Guild Wars 2

This is what I’ve heard, I only leveled my mesmer up to 80 recently but I hear it’s gotten nerfed a ton and the damage does seem kind of low, full zerker 10/30/0/30/0.

Let me check the DPS meters….sec

Don’t run 10/30/0/30/0. If you’re doing Phantasm, run 10/10/0/25/25 or 10/15/0/25/20 for maximum dps (second one for solo, bleed stacks will help out).

If you’re doing shatter, run, for uber dps, 10/30/0/0/30 or 20/20/0/0/30.

Keep in mind, that base direct damage, Mesmers are the weakest in the game. Once you trait, you become really strong (your nuke isn’t quite as fast as thief/warrior, but you can down an enemy ridiculously fast, nonetheless).

Also, keep in mind that non-Shatter Mesmers CANNOT utilize Sigils of Force(or Night / XXX Slaying) because they have little to no direct damage.

Sigils of Accuracy are viable choices on Phantasm (and even Shatter) builds, since they are confirmed to work on Phantasms (and Clones) with a recent change.

Esplen.3940:

Don’t run 10/30/0/30/0. If you’re doing Phantasm, run 10/10/0/25/25 or 10/15/0/25/20 for maximum dps (second one for solo, bleed stacks will help out).

If you’re doing shatter, run, for uber dps, 10/30/0/0/30 or 20/20/0/0/30.

Keep in mind, that base direct damage, Mesmers are the weakest in the game. Once you trait, you become really strong (your nuke isn’t quite as fast as thief/warrior, but you can down an enemy ridiculously fast, nonetheless).

Also, keep in mind that non-Shatter Mesmers CANNOT utilize Sigils of Force(or Night / XXX Slaying) because they have little to no direct damage.

Sigils of Accuracy are viable choices on Phantasm (and even Shatter) builds, since they are confirmed to work on Phantasms (and Clones) with a recent change.

Losing blade training and deceptive evasion is a lot, and you lose sharper images.

Devildoc.6721:

Esplen.3940:

Don’t run 10/30/0/30/0. If you’re doing Phantasm, run 10/10/0/25/25 or 10/15/0/25/20 for maximum dps (second one for solo, bleed stacks will help out).

If you’re doing shatter, run, for uber dps, 10/30/0/0/30 or 20/20/0/0/30.

Keep in mind, that base direct damage, Mesmers are the weakest in the game. Once you trait, you become really strong (your nuke isn’t quite as fast as thief/warrior, but you can down an enemy ridiculously fast, nonetheless).

Also, keep in mind that non-Shatter Mesmers CANNOT utilize Sigils of Force(or Night / XXX Slaying) because they have little to no direct damage.

Sigils of Accuracy are viable choices on Phantasm (and even Shatter) builds, since they are confirmed to work on Phantasms (and Clones) with a recent change.

Losing blade training and deceptive evasion is a lot, and you lose sharper images.

Deceptive evasion is not a high priority trait for a phantasm build. Quite the opposite in fact. You don’t want to take it because you don’t want to overwrite a phantasm with a dodge clone.

I haven’t played my Mesmer since the last big patch but here is an interesting video I found:

Maybe this helps. The damage is extremely high imo and you’re also ranged which means it’s really safe. Not sure if something changed since the video was released but the basic idea should still work.

In my opinion phant mesmer tends to be pretty low dps compared to some other classes, it seems like it is really good damage until you realize that many other classes are capable of getting 4K+ on their auto attack with each swing, yes even a ranger using a 1h sword can hit that hard there is a screen shot showing one ranger that was doing 5-6k with each auto swing, factor in that each of those attacks is on a 1/2 second that is giving you low end 15k every 1 and a half seconds give or take for aftercast/animation time. Even with three phants up they simply don’t attack often enough for the damage they do to balance out against this. However if whatever you are fighting can have it’s damage reflected then mesmer can reaaaallly out pace some other classes. There are times when I wish there was a actual program to measure dps just so people could use real numbers instead of going on gut feeling like what I am doing. That being said, I don’t play mesmer for it’s personal damage…I play it for it’s flavor and all around badassery (yes that’s a word I promise!)
edit: I want to clarify that dps does not mean damage in general, mesmer is definitely able to burst with the best of them, I use this term for exactly what it stands for damage per second. On large hp pool mobs consistent damage will almost always beat burst followed by periods of lower damage it’s pretty much a mmo staple, burst is useful for trash and consistent damage for bosses.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

However if whatever you are fighting can have it’s damage reflected then mesmer can reaaaallly out pace some other classes.

