Tarnished Coast
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
(edited by Aberrant.6749)
Mesmer dodging: a thief's perspective
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The problem with a thief running a no stealth build is A. Sure they can do damage pretty easily from the AA but it also leaves you completely vulnerable to the other persons AA… And I don’t care how much toughness a thief runs they are the lowest on the totem pole when it comes to being able to build a tank build… Not as much armor as guards not as much access to boons as ele’s… A non stealthing thief will get blown up more than a stealth thief…. Plane and simple.
Look at the D/P build in my signature. Run it. Fix your life. Kthxbye.
You say you played Mes for a while with staff and S/P and enjoyed it… but what doesn’t add up is that you’re saying you made a lot of clones. Well, native clone production on that weapon set is quite low… so you were running DE most likely (or by your own admission? It’s a bit hard to tell) and using it to get clones out.
That’s basically how everyone uses DE. If you weren’t being targeted properly it’s most likely because of the great mobility that staff offers. I’m still a tad circumspect since I feel if you’d really played a lot of Mes you’d just know what we’re talking about, but I’ll take your word for it.
Oh no, I was using DE. I most certainly was. But the things that I mentioned before allowed me to bypass the negatives of DE that I mention in my OP.
DE doesn’t have any negatives though. In the OP you mention that it exposes the real Mesmer. Ok fine I don’t trait DE and dodge roll. BAM you know which one is the real Mesmer. Now, I trait for DE and dodge roll BAM you know which one the real Mesmer is anyway but I now have a clone which probably isn’t my only one to either blow you up or give me a second or two of invulnerability.
There are no negatives. Now if you are trying to get at that people are using DE in a build that shouldn’t be using it and should be using another trait in that spot then yes you are true but that is just because they are new and don’t have their build finished yet. But my point still stands that in ANY BUILD, even if it isn’t the BEST trait to take there are ZERO, NONE, NO negatives to the trait itself.
@OP
You say in the OP to not take X trait. This is, literally, the definition of build advice. You can emphasize the caveat that it is directed at players “who can’t control a particular trait they have very well” all you want, but even then, it simply becomes very very bad advice. The correct advice for these players is simply to learn how to use the trait better.
Also the correlation between this trait and “fooling” your opponent is completely and utterly inconsequential vs experienced players. This notion continues to escape you. I do not think there is a single experienced PvP Mesmer who would recommend attempting to fool your opponent with your clones. That is like saying don’t ever strafe since clones don’t strafe.
And I’m sorry I assumed you didn’t play Mesmer. I would imagine somebody who played Mesmer to any significant degree would know that attempting to fool players with your clones is a fruitless endeavor.
It was an idea, one of many. It was not the recommendation.
I’m not suggesting you “fool people with your clones”, I’m suggesting that your clones automatically fool people, whether you like it or not. Most of the mesmers in this thread hold the ultra-conservative, defensive view that illusions cannot be a defense because they are practically see-through. On the other hand, an ultra-aggressive view would hold that illusions are a perfectly adequate defense, and thus they can run, practically speaking, a GC build. Both views have their upsides and their downsides, but I think that we need to accept that, to some extent, having three copies of your character going around is more of a complication than just having your character go around.
Earlier, people mention that you can just look at the boon bars on clones to see which one is fake. While this is a perfectly adequate technique, and works particularly well when the opponent is running signets, it fails in that you still have to take significant portions of your time up to check every illusion’s bar. You’re not going to just be able to check every bar in half a second. Now, there are other markers, like movement patterns, but remember that illusions can move, to some extent, so you have to be careful in that regard. Even so, some movements can be somewhat subtle, so that, in the heat of battle, you might not recognize them at first; either way, not moving only to move later on will slow your opponent down by checking illusions. Anyhow, you get the point; there isn’t a foolproof, quick and easy method to telling which mesmer is the real one if they’re all acting alike. Dodging/healing, however, are two extremely noticeable markers of whether or not a mes is real.
