Guild Wars 2

I think its zerker is pretty good, range weapon, some might and vulnerability and the knockback is great. Why so much hate though?

I think it mainly has been pointed out, that the greatsword is not the best weapon for max dps in dungeons.
Personaly, I don’t think it is a bad weapon in many other areas of the game.

It’s good for PvP. For dungeon it’s definitely not optimal. Personally I also find the weapon boring as hell to use.

It’s situational.

Joonks.7501:

It’s situational.

Every weapon is, but if you want to optimize your dps, it’s best to use it as a tertiary weaponset (aka, in your inventory with everything else) for the most part, unless your build pertains to it. At least, that’s how it tends to be in PvE (dungeons/fractals).

For example, when running in Fractals, you’re typically going to be using Sword/X and stacking on walls for pulls. This means that a weapon like Staff tends to be better for your secondary set (drop Chaos Storm —> switch to Sword —> AoE Heaven). When you get to specific fights, you can easily swap to Greatsword (example: Ascalonian Captain or Jade Maw) instead of using the Staff as you will have to range in those fights, anyways.

Specifically, for the Ascalonian Captain, Greatsword and Staff are both good choices for your ranged weaponset (you will still want a Sword/X for the first part of the fight) since the Greatsword offers good Damage, whereas the Staff offers lots of survivability, which may come in handy if the Captain ever decides to come your way.

For the Jade Maw, the Greatsword is a much better weapon as your Staff gets reflected by the Jade Shards and the tentacles just die to getting hit, which the Greatsword can do faster (the Staff is better in sustained DPS, not burst DPS, in my opinion).

If you are going to be running in dungeons with a Greatsword all the time and using it as your primary weaponset, that’s fine, and that’s your choice, but most of the time, with stacking for pulls and whatnot, it’s better to just have a normal Sword out (and, again, the Staff synergizes better with stack-fights).

Just my 2c.

In a PvE environment, particularly in dungeons, there’s a “golden radius” of around 600 in-game distance units where players are most powerful. Because so many ally-supporting moves affect allies nearby, at that range or less, standing outside of that range tends to weaken you significantly because you miss all the boons and other effects that you might otherwise have within that range. The Greatsword gets its maximum damage at the end of its range, from 900 to 1200 units away from the target, and significantly less than that in close combat. So since the most effective (and, indeed, generally only) strategy in world events and dungeons is to pile on top of one another and beat things to death, the greatsword doesn’t really have what’s expected of it.

However, that’s if we’re limiting the scope of the discussion to PvE content only. As others have pointed out, in PvP, the weapon has uses— when attacking defended gates, you want to attack from range; in WvW, zergs tend to trade fusillades of ranged attacks before actually closing distance with one another; the clones are decent for proccing Sharper Images and the cripple is good for 1v1 keep-away games, and so on.

Anyone saying the weapon is not useful under any circumstances is being needlessly antagonistic. But if you want to do the most damage in the shortest amount of time while piled on top of all your friends, which is most of the time in PvE and some of the time in WvW, then the greatsword isn’t as good as the one-handed sword.

Kupi, you bring a great point across. The golden radius exists and I have never (or merely forgotten) seen it put down in words, but I have seen it in party play. Occasionally, you’ll see that one idiot sitting at max range auto attacking for the entire time, then yelling at everyone for dying. It’s great that s/he’s able to survive, but why not add some control/support while doing damage? That’s where Greatsword tends to be a problem in most scenarios.

The Greatsword is a pure damage weapon. If you were a Warrior, that’s fine, you can do pure damage. As a Mesmer, however, offering support or control with your damage is what makes us so useful. Sure, with a Greatsword, you can drop fields like Feedback or Null Field, but so can every other weaponset. You also probably don’t have the traits for them if you do have 20 in Domination (which is, to be frank, typically useless in PvE).