This.

I feel like this should be included when thinking about a Mesmer’s DPS (sure it is untestable when considering DPS on a golem, but those are not wholly accurate in reflecting true dps anyways). Many of the bosses have significant tells on reflect-able moves, and some of them have a circular arc. Examples include: Bloomhunger (throw up feedback when he raises his left hand), the first time you fight the Archdiviner in cliffside (he usually does his AoE shadow bolts after his condition agony attack, and there is a brief pause before he does it, and this will yield at least 6 (it could be 8) 8k crits). Not to forget the CoF final boss, and the between 20-30% damage done to Lupi in a melee group.

Then there are normal mobs such as the dredge on the dredge fractal.

I could go on and on. On many fights, feedback is a very strong dual-offensive/defensive move.

Blackhat.4016:

I haven’t played my Mesmer since the last big patch but here is an interesting video I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXY5cIEr1Gk

Maybe this helps. The damage is extremely high imo and you’re also ranged which means it’s really safe. Not sure if something changed since the video was released but the basic idea should still work.

That’s old enough to be pre nerfs. Also being ranged has lower dps than melee.

Devildoc.6721:

Blackhat.4016:

I haven’t played my Mesmer since the last big patch but here is an interesting video I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXY5cIEr1Gk

Maybe this helps. The damage is extremely high imo and you’re also ranged which means it’s really safe. Not sure if something changed since the video was released but the basic idea should still work.

That’s old enough to be pre nerfs. Also being ranged has lower dps than melee.

Yes theoretically this is correct, being in melee range yields higher risk therefore higher damage. Player skill however will have a huge impact on how true this is, someone who is comfortable meleeing with a boss and makes few mistakes in their disconnects (periods of no damage) will definitely out damage someone who stays at range. For someone who is not spot on with a particular boss fight going ranged will probably yield better results for them due to the nature of it being safer but with much less disconnect time.

Idk if we are the lowest dmg class, but for sure we are the hardest to notice the dmg class. With mesmer a lot of dmg comes from indirect sources like phantams or shatters instead of our 1-10 skills.

Also mesmers take a few secs to build up before dmg actually starts. While a warrior can just hit 2 on his GS we have to cast phantasms or clones to shatter depending on build.

On the other hand…. who cares, we are privileged with the most fun class to play

Well, in pve, any class but thief and warrior are jokes as damage dealers. Fortunately mesmer is still wanted for damage parties because of portal, signet of inspiration and time wrap.
I run a shatter mes in pve, the damage isn’t of course even close to what my warrior does, but I can still apply some vuln stacks or reflect, if I trait for focus. Unfortunately most boss attacks are unblockable and can’t be reflected.

The video doesnt really show dps – its just burst. And that’s probably not “pre-nerf” or anything. My tanky hybrid build has a “mediocre” 50-60% crit damage and can easily burst half health off your average mob quickly. The build in the video got 117% (and 77% crit chance). That should explode a mob.

At the end of the day, Mesmers are random. Pure random. Impossible to tell sustained dps, impossible to predict burst dps (NPC mobs are very, very easy compared to players which can just dodge through a shatter). Do they have lowest dps overall? Certainly not. Its just that you cant say “I click 2 every 5 seconds and do 20000 damage, so my dps is 4000”.

Certainly depends on your build.

- Shatter specs, without using the GS, aren’t that great in terms of sustained damage as they do mainly burst damage. I was actually duelling Osicat 1 or 2 weeks ago and could nearly do whatever i want as long as i mitigated the bursts.

- Condi specs aren’t that great for DPS, either. The main damage comes from short confusion (either F2 or Scepter #3) or Torment (Scepter #2) bursts. We can’t stack conditions as fast and as high as other professions AS LONG AS the other guy keeps killing iDuelists cause these guys are kinda brutal in a condi spec.

- Phantasm specs actually have quite good sustained damage that also comes from different angles. The main trick is to try to not get all phantasms to attack at the same time (hard against stealth since it causes all phantasms to sync up the moment the enemy reveals. However they still put a good amount of pressure against thieves that try to backstab you).

Esplen.3940:

Sigils of Accuracy are viable choices on Phantasm (and even Shatter) builds, since they are confirmed to work on Phantasms (and Clones) with a recent change.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Stealth-buff-to-Sigil-of-Accuracy/first#post2374109

My initial testing showed that it was adding up but with a greater sample size, I found that it probably does not. Did anyone else check this or were you referring to my work?