Let’s compare this to, say, an example with thieves: the increase in Revealed duration in the latest patch by 1 second. One second, and yet there were thieves ready to start a riot on the thief forums, because, supposedly, it screws up their rotations, and totally messes up their builds. And that’s just one second. Take, say, stuns or knockdowns; typically, they last virtually no time at all, and yet, in the few seconds that you’re knocked down or stunned, you could lose half of your health, easily. So yes, I understand that illusions aren’t meant solely to deceive people, but they can and do anyways, and if you don’t use them to gain a couple of seconds of protection (or more), then you’re underutilizing the resources available to you. It would be like a thief only using stealth for offense, a ranger only using a pet for its F2 ability, or an ele that only uses the fire element. By using your illusions so strictly, for such little purpose, you’re missing out on a lot of aggressive and defensive opportunities you could gain, via a few seconds worth of protection.
DE doesn’t have any negatives though. In the OP you mention that it exposes the real Mesmer. Ok fine I don’t trait DE and dodge roll. BAM you know which one is the real Mesmer. Now, I trait for DE and dodge roll BAM you know which one the real Mesmer is anyway but I now have a clone which probably isn’t my only one to either blow you up or give me a second or two of invulnerability.
There are no negatives. Now if you are trying to get at that people are using DE in a build that shouldn’t be using it and should be using another trait in that spot then yes you are true but that is just because they are new and don’t have their build finished yet. But my point still stands that in ANY BUILD, even if it isn’t the BEST trait to take there are ZERO, NONE, NO negatives to the trait itself.
The issue isn’t in theory, because, theoretically, the trait works great. The issue is in practicality, where mesmers will use it as one of their main ways to spawn clones. They abuse the trait because of all of the “free” clones they get, but, in doing so, they fail to recognize the threats they come under by making themselves so instantly visible. It’s similar to, say, the thief trap “Shadow Trap”. It’s a wonderful trap in theory, but in practicality, it’s worthless because it’s buggy, but also because players often miss the 5 second window that allows them to teleport back to the trap, due to the fact that that 5-second window could occur at any time. It also keeps them from using other utilities that might flow better with the average, current thief build.
Have you watched the Mesmert Videos? Like Osicat’s Shatter Cat vids. The really good Mesmers are always on the move. Also, we very frequently have vigor up and thus can dodge like crazy.
I am sure when the game came out several people (myself included) attempted to do the whole hid in clones thing instead of moving around like a mouse on fire like we do now. It didn’t work. Too many attacks are actually short AoEs and clones die SUPER fast and thus trying to hid only lets our enemies get closer to us. We also attack faster than out clones and have an off hand weapon and everything else we do that they don’t. Clones work great in PvE cause mobs are stupid, players are in general not as stupid as mobs and thus we Mesmers moved to extremely mobile and constantly moving builds. Other than yourself has anyone agreed with that that tryn to hid in clones is a good idea or for that matter even a viable idea? I am pretty sure I have read everything and no one has.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the trait is a bit goofy in some ways… but then the Engie/Ele dodge traits are even sillier (drop a bomb on roll, set peeps on fire/heal randomly).
It seems at first glance like the obvious culprit for the Mes’ difficulty to hide in clones, but really it has no effect since clones just fundamentally won’t behave the same as players do.
This is true, but in very short periods of time, clones will behave similarly, if not exactly like people. There are a few factors I look for in determining whether a player is real or an illusion:
-Are they under leveled?
-What’s on their boon/condition bar?
-How fast are they dying?
-How are they positioned? (Mes tends to be positioned behind clones, I find)
-Are they engaging in any actions that would prove that they’re real? (dodge, heal, movement, etc)
So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.
If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.
If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.
The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.
So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.
Have you watched the Mesmert Videos? Like Osicat’s Shatter Cat vids. The really good Mesmers are always on the move. Also, we very frequently have vigor up and thus can dodge like crazy.