As an example:
When I run Arah P3, I’m usually the person to hold the Crusher’s smash off the party. This means I wield Sword/Focus + Staff. I use the Focus to reflect the Hunter’s attacks. I use the Sword to give me more panic-escapes. In between smash, I can use 3 behind the Crusher, then run in front of him so he attacks away from the party. If I get immobilized, I can still cast 3 again to Leap behind him. If I don’t have that up, or didn’t prep it properly, I can always Blurred Frenzy. If that doesn’t work, I can Blink. If that’s down, I can Distort shatter and, in the worst case scenario, I can stealth myself and pray to RNG that I get Aegis while stealthed.

During that entire ordeal, I’m optimizing my damage (other than saving Blurred Frenzy, which hinders my DPS for great survivability) while being the party “tank” per se. I can drop the Warden on the Hunter to ensure reflects or I can drop it on the Crusher to increase dps. I also run Feedback, which I drop on the Hunter, not the Crusher (saves my party from the Hunter shots, not just myself). I am also auto attacking the Crusher while my party is safe from his large damage attack.

If I were to wield a Greatsword, all I have to save myself is a roll, blink, and the Aegis from stealth (which I most likely wouldn’t have traited myself for, anyways).

It basically went like this:

1) For the longest time, whenever the “what classes are good for what” discussions came up, everyone, even the so-called “pro speedrunners”, had mesmer pigeonholed as the “low DPS but good utility” class. Even I went along with it for a while.

2) I finally did a numbers crunch on mesmers and found that their DPS was actually super high. This was a for a Sw/Sw and Sw/P build though, which no one ever actually uses. I reasoned that the reason why everyone had mesmer pegged as a low DPS class was because all the mesmers were running bad builds, just like how people used to think rangers were bad because all the rangers ran bearbow.

3) I made a thread about GS mesmers being a drain on the dungeon community and giving mesmers a bad name. A bunch of the old mesmer players jumped on to defend their builds and it basically turned into a big fight over whether GS was ever useful or if it was a unilaterally bad weapon.

And that’s why everyone hates GS now. GS does have specific applications in some small subset of encounters but the GS camp defending the weapon like it is the best thing ever and that sword mesmer players are all a bunch of kitten elitists just makes the weapon look bad. You could say the same thing for the Sw/Sw camp but the general consensus seems to be that sword actually is a legit weapon and so the extremists get a pass.

Lots of Mesmers hated GS Mesmers long before you posted, bud.

Outside of the forum drama there’s not really much hate for Greatsword. I think some mean things were said and a few people got their knickers in a twist, but hey nobody died so I think everything’s going to be okay.

Use it if you enjoy it – it really doesn’t matter. If someone has a go at you for using it a dungeon, just leave and find another group. Dungeons aren’t particularly difficult nor are they ever complicated, so I imagine most people could care less what weapons you use.

I wouldn’t worry about it. Carry on pew pewin with dem laser beams

Simonoly.4352:

Outside of the forum drama there’s not really much hate for Greatsword. I think some mean things were said and a few people got their knickers in a twist, but hey nobody died so I think everything’s going to be okay.

Use it if you enjoy it – it really doesn’t matter. If someone has a go at you for using it a dungeon, just leave and find another group. Dungeons aren’t particularly difficult nor are they ever complicated, so I imagine most people could care less what weapons you use.

I wouldn’t worry about it. Carry on pew pewin with dem laser beams

Prime example of not helpful/detrimental info. You’re basically saying “play how badly you want and dont care about efficiency, the rest will carry you. If they don’t/kick you, try finding another group to carry you”. This is the mindset that makes pug-ing borderline unbearable sometimes(for most people).

Greatsword is a situational weapon and should not be used unless you really NEED it.
Same goes for staff.

The hate only exists here on the forum, and you can count the people that hate the GS with a passion on one hand. It is just so, that those people post in every thread that the GS is a bad weapon, while it is probably your best choice anywhere outside of dungeons in PvE.

Run with a zerg? GS if you want to tag anything.
Run solo in open world? GS kills stuff before you get in melee range.
Leveling? See run solo in open world.

