I’ve been seeing a lot of back and forth about what’s the “best” spec for Mesmer, or what’s the “strongest” weapon, ect. and I just thought I’d throw my two-cents in.
This game was advertised as a game that any type of player (hardcore or casual) could play in however style they’d like and still find enjoyment. Bringing these two types of players together will inevitably cause conflict, stigma, and misinformation. I’m going to use a few names for examples, so I apologize in advance if I accidentally offend anyone as that’s not my intent.
(Mind you, this is mostly for dungeons or open world pve. WvW and PvP are entirely different beasts.)
The “zerker-or-nothing” perspective…
“If you don’t go full Berzerker [in dungeons], then you’re bad.”
There is a very good reason people have this perspective, and no its not because they’re “close-minded elitist jerks.” By design, all you truly need to be successful in the majority of dungeons/Open World is the ability to properly dodge. For a Mesmer, proper dodging and reflect usage can trivialize almost everything PvE-oriented, thus you don’t really much in the terms of support (healing/boons) as long as you have the proper control (reflects/pulls/debilitating conditions).
Colsey has tested the iSwordsman phantasm to be our best phantasm for sustained DPS
Tested against dummies in Lion’s Arch (so no crits)
0/20/0/25/25
full berserker, partial ascended (amulet, accessory, rings)iSwordsman – 2.1k
iDuelist – 2.4k
iWarden – 3.6k
iZerker – 2.7k (rounded up)Swordsman was able to hit three times during the warden’s channel and during its recharge.
Duelist and Zerker had very little difference in recharge time.
Warden is a poor choice for DPS even with phantasmal haste.
Will reply in detail later, but those were my results. Will test more in open world so we can factor in crits.
And I believe that the build (Sword/Sword – Sword/Pistol) in his sig infact IS one of the best dungeon specs for Mesmer damage-wise.
However…
Now lets take proven super-talented Mesmer like Pyroathiest or Fay (Sorry to throw you guys into the fire, but defenestrating Pyro should be an Olympic sport.) According to this logic, though Pyro can easily cruise through dungeons in full sword/sword – pistol Berserker gear if he wants to, if he chooses not to then suddenly hes bad.
@Colesy: This is the flaw I was talking about earlier. You cannot judge a player’s talent by their build alone and its unfair to label them “bad” for not falling into your purview of ‘optimal’.
Speaking of which, I wanted to also take a second to explore the term “bad.” Many people look at player skill as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as if it’s black or white with no room for any gray areas. If you’ve got dungeons and NPC rotations committed to memory, but suck in sPvP then are you bad at the game? Conversely, great sPvPers can falter in WvW or in dungeons. If you have NO idea that the 1h sword is stronger than the Greatsword, but you can run through dungeons blindfolded, play fractals 40+ with your buttcheeks, and can command an army in WvW while simultaneously watching Dr. Who, then are you bad? IMO Everyone has strengths and weakness, and very few can simply be labeled “bad” for one particular reason.
People play the game for different reasons, and people even run dungeons for different reasons. Not everyone wants to speedrun, and they’re not “bad” at the game or lack skill for not wanting to do so.
I, personally, hate skipping mobs. I feel like a lame each time we’re stacking ontop of eachother or abusing some glitch to defeat a boss. But at the same time I’m not going to look down on someone else or judge them for doing so, because. If you payed money to play this game then you have a right to enjoy it however you like.
I don’t like to farm, I enjoy watching cut scenes (the artwork is incredible for some, especially Ascalonian Catacombs), and I enjoy exploring the level design. I’m not just a gamer but an artist and writer with ambitions to become a videogame designer among other things, so all these things are meaningful to me.
At the end of the day, it’s all a matter of perspective. If you want to speedrun, then go ahead and find people of like mind and do so. It doesn’t make you an elitist until you’re running around passing judgement on people who don’t play your way. If you wanna run a condition build, support build, or even a build that everyone says isn’t viable but is the most fun build you could come up with? Then do so. No one has a right to get in anyone else’s way of having fun.
Thoughts?
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(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)