Sceptor/Torch more than viable if played right.
This is BvBvB though.. you could roll around facerolling all day with no traits and say that mesmers are OP.
Torch is fun, but slotting out pistol or greatsword(Staff) is a bad move.
If they fixed Prestige to do the full damage on entering stealth instead of exiting it’d probably be a lot more potent and probably my go to weapon 2v1, free stealth ? Yes please.
scepter is….. meh.. Why would I give up Blurred frenzy, half my invulnerability to get ranged confusion and useless clones?
Run that in tpvp and tell me it’s viable, I’ll gladly watch.
Will the Real Pink Puma Please stand up?
Amen brother. Amen.
Conspiracy Thëory- sPvP
Seeinred -Wv3
Dragonbrand sPvP/Wv3 ~Mesmer
Seeinred -Wv3
Dragonbrand sPvP/Wv3 ~Mesmer
:)
Same video posted by another user 25 days ago.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-Videos-Post-your-Video/first#post432238
Hello, here are my WvW videos. I use Staff + Torch/Scepter.
In the first post, grimmer isn’t associated to this channel, but to someone else. An error somewhere?
“grimmer.8413 – http://www.youtube.com/user/Vologase”
yet the channel of the video posted by grimmer is “http://www.youtube.com/user/orrey12”, which is the same as the one posted by delusion.
I don’t think delusion meant to imply that he was the owner of the video, but to show everyone that it is viable.
I’m only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand.
confusion based builds simply isnt viable in wvw. it’s too unreliable of a damage source. its somewhat viable in spvp because the fights are much smaller in scale, and you’re almost always fighting over a single contested point, in which case you’re presented with the choice of use skills to capture the point and take confusion damage, or back out of the fight until confusion wears off.
not applicable in wvw since you can just run away for a few seconds, then re-enter the fight with no downsides.
confusion based builds simply isnt viable in wvw. it’s too unreliable of a damage source. its somewhat viable in spvp because the fights are much smaller in scale, and you’re almost always fighting over a single contested point, in which case you’re presented with the choice of use skills to capture the point and take confusion damage, or back out of the fight until confusion wears off.
not applicable in wvw since you can just run away for a few seconds, then re-enter the fight with no downsides.
Its absolutely viable in W3. At its worst, its causing a small group of enemies to completely stop what they are doing and run for 5+ seconds. In reality, most players will at least get caught with 1-2 activations, and with 6-8 stacks, it hurts quite a bit.
Plus, plenty of W3 is contested over ‘capture points’.
Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
sure i agree, but what i meant was if you’re going to min-max your effectiveness, which in the case of wvw is damage potential, then you’ll be doing more damage in a pure condition or pure direct damage/shatter build.
in spvp however tankyness and overall lasting power becomes more important, and confusion builds help with that since it stops incoming damage.
A confusion based build is far, FAR more viable in w3 than in spvp, for the simple reason that confusion damage scales twice as powerfully in w3 than in spvp. In spvp, even with ultra high stacks, it does minimal damage, whereas in w3 it will hurt, a lot.
That being said, torch is still a horrific choice for an offhand, and scepter is still a subpar mainhand. Torch gets you the stealth, which is great, and a phantasm that almost literally does nothing, and is on an extremely long cooldown. The single skill that provides stealth, which is ALSO on a super long cooldown, is not nearly worth what you lose from taking a pistol or a sword.
In a well-made condition damage build for a mesmer, you’ll be splitting your damage between bleeds from the pistol phantasms, and the confusion bursting, and you can choose to go either greatsword or staff, depending on your style of play. Splitting your condition damage into two main types means that simple condition removal does not hurt you as much, and your damage is no longer completely worthless if the enemy simply doesn’t attack for 4 seconds. In addition, the pistol 5 will grant you a fantastic stun, and a stack of confusion when shot through an ethereal combo field, and your sword 3 will grant you chaos armor when leaping through an ethereal combo field. This allows you to play a bit more with glamours as well, which is a powerful way to stack confusion.