It is a great burst weapon for shatter, as you can preload your illusions and blow them up in a very short time.

Just in dungeons, the meta is melee for boon stacking, which is fine.
So don’t mix up the hate of a few with the reality in the game.

Next they will argue, that dungeons are the only challenging content in the game, and that it doesn’t matter what you play in open world as it is “super easy” anyway.

Which will not diminish the fact that GS is your best choice outside of dungeons.

Personally, I think the dungeons in GW2 are boring as kitten and running them over and over is a sign of desperation. But that’s just my personal impression. ^^

Emanuel.9781:

Simonoly.4352:

Outside of the forum drama there’s not really much hate for Greatsword. I think some mean things were said and a few people got their knickers in a twist, but hey nobody died so I think everything’s going to be okay.

Use it if you enjoy it – it really doesn’t matter. If someone has a go at you for using it a dungeon, just leave and find another group. Dungeons aren’t particularly difficult nor are they ever complicated, so I imagine most people could care less what weapons you use.

I wouldn’t worry about it. Carry on pew pewin with dem laser beams

Prime example of not helpful/detrimental info. You’re basically saying “play how badly you want and dont care about efficiency, the rest will carry you. If they don’t/kick you, try finding another group to carry you”. This is the mindset that makes pug-ing borderline unbearable sometimes(for most people).

Greatsword is a situational weapon and should not be used unless you really NEED it.
Same goes for staff.

Nope, what I’m simply saying is “play how you like, if a group does not like how you play, find another group instead”. Believe it or not some players care not for efficiency as all they want to do is play the game in a way they enjoy. It’s an MMORPG so you’re going to be constantly exposed to people of various skill and levels of participation, so it’s both unreasonable and unrealistic to expect every person you meet to prescribe to the same mentality as yourself (especially if it’s a pug group). I know a few people who stick almost exclusively to ranged weapons (including Mesmer Greatsword) due to various issues ranging from wobbly internet connections to problems with their eyesight. What horrible spongers!

If you don’t want to play with Greatsword Mesmers in dungeons, don’t play with Greatsword Mesmers in dungeons. If you want to play with fellow Mesmers that strive for nothing but efficiency, find and play with those people instead. There’s room for everyone.

It’s funny how everyone think’s there are just the “Elitists / sword lovers / GS haters” and the “GS fanatics / Elitist blamers” in here. It’s like you joing the community and the first time you say “I think GS is …” you will be categorized into A or B.

Morpheus Face
What if I told you, there are GS lovers, GS haters and the players who use all weapons situational when needed? Stop beeing lazy and just switch some weapons between encounters. If somone asks me “what weapon do you use in CoF1?” I’ll have to say “Well … Sword, Sword, Focus, Pistol, Staff”. It all depends on enemies AND allies.

I’m a GS hater, yet I put on my GS all the time. Just because you like to wear it more doesn’t make it better than any other weapon. Just because I like to wear it less doesn’t mean it has no purpose.

All weapons have a purpose, it’s just knowing when and where to use them.

I am starting to think the real answer to the OP’s question would be:

“We hate the greatsword because this particular weapon always seem to lead to unfriendly discussions on the mesmer forum.
It’s a hidden greatsword ability, which has not been made visible by the recent tooltip changes.”

I think people who hate greatsword doesn’t understand how most of pug dungeons look like, especially with LFG tool. If I would use only sword, I would die faster and deal less damage, since most of pugs can’t play their own profession. I’m seeing p.t.v gear guardians with staff/scepter dying all the time, so basically I am carrying them in dps and survi even with greatsword, and that’s the reason it’s my fav weapon, and it won’t change untill people leran how to play. If I have to carry most of the dungeon duo with someone who actually CAN play, I prefer to do it from distance, because in melee it isn’t as viable as with gs.

