So why did I get hit for 13.3k backstab and you don’t even go above 6.1k in your test? I’m at about the 3,000 armor mark. Seems your backstab numbers are way off, but your CnD one is accurate with my combat log at 3k armor.
If my thief specs glass cannon and just stands there and doesn’t dodge or counter in any way against other glass cannons, I die in 1.5 seconds as well. Every class is OP depending on how you spec and play.
You are missing the point. Sure glass cannon builds can kill other glass cannon builds just as fast as the other, but it’s this issue of the thief not even showing up on their opponent’s screen until after they are dead.
There is no defense against that and you never even knew you were being attacked. At least for me that is what happens. I don’t see the steal dmg, then the CnD dmg, then the backstab, then the heartseeker or whatever. I just go from full to downed and spin my camera around 360 to look for what the heck just happened, and then moments later I see a thief render as hes either stomping me or running away.
This post should not be in thief forums, it belongs in bugs and should be labelled “rendering issue”
Calysto, no it was a Charr thief. I don’t think I lost a single 1v1 all day and rarely ever do. So it does kinda irks me to die to a solo thief because he didn’t render until I was in the downed state. Sadly for him if it weren’t for the lvl 82 vets beating on me while downed, I would have also downed him. What sweet revenge that would have been if I had rallied
Oh well, I’ll look for you out there. Just look for a gothic looking female human in T3. White/black/purple dyes with a [Nerf] guild tag. I love an honest duel.
in WvW rendering is realy bad, it works pretty ok in Spvp and Tpvp, however in WvW its not only thiefs rendering bad, all who can use invis render slow. Thief is certainly OP in WvW, where rendering is slowest in all game. though thats not class but game issue.
So you’re saying that my invis would cause the same issues for others? Guess I’ll do a lot of blade frenzies immediately after an invis “wears off.”
Berserker from greatsword+push and shatter is instant kill of any thief you pull that off. Yes if you are invis, and i dont know where you are, you could kill me in 4 button push. So could warrior if hes not rendered and pull off 100 blades, so could engineer with wrench/bomb kit… i dont get ur point. Thief is rendered worse since of invisibility, which is our class mechanic.
It was more of a question not a point. I was wondering if invis used by anyone causes this same rendering issue or if it was thief specific. And if its just that invis is a broken mechanic then I might as well fight fire with fire. Then I just gotta find the right combo to produce 20k dmg as well before I render in. After all if I don’t kill you before I render, then you the thief will go invis for 20k+ dmg and i lose.
in WvW rendering is realy bad, it works pretty ok in Spvp and Tpvp, however in WvW its not only thiefs rendering bad, all who can use invis render slow. Thief is certainly OP in WvW, where rendering is slowest in all game. though thats not class but game issue.
So you’re saying that my invis would cause the same issues for others? Guess I’ll do a lot of blade frenzies immediately after an invis “wears off.”
I am a full exotic Mesmer from head to toe. Geared for WvW with very high toughness. I don’t really find the damage an issue even though it seems quite high with all my toughness still. But the real issue is that I am often downed before I even see the thief. For instance tonight I pulled a vet at a supply camp and then all of a sudden I’m dead in the blink of an eye. I thought “holy crap that vet is broken” then I see a thief running away just now rendering…
Scrolling through my combat log I see this. Sure thieves should get their opener on you with steal. But he didn’t even show up and was able to CnD right away looking like hes invis the whole time. That’s the real issue. Tacking on free dmg. How can anyone defend against that? And trust me I know all about being called OP by players who don’t know how to target mesmers. But at least their is a way to learn how to beat a mesmer. But there is no “l2p” here with a rendering issue.
Vulnerability as a condition is fine the way it is since so many professions stack it with ease. But I do think winds of chaos should either not have it at all or only have it (in stacks of 5.) Who are they kidding with this weapon? On the surface it looks to be geared towards a condition dmg build, however it forced me into a power/prec/crit dmg build. And now that I’m geared as a glass cannon I actually prefer these vuln stacks as the I.warlock scales better with it. 10% from all conditions then add another 1% per stack, so honestly it’s like staff was made for high crit dmg warlock builds.
I never even said it was about gear progression. I’m done with stats. I can’t get anything better progression wise. I do like cosmetics so I was wondering if dungeons can bring in as much gold as Orr can. Other than than that my focus is WvW and sPvP now.
Full set?
So that’s an armour set of each kind, with supporting trinkets and full runesets, plus a full set of weapons?
