PvE Post Patch - What's What?
Current best builds are still considering around Empowering Mantras. Because of the move it meant fewer traits for support moves.
I followed this fellah’s advice and it sounds reasonable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZhKTy9b2w
I’ll add some more details later, but I’d avoid the gear choices that Brazil lays out, since I feel that Assassin’s pigeon-holes you a bit too much (and I disagree with his 6/2 build, which is the main reason he recommends assassin). Berserker is still fine as long as have you have a minimum of 4 points in dueling.
If you want the best, cheap DPS rune: get Ranger. 1.25 gp on the TP right now, and these are almost as good (or better than??) even the old reliables like Scholar. The 7% damage works with phantasms and illusions now, and you’ll almost always have at least one of those up.
Current best builds are still considering around Empowering Mantras. Because of the move it meant fewer traits for support moves.
I followed this fellah’s advice and it sounds reasonable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZhKTy9b2w
Just watched it, very interesting! Thanks for this.
I’ll add some more details later, but I’d avoid the gear choices that Brazil lays out, since I feel that Assassin’s pigeon-holes you a bit too much (and I disagree with his 6/2 build, which is the main reason he recommends assassin). Berserker is still fine as long as have you have a minimum of 4 points in dueling.
If you want the best, cheap DPS rune: get Ranger. 1.25 gp on the TP right now, and these are almost as good (or better than??) even the old reliables like Scholar. The 7% damage works with phantasms and illusions now, and you’ll almost always have at least one of those up.
Looking forward to more details. You actually wrote to me once before when I was lvl60 and I’ve followed your advice so far. I never would have guessed that “companion” would include illusions. On the wiki, when you click on the word “companion” in the desc of the rune, you link to an article on pets.
Very much looking forward to your detailed advice and build(s)!
Okay so I’ll give you the same advice I give my friends that are at your stage of leveling up.
In terms of gear, Masterwork or Rare pieces are easy to come by and are relatively cheap. Aim for those that are based around power, like Berserker, Cavalier, Valkyrie and so on if you can, but you’ll shed these pieces fast so it’s not that big of a deal.
In terms of build, the traits got jumbled around so the old 30 (6) in the dueling line doesn’t work anymore. You could still do the 6/4/0/4/0 build which (I think) is the meta now, taking empowered illusions and Warden’s Feedback (even though iWarden is bugged out as all hell). My personal build for dungeons is 2/3/0/5/4 with a sword/focus and sword/sword. It’s weird and unorthodox and I don’t feel like getting into a huge debate about it so I won’t explain it. Dungeon elitists (don’t worry about them until you’re 80 and full zerk) play a full melee full zerk meta, which is the most optimal way to clear dungeons damage-wise. Since you’re not 80 yet, and probably don’t have much knowledge on the mechanics of each dungeon, I would say just play whatever feels comfortable for now. Learn the dungeons, learn the mechanics, and then shift your attention to optimizing your damage. Oh, and in case you didn’t know, conditions are horrible in PvE, so stick with Power builds if you want effectiveness. For weapons, if you’re just chilling out and learning the mechanics, I would go with 1 melee weapon set and 1 ranged weapon set. Typically, swordsman or duelist deals the highest single target dps (swordsman out-dps’ing duelist a little I think), so dual swords or sword/pistol is a common weapon set for melee. iWarden protects you from projectiles (reflects them when traited in inspiration (VII)) so focus is a common dungeon weapon as well, as one of the Mesmer’s jobs is to reflect projectiles. For ranged (once you learn the mechanics of the dungeons you will hardly ever need to range anything), you could use a greatsword (people are going to gut me for saying this) if you really need to range. Elitists hate greatsword Mesmers as the damage from both the weapon itself and the phantasm is sub-optimal. Also, don’t knockback mobs that your teammates are meleeing as that just kittenes everyone off. Staff has one of the hardest hitting phantasms, but the weapon itself is overall rather weak in dungeons. Scepter’s in a bad place at the moment, but people do use it and a pistol as a ranged option, due to iDuelist having high single target dps. You will have to cancel your auto attacks though, as your third attack will kill a Duelist if you have 3 out.