Funny thing happened to me on the way through the Mists…

Lets see how bad GSword really is…

30/30/0/0/10

240K hp @ 2600 Armor, Solo
Sword/Sword was 4137DPS
Gsword, max range w/PS spam 3934DPS

2x Phantasms off the bat, pushed to 3x and replaced with their respectively correct phantasm as soon as it was available.

Hrmm..?

Obvious advantages go to melee in range of group buffs but..

IDK

Blood~

The Greatsword hate is a dungeon thing, not PvP.

Its a comparative DPS test. I don’t think much changes from this scenario to PvE, comparatively. Unless I’m missing something which I could be.

As much as I like the GS – the problem Blood is, that you will stay out of range for might buffs. Overall the Sword will deal about 20-30% more damage. But it’s not that terrible as ppl try it to look like.

Xyonon.3987:

As much as I like the GS – the problem Blood is, that you will stay out of range for might buffs. Overall the Sword will deal about 20-30% more damage. But it’s not that terrible as ppl try it to look like.

Agreed, as stated in that first post, simply posting raw data. Its group comp and buff stacking dependent.

Interesting though, even with a single phantasm and this setup S/S and GSword build will do more damage then a lot of non Zerker builds. Compared to other tests I’ve done, assuming my test method isn’t terribly off base.

For me GS hate on mesmer comes mainly from prejudices, similar to bearbow rangers or riflebow warriors.
Of course not everyone who uses GS in a dungeon plays some kittenty build with literally no sense behind it (rabid GS for example…) and has no idea what he is doing (heyho at arah p1 tar….), but often times it will be like that.
In terms of damage output and even utility greatsword is bad, really bad. Sword has a 2 sec dodge with low cd, staff has phase retreat and will deal almost as much damage as GS once you factor in the conditions (even w/o cond damage).
Also players staying/trying to stay at 2000 range will sometimes make bosses go crazy; triggering extra mechanics or just making everyone that wants to melee run like an idiot.

Well staff goes for 1500 per attack wich is pretty low, however it can hit 2 enemies or grant buffs. GS goes for 1500-2500 but is able to go trough 3 targets. It’s doable but its a bit harder to play like this, since you have to mark targets by your own. You can do more with a GS than just “attacking”.

All good answers. I would like to add that the lazer thingy going on with the GS makes people cringe and see it as a joke weapon (not serious). The image they get from this weapon is ‘’someone that want to look cool’’. You see people at melee range with GS too, etc.

I use the GS, because it’s more versatile (and the best ranged weapon we have). I switch often and also change weapon depending of encounters.

Xyonon.3987:

Well staff goes for 1500 per attack wich is pretty low, however it can hit 2 enemies or grant buffs. GS goes for 1500-2500 but is able to go trough 3 targets. It’s doable but its a bit harder to play like this, since you have to mark targets by your own. You can do more with a GS than just “attacking”.

Sword will do more damage than both. Often times I’m better off to have staffs utility (getting out of trouble), which means I’m not using staff to damage in the first place.

And just little ol’ me doesn’t care at all about maximizing dps, rather maximizing my fun. So sometimes I’ll run in with 2 swords, and sometimes I’ll hang in the back with my ranger friend and align the beam to the boss through an occasional add.

Just have fun, its why your here for. Care less about dps maximizing.

Because the “my way or the highway” crowd has decided that it is a bad weapon. Couple that with some people who insist on being kittens about it to anyone who mentions the weapon and you get a bunch of forum kittenwads running amok.

Any weapon you feel is effective is fine Just avoid speed runners and ignore their hate.

Well it’s the difference between hardcore players and non-hardcore players. Every MMO has had these two groups whether you like it or not.

Looking back at WoW, if you were doing Hardmode raids and you brought a DPS class, you were expected to bring whatever spec was the most effective on a boss encounter and you often were required to change specs, re-gear, etc. for every boss. You needed to squeeze every single bit of DPS out to beat the encounter. It was just the way it was.