As far as scepter goes, yes it has confusing images. However, anyone that knows how to pvp in this game will dodge roll it, removing 3 stacks, or double dodge roll, endurance permitting, completely mitigating the use of the skill. Additionally, its a long cast, and if you are forced to turn, or they dash around you, the skill channel will break. The block on scepter 2 is inferior to the sword 2 in almost every way, and they have nearly identical recharge times. The ONLY bonus of the scepter autoattack is that it is ranged. The clone generation is useless, because you should be pumping out clones constantly from dodge rolls, staff 2, staff 3, sword 3, and pistol 4, all of which have extremely low cooldowns, especially staff 2 and sword 3. You should have nearly constant vigor uptime from a good crit chance (assuming you use the power/precision/condition damage gear).
Overall, while a scepter/torch build “works,” it is extremely underperforming compared to a sword/pistol build in every way: raw damage, clone generation(especially since sword clones remove boons too), total condition damage, difficulty with which your condition damage is mitigated, defense, and crowd control.
The problem with Scepter is, that skill 1 does veeeery little damage and the clones you spawn don’t work well with the bleed-on-crit trait, so they too do low damage on their own and don’t even debuff when they attack, like the Sword clones do. Also, Scepter skill 3 has 15sec cooldown. The 15sec CD is actually quite balanced, but you have a block move as your skill 2 and that’s where the problems start with sustained damage…
I apologize, did not mean to come off as the owner of the video. I just think his channel deserves more views and will help others to see that Sceptor/Torch is very viable. :P
I apologize, did not mean to come off as the owner of the video. I just think his channel deserves more views and will help others to see that Sceptor/Torch is very viable. :P
The problem is that Scepter/torch is NOT viable. If your definition of “viable” is to be able to kill people in wvw with it, then I can introduce you to the 0 weapon pure utility shatter build, which will kill people in wvw…but if you argue it to be viable, you’d be insane.
The scepter and torch are both quantitatively worse in EVERY way than their counterparts. The scepter is the condition damage/clone factory build..except it only has 1 condition damage skill, on a long cooldown, with a long channel, that can be mostly nullified with a dodge roll. The scepter autoattack chain is SO slow, the traited greatsword 2 skill spawns clones almost as fast as the scepter auto chain. The scepter literally does nothing well.
The torch, on the other hand, has a phantasm that is 100% useless, in all ways, shapes, and forms. It does negligible damage, the retaliation buff is super short duration, and rarely gets applied anyway, and it has such a long cooldown that it is nearly useless kittenter fodder. The torch 4 skill is, fairly enough, decent. However, it suffers from a removal of the damage component and shortened stealth if you dodge roll, and is also on a very long cooldown, and so is significantly lower in utility than any of the other non-phantasm summoning skills that offhand weapons have.
I’m going to post my confusion bomb build soon so all of these “confusion isn’t good” and “scepter isn’t good” guys can go suck an egg.
Scepter is amazing, the stacking confusion is amazing, dropping 13 stacks of confusion on a berserker geared level 80 is amazing to watch as they melt their own faces off.
And no. Torch is only technically feasible, but I would never give up a staff or gs (I prefer staff) for anything torch, and my swap is scepter/focus and focus in wvw is almost definetly superior in every way to torch.
While The Prestige is nice and gimmicky, the phantasm is meh at best. Warden by far superior.
I’m going to post my confusion bomb build soon so all of these “confusion isn’t good” and “scepter isn’t good” guys can go suck an egg.
Scepter is amazing, the stacking confusion is amazing, dropping 13 stacks of confusion on a berserker geared level 80 is amazing to watch as they melt their own faces off.
And no. Torch is only technically feasible, but I would never give up a staff or gs (I prefer staff) for anything torch, and my swap is scepter/focus and focus in wvw is almost definetly superior in every way to torch.
While The Prestige is nice and gimmicky, the phantasm is meh at best. Warden by far superior.
Scepter is great for stacking confusion fast on someone who has no clue what they’re doing, but vs anyone competent, confusing images just won’t do a kitten thing, and as I covered in my previous post, the clone generation utility of scepter is nearly useless when specced into a clone factory/shatter trait build.
You’re good on the torch though, its several times worse than every other offhand in the game.
I’m going to post my confusion bomb build soon so all of these “confusion isn’t good” and “scepter isn’t good” guys can go suck an egg.