Now for “grinding gear”. You don’t really “grind” for gear per se, but you can get exotic (practically end game) gear for dungeon tokens. Each dungeon has a selection of 3 different stat combinations so you can check them out in Lion’s Ar- uhm, Vigil Keep. Each dungeon gives tokens for their own merchant so you’ll have to figure out which gear you want before doing the dungeons to get them. Berserker gear can be bought with Citadel of Flame, Crucible of Eternity, or Arah tokens. Aside from that, cheap exotic gear sets can be bought from the trading post (they usually have a name associated with the stat combination – the berserker light armor ones being named after “Zhed”. They go for between 2-5g per piece I think.). Also, completing a dungeon run gives you 1g, 1.5g or 3g depending on the dungeon. 1g is the usual amount.
If you’ve got guildmates and/or friends, try to get them to take you on dungeon runs that you’re level appropriate for (most of them).
Kiss the chaos.
(edited by DeathReign.7821)
Ok, so let’s go (hooray for code running at work).
First, builds. Brazil’s video is actually really nice, and he points out what you want as mesmer: 100% crit chance. Because he likes the 6/2 build, he has to use Assassin’s gear to get to 100%, but this is irritating because lots of people already have zerk gear. For you, since you’re new, this might not be a problem and you can just go with his recommendation.
The actual builds most people seem to be settling on are these two: Full DPS and Full Reflect Uptime .
The first one is 6/6/0/0/2. Use sword/sword and sword/focus. The playstyle is standard phantasm: cast phant, change weapons, cast phant, melee, use active defenses, swap weapon, cast phant, repeat till boss is dead. Use 3 mantras to keep up your damage with EM as well. What’s critical here is to 1) keep up your auto-attacks (you’ve invested 6 points in Domination, so you hit like a truck, and Empowering Mantras makes that even more the case) and 2) Make sure to use Feedback at the right time. Your Feedback is killer with this build, so make the most of it. In situations where you don’t need projectile blocking from the warden or the pull/interrupt from focus 4, swap to pistol for maximum damage. Another alternative for this build is 6/5/0/0/3, where you lose some crit chance and ferocity and Harmonious Mantras (which is a nice bit of quality of life, but not necessary), and get the 3 point minor in Illusions, which significantly lowers phantasm cooldown. This can be easier to play, and some experts like Jerem have been recommending it. I should note that folks like Nike/Brazil have been recommending the Signet heal and Blurred Inscriptions for the dueling grandmaster. This is to taste, I think— the 1 s of distortion can be helpful but isn’t really necessary IMO.
The second build is 6/4/0/4/0. The playstyle is basically the same, except you’ll notice Signet of Ether (which again, some people use above as well). This lets you cast Warden, Signet, and then immediately another Warden. This guarantees 100% reflect uptime on your party, as long as you occasionally fill in small gaps with focus 4 and Feedback. In pugs this can be super helpful, as well as in some fights (like Alphard, Ghost Eater, anything in CM) which are projectile-driven. There are many more or less equally valid versions of this build… Brazil has the 6/2/0/4/2 build (which might have a little bit more damage because of the III in Illusions), others have recommended 2/4/0/5/3 or 2/4/0/4/4, etc. All of them share 4 points in Inspiration for Warden’s Feedback and Glamour Mastery and 2 points in dueling for Phantasmal Fury, and the rest is to taste. I’ll note that the 2/4* builds emphasize phantasm damage, while the 6/x builds boost both personal and phantasm damage. IMO this is preferred— you suffer less when your phantasms die when your personal DPS is higher.
Now, if you want to play super-tryhard, you switch these builds depending on the situation. Need more reflects? Go 6/4. Need absolute maximum damage? Go 6/6. If you don’t want to super-tryhard all the time, just go with the 6/4, as that is the most reliable for what mesmers are expected to do in dungeons.
More posts coming on other things.
(edited by maxinion.8396)
DeathReign’s post is very nice as well. I don’t think your 2/3 build is invalid these days, btw— it’s just another more or less valid permutation of the 2/4’s which people mention.
That being said, I’ve never hit 80 in an MMO before. What do I do now? Do people mostly grind for gear? How does that even work? People grind for the tokens you get from beating dungeons on explore? I know I can keep doing open world, and that’s def fun, but without the reward of XP meaning anything, I know it’s going to feel empty.
What you do at 80 is up to you. WvW is there, map completion is there, boss zergs are there, Tequatl is there, etc. You have lots of options. You can try PvP, especially now that the rewards are worth getting.