Now GW2 doesn’t have quite the same difficult challenges as WoW does but the point is that there usually is a most efficient or highest DPS spec that will kill stuff faster. However it also depends on your group comp. and what the rest of your group is going to do. Even with the highest DPS spec, if the rest of your party isn’t on the same page, things will probably go badly.

So for those that are trashing the GS in dungeons, they are mostly correct except that for the fact that they could have explained why GS was not ‘optimal’ rather than saying is was ‘bad’ and that people using it were ‘bad’. As soon as you do this, you put up all kinds of walls no matter how correct you might be.

Can I ask a serious question? In Pve eeking out a little more damage does anybody really give a kitten? I mean this honestly if it was all about DPS and uptime the only classes that would be played ever are warrior and guardian. I don’t think running Sw/Sw or GS really factors in when people would rather have 2 warriors than 2 mesmers on their best day. That isn’t even a dig at warriors. It isn’t bs or something to defend. You might be the best mesmer in the world but no one really cares. Outside fotm. Due to the hundreds of runs people have done of basic content now all most players want is competent players not running condi or bunker.

So let me make this very very clear. It is a tempest in a tea pot. In the actual game no one and I mean no one gives a kitten. Play smart, don’t bunker, and no one will care what you run outside FOTM.

Since they (Anet) fixed the GS hit thru aligned mobs, I find it works great when the melee group has mobs around them and there are 2 or 3 aligned enough that I can hit all of them with the GS. In the harpy fractal when you are doing the second floor mob of 4 I get a lot of extra hits in by letting the melee keep the mobs occupied while I align them for multiple hits. If you always keep your positioned update as it fires you get a lot of multiple hits (you just don’t get with the non-cone type other weapons). Sure this is situational, but with the Superior Sigil of Fire your aoe blasts also helps.

TheGuy.3568:

Can I ask a serious question? In Pve eeking out a little more damage does anybody really give a kitten? I mean this honestly if it was all about DPS and uptime the only classes that would be played ever are warrior and guardian. I don’t think running Sw/Sw or GS really factors in when people would rather have 2 warriors than 2 mesmers on their best day. That isn’t even a dig at warriors. It isn’t bs or something to defend. You might be the best mesmer in the world but no one really cares. Outside fotm. Due to the hundreds of runs people have done of basic content now all most players want is competent players not running condi or bunker.

So let me make this very very clear. It is a tempest in a tea pot. In the actual game no one and I mean no one gives a kitten. Play smart, don’t bunker, and no one will care what you run outside FOTM.

It’s because the mindset of “it’s okay if I don’t minmax my own DPS since there are four other players in the party” only works if you’re the only one in the party that thinks that way. The difference between 4/5 players contributing versus 5/5 admittedly isn’t that severe, although you won’t be getting speedruns out of it. When 4/5 players in the party are in the “my DPS doesn’t matter” camp though, you’re basically running at 20% overall capacity and then you start to run into serious issues. Even the “dungeons are so easy in this game just run anything” crowd would probably take issue with 10-minute dungeon runs turning into hour-long solo challenges.

Moreover, the “I’m a mesmer so I don’t have to contribute DPS, leave that to the warriors” excuse is totally false. Mesmers deal more overall DPS than warriors against single targets, even without necessarily maintaining all their phantasms; a minmaxed Sw/Sw mesmer with a single Swordsman out is roughly equal to a minmaxed axe warrior, and pulls ahead the more phantasms he is able to maintain. Mesmers only fall behind if you build to make them fall behind, i.e. by using a greatsword and just camping at range.

If using GS is your way of having fun, no one is stopping you, but don’t act surprised if people complain about your lack of contribution. If your way of having fun was running Arah P4 or Fractals 48+ with pugs then dropping out and killing the instance right before finishing the last boss and PMing each party member individually with U GOT TROL’D LMAO, then okay. You’ll get complaints for that too, don’t act surprised then either.

Playing Devil’s Advocate here but… If you have 4 people not too worried about their own DPS then wouldn’t they not complain about others’ DPS anyways?

