Guild Wars 2

I’m using sword and I want to know which is the best offhand, right now I’m kinda leaning towards the sword or focus, being the sword does IMMENSE phantasm damage, and the focus does a good amount too. Which offhand is strong at the moment in the meta?

Keep in mind, I WvW.

WvW? Torch. Focus.

Torch phantasm is garbage, but who cares? The Prestige is excellent against real live human players. Stealth+blind (+small burst damage, +blast finisher) is very powerful, both offensively and defensively.

Focus gives you something no other mesmer set has: pulls. Being able to mess with people up on walls, cliffs, &c. is invaluable. Two mesmers working together can even hit folks who are carefully avoiding the edge. It’s pretty good for trying to mess up the enemy backline in open-field combat as well. Note that the phantasm is pretty bad in WvW, though.

ASP.8093:

WvW? Torch. Focus.

Torch phantasm is garbage, but who cares? The Prestige is excellent against real live human players. Stealth+blind (+small burst damage, +blast finisher) is very powerful, both offensively and defensively.

Focus gives you something no other mesmer set has: pulls. Being able to mess with people up on walls, cliffs, &c. is invaluable. Two mesmers working together can even hit folks who are carefully avoiding the edge. It’s pretty good for trying to mess up the enemy backline in open-field combat as well. Note that the phantasm is pretty bad in WvW, though.

Hmm, okay, what about the Sword? How is that?

Shield as always.

StormHawk.9862:

Hmm, okay, what about the Sword? How is that?

Sword offers decent damage, but I’m not impressed by the utility. The main advantage of the phantasm is in PvE (where you really notice its attack rate more since it doesn’t die as often).

WvW folks who don’t use either Staff or Greatsword (meaning they have two 1+1-handed weapon sets) seem to run Pistol a lot. The attraction there is that the phantasm combines decently with Sharper Images and tends to stick around a bit because you’re creating it at range. Also, Magic Bullet is a very solid skill (though, personally, I prefer Illusionary Wave or Temporal Curtain).

Oh, ok, so then for WvW from a commanders point of view, pistol is better?

For a commander? Err. It really depends on how you intend to command.

Note that commanding hammertrain-style (leading from the front, with melee guys and ranged support all focusing on your tag) is gonna be pretty disastrous for a mesmer. Folks have tried to come up with builds for it but they’re been really reliant on gimmicks (like old weird Mimic functionality) and much, much more fragile than just rolling a guardian and learning how to call waters and use your cooldowns.

If you’re doing anything else… well, what else do you intend to do? How many people do you intend to command, doing what, against what sorts of enemies? Do you have people you trust to follow your directions rather than just the tag itself in fights? Nearly any spec, even a very glassy one, can be an effective havoc commander if you’ve got the skills and the team.

…

But, okay, Pistol’s strength is primarily in small engagements. It and offhand Sword are both dueling weapons, more or less: both have a skill that can counter opposing bursts, and phantasms that threaten significant damage on a single target if opponents just leave them up to attack repeatedly.

In contrast, Greatsword’s our most consistent way to throw damage at long range, and Staff is probably the best defensive weapon overall. As I said above, I like both Focus and Torch because they bring unique abilities to the table.

ASP.8093:

For a commander? Err. It really depends on how you intend to command.

Note that commanding hammertrain-style (leading from the front, with melee guys and ranged support all focusing on your tag) is gonna be pretty disastrous for a mesmer. Folks have tried to come up with builds for it but they’re been really reliant on gimmicks (like old weird Mimic functionality) and much, much more fragile than just rolling a guardian and learning how to call waters and use your cooldowns.

If you’re doing anything else… well, what else do you intend to do? How many people do you intend to command, doing what, against what sorts of enemies? Do you have people you trust to follow your directions rather than just the tag itself in fights? Nearly any spec, even a very glassy one, can be an effective havoc commander if you’ve got the skills and the team.