What many people think of as “PvE endgame” is running dungeons. Dungeons are basically the best source of money in the game (outside of speculation and playing the TP), and they are a reliable way to pick up gear (CoF and CoE give tokens you can use to purchase full exotic Berserker gear). Fractals are another fun choice, and harder than most dungeons and therefore more interesting. All of the builds I’ve been giving you are always for dungeons, because that’s the place where builds matter most. No one cares what your build is when you run Claws of Jormag in a zerg, so using greatsword and PTV gear to be safe is perfectly fine. Since dungeons are harder, and have fewer people in them, builds matter more, and that’s why you see people arguing a lot about DPS, etc.
(edited by maxinion.8396)
I’ll need builds that take into account the fact that I don’t have any top-tier runs/sigils/gear. I’ll need to know gear I can buy or grind for fairly quickly. I only have 18g, so saying all zerk doesn’t really work for me. However, saying “buy X stuff it’s cheap” and then saying “but grind to this” is helpful.
Before you start running dungeons at 80, I’d invest in all Rare Berserker gear for all your slots (weapons, armor, rings, trinkets, amulet). Get a Fiber Splice (PTV, but waaay cheaper than anything zerker) for your backpiece. For runes at this point, Ruby Orbs are probably your good, cheap bet— drop those in everything (armor and trinkets). For sigils, go for Major Sigil of Force and Major Sigil of Accuracy, maybe? Those should be cheap too.
As a build at this stage, since you won’t be doing max DPS anyway because of the gear, so something like 2/4/0/5/3 might be easier to play and teach you the right things as well.
Once you get setup like this, start running CoF p1 and p2 once a day. If you’re up for a challenge, CoE will get you the right gear too, but it’s harder imo. (Be sure to watch a video of the path on youtube before you go in, if you don’t want to feel like a dead weight). Once you get a few hundred tokens, you’ll be able to buy a full exotic berserker set, and afford the runes/sigils to equip them properly. You’ll probably have 30 laurels, which you can use to buy an Ascended Amulet as well (only go for the berserker utility one!).
After that… you’re full equipped to do basically everything in the game (except high level fractals, which require Agony Resistance which is a whole another story). There’s full ascended to get if you really want to (5+% damage boost, but super expensive, so….). There’s pretty-princess-dressup-playtime (skin hunting). There’s challenging yourself with harder content (learning Arah, duo’ing Arah, soloi’ing Arah, doing level 50 fractals, etc.).
Hope all this helps~
(edited by maxinion.8396)
As a build at this stage, since you won’t be doing max DPS anyway because of the gear,
Hope all this helps~
Wow, you guys are awesome! This is a great thread, I really really appreciate advice and guidance. There really is a lot yet to explore. I have a few questions:
In your link to the 6/6/0/0/2 build, the dom master trait isn’t selected. What should it be?
Is it at all worth while to play with PI, CC and/or RM in the Inspiration line if you don’t need reflect? Someone posted a build where you have RM and spam MoP for group heal support.
Also, for the build DeathReign mentions, I assume he’s dropping FF or BT (if not using sword) for PH (now that it works)? Is PH > FF? I’m trying to get used to using sword (I’ve been playing GS/Staff and really love it), so I assume I should keep BT. Considering how broken iWarden is, if I don’t need reflect then maybe use Sw/Sw and Sw/pistol? Downside to this I assume is that if you use a Sw/Sw main-hand skill, it doesn’t come off CD if you swap to Sw/pistol (and vice versa). Another issue is, how do you keep your AA damage up when you only have sword main-hand? I find that I’m still a bit squishy to be doing melee all the time, and only having sword means you’re always in the thick of it. Does that change when you gear up?
I also haven’t gotten the hang of using mantras yet. For them to be “readied”, that means you have charges on them right? So for EM, you want to actually not use the mantras unless absolutely necessary? I always forget to use them.
I’ll probably go with one of those 2/4 or 2/3 builds. If I’m not stacking mantras, then what util skills should I focus on. Feedback seems to be something you should always have, as well as TW. Is it better to be using SotE over EF with this kind of phantasm build? I know blink is popular, and that’s another skill I have yet to master. Personally, I love decoy. Anything else worth my time? Finally, with respect to shattering. I know this is a phant build, so you don’t want to shatter them. But what about when your target is almost dead? Surely if you think the shatter will be a deathblow, it’s a good idea to get in that extra AoE damage since the phants are going to die on target death, right?
Thanks SO SO SO much for your posts and support. Much love to the mesmer forum!