Scepter is amazing, the stacking confusion is amazing, dropping 13 stacks of confusion on a berserker geared level 80 is amazing to watch as they melt their own faces off.
And no. Torch is only technically feasible, but I would never give up a staff or gs (I prefer staff) for anything torch, and my swap is scepter/focus and focus in wvw is almost definetly superior in every way to torch.
While The Prestige is nice and gimmicky, the phantasm is meh at best. Warden by far superior.
Scepter is great for stacking confusion fast on someone who has no clue what they’re doing, but vs anyone competent, confusing images just won’t do a kitten thing, and as I covered in my previous post, the clone generation utility of scepter is nearly useless when specced into a clone factory/shatter trait build.
You’re good on the torch though, its several times worse than every other offhand in the game.
Well with over 800+ hours played most all of them on mesmer, most all of them in wvw (and this is only on live). I kindly disagree with your analysis. Perhaps at top level spvp confusion doesn’t work, but in wvw it’s amazing.
I’m going to post my confusion bomb build soon so all of these “confusion isn’t good” and “scepter isn’t good” guys can go suck an egg.
Scepter is amazing, the stacking confusion is amazing, dropping 13 stacks of confusion on a berserker geared level 80 is amazing to watch as they melt their own faces off.
And no. Torch is only technically feasible, but I would never give up a staff or gs (I prefer staff) for anything torch, and my swap is scepter/focus and focus in wvw is almost definetly superior in every way to torch.
While The Prestige is nice and gimmicky, the phantasm is meh at best. Warden by far superior.
Scepter is great for stacking confusion fast on someone who has no clue what they’re doing, but vs anyone competent, confusing images just won’t do a kitten thing, and as I covered in my previous post, the clone generation utility of scepter is nearly useless when specced into a clone factory/shatter trait build.
You’re good on the torch though, its several times worse than every other offhand in the game.
Well with over 800+ hours played most all of them on mesmer, most all of them in wvw (and this is only on live). I kindly disagree with your analysis. Perhaps at top level spvp confusion doesn’t work, but in wvw it’s amazing.
I think you may have misunderstood me. First off, confusion is horrible in spvp/tpvp, because for some reason it scales only 50% of what it does normally there. However, confusion is fantastic in wvw, and its an awesome condition to use. Unfortunately, it has weaknesses, in that the counter to it is not attacking, or a quick condition removal, which is why you generally want to combine it with bleed stacking and/or some straight in-your-face damage to cause your target to use skills to escape.
My point, however, was purely about the scepter, not confusion. Confusing images is a highly unreliable method of confusion stacking for a few reasons. First, a single dodge roll will take it down to 2 stacks from 5, and 2 dodge rolls will nullify it altogether. Secondly, its a really long and noisy prechannel, and a really long and noisy channel. This means it’s really easy to interrupt the skill. Also, if they dodge behind you, or out of LoS, or you are forced to turn around, you lose whatever is left on the channel. For these reasons, scepter is not great for stacking confusion with that skill.
The other main use of scepter is for clone factorying. However, the autoattack chain is SOOO SLOWW. There was a recent tweak bumping up the speed of the scepter autoattack chain, but it still is far, FAR too slow. Because of how slow it is, the clone generation on the third attack is simply not meaningful. In a clone factory, shatter build, you will have clones on dodge rolls, reasonably high crit chance, and so getting lots of vigor from your attacks. Additionally, you could have the trait to get vigor on shatter. One way or another, you will be dodging constantly, your mainhand sword pumps out clones 7 or so second timer, and staff on a 5 or so second timer. In short, the extra clone generation from the scepter simply isn’t meaningful. The 2 skill of the scepter is nice…but you have to compare it to blurred frenzy on the sword, which has a very similar cooldown, but complete damage negation for 2 seconds, while dealing a good amount of damage, and proccing vigor on crits.
Overall, scepter is simply worse in every way than mainhand sword.
it might not be the best choice of weapons but this was entertaining stuff, 1vs1 – 1vs2 – 1vs3 and on top of that facerolling even more right after, great video, thanks for sharing.