Mesmers have some nice burst but their dps in my experience seems to be pretty trash. Still, on bosses where you have people spamming vulnerability you can normally get numbers like 7k off a duelist, 8k off a zerker or like 12k-ish off a warden, and since it’s pretty easy to set up phantasms, you can have your phantasms dropping that damage while you sit there with your sword doing blurred frenzy and autoattack.

Don’t run 10/30/0/30/0. If you’re doing Phantasm, run 10/10/0/25/25 or 10/15/0/25/20 for maximum dps (second one for solo, bleed stacks will help out).

Why? Points in dueling gives you faster sword and pistol cooldowns, phantasmal fury and extra precision and up to 30%+ crit damage. Full inspiration lets you give your phantasms more HP, quicker focus cooldowns and reflects and shorter cooldown on glamour skills. I’m not sure what you gain from 25 points in illusions besides illusionist’s celerity which I don’t think is worth investing in anymore.

colesy.8490:

Mesmers have some nice burst but their dps in my experience seems to be pretty trash. Still, on bosses where you have people spamming vulnerability you can normally get numbers like 7k off a duelist, 8k off a zerker or like 12k-ish off a warden, and since it’s pretty easy to set up phantasms, you can have your phantasms dropping that damage while you sit there with your sword doing blurred frenzy and autoattack.

Don’t run 10/30/0/30/0. If you’re doing Phantasm, run 10/10/0/25/25 or 10/15/0/25/20 for maximum dps (second one for solo, bleed stacks will help out).

Why? Points in dueling gives you faster sword and pistol cooldowns, phantasmal fury and extra precision and up to 30%+ crit damage. Full inspiration lets you give your phantasms more HP, quicker focus cooldowns and reflects and shorter cooldown on glamour skills. I’m not sure what you gain from 25 points in illusions besides illusionist’s celerity which I don’t think is worth investing in anymore.

I did some quick experimentation with 10/10/0/25/25 .. was not impressed. Yeah cds were a bit lower, but frankly losing 20% crit damage and 10% crit chance resulted in lower dps. Phantasmal haste is good on paper but reality is phantasms get destroyed in 1 hit by bosses so they rarely ever get a second chance to attack as it is.

They get to attack once, then you dodge/clone skill, and shatter.

Isn’t the case on trash always I suppose, and isn’t the case on world bosses.. but any dungeon/fractal boss just one shots a phantasm, and even the 20% more health trait doesn’t save them a lot of the time.

Phantasmal haste is apparently bugged on some of the phantasms anyway, I think swordsman and berserker.

Phantasms I’ve found are surprisingly resilient in dungeons, against Subject Alpha I can set all three up and not have to summon any for about half of the remainder of the fight because for some reason most of the AOEs do nothing. I think it’s only the teeth of mordremoth (sp?) which kills them. In COF, slave driver dies too quick and warden can reflect the effigy knockback.

In Fractals, warden is absolutely sick because of the amount of projectiles that get used there. In uncategorised I can drop a warden on the first harpy, feedback & duelist the next (because more dps, why the hell not), if the next harpy starts bursting before we kill the second I can magic bullet or temporal curtain the whole volley back at it. Then warden goes off cooldown, etc. etc.

If I’m worried about phants dying, then using duelist tends to be quite safe for me since it’s a ranged phantasm.

Esplen.3940:

Sigils of Accuracy are viable choices on Phantasm (and even Shatter) builds, since they are confirmed to work on Phantasms (and Clones) with a recent change.

Source? I was under the impression that increased Precision applied to Phantasms / Clones, but effects that directly affect Critical Chance (i.e., Fury on the Mesmer, Sigil of Accuracy) did not.

Devildoc.6721:

I did some quick experimentation with 10/10/0/25/25 .. was not impressed. Yeah cds were a bit lower, but frankly losing 20% crit damage and 10% crit chance resulted in lower dps. Phantasmal haste is good on paper but reality is phantasms get destroyed in 1 hit by bosses so they rarely ever get a second chance to attack as it is.

They get to attack once, then you dodge/clone skill, and shatter.

Isn’t the case on trash always I suppose, and isn’t the case on world bosses.. but any dungeon/fractal boss just one shots a phantasm, and even the 20% more health trait doesn’t save them a lot of the time.