(edited by sirrealist.1360)
As a build at this stage, since you won’t be doing max DPS anyway because of the gear,
Hope all this helps~Wow, you guys are awesome! This is a great thread, I really really appreciate advice and guidance. There really is a lot yet to explore. I have a few questions:
In your link to the 6/6/0/0/2 build, the dom master trait isn’t selected. What should it be?
Just because I feel all of them are pretty terrible, and it doesn’t matter. Nike/Brazil recommend VI, Signet Mastery, because they like the Signet Heal, and this is a pretty good idea. I prefer the Mantra Heal for this build, so VI doesn’t benefit me, and the others don’t help at all. Do IV and shatter your phantasms just as they’re about to die, or V and just cripple enemies when your clones get popped, I guess? This is why the move of Empowering Mantras was so annoying… there’s few good traits that synergize with the traditional Phantasm build.
Yup, this is correct. You can move the 5th point in Inspiration to a 4th point in Illusions and grab X as well for the 2/4/0/4/4 build. User “frifox” has some nice posts on the differences between these builds on the front page… search for his posts in the forum and you’ll find them.
Is it at all worth while to play with PI, CC and/or RM in the Inspiration line if you don’t need reflect? Someone posted a build where you have RM and spam MoP for group heal support.
Sometimes, yes. Honestly if you don’t need reflects, you’re better off re-traiting to 6/6 and going full DPS. Before re-traiting could happen in dungeons, if I was doing fights without reflects, I would often slot Mender’s Purity and Restorative Mantras. Mender’s Purity can be helpful with the Mantra Heal, since it gives you more rapid condition cleanse. Restorative Mantras I would take only in situations where there was nothing else that helped. It’s… not a big heal, and healing in the game is not particularly useful (since hits are generally large and telegraphed and able to be dodged). You’re almost always better off doing DPS (attacking and summoning phantasms) than charging mantras for heals. Other classes (eles with water fields, guardians, etc.) have better heals if this is really necessary. But anyway, if there are long fights where you don’t need reflects and you’re recharging mantras (healing and condition cleanse, for example), it might be helpful. The 10% movement trait I don’t find helpful, because most of the time you’re not moving much inside of battles and you’ll only have the bonus inside of battles. Longer lasting phantasms can be helpful, but they still die whenever a boss sneezes at them, so it’s not hugely helpful IMO.
Also, for the build DeathReign mentions, I assume he’s dropping FF or BT (if not using sword) for PH (now that it works)? Is PH > FF? I’m trying to get used to using sword (I’ve been playing GS/Staff and really love it), so I assume I should keep BT. Considering how broken iWarden is, if I don’t need reflect then maybe use Sw/Sw and Sw/pistol? Downside to this I assume is that if you use a Sw/Sw main-hand skill, it doesn’t come off CD if you swap to Sw/pistol (and vice versa). Another issue is, how do you keep your AA damage up when you only have sword main-hand? I find that I’m still a bit squishy to be doing melee all the time, and only having sword means you’re always in the thick of it. Does that change when you gear up?
(continuing in second post because of char limits)
Deathreign (and Brazil in his 6/2 build) drop Blade Training, yes (Phantasmal Fury is too good to drop, always take it). What this does is lower your crit chance and your cooldowns on sword. The lower crit chance can be made up in other ways (this is why Brazil focuses on Assassin’s gear so much). The cooldowns aren’t ~necessary,~ since most of your damage comes from the auto-attack and if you have the Signet Heal you can pump out 3 phantasms instantly anyway. Personally, I prefer builds that keep Blade Training because the shorter cooldown on Blurred Frenzy and Illusionary Riposte is super helpful in defense (more on this shortly).
If you don’t need reflects and pulls, use sword/sword and sword/pistol, yup. However, one of your main responsibilities as a mesmer in a dungeon is to pull with focus 4 to clump up enemies on walls. The warden also does AoE damage, so he’s helpful in trash. I find that I switch to pistol for large bosses that aren’t going to be pulled, and which don’t have adds that you need AoE for, and which you don’t need reflects for.
Gear isn’t going to help much, since you’re always using full offensive gear. One option is to run the 2/4/x builds— these put 4 or 5 into Inspiration which raises your Vitality quite a lot, giving you about 3k more hp. This can be helpful for when you start.