Generally, “play how you want” people don’t want to group up with people who’re looking to optimize their runs. For the most part, they’re not thinking “its cool I’ll just let everyone do all my work for me” as much as “Man I really love my spec and don’t want to change it.”

That’s completely different from someone who’s running Greatsword thinking that they’re doing the most possible damage they could be. It’s also completely different from someone who plays with the literal intention to leech.

In regards to the OP, Greatsword is actually a rather strong -albiet uncreative- option for Mesmer in all other aspects of the game. Since Dungeons are boss → trash mobs → boss Greatsword isn’t as strong because it’s better with dealing with trash mobs while Sword/Pistol are far more ideal for single targets.

GS is good for:

• Tagging mobs (generic enemies that aren’t bosses)
• Stacking might
• Ranged damage

Nothing will damage groups of enemies better than Greatsword + Sword/Focus in the open world. Nothing will give you better ranged damage in PvP/WvW environments. Since it does more damage the further you are from the opponent, it tends to be more ideal for situations where you don’t need to rely on allies for buffs/heals as much. Dungeons (and some open world bosses) are literally the only place where Greatsword falls short.

The reason I call it uncreative is because, in my opinion, all of the other Mesmer weapons have more strategic/versatile uses.

@Guanglai Kangyi

Not going to quote you put I will reply to each paragraph. Read carefully because I am going to take the time to not be a kitten about this and point out where you are wrong (because you are not wrong about everything) and why. Next time read the post you quote your response is obviously to the overall tone of what i posted rather than what I said. You quote me take the time to read what you quote.

First off min maxing your own DPS has to be in the context of how much DPS you are bringing and how much you are actually going to lose in relation to survivability. DPS should always be maximized no matter the class you play in response to your personal survivability (ie build as glassy as you can take before you end up going down often). For mesmer this isn’t much of an issue due to the way we can avoid damage. The issue though not every player is pro at not getting hit some (actually most) will need to build a bit tankier. How this plays into GS vs Sword is simple. In most encounters range has better up time. You are additionally assuming that if you run GS you are not doing damage VS if you run GS you are not doing as much damage a sword but you are still doing good damage. This plays into weapon in the the sense of direct damage optimized weapon (GS, sword in this case) vs condition damage optimized weapon (scepter) and stats (zerker stat player will do more damage vs non constructs).

As far as doing DPs as we both know in many cases like all “pets” illusions in general do not have a great up time. On paper you can max DPS with a mesmer. In reality you will get better uptime ie sustained out of other classes. Not even up for debate because there is no debate to be had. AI is stupid does not dodge and does not maximize DPS. While it is good to be a melee mesmer and you do well in many cases (not all). I see no issue in doing it. However, do not over state what it is more DPS in comparison to GS if the phantasm actually stay alive. Phantasmal swordman has this fantastic feature where it will stay off a target(right out of melee) attack and pop back out. Duelist to a degree does the same. That being said in a game where dodging is literally the best defense there is little the AI can do to stay alive other than that. In optimized situation the mesmer could be top DPS. In the real world the occasions are few and rare.

For the last year most players brought GS to everything. the got speed records in CoF and did all sorts of run without issue. Now someone figures out that Sword off hand does more damage. Does that mean that just about every stopped run for the past year got trolled. Lets be realistic no one cared. Things went fine and there were rarely any issues. I find it hilarious that now that we know it does more DPS that you are effectively gimping your party by not running a sword. No one cared before and barely care now. It s not even an issue.

On a personal note. The numerous runs I have been on in the past run form guardians using staff alone, hearing “I am a tank”, and players getting carried for running too glass I have come to the conclusion that if a run goes well and isn’t insanely longer than the norm then why bother? Players want to have fun use the weapons they like. There are no mega raids. This is not a job. If there is an issue with DPS gaps between weapons then that is Anet’s issue.

Last note not bringing a GS to some runs makes you a liability. Not every fight is melee friendly. Switching up weapons is the norm.