I am sure when the game came out several people (myself included) attempted to do the whole hid in clones thing instead of moving around like a mouse on fire like we do now. It didn’t work. Too many attacks are actually short AoEs and clones die SUPER fast and thus trying to hid only lets our enemies get closer to us. We also attack faster than out clones and have an off hand weapon and everything else we do that they don’t. Clones work great in PvE cause mobs are stupid, players are in general not as stupid as mobs and thus we Mesmers moved to extremely mobile and constantly moving builds. Other than yourself has anyone agreed with that that tryn to hid in clones is a good idea or for that matter even a viable idea? I am pretty sure I have read everything and no one has.
I know that some of the best mesmers are crazy active, and that makes sense; because they can utilize their other mechanisms of defense so well (teleport, stealth, etc), then they would actually lose more by using their illusions as forms of defense, because they would have to give up some of their defense in those other areas. But not everyone has this playstyle.
Here’s a statistics lesson: no amount of analysis can make up for badly produced data. This post is a simulation of a voluntary response sample, which is necessarily going to be biased one way or another, and it has been. If you’ve noticed, most of the comments here come from people who seem to be constantly engaging in argument about this with me. So I can’t say I’d expect you to look at this post and think “oh, what a great idea!” because everybody around you is sticking to the same old dogma that, I think, needs some refreshment. But hey, don’t use my ideas if you don’t want to.
You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.
@Arganthium: You say that if you look at 1/10 of a second of video that you wouldn’t be able to tell which one the mesmer is. That’s because you’re starting in the middle.
Take a video of a mesmer from the very start of a fight, and break it up into small segments. In each segment, you can tell which mesmer is the real one, because you simply follow them. If you close your eyes for 5 seconds and then look at the screen again, then maybe it’ll take you a second or two to find the real mesmer again. The thing is, when I fight a mesmer, I know which one is the real mesmer 100% of the time. If they don’t go invisible, I simply follow them. Once they start losing hp, its the only one with lower hp. If they go invislble, it’s the one that just became visible.
There’s also that setting thing you can do where you turn off npc names and only the player will have a name bar. I don’t need to do this, but it certainly is an easy way out.
This is the very basis of the fault of your argument. You are talking from a perspective that is 100% and completely wrong. You can defend it all you want, you can have whatever opinion that you want, but it won’t ever make you any less wrong.
You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.
So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.
If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.
If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.
The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.
So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.
@Arganthium: You say that if you look at 1/10 of a second of video that you wouldn’t be able to tell which one the mesmer is. That’s because you’re starting in the middle.
Take a video of a mesmer from the very start of a fight, and break it up into small segments. In each segment, you can tell which mesmer is the real one, because you simply follow them. If you close your eyes for 5 seconds and then look at the screen again, then maybe it’ll take you a second or two to find the real mesmer again. The thing is, when I fight a mesmer, I know which one is the real mesmer 100% of the time. If they don’t go invisible, I simply follow them. Once they start losing hp, its the only one with lower hp. If they go invislble, it’s the one that just became visible.
There’s also that setting thing you can do where you turn off npc names and only the player will have a name bar. I don’t need to do this, but it certainly is an easy way out.
This is the very basis of the fault of your argument. You are talking from a perspective that is 100% and completely wrong. You can defend it all you want, you can have whatever opinion that you want, but it won’t ever make you any less wrong.
That’s the point. Close your eyes for a couple of seconds, then you’ll have to take a few more seconds to determine which mesmer is the real one. Because mesmers are so good with teleportation/invisibility/etc, assuming you know which mesmer is the real one at the beginning of the fight, you’ll be hard-pressed to keep your eye on it at all times, simply because it can be so slippery.
Yes, thank you for trying to reemphasize that I am wrong by repeating it over and over again. Maybe if you said it again, I might actually hear you.
You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.
So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.
If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.
If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.
The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.
So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.
You don’t mention DE once in that post. Also, if you took a snap shot you would just have to look to see which one doesn’t have an off hand weapon and you would know.