This is what I have found, and thus I prefer to stay away from the 25 points in illusions as I was also unimpressed by the 25 point placement. That power/precision/crit.damage is more valuable to me in higher level fractals than the phantasmal haste trait. However, I think that either way, it just depends on your play-style, either option is fine. If going 25 pts into illusions, I like LordByron’s 0/20/0/25/25 over the 10/10/0/25/25 variation, just because of sword mastery.

According to the number crunchers on reddit, assuming the character specs completely for raw sustained DPS and sticks to just their highest DPS attack chain, mesmer is second lowest, ranking just about rangers.

(Of course context is important in this regard; for example in a dungeon team, a mesmer is more likely to sacrifice a bit of DPS for support. While in other situations sustaining DPS isn’t possible, so mesmer’s superior burst capabilities shine through – while in PvP going all-in-balls-out on DPS is a quick ticket to being downed. Nonetheless, that is the fundamentals)

I just want to point out that you don’t put 25 points in the illusions line to “maximize damage”. that’s for increasing your phantasm uptime. some believe that is increasing damage due to having 3 at one time more often, in practical application I have not found this to be true. if you’re running phantasm take a signet of illusion to keep them around, although many times you don’t even need that. depends on your role.

maximizing damage is simply maxing power and crit. I can’t tell you whether or not the bonus from inspirations 25 minor trait is better than putting those points into more power, or whether or not stealing 10 to give you the +%3 per illusion in the illusion-trait line at the loss of power or crit damage/chance is better. They all hit hard and its for numbers-geeks to figure that out.

whether or not over the long-haul a Mesmer’s damage is sub-par I cannot tell you. The only thing I know is that we likely have the greatest AoE burst in the game every 90 seconds. Whether or not that spec is tourney viable though I can’t say for sure, though I lean ‘probably not’.

I would say try 20-25-0-25-0 and then try 30-30-0-0-10 and see which one did more damage vs. keeping you and/or your phantasms around longer. tweak from there.

use 5 eagle or rangers runes and one divinity. Some like scholar but if you’re living by the crit, then feed the crit.

“this is what i hear” don’t you have a brain and think for a sec? On a single target three phantasms will outdamage any class and for mobs of enemies you have shatter which deals tones of aoe damage so i dunno how could anyone even imagine mesmers having low dps.

Everything you just mentioned (phants and shatters) is burst, not their actual dps. It’s like talking about warrior DPS and everyone just bringing up their hundred blades numbers.

The fact of the matter is, besides phantasm/shatter burst, the amount of damage a mesmer gets out of their autoattack is pretty awful, even in ideal conditions with 25 stacks of might, fury and 25 vulnerability stacks on a boss.

—

@djtool – why ranger runes when your main source of damage, the phantasms will have fury anyway? If you go full ruby orbs and phantasmal fury you end up with like 76% crit chance on your phantasms (havent logged in for a while, can’t remember the crit chance for full zerk) and 2% more crit damage than 5 ranger 1 divinity (and divinity is awful anyway).

I’m not sure why you’d go 30-30-0-0-10 either, if you want strong phantasms you’re missing out on giving them more HP, 15% more damage, retaliation and reflects from your focus skills (which reeeeallly shouldn’t be underestimated).

Nuka Cola.8520:

“this is what i hear” don’t you have a brain and think for a sec? On a single target three phantasms will outdamage any class and for mobs of enemies you have shatter which deals tones of aoe damage so i dunno how could anyone even imagine mesmers having low dps.

Think about the rate of attack for those phantasms, their rate of attack is much slower than other classes heavy hitters, so while you might see 3 phantasms hitting for 8-9k each, the combined DPS of you and your phanties is still below or comparable to the DPS of other classes – and setting up 3 phantasms has a very long set up time (assuming 3 duellists, you’re talking best part of a minute), whereas a warrior can head-down-sustain DPS from first contact

Compare the attack damage to attack rate. Even in a vacuum elementalist’s lightning hammer does over twice the DPS of of your mainhand sword (our highest DPS attack)

Ryuujin.8236:

Nuka Cola.8520:

“this is what i hear” don’t you have a brain and think for a sec? On a single target three phantasms will outdamage any class and for mobs of enemies you have shatter which deals tones of aoe damage so i dunno how could anyone even imagine mesmers having low dps.