The main thing to keep your damage up is to use your active defenses. You have three forms of this (outside of reflections). Your primary should be Illusionary Riposte: sword 4. When you use it, you get one block for 2 seconds, and a free clone, and a big damage. Use this when you know the boss/mob is going to hit you in a short amount of time (basically, when you see their tell go off). You completely avoid the hit, and deal large damage instead. Your next option is Blurred Frenzy, sword 2— this gives you a nice bit of damage, and a 2.5 second evade. The difference here is that you avoid ~all attacks~ for 2.5 seconds— it’s like a longer dodge— while still doing damage. Use this when lots of small hits are incoming, or one big hit is coming and your IR is on cooldown. Basically, these two are your bread and butter, and are excellent defensive skills which can deal lots of damage as well.
You’ve also got Critical Infusion, the 1 point in Dueling. This gives you vigor on crit, with an internal cooldown. It’s not as good as it used to be, but this gives you a lot of dodges. If you can’t use your active evades from the sword, you can always just dodge.
The trick with avoiding damage is to learn the boss tells, and then use these abilities whenever you see them coming. With Blade Training, the cooldown on Blurred Frenzy and Illusionary Riposte are < 10 seconds. Between this and the dodges, you always have an option to avoid damage— the question is just about your reflexes and ability to recognize what’s coming. This is hard and takes practice, but eventually you’ll be able to do it no problem.
(third post, jesus i write too much. also, curse you flood control.)
I also haven’t gotten the hang of using mantras yet. For them to be “readied”, that means you have charges on them right? So for EM, you want to actually not use the mantras unless absolutely necessary? I always forget to use them.
Right, you want to “charge” the mantra to get them “readied” so they provide the bonus. In an ideal world, in a short fight, you’d make sure to leave 1 charge on all your mantras at least so you don’t lose the bonus. In practice, oftentimes you need that extra stun break, heal, or condition cleanse, so don’t feel bad about using it. Losing 4% DPS is better than dying, and depending on the fight, you might get an opportunity to recharge it during downtime anyway.
I’ll probably go with one of those 2/4 or 2/3 builds. If I’m not stacking mantras, then what util skills should I focus on. Feedback seems to be something you should always have, as well as TW. Is it better to be using SotE over EF with this kind of phantasm build? I know blink is popular, and that’s another skill I have yet to master. Personally, I love decoy. Anything else worth my time? Finally, with respect to shattering. I know this is a phant build, so you don’t want to shatter them. But what about when your target is almost dead? Surely if you think the shatter will be a deathblow, it’s a good idea to get in that extra AoE damage since the phants are going to die on target death, right?
2/4 is very, very nice in my opinion, so it’s absolutely a great place to start.
Feedback should be ready, except in fights you don’t need reflections.
For the rest, I’ll just link TheKillerAngel’s guide here as the first post is really super great here.
Some other minor comments: blink is super useful for positioning in some fights, and for runs. If you haven’t rebound your 6-0 keys to something reachable with your left hand or onto your mouse, do that— you’ll find it’s so much easier to blink with a quick press of “q” than it is to reach to the keyboard and then back to the mouse. Decoy is great for running, but doesn’t help DPS or survivability during fights very much, so I wouldn’t keep it in most situations.
Thanks SO SO SO much for your posts and support. Much love to the mesmer forum!
No problem, you’ve been asking great questions. Enjoy~
EDIT: Forgot to answer the question about shattering. Feel free to use Mind Wrack to shatter when the mobs are almost dead, absolutely. That’s a great use of them. You can also use the F4 ability if you need a real PANIC button— one second of invuln per illusion can save your life in some situations. Better to lose your phants and stay up, than go down and die and lose your phants anyway.
(edited by maxinion.8396)
Yes, maxinion is right. I drop blade training, as personally I don’t feel the urge to HAVE to have the reduced cool down and 50 precision. 50 precision is about 7% crit chance if I’m not wrong. Mesmers have terrible personal dps in comparison to other classes anyway, and since I’m not building for personal dps (empowering mantras), it makes even less sense to take it over Phantasmal haste, in my opinion. You also already have a reduced cool down on illusions through iCelerity, so that’s already mitigated. Faster warden cycle = more reflect uptime. I also only ever use Blurred Frenzy evasively, so it is usually always available when I need it, even un-traited.
My standard go to utility skills when I enter something I’m not sure of usually is: Null Field for AoE condition cleanse and boon stripping (dredge fractal or Coe), Feedback (reflects), Blink (stun break!) and Time Warp. I use Ether Feast as the heal.
