staff in fractals/dungeons.

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Posted by: Saturn.6591

Saturn.6591

And frifox did dps tests between 10/20/0/25/15 and 0/30/0/25/15. In situations where you cannot reflect, they do equivalent damage, so the main thing you should use as the deciding factor is whether or not mantras are for you.

Well, Signet of Inspiration helps the party-dps and survival if you manage to copy some stacks of might and maybe also double the duration of fury, regeneration and protection. Then Feedback of course, which would leave you with two mantras, assuming you take the healing mantra. Reflections aside, does the mantra-build still do equal dps, despite the phantasms lacking a 15%-modifier? Also, the percentual increase through readied mantras doesn’t apply to phantasms, which is where most of your dps is at (aside from reflects; but you said those builds do the same dps without reflects).

Let’s take swamp: Bloomhunger has a HUGE tell (raises left arm in the air), so you can save feedback when he does it

Thanks; I need to remember that. You see in that thread, Chaos writes “Fractals (Swamp) Mossman’s Axe/Bloomhungers Shockwave”, but not how you know they will use those attacks. Which is my problem with the whole thread… you can reflect this and this and this… yeah okay, but what are the tells for those attacks? I have no idea. How should I; nobody ever told me and the only guide (that thread) doesn’t tell me either. It’s like “You could do so many awesome things, but I won’t tell you how! Mwahahahaha!”

(edited by Saturn.6591)

Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Bumbler.7581

Bumbler.7581

This thread has some solid information on mesmer builds and the DPS they can bring:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Any-tips-for-doing-dungeons-as-a-Mes

As for learning the tells, you are right, it does not say. As you do the dungeons, you will learn the “big” moves more and know when to use your access to reflects at the right time. Bloomy raises his left hand in the hair really high and then punches the ground. The first archdiviner fight requires more precision, as he starts a windup before his AoE attack, but you have less time to react. Malrona alternates attacks (get poison debuff, wait a few seconds, then throw up feedback). Mossman will often throw the axe at the person he is not attacking and looks to face that other player, but again, very short reaction window. It takes time, but you will learn them (it took me a while to get down the archdiviner).

In Chancery (Jade Quarry, NA) – The Instance Mesmer
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Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Saturn.6591

Saturn.6591

Who’s Malrona?

And I wouldn’t be so sure about learning the tells myself. I don’t run fractals often (nor do I run dungeons very often in general; I’ve done most dungeon paths exactly once…) enough to really learn it on my own I guess; especially since I’m very bad at multitasking. Because I’m so bad at it, I do my best to concentrate on the things I already know, so I miss things I don’t know yet and would only ever discover them by coincidence.

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Posted by: Xyonon.3987

Xyonon.3987

Malrona is the spider in TA. Reflecting her is as amusing as reflecting the hammer dude from wall fractale for 80k hits.

btt: Staff isn’t that bad in pve, it’s auto attack is pretty ok tbh, it hits overall for 1-2k, double if bouncing. However yes, you do only take the staff if:

  • you need (2) for retread, like flame and frost dudes at form for example, or warriors at ascalon fractale, …
  • you need (3) for tons of damage if there are 4+ conditions on the enemy. Oh 25k crit on dwayna i luv u <3
  • you are into support → mantra heal spam

The staff is as much a power weapons as it is a condi weapon. You could go for staff + sword/focus + mantraspam as a supporter, wich sometimes makes sense. However the staff is (like any mesmer weapon) situational and should be switched depending on enemies.

As for a good build → I really ended up with 10/30/0/30/0. It feels still like the best build that exists right now in terms of utility and damage. However it allows no lazyness.

I don’t think it’s worth to spend 15 points in illusions for +6% damage wich only counts for you instead of 100 power and 17% phant damage or 10% crit dmg and 5% crit change and mantra 8% damage. Sure you got your -20% cdr on illusion summonings, however you also sacrifice a 3rd inspiration slot wich is in my opinion essential!!

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Looking Staff build for fractals

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Posted by: Ramiel.4931

Ramiel.4931

You could always go full Condition Damage and disregard the meta. If that’s what you like playing.

Staff is decent in a 0/20/30/0/20 build. You won’t be dishing out mad dps but you’re usually useful in most situations, as long as you can actually play.

As for reflects, I find Feedback to be enough in most situations, rotated with a guardian’s wall.

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Posted by: Mckeone.9804

Mckeone.9804

I wouldn’t build for staff, but I would learn to swap it in situationally. I find its incredibly valuable for clearing trash in Ascalon and Cliffside. In both situations, the mobs (a) are grouped up well, if you’re doing it right, (b) can hit really hard, but © die really fast. I like to open with Chaos Storm + Chaos Armor and then swap into S/F. By the time you get through one warden spin the trash is all dead anyways, so it’s not like you’re losing any DPS from not switching out into another weapon (the other single-target offhand phants are going to be a waste), and you may just gain some DPS from the retaliation (and whatever minimal damage the storm itself does)