Its absolutely viable in W3. At its worst, its causing a small group of enemies to completely stop what they are doing and run for 5+ seconds. In reality, most players will at least get caught with 1-2 activations, and with 6-8 stacks, it hurts quite a bit.
Plus, plenty of W3 is contested over ‘capture points’.
True, Confusion-based setups are really powerful in WvW. Even if you end up not killing anyone directly, you soften up the enemy group a whole lot with the confusion damage + feedback.
That being said, Scepter and Torch still struggle individually. The build as a whole works, perfectly fine, too. It’s just that the individual components don’t work in isolation, leading to specific narrow builds able to utilize them.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
I use a gs/scepter+pistol in Wv3 and it’s great for group fights. I don’t want to be rushing into a large group to do those swap blurred frenzys. The confusion ray forces them to bust a dodge or take some heavy damage + confusion… which is also useful since you know what their reaction to it will be. I agree that the auto attack is in need of a buff. Either in damage or having the clones do something more useful.
That being said if I’m just running around solo I have my 1h sword equipped instead of the scepter for those random 1v1’s… and would never bring a scepter into sPvP.
Tarnished Coast
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
Just to add, if the counter to confusion is to not attack, you’re not doing damage.
As many GW1 mesmers will tell you, lockdown was probably the strongest feature of the original mesmer, and enemies either killing themselves or doing no damage is fantastic whichever way you cut it.
It’s just a shame that Wastrel’s Punishment is so poor a damage bonus to really take advantage of non-attacking players.
Please note that due to restrictions placed on my account, I am only allowed 1 post per hour.
Therefore I may take some time replying to you.
Therefore I may take some time replying to you.
…
ok confusion bomber build works in wvw, thats really great and to be honest I had my share of fun with confusion in wvw too! I even love confusion builds in tpvp! It works well BUT not because of scepter.
I switched scepter with sword (100% condition spec) and it is better than scepter because of 2 sec invul and aoe root. IF scepter would be buffed to add some condition damage like a 2sec confusion stack on aa 1+2, I would give it another shot in tpvp but without it, it is lacking.
and torch is another story, prestige is really helpful in pd battles because the enemy can’t cap with torch’s channeled stealth but the phantasm is a joke, not even worth the 1sec cast time.
I’ve been running scepter/torch, staff all week
Full Khilbron’s set. 0/20/30/0/20 Runes of the undead. Rare veggie pizza & Master tuning oil gives me about 1530 cond damage. Full rampager jewlery.
Get the manipulation range increase tactic for blink. Mantra of Resolve, Decoy.
It’s more than a viable spec in WvW.
There are specs that kill better but this spec is just so much fun.
all you used is a staff and you call torch/scepter viable lol. THEY BOTH SUCK! there’s no learn how to play it because its bad, baaaad. iMage is one of the worst phantasms in the game. Prestige is awesome but do you want a skill that takes half a year to recharge while your 2nd skill (iMage) is only good at shattering? I made a thread about how of a joke scepter is compared to any main hand weapons so i won’t write what i think of it. What you’ve done in this video could’ve been done better/kill faster with any weapons but torch/scepter.
Fact: every Thief tells you to “l2p” when the subject is to nerf stealth.
If they cant make their minds with making scepter a condition weapon then make it a support weapon (applying boons) and remove the boons from staff. I can see a support build using scepter his way. Also change the counter animation to look more like the small barrier of the skill Mimic.
I often use this in WvW, can honestly say its one of the better weapon sets that sadly gets overlooked.
all you used is a staff and you call torch/scepter viable lol. THEY BOTH SUCK! there’s no learn how to play it because its bad, baaaad. iMage is one of the worst phantasms in the game. Prestige is awesome but do you want a skill that takes half a year to recharge while your 2nd skill (iMage) is only good at shattering? I made a thread about how of a joke scepter is compared to any main hand weapons so i won’t write what i think of it. What you’ve done in this video could’ve been done better/kill faster with any weapons but torch/scepter.
The main issue with iMage is that the confusion and retaliation aren’t affected by condition/boon duration affects, so they are always 9/3.
I am condition damage specced, and right now the iMage will end up doing as much damage as other phantasms — though with an unnecessary cooldown. However, Prestige is a much better skill than the offhand sword block and the pistol stun (IMHO).