The condition cleanse mantra is also a good choice in replacement of null field.
Now once you learn the sequence and/or mechanics of each dungeon, you can start mixing it up according to what you need.
If you like decoy, I would recommend switching off auto targeting and de-selecting your target before using it, as if you have 3 phantasms up, decoy would kill one of them. (One reason I prefer blink to decoy as a stun breaker.)
Signet of the Ether vs Ether Feast: if you’re learning the mechanics, ether feast ether feast, a thousand times ether feast. This is due to the fact that ether feast overall has more healing than the signet, and on a relatively low cool down. However, if you are confident in doing the dungeon, signet of the ether for instant triple phantasms up.
Kiss the chaos.
(edited by DeathReign.7821)
I drop blade training, as personally I don’t feel the urge to HAVE to have the reduced cool down and 50 precision. 50 precision is about 7% crit chance if I’m not wrong.
50 precision = 2.4% crit chance
Dropping 1 pt from dueling to lose Blade Training means losing 1pt worth of base stats as well, which comes out to a total of 100 precision / 4.8% crit chance.
I drop blade training, as personally I don’t feel the urge to HAVE to have the reduced cool down and 50 precision. 50 precision is about 7% crit chance if I’m not wrong.
50 precision = 2.4% crit chance
Dropping 1 pt from dueling to lose Blade Training means losing 1pt worth of base stats as well, which comes out to a total of 100 precision / 4.8% crit chance.
Awesome, thanks frifox!
Makes me more assured of my decision to drop blade training for Phantasmal Haste.
Kiss the chaos.
I’ll add some more details later, but I’d avoid the gear choices that Brazil lays out, since I feel that Assassin’s pigeon-holes you a bit too much (and I disagree with his 6/2 build, which is the main reason he recommends assassin). Berserker is still fine as long as have you have a minimum of 4 points in dueling.
If you want the best, cheap DPS rune: get Ranger. 1.25 gp on the TP right now, and these are almost as good (or better than??) even the old reliables like Scholar. The 7% damage works with phantasms and illusions now, and you’ll almost always have at least one of those up.
Does rune of the ranger work with illusions? If it does I’m totally switching to it from Rune of the Pack
Queen Of The Moors (Blackgate)
Deaths Fear [Fear] / The Hardcore Caravan [HC]
Forum Warrior: Black Belt in Ninja Edits
Deaths Fear [Fear] / The Hardcore Caravan [HC]
Forum Warrior: Black Belt in Ninja Edits
I’ll add some more details later, but I’d avoid the gear choices that Brazil lays out, since I feel that Assassin’s pigeon-holes you a bit too much (and I disagree with his 6/2 build, which is the main reason he recommends assassin). Berserker is still fine as long as have you have a minimum of 4 points in dueling.
If you want the best, cheap DPS rune: get Ranger. 1.25 gp on the TP right now, and these are almost as good (or better than??) even the old reliables like Scholar. The 7% damage works with phantasms and illusions now, and you’ll almost always have at least one of those up.
Does rune of the ranger work with illusions? If it does I’m totally switching to it from Rune of the Pack
Yes, it works with illusions.
I’ll add some more details later, but I’d avoid the gear choices that Brazil lays out, since I feel that Assassin’s pigeon-holes you a bit too much (and I disagree with his 6/2 build, which is the main reason he recommends assassin). Berserker is still fine as long as have you have a minimum of 4 points in dueling.
If you want the best, cheap DPS rune: get Ranger. 1.25 gp on the TP right now, and these are almost as good (or better than??) even the old reliables like Scholar. The 7% damage works with phantasms and illusions now, and you’ll almost always have at least one of those up.
Does rune of the ranger work with illusions? If it does I’m totally switching to it from Rune of the Pack
Yes, it works with illusions.
Is it perhaps a bug? Or intentional? The wiki seems to be outdated because it excludes illusions from proc’ing the 6th bonus.
Queen Of The Moors (Blackgate)
Deaths Fear [Fear] / The Hardcore Caravan [HC]
Forum Warrior: Black Belt in Ninja Edits
Deaths Fear [Fear] / The Hardcore Caravan [HC]
Forum Warrior: Black Belt in Ninja Edits
I’ll add some more details later, but I’d avoid the gear choices that Brazil lays out, since I feel that Assassin’s pigeon-holes you a bit too much (and I disagree with his 6/2 build, which is the main reason he recommends assassin). Berserker is still fine as long as have you have a minimum of 4 points in dueling.
