Guild Wars 2

Do any of you run staff and great sword at the same time ? I’m thinking about pulling my Mesmer out of retirement since my Warrior and Guardian are both 80 now, and getting him up there. Also I can get that last faction flag.

Since the orb of the staff bounces around between enemies I was thinking I could use that instead of duel swords for when enemies mob me or get close, and use the great sword for range.

Comments, Advice ?

Staff is great defense and utility, so you certainly wouldn’t have any trouble with running both.

Sword scales much better with Power, though, and allows you to run either Focus or Pistol while having nearly as much defensive strength with Blurred Frenzy.

Also, Focus is amazing in PvE, so if that’s what you’re going for you’ll probably be happier just abusing the fact that iWarden will often get all of its hits on several mobs if used properly. Traiting makes it much better, as well, but even without traiting it is probably the highest DPS weapon skill we have for PvE.

Aside from meta PvE, I used to run Greatsword/Staff for WvW front-lining zergs and to basically counter-Mesmer since Greatsword Mesmers have it easy against Sword/Sword Mesmers, but then other Mesmers started rolling Sword/Focus after Osicat posted his new build, and Focus #4 was CC’ing me so hard that my epic-ranged laser-beams didn’t matter anymore since I was getting bursted after burning my stun-breakers that I rarely had to burn against Sword/Sword Mesmers.

Thus, I started playing Sword/Focus as well, and while I can’t front-line like I used to, I’m having a blast roaming around and dueling. It’s a great feeling when you force a D/D Elementalist to burn a cantrip to avoid a burst just because you CC’d him with a single weapon-skill.

Basically what Fuschia said: sword/focus works wonderfully in PvE. With that set, leveling will be a breeze, as sword/focus gives you very high DPS and about the best swiftness mesmers have acces to.

Shatter: Staff -> Sword/Focus

Phantasmal: Greatsword -> Sword/Pistol

Shatasmal: Staff -> Greatsword

Now that we have that out of the way…

All the time now.

It pains me to not have temporal curtain, but GS is hands down my favourite weapon and staff is so useful for defensive play that it’s sort of a necessity for me (especially because you can buff both weapons and the trident with illusionary elasticity). Sw/F only comes out in wvw, situationally.

As such I’m currently testing 10/25/10/5/20 with these two weapons (all on death traits, bouncing and damage). Think I can make it viable, although still in the experimentation stage.

Thanks for the replies.

Gonna experiment with Staff Great Sword and Great Sword Sword Focus.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Shatter: Staff -> Sword/Focus

Phantasmal: Greatsword -> Sword/Pistol

Shatasmal: Staff -> Greatsword

Now that we have that out of the way…

What would the Phantasmal build look like? Get both +15% illusion traits or not?

Staff and Sword/Focus isn’t bad, either, it just requires a very different setup.

I know that’s what I usually run when I’m doing PvE, but my PvE setup is quite strange.

Regardless, I’d say the most well-rounded Mesmer weapons are Staff, GS, and Sword/Focus, particularly in PvE and when traited for – Focus and Staff, particularly. Any combination of those will probably do well.

Cempa.5619:

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Shatter: Staff -> Sword/Focus

Phantasmal: Greatsword -> Sword/Pistol

Shatasmal: Staff -> Greatsword

Now that we have that out of the way…

What would the Phantasmal build look like? Get both +15% illusion traits or not?

The Phantasmal build is the meta, and it’s easy to reproduce. Generally 20/30/0/0/20 in my experience. I had some unique Mesmer builds, but I’d have to remake the toon in order to get supreme accuracy, which I’m not interested in doing.

Essentially all that theory crafting for Mesmer takes is randomly allocating points to power, precision, or illusions and then picking whatever traits make your nuke boom larger, or your pets bite harder. It’s hard to go wrong there.

Staff + greatsword synergize best in a bleed build. Max your crit and condition damage as best you can. Crit gets the priority.

djtool.8372:

Staff + greatsword synergize best in a bleed build. Max your crit and condition damage as best you can. Crit gets the priority.

I’ve have the math for Sharpened Images floating around somewhere … none of the weapons does any better than the others except Staff benefits the least from it as it gets 1 hit every 0.75 seconds while all the other weapons hit once every 0.5 second. However, this is assuming against only one target.

Staff, however, does benefit the most from a combination of condition damage and precision given that Staff clones will apply more damaging conditions than any of the other weapons since they already have a 2/3 chance of applying a damaging condition before even factoring in crit chance.

Hi ppl, i’ve ask in another post, but im using GS/STAFF zerker, armor zerker, and some mix of Knight zerk rabid trinkets, with 20/20/20/0/10, problem for me now is run away from a zerg, condi removal. Sigils and runes sugestions? What do you think?