Think about the rate of attack for those phantasms, their rate of attack is much slower than other classes heavy hitters, so while you might see 3 phantasms hitting for 8-9k each, the combined DPS of you and your phanties is still below or comparable to the DPS of other classes – and setting up 3 phantasms has a very long set up time (assuming 3 duellists, you’re talking best part of a minute), whereas a warrior can head-down-sustain DPS from first contact

Compare the attack damage to attack rate. Even in a vacuum elementalist’s lightning hammer does over twice the DPS of of your mainhand sword (our highest DPS attack)

Phants attack slow and likely only get to attack once. Even with signet of illusions and the 20% health trait, a phantasm is under 13k health, aka they will be one shot by most big boss attacks, and they don’t dodge. I consider phantasms to be burst damage rather than DPS because the cooldowns are long enough on them that you can’t reliably always have both phantasms up, let them attack once, shatter, and then resummon both of them immediately to have them have uptime (which would be ideal). Anet seems to think that they’ll be sustained dps because they’ll stay alive and continue to attack every 5-8s, but not when they die to boss aoes and cones.

Now in the ideal situation that he phantasms get completely ignored or aren’t affected by boss attacks, 3 phantasmal warlocks attacking every 5.7s for 16k damage (such as in world bosses where there’s enough people that every single condition is up on them), yes, that’s a lot of dps. That’s just not the reality of most situations where phantasms pop the moment a big aoe everyone else dodges happens.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Esplen.3940:

Sigils of Accuracy are viable choices on Phantasm (and even Shatter) builds, since they are confirmed to work on Phantasms (and Clones) with a recent change.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Stealth-buff-to-Sigil-of-Accuracy/first#post2374109

My initial testing showed that it was adding up but with a greater sample size, I found that it probably does not. Did anyone else check this or were you referring to my work?

As with all testing, none can ever be truly accurate. However, I was able to get to 80% crit chance with a Sigil of Accuracy and then my Phantasms were critting with every strike. However, there’s no way I can prove this.

Regardless, Sigil of Perception is better.

Late reply on this one, but…

Esplen.3940:

Esplen.3940:

-snip-

Losing blade training and deceptive evasion is a lot, and you lose sharper images.

Blade Training is useful if you don’t weapon swap, in my opinion. However, having a 10/10/0/25/25 build let’s you make it diverse and run it in more than just one place. While I’m sure that it’s not the best Phantasm build for WvW specifically, in PvE it is one of the best Phantasm builds for pure damage and utility.

Deceptive Evasion on a Phantasm build is trakitten’s a nice skill to have/use, but it’s still trash and a waste of a trait. If you were going 30 in Dueling, it’d be better to get Fury, Blade Training, and Pistol Training, with an offhand Pistol.

Losing Sharper Images is a hit to your sustained damage, but your nuke potential goes up by having all the damage boosts on your phants. Plus, your only condition damage in a pure zerk phant build will be from traits (illusion), so your bleeds won’t add that much damage. (Honestly, I’d rather have the 15% Illusion Damage, 15% Phantasm Damage, and 20% Cooldown reduction than have bleed on crit, but that’s just me.)

Devildoc.6721:

Phants attack slow and likely only get to attack once. Even with signet of illusions and the 20% health trait, a phantasm is under 13k health, aka they will be one shot by most big boss attacks, and they don’t dodge.

Keep in mind that Phantasms have a higher health pool in PvE. With that said, a lot of World Bosses have niche target points which allow you to spawn a Phantasm mid-air. While a Warlock will be able to do the most overall DPS, it’s also in a position where it can get killed. Dropping 3 Wardens in the niche spots (so they’re floating at the face of the boss) will prevent them from getting killed/moved/cc’ed. This allows them to do full damage, and, when traited properly, allows them to constantly apply pressure. This, theoretically, would be a good time for Sharpened Images, EXCEPT THAT YOU’RE AT A WORLD BOSS WHERE THERE ARE CONDITION SPECS.

A full damage Warden combo will hit for about the same as a full damage Warlock, if not slightly more, but it has a lower rate of attack (between recharge and attack speed).

Use a staff, cast 2 illusions with your skill #3 and one clone from your skill #2.

Watch the 3k-4.5k numbers go up as you auto attack and use your number 5.

iWarlock has a very, very low attack speed (attacks every 6s with 1s cast time) and a slow moving projectile. If you can’t avoid that, your bad.

Iavra.8510:

iWarlock has a very, very low attack speed (attacks every 6s with 1s cast time) and a slow moving projectile. If you can’t avoid that, your bad.

Drop 3 warlocks with Phantasmal Haste. If they’re staggered properly, try dodging that.

OR you could use a not-awful phantasm instead.