…

But, okay, Pistol’s strength is primarily in small engagements. It and offhand Sword are both dueling weapons, more or less: both have a skill that can counter opposing bursts, and phantasms that threaten significant damage on a single target if opponents just leave them up to attack repeatedly.

In contrast, Greatsword’s our most consistent way to throw damage at long range, and Staff is probably the best defensive weapon overall. As I said above, I like both Focus and Torch because they bring unique abilities to the table.

So what your saying is mesmers aren’t able to command? If so, what weapons do you recommend for commanding?

I’m saying “commanding” isn’t one unified thing.

An uplevel thief can command in EotM just fine, because you don’t actually do anything ’cept look at the map and lay siege.

You can play almost any personal build you want while leading havoc. (You also don’t need to tag up unless you’re just helping to coordinate with the main map commander or trying to attract a couple of pugs.)

Getting what you want out of 30-60 zerglings, nearly all of whom expect you to lead a certain way (which is basically “bomb on me”), though? You really want to be a warrior or guardian, because the job you’re doing (standing in front facetanking obscene pressure) is the job those classes were designed to do best.

ASP.8093:

I’m saying “commanding” isn’t one unified thing.

An uplevel thief can command in EotM just fine, because you don’t actually do anything ’cept look at the map and lay siege.

Someone with talent can lead a decent havoc team with nearly any personal build.

Getting what you want out of 30-60 zerglings, nearly all of whom expect you to lead a certain way (which is basically “bomb on me”), though? You really want to be a warrior or guardian, because the job you’re doing (standing in front facetanking obscene pressure) is the job those classes were designed to do best.

I wasn’t originally planning to jump right into the battle, though. are you saying that the sword might not be a good choice because we have to be at melee range, and I should go something ranged like a GS?

Err, different thread? You’re asking about offhands here.

The thing with offhand Sword in big or medium-sized battles is that you’ve got:
4. A skill that blocks one attack from one player. Or you can throw it for a line daze, but the projectile’s pretty awkward.
5. A single-target phantasm. Probably will hit once, for some pretty good damage, then be killed off by random cleaves/AoE. Compare to letting an iZerker sail through the crowd (once, before it dies to random cleaves/AoE just like iSwordsman).

Mainhand Sword, in contrast, can be pretty worthwhile, because you get:
1. Decent autos for a melee weapon. Nothing to write home about, but whatever. Perfectly okay for cleaving some downs.
2. A skill that lets you facetank an awful lot of stuff, on a pretty short cooldown. Just watch out for Retal!
3. Immobilize. I don’t care that it’s single-target Immobilize. Immobilize is sooooo good for clinching kills.

ASP.8093:

Mainhand Sword, in contrast, can be pretty worthwhile, because you get:
3. Immobilize. I don’t care that it’s single-target Immobilize. Immobilize is sooooo good for clinching kills.

Sorry to say this, but the immobilize is actually cleaving
True that the AoE is not too big and you’ll have only 1 ppl caught in small-scale fights, but against a meeletrain, you have a pretty nice chance to immob 2-3.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swap
“Swap locations with your clone. Immobilize nearby foes.
Number of Targets: 3 "

But for a wvw commander mesmer..

1) Don’t do it, commanding with mesmer is not that good.
As a commander:
-you should survive → mesmers don’t really have good pure dmg reduction/immun, only F4 on a relative long CD with hard pre-reqs, as you’ll have 0 clones most of the time when you need it.
-you should be followable → blink, staff 2, (and maybe sword 3) are all skills which are great in smallscale/roaming but are horrible if you want to command. Your meeletrain can’t follow your ports, basically separating you from your allies.

2) If for some weird reason you still wanna do it, use:
-Focus: Pulling (the number of ppl who got pulled down from the walls and were killed is countless!), when traited reflecting projectiles, imo the best for larger-scale fights (when you’re not in the periphery/focus-party)
-Torch: If the enemy’s doing a lot of commander-sniping, you can lose the target with it.. and you have a blast finisher for water.. maybe?

Bubi.5237:

Sorry to say this, but the immobilize is actually cleaving

Hawt.

Sword leap to dead clone?