You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.
So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.
If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.
If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.
The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.
So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.
You don’t mention DE once in that post. Also, if you took a snap shot you would just have to look to see which one doesn’t have an off hand weapon and you would know.
I mention evading, however, and I think I’ve already explained multiple times why DE can cause people to evade more often, which can be a problem.
Also, I assume that your eyesight is so good that, in a battle with projectiles flying around and lights everywhere, you could instantly pick up which mes was the real one, even if they were behind you, because of a small object in their left hand? And what about with, say, staves and GS? What do you do there?
In a snap shot instance with a 2-hander ya got me there is no off hand. But there are health bars and so on. That aside though, battles aren’t screen shots are they?
Also, please don’t think that any of us are trying to convince you that you are wrong. We don’t care what you think for yourself we just don’t want other new Mesmers thinking your right cause well we know you aren’t. But it is a free world and you can think what you want. ^^
(edited by Hexxen.7216)
World completion star got fixed, btw.
Tbh, best to just stop bumping this. It’ll be off the front page in 3 hours.
In a snap shot instance with a 2-hander ya got me there is no off hand. But there are the world completion stars, health bars. That aside though, battles aren’t screen shots are they?
Also, please don’t think that any of us are trying to convince you that you are wrong. We don’t care what you think for yourself we just don’t want other new Mesmers thinking your right cause well we know you aren’t. But it is a free world and you can think what you want. ^^
Well, a video is nothing more than a fast-moving collection of pictures…
Gee, thanks. I think, however, that if this is what you’re feeding to new mesmers (who are most prone to… Accidents, via abuse of dodges), then you’re going to find that they’re going to walk away from the class very quickly. If there’s any group that you don’t want to have abusing these dodges, in fact, it’s the newer players, simply because they don’t have enough experience with mes to be able to handle whatever situation comes at them.
The problem with a thief running a no stealth build is A. Sure they can do damage pretty easily from the AA but it also leaves you completely vulnerable to the other persons AA… And I don’t care how much toughness a thief runs they are the lowest on the totem pole when it comes to being able to build a tank build… Not as much armor as guards not as much access to boons as ele’s… A non stealthing thief will get blown up more than a stealth thief…. Plane and simple.
Look at the D/P build in my signature. Run it. Fix your life. Kthxbye.
Looked… Wasn’t very impressed… Number 1 a properly built shatter mes will still beat you… Any bunker guardian will laugh off your heartseekers not to mention guardians are the ultimate anti condition class so your auto attack will become even weaker… And you even mention in this build that you do the standard D/P 5,2 stealth combo… So once again any thief build that does not use stealth is vulnerable… Kind of like any mesmer build that makes no use of any illusions whatsoever is vulnerable. My life is fine.. I’m not the one going to other forums telling people not to run the most dependant on trait for at half of the mesmer builds.
You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.
So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.
If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.
If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.
The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.
So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.
You don’t mention DE once in that post. Also, if you took a snap shot you would just have to look to see which one doesn’t have an off hand weapon and you would know.
I mention evading, however, and I think I’ve already explained multiple times why DE can cause people to evade more often, which can be a problem.
Also, I assume that your eyesight is so good that, in a battle with projectiles flying around and lights everywhere, you could instantly pick up which mes was the real one, even if they were behind you, because of a small object in their left hand? And what about with, say, staves and GS? What do you do there?
You seem to just be ignoring this entire trait lines method of working together (critical hits grant vigor) which encourages dodging and rather focusing ONE trait which is DE… And once again no good mesmer is going to try and confuse the enemy with clones… Any shatter mesmer (which this trait works off of) is not going to let the clones be up long enough for you to eyeball which one they are… As soon as three pop up a shatter is being hit… And in builds that don’t shatter the mesmer still doesn’t care because they are either A. Surrounded by phantasms or B. A suicide clone build that will always be popping more out to blow you up with conditions.
(edited by jportell.2197)
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