I often swap between the scepter and mainhand sword, depending on the situation. If I expect to be outnumbered, I really like the sword — but for even-ish fights, the scepter is stronger for how I play.
Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
As a condition Mesmer, the more confusions I can dish out the better.
‘specually when I’m facing a stupid ranger who just straves and autoattacks.
He does 2k a hit to himself, so I Priestage and let my clones and iMage keep up the stacks of Confusion and he quickly kills himself. Works wonders on any burst class.
If one thinks highly of confusion. Why not play bomb kit engineer instead?
Traited GS 2 probably can generate clones as fast or faster than scepter auto without an attack chain; with the benefit gs clones can stack bleeds much faster than scepter clones. If you’re already doing condition mesmer, why lose out on bleeds and more regular damage by using scepter?
If one thinks highly of confusion. Why not play bomb kit engineer instead?
Mesmers inflict confusion much more reliably than Engineers.
Traited GS 2 probably can generate clones as fast or faster than scepter auto without an attack chain; with the benefit gs clones can stack bleeds much faster than scepter clones. If you’re already doing condition mesmer, why lose out on bleeds and more regular damage by using scepter?
Because you might want to:
1) stack confusion faster
2) use an offhand
If I had the choice to pick the first two skills from the GS and put them on the scepter with an offhand of my choice, I’d do that — but giving up an offhand for the GS isn’t a good tradeoff for my confusion spec.
Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
all you used is a staff and you call torch/scepter viable lol. THEY BOTH SUCK! there’s no learn how to play it because its bad, baaaad. iMage is one of the worst phantasms in the game. Prestige is awesome but do you want a skill that takes half a year to recharge while your 2nd skill (iMage) is only good at shattering? I made a thread about how of a joke scepter is compared to any main hand weapons so i won’t write what i think of it. What you’ve done in this video could’ve been done better/kill faster with any weapons but torch/scepter.
The main issue with iMage is that the confusion and retaliation aren’t affected by condition/boon duration affects, so they are always 9/3.
I am condition damage specced, and right now the iMage will end up doing as much damage as other phantasms — though with an unnecessary cooldown. However, Prestige is a much better skill than the offhand sword block and the pistol stun (IMHO).
I often swap between the scepter and mainhand sword, depending on the situation. If I expect to be outnumbered, I really like the sword — but for even-ish fights, the scepter is stronger for how I play.
I don’t care how much condition damage you have, the damage from the iMage will NOT even get close to the damage from ANY other phantasm. End of story. 1 stack of confusion is about 350 damage per skill use. Assuming they use skills 5 times before it is cleansed or runs out, then that’s a total of 1700 damage, which is far, far below the damage that any other phantasm could do, and particularly far below the pistol phantasm stacking bleeds in a good condition damage build. 6 stacks of bleeds from the phant = 3300 damage alone.
@alanis: The argument shouldn’t be between greatsword and scepter, although the point he makes about the speed at which the gs can create clones compared to the scepter is valid, and goes to show how bad the scepter is at what it is designed to do. The argument is between scepter and mainhand sword, and in this comparsion, sword does everything better than scepter with the exception of confusing images, which is near useless against a decent opponent anyway.
I sometimes use confusion builds to play in spvp and wvw as well, they are fun , but they are lacking indeed. the confusion build isn’t viable because right now all the other weapons are way better.
all you used is a staff and you call torch/scepter viable lol. THEY BOTH SUCK! there’s no learn how to play it because its bad, baaaad. iMage is one of the worst phantasms in the game. Prestige is awesome but do you want a skill that takes half a year to recharge while your 2nd skill (iMage) is only good at shattering? I made a thread about how of a joke scepter is compared to any main hand weapons so i won’t write what i think of it. What you’ve done in this video could’ve been done better/kill faster with any weapons but torch/scepter.
The main issue with iMage is that the confusion and retaliation aren’t affected by condition/boon duration affects, so they are always 9/3.
I am condition damage specced, and right now the iMage will end up doing as much damage as other phantasms — though with an unnecessary cooldown. However, Prestige is a much better skill than the offhand sword block and the pistol stun (IMHO).