There is also already talk among certain circles that unless you need high reflect uptime, mesmer simply is not needed anymore, especially as people are figuring out how to use rangers more productively within melee groups with spotter and frost spirit to get a 7% damage increase and high fury uptime+ spotter trait group wide to push peoples crit rates when combined with a warrior’s banner. The semi standard dps test that people are performing on the veteran risen giants in cursed shore seems to indicate that mesmer is pretty low in the ranking for sustained damage. Having said all this, player skill and the specific scenario/group composition will have a huge impact on what any one class is capable of.

In PvE, there’s only so much a Mesmer can do, I feel more free in WvW, but even then, running as a solo roamer only gets you so far.

Mesmers have the lowest dps output in the game. Probably not with 3 Phantasms up that all have fury and 25 stacks might, but no fight in this game is long enough to get 3 phantasms up. Also buffing phantasms is hard due to the 5 player limit. And in most fights phantasms die like paper when meeting a pair of scissors.

Dub.1273:

Mesmers have the lowest dps output in the game. Probably not with 3 Phantasms up that all have fury and 25 stacks might, but no fight in this game is long enough to get 3 phantasms up. Also buffing phantasms is hard due to the 5 player limit. And in most fights phantasms die like paper when meeting a pair of scissors.

It’s actually really easy to get 3 phantasms up. Getting phantasms fury is a trait, therefore ridiculously easy, and phantasms pull from your might, so you only have to get yourself might (which isn’t all that difficult, either).

Esplen.3940:

Dub.1273:

Mesmers have the lowest dps output in the game. Probably not with 3 Phantasms up that all have fury and 25 stacks might, but no fight in this game is long enough to get 3 phantasms up. Also buffing phantasms is hard due to the 5 player limit. And in most fights phantasms die like paper when meeting a pair of scissors.

It’s actually really easy to get 3 phantasms up. Getting phantasms fury is a trait, therefore ridiculously easy, and phantasms pull from your might, so you only have to get yourself might (which isn’t all that difficult, either).

While there are some fights where phantasms “die like paper when meeting a pair of scissors,” I agree with Esplen here. PS Dub, don’t forget Feedback damage, which is significant on a great deal of fights.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Vashury-Buka-Videos

I’m using the basics Vashury bought up in his video’s.
10-30-0-0-30 specked
DPS is skyrocket in his way

Dub.1273:

Mesmers have the lowest dps output in the game. Probably not with 3 Phantasms up that all have fury and 25 stacks might, but no fight in this game is long enough to get 3 phantasms up. Also buffing phantasms is hard due to the 5 player limit. And in most fights phantasms die like paper when meeting a pair of scissors.

We’re not talking about short fights — DPS is not relevant in those, agree?

DPS does include burst (contrary to what was stated earlier in this topic). Sustained and burst are both DPS with each having an advantage in combat.

In WvW I see plenty of good damage from my mesmer (both sustained and burst). This includes zergs and solo. Couple that with the difficulty of fighting against clones and we have a serious advantage in player combat.

Your build will effect the damage (obviously). My pure condition built staff mesmer doesn’t hit hard at all. I find that build least effective in player combat (effective being success rate and time to success). Yes the conditions can cause considerable damage but it’s not hard for a player to shed conditions and we don’t stack them incredibly fast (except maybe bleed).

The GS at range is possibly the best ranged DPS in the game.

When you have time to set up 3 phantasms your team is terribly bad.

And GS at range is possibly one of the worst ranged DPS in the game.

Mesmer DPS is lowest in the whole game, burst and sustained in common circumstances. That is a fact.

Dub.1273:

When you have time to set up 3 phantasms your team is terribly bad.

And GS at range is possibly one of the worst ranged DPS in the game.

Mesmer DPS is lowest in the whole game, burst and sustained in common circumstances. That is a fact.

Lol — you play mesmer right?

In general three phantasms is typically a bad approach as the first clone will destroy one of the three phantasms. Two phantasms and a single clone works very well. Two phantasms are up almost instantly as every weapon set has a phantasm (cast one, swap weps, cast a second).

I can’t even respond to your GS comment because it’s asinine. I’m going to write you off as a troll because your response is that uneducated.

When are people going to realize DPS isn’t everything in WvW, I destroy with my mesmer in WvW. Do I have the highest DPS, not at all but I still run into 20+ man zergs with 5 people and destroy because DPS means nothing if you can’t survive.