If you want the best, cheap DPS rune: get Ranger. 1.25 gp on the TP right now, and these are almost as good (or better than??) even the old reliables like Scholar. The 7% damage works with phantasms and illusions now, and you’ll almost always have at least one of those up.
Does rune of the ranger work with illusions? If it does I’m totally switching to it from Rune of the Pack
Yes, it works with illusions.
Is it perhaps a bug? Or intentional? The wiki seems to be outdated because it excludes illusions from proc’ing the 6th bonus.
Wiki is outdated, since it just changed with this patch.
Is it a bug? Maybe. Lots of things seem to be proc’ing the bonus, even minis supposedly. Will it be fixed/changed? Perhaps unlikely, given how long ranger runes were broken previously.
Anyway, they’re pretty cheap, so I feel like it’s a reasonable bet for now, and not a huge loss if they get “fixed.”
I know in CoF as a mesmer you have a higher responsibility on the utility skills you use so it seems like the 6/6/0/0/2 build I’ve been running wont be as good since I cant have my mantras up. What would you recommend for that? 2/4/0/5/3? I’ll pick up an exotic focus as well.
I know in CoF as a mesmer you have a higher responsibility on the utility skills you use so it seems like the 6/6/0/0/2 build I’ve been running wont be as good since I cant have my mantras up. What would you recommend for that? 2/4/0/5/3? I’ll pick up an exotic focus as well.
In CoF you need Feedback for the boss, portal for the boulder skip, and focus pull for the first fight at the turrets and the slavedriver. None of these preclude using 6/6/0/0/2— you just have to swap blink and portal in for the boulders.
But then again, there’s nothing really wrong with the 2/4/0/4/4 and 2/4/0/5/3 builds for this as well. You don’t necessarily need reflecting wardens, but it’s not a huge waste either.
When I fight a boss where reflects are needed, I also make sure I go x/6/x/4/x minimum. 6 points in dueling buffs your precision and ultimately your reflect damage from Feedback.
Berserker + Runes of the Ranger are my preference over all Assassin’s.
Fantasme Bloodwen [R.I.P. Mesmer] | Andi Runi [Warrior] | Bonedoggle [Necro] | Zooerasty [Ranger]
Angry Intent [AI] | Yak’s Bend |
Angry Intent [AI] | Yak’s Bend |
You should be using 30/20/0/20/0 if heavy reflects are required.
Rezardi – [DnT]
Game over, yo.
Game over, yo.
(edited by hendo.1940)
Why 30 in Dom? Reflect damage is based on precision.
edit: Nevermind, Empowering Mantras. Right.
Fantasme Bloodwen [R.I.P. Mesmer] | Andi Runi [Warrior] | Bonedoggle [Necro] | Zooerasty [Ranger]
Angry Intent [AI] | Yak’s Bend |
Angry Intent [AI] | Yak’s Bend |
You should be using 30/20/0/20/20 if heavy reflects are required.
Where’d you get the extra 20? :O
shhhhh
Rezardi – [DnT]
Game over, yo.
Game over, yo.
Thanks so much guys! What nourishments (food and utility) should I be using with the 2/3 and 2/4 builds, and why? What about the 6/6 and 6/4 builds? I’m trying to get a handle on understanding nourishments and how to properly pick them (so many). I’m guessing with the 2/3 and 2/4 builds, you want food that promarially buffs precision, but that’s just a guess. Oh, and if the “proper” nourishments are really expensive, can you suggest cheaper alternatives (and explain why those were chosen)?
Thanks again everyone! I’m really learning a lot here.
(edited by sirrealist.1360)
Best foods are ones that have damage multipliers, such as seaweed salad. For phantasm build on the other hand you want food that affects your core stats as only those also apply to phantasms.
Proper foods are quite expensive so most of the time I settle for the dungeon potions and call it a day.
Steak and asparagus is 1s and gives power and prec. Can’t go wrong with that.
Personally I love Candied Dragon Rolls. They’re also about 1s each, and give a bunch of precision, and life gain on crit. Since you crit so much, it’s a nice buffer for your health, especially if you need to keep it above 90% for scholar. You lose 80 power compared to steak and asparagus, but that’s not too huge an exchange. This is a very common choice for experienced folks in pugs or casual runs.