1) Everyone likes to use the “range has better uptime on damage because you have to dodge in melee” line as a defense to range being better. In reality dodging takes up very little of your overall DPS time (even dodging on cooldown with 100% vigor uptime is only 20% of total time spent) and you will never have to dodge that much, even against dodgefest bosses like Alpha.

2) Mesmer phantasm AI isn’t fantastic but they are on a very short CD and do very good damage, making them easily the most competitive minion class in the game. A mesmer with a single phantasm is competitive DPS. Two phantasms becomes above-average. Three and mesmer DPS is through the roof. There are very few situations where you can’t maintain at least 1 phantasm, which puts you well on par with a warrior.

3) “Common” speedclears are rarely optimized. Most pug speedruns ran with whatever they could get and just relied on low-risk, high-reward classes like warriors rather than actively trying to minmax. That’s why if you were running COF for gold it was basically acceptable to run 4 GS warriors with random specs and one mesmer with pretty much anything, which you will note isn’t remotely close to a minmax spec. Meanwhile I challenge you to find a record-setting run that uses or ever used a GS mesmer.

4) You are underestimating how crippling a bad group can be. I have done runs on COE P1 (the one where Alpha doesn’t do anything) that have died to his PBAOE burn alone, because our DPS wasn’t even enough to keep up with the essences spawning occasionally to heal him and the fight literally took so long that the tiny ticks of burn damage eventually downed everyone. You may be fine with this personally but not everyone is.

Seriously, show me one instance of anyone ever commenting about how amazing a GS mesmer was during a dungeon run. It just doesn’t happen cause even the non-mesmer players know it’s crap.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

1) Everyone likes to use the “range has better uptime on damage because you have to dodge in melee” line as a defense to range being better. In reality dodging takes up very little of your overall DPS time (even dodging on cooldown with 100% vigor uptime is only 20% of total time spent) and you will never have to dodge that much, even against dodgefest bosses like Alpha.

2) Mesmer phantasm AI isn’t fantastic but they are on a very short CD and do very good damage, making them easily the most competitive minion class in the game. A mesmer with a single phantasm is competitive DPS. Two phantasms becomes above-average. Three and mesmer DPS is through the roof. There are very few situations where you can’t maintain at least 1 phantasm, which puts you well on par with a warrior.

3) “Common” speedclears are rarely optimized. Most pug speedruns ran with whatever they could get and just relied on low-risk, high-reward classes like warriors rather than actively trying to minmax. That’s why if you were running COF for gold it was basically acceptable to run 4 GS warriors with random specs and one mesmer with pretty much anything, which you will note isn’t remotely close to a minmax spec. Meanwhile I challenge you to find a record-setting run that uses or ever used a GS mesmer.

4) You are underestimating how crippling a bad group can be. I have done runs on COE P1 (the one where Alpha doesn’t do anything) that have died to his PBAOE burn alone, because our DPS wasn’t even enough to keep up with the essences spawning occasionally to heal him and the fight literally took so long that the tiny ticks of burn damage eventually downed everyone. You may be fine with this personally but not everyone is.

Seriously, show me one instance of anyone ever commenting about how amazing a GS mesmer was during a dungeon run. It just doesn’t happen cause even the non-mesmer players know it’s crap.

Don’t answer him it’s a trap.

There’s nothing to say.

Suppose you say, I carried the group, he will say you were hiding in the back and if you weren’t they wouldn’t have died.

Don’t play with him or any other BAD sport. It’s not worth it. It’s also only worth responding to these threads for the FUN FUN FUN trolling of the uptight guys.

If I seem a little slap happy about this it’s only poisoning from the toxic atmosphere these guys create.

Also If the OP was honestly curious, now you know why the hate. If you were trolling +1.

In PvP, having a fast, ranged, non-reflectable auto attack that hits for 1.5-2k damage is a beautiful thing. The push is also invaluable for neuting a point, and if they have stability you can just rip it off them with GS 3.