Dub.1273:

When you have time to set up 3 phantasms your team is terribly bad.

And GS at range is possibly one of the worst ranged DPS in the game.

Mesmer DPS is lowest in the whole game, burst and sustained in common circumstances. That is a fact.

With regard to PvE (which I will assume is the case under discussion, and I’ll also assume we are talking about bosses since trash is not relevant), then while I’ll agree that Mesmer DPS is at least bottom 3, and is likely the lowest amongst properly played classes, to claim that a team is bad if you can set up 3 phantasms is just wrong.

As the person before said, you can summon two phantasms almost immediately, and assuming one stays with the sword, then at most 20 seconds later, you have a third phantasm. Therefore you are claiming that a team is terribly bad if they do not down a boss in 24 seconds (16/20 if the mesmer is traited). And sure, most bosses have attacks that wipe out phantasms keeping 3 up nigh impossible in those fights. But the point is, on many bosses, no matter the group composition, there is time to summon 3 phantasms.

And sure, if you are in groups that down Lupi in 20 seconds and other bosses in 10, then yes, there is no time to summon 3 phantasms. But those groups represent a very minor portion of the player base and do not represent the only good players in all of GW2.

juno.1840:

Dub.1273:

When you have time to set up 3 phantasms your team is terribly bad.

And GS at range is possibly one of the worst ranged DPS in the game.

Mesmer DPS is lowest in the whole game, burst and sustained in common circumstances. That is a fact.

Lol — you play mesmer right?

In general three phantasms is typically a bad approach as the first clone will destroy one of the three phantasms. Two phantasms and a single clone works very well. Two phantasms are up almost instantly as every weapon set has a phantasm (cast one, swap weps, cast a second).

I can’t even respond to your GS comment because it’s asinine. I’m going to write you off as a troll because your response is that uneducated.

GS really is low damage, if we isolate the weapon in a vacuum and just breakdown it’s skills it is not hard to see that, going by the information given by the wiki the attack rate for the iZerker is 5.57 seconds or 5.17 seconds traited and does generally around 5-6k damage so the actual dps on just the zerker alone is roughly 1k damage per second then combine that with the auto attack (which that number shown is the total damage not damage of each hit) so let’s say 2k damage every 1.5 seconds is less than 1k dps. These numbers of course can vary depending on the situation both in the + and – depending on whether or not your phantasm is actually left alive and attacking the whole time so on and so forth. Compare that to just about any other ranged weapon in the game I will use engineer rifle as an example since it is also regarded as being low damage for a ranged weapon, it’s auto attack will hit for 2k every hit every 3/4 second (both numbers are assuming high crit rate) so it matches the dps output of the gs with it’s autoattack alone not to mention it has yet to even use skills like blunderbuss or jumpshot for it’s burst component. Yes the math I am doing is simplistic and not entirely accurate since I am doing a lot of rounding/assumption based on play value against level 80 mobs in cursed shore just to have some numbers to throw out (I will leave the real math for the more mathematically inclined) but it is a fair representation of expected damage values of the greatsword as has been proven by others.

CrazyDuck.4610:

When are people going to realize DPS isn’t everything in WvW, I destroy with my mesmer in WvW. Do I have the highest DPS, not at all but I still run into 20+ man zergs with 5 people and destroy because DPS means nothing if you can’t survive.

This is certainly true from a pvp perspective (yes I include wvw as pvp because you are playing against other players), most of the examples we are giving are related to high health pool mobs in a pve environment where damage is in fact all that really matters because of lack of interesting mechanics in the boss design.

The damage coefficient for the GS autoattack on mesmer is 0.948 which is pretty high. The total damage for a single tick of the auto-attack on an exotic GS is:

991.32 * Power / Armor

Where the Armor is your opponents armor. The tool-tip uses 2600 as an assumed armor value.

The DPS from the autoattack will be twice the damage value because there are three ticks over 1.5 seconds. So GS autoattack DPS is:

1982.6 * Power / Armor

Factor in crit rate and crit damage and you have:

1982.6 * Power / Armor * (1 + ((0.5 + crit damage) * crit chance))

So if you have 2000 power (a typical GS build power value) and 45% crit chance and 50% crit damage, your DPS will be 2211.

That’s a great number for a ranged attack that is instant hit (no projectile), cannot be reflected, and will damage up to two additional mobs that are in the way of the beam.

Toss in clones and sharper images and now you are a bleed machine, further increasing the DPS.