My fav combo since day one.

Nuka Cola.8520:

My fav combo since day one.

And what sigils and runes do you use?

Moinomutante.1938:

Nuka Cola.8520:

My fav combo since day one.

And what sigils and runes do you use?

for pvp sigil of energy on both because you will be swapping almost on CD to spam illusions and sigil of battle on staff, sigil of fire on GS in pve. Divinity runes if you have money for these but runes of the fighter works great as well.

And for wvw, i mostly do WvWvW .
Thanks

Nuka Cola.8520:

My fav combo since day one.

Mine as well.

I use Osicat’s Shatter Cat Mist build 0/20/20/0/30 most of the time to emphasize defense on staff and use GS instead of sw/focus and with Far Reaching Manipulations and Master of Manipulation for mobility. Sure you are slower than sw/focus, but nobody will get away from you with a 24 second blink and GS. If you wish to go more offensive GS, use his standard 20/20/0/0/30.

I’ve used it for a while. Not bad at all, but the lack of Vigor, swiftness and more reliable stuns made me reconsider and switch over to GS and sword + focus/pistol.

Besides, I like the ability to switch from ranged to burst melee and vice versa. Staff/GS is all ranged all the time.

Don’t get me wrong, it works, but I ended up suiting sword more than staff.

Does the iWarden move, and are his attacks melee or ranged? Sometimes he stands away from the target, and sometimes up close. When he’s off the target, he’s not hitting, right?

If the iWarden doesn’t move, aren’t WvW/PvP players just going to run out of range? And what happens when I pull hate off him and the mob comes after me in PvE, leaving him out of range? In which case wouldn’t sword/pistol (or GS) go better with staff than sword/focus (assuming runes of the centaur/air)?

In fact, how do I see whether a phantasm is hitting more generally? Is there a setting in the filters?

Thanks!

In WvW I run a hybrid shatter with GS and Staff. I can do this because I have runes of the centaur for swiftness (otherwise I would need to run with the crappy swiftness from focus).

The GS is great for range DPS and is much quicker at tagging mobs with the auto-attack and with iZerker.

The Staff is great for defense — hands down the best for that. You are not going to beat someone down with the staff like you can with a GS. However it’s great to switch to and get yourself some chaos armor (best aura buff in game).

Its been my experience that gs does the best at stacking.

Outside of math staff and gs are better because they operate at 1200 range. I do have a sword bleed build but its abstract and probably not for ‘real’ tpvp.

Sebrent.3625:

djtool.8372:

Staff + greatsword synergize best in a bleed build. Max your crit and condition damage as best you can. Crit gets the priority.

I’ve have the math for Sharpened Images floating around somewhere … none of the weapons does any better than the others except Staff benefit seezs the least from it as it gets 1 hit every 0.75 seconds while all the other weapons hit once every 0.5 second. However, this is assuming against only one target.

Staff, however, does benefit the most from a combination of condition damage and precision given that Staff clones will apply more damaging conditions than any of the other weapons since they already have a 2/3 chance of applying a damaging condition before even factoring in crit chance.

Just curious, why do I see people go condition/precision instead of power/condition? I don’t know the math behind it and am new to 80

MrSmiley.1543:

Just curious, why do I see people go condition/precision instead of power/condition? I don’t know the math behind it and am new to 80

• Chaotic Transference give 5% of your toughness is given as a bonus to condition damage.
• Rune of the Undead give 5% of your toughness is given as a bonus to condition damage.
• Master Tuning Crystal give Condition damage equal to 6% of your toughness and 4% of yout Vitality.
• Confusion bomb builds have often 20 trait point in precision for Deceptive Evasion (create clone on dodge) and they unlock the trait 15 too, Sharper Images (illusions apply bleeding on critical hit)

Imho with a Rabid set (condition damage + precision+ toughness ) you can have more condition damage.

I try yesterday my build but with rabid set, and mehh, only real condition was bleeds, if stay away, almost full range, stack bleeds 12 or 13, but when it comes to close range, my lack of speed and burst, i most times cant escape, i need to test runes of centaur on my rabid set. The worst part is, if im at open terrain, im screw. Maybe im going bad with my traits.

@ mr. Smiley

Mostly because when people go for condition damage they want to feed the “bleed on crit” minor trait.

I think carrion is best for confusion-shattering builds. You’re blowing them up too fast so you want the power to give your own weapon some sting (and mindwrack).. Confusion is a finnicky dueling condition but increases with value as the number of people go up. I would use carrion in this manner and attempt to avoid sitting on back-points. Most will tell you confusion is a lousy way to do damage but thats not true, it just changes the complexion of the mesmer from being stronger when there is less people (optimum being a duel) to contributing more when there’s more people.