TooBz.3065:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

-snip-

Don’t answer him it’s a trap.

There’s nothing to say.

Suppose you say, I carried the group, he will say you were hiding in the back and if you weren’t they wouldn’t have died.

Don’t play with him or any other BAD sport. It’s not worth it. It’s also only worth responding to these threads for the FUN FUN FUN trolling of the uptight guys.

If I seem a little slap happy about this it’s only poisoning from the toxic atmosphere these guys create.

Also If the OP was honestly curious, now you know why the hate. If you were trolling +1.

I find this post very funny.

I have carried groups. I have been the one to solo bosses in those hourlong dungeon runs. You know what I ran? I ran Staff with Deceptive Evasion. That’s not saying that Staff is better, but I wouldn’t have lived if I was using Greatsword. I needed the defensiveness from Staff and I utilized it properly. Of course, this results in 30 minute Alpha fights or a 5 minute awkward period at Horrik/Mai where I’m ressing 3 people with clone baits (alternate res due to focus fire and needing to be mobile).

Note, I only play the “sit in the back and range all day” when I know the melee isn’t safe. That’s not to say the fight itself isn’t safe, because no fight really is, but when the party can’t deal the dps to bring a boss down fast enough (Slave Driver getting his Effigy and Effigy burn damage in melee range, as an example), then I’ll hop back and start doing ranged and then hop in for melee every so often (ie thief playstyle).

Look, both sides of this argument are stereotyping the others and then arguing with the stereotype, not actually conversing with the opposing points. We’re turning this into an argument instead of a discussion.

Sw/Sw has it’s place and so does Greatsword. Utilize them both effectively, and you’re better than the “ranged4dayz” and “melee4lyfe” crowd.

To be fair, if being bad was an inevitability, GS mesmer is one of the better classes to be bad on, since you’ve at least got minion AI helping to compensate for your bad-ness. Even a bad GS mesmer just spamming all his skills on cooldown will still get about 3k/s DPS, compared to a rifle warrior doing the same getting something like half that.

The biggest problem is that most people don’t know kitten about in-depth class mechanics and they just go by what they see the average pug doing. Classes like the warrior have the advantage of having a stereotype that is actually reasonably close to how they are supposed to be played (in melee with a high-damage weapon) so all the pugs think warriors are godlike. Compare that to most pug mesmers being totally useless plinking targets for 3 digits per attack and it’s no wonder everyone thinks mesmers are just timewarp bots. In reality though warrior isn’t even that good, least of all not when compared to mesmers.

In my brief scan of the topic, I haven’t seen this brought up yet.

In lots of dungeon runs, there are spots that are 999x easier to complete if everyone stacks by a door or corner and cleaves mobs down in big swathes as they come. To name the ones I can think of from the top of my head, this applies to AC (spiders), CM (trash mobs), TA (spiders before Malrona), SE (golems), CoE (golems/bombs), Arah (trash mobs at start, maybe more). So basically anything but CoF.

Doing these things with range or any single-target DPS is very difficult and often leads to party wipes, especially in some cases if reflection runs out before the mobs are dead (cough CM). That said, a lot of these spots can be 3-4 manned with the stacking strategy and a decent tank (cough not CM), but obviously it’s easier if everyone is helping.

Other places like slave driver are very all-or-nothing: Either everyone goes max dps melee to burn it before getting downed, or everyone ranges to prevent getting hit in the first place (equally viable).

In these cases, you’ll usually have at least a couple people going in melee regardless of what you do, and they will hate you if you hang back and plink because it means they will die. And then the people ranging get snotty about the ‘noobs’ who try to melee and get downed, while the melee’s get snotty about the ‘noobs’ who range and get the party killed.

P.S. you can solve all of this by doing what just about everyone does: keep both a ranged and a melee weapon. I.e. a GS and a sword.

In those scenario’s it’s better to run staff.

Plop Chaos Storm —> Switch to Sword and auto + Blurred Frenzy.