Feel free to provide your own math for another 1200m weapon auto-attack using the same power of 2000.

juno.1840:

The damage coefficient for the GS autoattack on mesmer is 0.948 which is pretty high. The total damage for a single tick of the auto-attack on an exotic GS is:

991.32 * Power / Armor

Where the Armor is your opponents armor. The tool-tip uses 2600 as an assumed armor value.

The DPS from the autoattack will be twice the damage value because there are three ticks over 1.5 seconds. So GS autoattack DPS is:

1982.6 * Power / Armor

Factor in crit rate and crit damage and you have:

1982.6 * Power / Armor * (1 + ((0.5 + crit damage) * crit chance))

So if you have 2000 power (a typical GS build power value) and 45% crit chance and 50% crit damage, your DPS will be 2211.

That’s a great number for a ranged attack that is instant hit (no projectile), cannot be reflected, and will damage up to two additional mobs that are in the way of the beam.

Toss in clones and sharper images and now you are a bleed machine, further increasing the DPS.

Feel free to provide your own math for another 1200m weapon auto-attack using the same power of 2000.

Yet on my mesmer with 2247 power (not including any might stacks from mirror blade) 50% crit chance and 90% crit damage my total damage done to a level 80 mob in cursed shore is roughly 2k damage just from the auto not including clones this is assuming that the mob actually stays greater than 900 distance for the duration of the attack for the entire chain of 1.5 seconds. So I realize what you are saying on paper it sounds good, but I have not been able to replicate those results even given a higher power, crit chance, and crit damage than in the example you provided. So somewhere math theory is not meeting actual application. Perhaps it is a case, that the risen have significantly higher armor value than 2600 I can’t really say, but it just isn’t adding up to what your example provided.

Yes the risen have higher than 2600 armor — that 2600 is a reference for “light” armor wearing professions. It’s also an easy metric to determine your direct damage reduction (2600 / your armor == direct damage multiplier).

The math I posted is useful because you can use it for absolute comparisons between weapons (regardless of opponent).

Comparison to the ranger long bow (at 1000m):

900 * power / armor

Since the auto attack is 0.75 seconds that results in a DPS of:

1200 * power / armor

So the Mesmer GS auto attack does 65% more DPS than the Ranger Long Bow auto attack. It does it at closer range (900m vs 1000m), it will pierce up to two additional targets, and it cannot be reflected.

Pretty much epic.

EDIT: Oh I forgot the additional advantage that there’s no travel time for the attack as it’s a bad-kitten lazer!

Just compare Warrior’s Rifle/LB rotation to Mesmer’s GS damage. Even in the very unlikely case of having three Berserkers up your DPS is still going to be lower.
Oh by the way: where did you take those damage coefficients and cast times from? Wiki? Lol. Also, melee dps is higher and no skilled player uses ranged weapons in PvE. Compare Mesmers Traits abd Coefficients to Warriors. The result will show that mesmers damage is crap. And warriors dps isn’t even high. Compare mesmer dps to ele dps, Eles have up to a 1.761 amplifier before 33% and 2.0 amplifier below 33%. Lightning Hammer has the highest dps in the game and the initial 200k bust of FGS ain’t bad either. An Ele is able to dish out more damage in the first 3 seconds of a fight than a mesmer in 30 seconds.

Dub.1273:

Just compare Warrior’s Rifle/LB rotation to Mesmer’s GS damage. Even in the very unlikely case of having three Berserkers up your DPS is still going to be lower.
Oh by the way: where did you take those damage coefficients and cast times from? Wiki? Lol. Also, melee dps is higher and no skilled player uses ranged weapons in PvE. Compare Mesmers Traits abd Coefficients to Warriors. The result will show that mesmers damage is crap. And warriors dps isn’t even high. Compare mesmer dps to ele dps, Eles have up to a 1.761 amplifier before 33% and 2.0 amplifier below 33%. Lightning Hammer has the highest dps in the game and the initial 200k bust of FGS ain’t bad either. An Ele is able to dish out more damage in the first 3 seconds of a fight than a mesmer in 30 seconds.

Look I said GS is one of the best RANGED weapons in the game — if you want to argue melee vs ranged go somewhere else. If you are using Ele dagger skills those are psuedo-melee. Summoned weapons are “skills” so not a valid comparison to GS auto-attack.

I calculalted the coefficient for GS myself using the tool tip and power off my own toon (which is how you do it). For the long bow the coefficient was grabbed from the wiki. Feel free to calculate your own coefficient and post some data.