I often swap between the scepter and mainhand sword, depending on the situation. If I expect to be outnumbered, I really like the sword — but for even-ish fights, the scepter is stronger for how I play.
I don’t care how much condition damage you have, the damage from the iMage will NOT even get close to the damage from ANY other phantasm. End of story. 1 stack of confusion is about 350 damage per skill use. Assuming they use skills 5 times before it is cleansed or runs out, then that’s a total of 1700 damage, which is far, far below the damage that any other phantasm could do, and particularly far below the pistol phantasm stacking bleeds in a good condition damage build. 6 stacks of bleeds from the phant = 3300 damage alone.
1700 damage is more than I get out of iWarden unless there are a lot of enemies. Nobody stands near it.
1700 damage is more than I get out of iSwordsman, but on a shorter cooldown.
iDuelist would do more damage if I specced for Phantasm-Fury, but on my current its close.
You are also failing to account for damage from retaliation.
@alanis: The argument shouldn’t be between greatsword and scepter, although the point he makes about the speed at which the gs can create clones compared to the scepter is valid, and goes to show how bad the scepter is at what it is designed to do. The argument is between scepter and mainhand sword, and in this comparsion, sword does everything better than scepter with the exception of confusing images, which is near useless against a decent opponent anyway.
I use both scepter and MH sword, depending on the situation. There are many times where the range of the scepter is very helpful. The block skill, while not nearly as good as the sword invuln, its still actually a pretty strong ability. You also don’t have to mindlessly use confusing images if you know the enemy has endurance, and can wait until after a dodge roll.
Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
@alanis
The comparison to iWarden is pointless, that phantasm is more for utility for damage, but if you truly want to compare the equivalent damage, you need to think about the iWarden in an aoe situation with multiple enemies around…I wouldn’t do that, but theoretically that’s how it would be used.
You may get less than 1700 damage from the iSwordsman per attack…I somehow doubt it, but assuming you do, it still does more damage. Heres why: 1700 damage is over a period of ~9 seconds, counting multiple skill uses. Over that same 9 seconds, iSwordsman will attack ~2 times, meaning it would have to do less than 850 damage per strike to actually do less damage than the mage. Additionally, iSwordsman is on a base 20 second cooldown, compared to 30 seconds for the mage, meaning it will have much higher uptime than the mage…and going 20 points into domination for a shatter build is bad planning, while getting the sword cooldown trait for a shatter build is common, so there will be an additional 20% cooldown disparity between the 2.
I didn’t count retaliation damage because it is inconsequential. Assuming the skill actually bounces to you, and not something else, you will get 3 seconds of retaliation, which will end up doing ~270-280 damage per hit on yourself. Assuming 2 hits in those 3 seconds, thats <600 damage, that probably won’t happen in the first place, and if it does happen, probably wont even reach 600 due to the short buff time. A mesmer can easily have 100% up time on retaliation, and using the iMage is NOT the way to do it.
As far as scepter goes, the only thing it has going for it is range…and that I will concede. Having your mainhand be a melee weapon can be extremely inconvenient at times, but I deal with it simply because scepter is so underwhelming. I would give anything to have scepter be useful, or a pistol mainhand (please please please please please!). The fix for scepter is very very simple, there only need to be 2 changes done: 1. Autoattack speed is dependent on a fixed timer, and has no relation to when your attacks reach your target. This should result in an autoattack speed that is somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5x as fast as it is now. 2. Autoattack chain 2 on scepter causes 1 stack of confusion for 4 seconds on the target. Having it on 2 avoids the confusion clone stacking that it was originally nerfed from, and allows the scepter to ACTUALLY do what it is supposed to do, namely be a condition damage weapon focusing on confusion.
iMage casts quicker than 9s — its more in the 6s range, and the confusion will obviously stack so its not appropriate to count the damage out as you did. Additionally, ignoring 500-600 damage (an extra 25-35%) from retaliation seems silly.
Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
I use Scepter-Torch, but only as a secondary set to my Staff. I switch to it when I really need another stealth (The Prestige is our shortest CD stealth) or see a good opportunity to use Confusing Images.
iMage casts quicker than 9s — its more in the 6s range, and the confusion will obviously stack so its not appropriate to count the damage out as you did. Additionally, ignoring 500-600 damage (an extra 25-35%) from retaliation seems silly.
In a confusion bomb shatter build, neither the mage, nor the swordsman, or more realistcally, the duelist, will be out for more than 1 attack. While this does someone invalidate the multiple attacks point, it emphasizes the long cooldown on the image.
As far as the retaliation damage goes, I ignored it mainly for 2 reasons. The first is that the bounce range on the mage is very small, and so unless you are right next to the target when it uses the attack, you wont get retaliation. Secondly, the point is to NOT have people hit you, throw clones, or blurred frenzy, or invisibility, etc. While getting hit 2 times is the MAXIMUM you’re going to see in 3 seconds, much MUCH more likely is getting hit 0 times at all.
After reading this thread I played around a bit with Torch, because I haven’t used it in ages. I find it still to be the worst Offhand, but I discovered that Prestige is a DOUBLE combo finisher, which is pretty cool. The not so cool part is, that any combo field mesmer has will only give you Chaos Armor, so the double proc does nothing here. It should be interesting with other combo fields though, like Fire for Might or the Guardian one for retaliation.
After reading this thread I played around a bit with Torch, because I haven’t used it in ages. I find it still to be the worst Offhand, but I discovered that Prestige is a DOUBLE combo finisher, which is pretty cool. The not so cool part is, that any combo field mesmer has will only give you Chaos Armor, so the double proc does nothing here. It should be interesting with other combo fields though, like Fire for Might or the Guardian one for retaliation.
Temporal curtain is a light field, giving retaliation in leap and blast finishers, and condition removal for projectile and whirl finishers. That field is how I retain permanent retaliation in my tank setup as mesmer, with the double leap combo finisher from sword 3, and then retaliation from cry of frustration.
That being said, you shouldn’t be relying on retaliation damage in a squishy shatter/confusion build, and the buff time from the blast finisher is really low….and you’d be taking 2 sets of 1handed weapons that way.
After reading this thread I played around a bit with Torch, because I haven’t used it in ages. I find it still to be the worst Offhand, but I discovered that Prestige is a DOUBLE combo finisher, which is pretty cool. The not so cool part is, that any combo field mesmer has will only give you Chaos Armor, so the double proc does nothing here. It should be interesting with other combo fields though, like Fire for Might or the Guardian one for retaliation.
Temporal curtain is a light field, giving retaliation in leap and blast finishers, and condition removal for projectile and whirl finishers. That field is how I retain permanent retaliation in my tank setup as mesmer, with the double leap combo finisher from sword 3, and then retaliation from cry of frustration.
That being said, you shouldn’t be relying on retaliation damage in a squishy shatter/confusion build, and the buff time from the blast finisher is really low….and you’d be taking 2 sets of 1handed weapons that way.
Actually, you’re right with how Light field combos work. I tested Torch with Veil which is supposedly a Light field, but will give Chaos Armor instead of Retaliation, so that’s probably a bug.
After reading this thread I played around a bit with Torch, because I haven’t used it in ages. I find it still to be the worst Offhand, but I discovered that Prestige is a DOUBLE combo finisher, which is pretty cool. The not so cool part is, that any combo field mesmer has will only give you Chaos Armor, so the double proc does nothing here. It should be interesting with other combo fields though, like Fire for Might or the Guardian one for retaliation.
Temporal curtain is a light field, giving retaliation in leap and blast finishers, and condition removal for projectile and whirl finishers. That field is how I retain permanent retaliation in my tank setup as mesmer, with the double leap combo finisher from sword 3, and then retaliation from cry of frustration.
That being said, you shouldn’t be relying on retaliation damage in a squishy shatter/confusion build, and the buff time from the blast finisher is really low….and you’d be taking 2 sets of 1handed weapons that way.
Actually, you’re right with how Light field combos work. I tested Torch with Veil which is supposedly a Light field, but will give Chaos Armor instead of Retaliation, so that’s probably a bug.
Veil is an ethereal combo field. I know it says light on the tooltip, but its actually ethereal.