:p
Myself, I’ve got a full set of Knight’s exotic armour for my warrior along with one exotic Knight’s trinket (one yellow, 3 greens), one sword, one greatsword, one hammer, one mace, one shield, one axe.
I need the rest of my trinkets to be exotic, at least one more of each one handed weapon, exotic versions of my ranged weapons (rifle and longbow) and even then I don’t see myself as having a “Complete” set of exotics. I’d like a full Soldier’s set too, the one that givers Power, Vitality and Toughness.
That’s all before runes & sigils.
You SURE you’ve got that full set of exotics?
You SURE your equipment allows a big enough degree of flexibility?
Well I consider a set of exotics to be just that. 1 set that supports a specific build. In my case berserker armor (including upgrades), the weapons I use for the build (including sigils), and all the trinket slots. This gives me high power and 100% increased crit dmg. This is obviously a pure dps role but I would still say “I have my exotic set” since that is how I play my Mesmer.
I could see possibly getting a condition damage exotic set maybe.. But I’d rather just play the class which is best at that role. I would just make a necro and spend the time getting him exotic condition dmg gear. Or instead of trying to get support gear on a Mesmer, why not have it on a real support class like guardian? This way instead of swapping around to all my different Mesmer sets and having to respec traits.. I can just log into the class that is really needed and is the best at that specific role.
Thanks for the replies and all the suggestions. I didn’t get too into dungeons yet so not sure how those go. I was kind of waiting to be geared anyway. I really really like the human female t3 so I am hoping dungeons are a decent source of income as well. If I could run twilight dungeons and be making gold I would be working towards all the skins I want at the same time
I finally obtained the rest of my exotic gear and am now fully geared and feeling like a beast on my Mesmer. So my question to everyone is; what do you do with your fully geared toons? There is a sticky about when you hit 80, but what about when you are truly 80? In most MMOs I go looking for trouble in world PVP so ill most likely become a daily WvWvW competitor. I do want to keep making gold for new skins however. What is the best way to earn gold now? Do you guys think dungeons are worth it for an income and a better place for a fully geared toon? Or do you think Orr farming would be the fastest income being able to go even faster in exotics?
So I decided I’m just going to grind another 30k karma for that peacemaker asura t3. I have all my exotics anyway, they just kinda look boring.. Even the crafted exotic armor.
My new question; with me in full exotic gear would it be faster/easier to grind the dungeon tokens for Nightmare weapon skins or Open world grind karma for T3 skins? At the same time I need to be making gold also for my T3 armor skin I eventually want. Which path is best for a geared player? I am not too sure how much gold is made in dungeons as most of my experience has been Orr.
the only place i was able to find peacemaker stuff was in reta sun(or whatever the main city of the asura) its their t3 culture weapon skin for 63k karma.
Yikes! I might as well grind nightmare at that rate. So that’s definitely not a temp solution until nightmare.
Hey that’s a nice work around the TP and their lack of a preview function. I see that golden winged one a lot. I really feel like there is a lack of good looking staves in this game. If I were a necro I’d be all over that scyth, but for a Mesmer I dunno.
So I crafted an exotic pearl quarterstaff for my human female Mesmer… Boy does it looks like crap. Seriously everything else I ever crafted while leveling her looked better and now that she is 80 I couldn’t wait to see her with an exotic staff. Come to find out the old tree branch style staves were even better.
Anyway, please help! I need ideas, pics, names of karma vendors, or anything that would look better than this sea shell on a stick I have now. I absolutely love the Nightmare staff since I am black/purple dyes and it really matches my theme, however it doesn’t have a power/prec/crit dmg variant.
So please share pics of your staves! Thanks.
So I crafted an exotic pearl quarterstaff for my human female Mesmer… Boy does it looks like crap. Seriously everything else I ever crafted while leveling her looked better and now that she is 80 I couldn’t wait to see her with an exotic staff. Come to find out the old tree branch style staves were even better.
Anyway, please help! I need ideas, pics, names of karma vendors, or anything that would look better than this sea shell on a stick I have now. I absolutely love the Nightmare staff since I am black/purple dyes and it really matches my theme, however it doesn’t have a power/prec/crit dmg variant.
Oh I was figuring full precision. I do 30 precision and pick up both sword and pistol traits so the phantasms can both be on 9 sec timers to be able to send one after the other. Plus yeah max crit makes for lots of bleeds.
Sword/Pistol and Scepter/Sword is the backwards version of this and it doesn’t give you that nice swap between melee and ranged like sword/sword and scepter/pistol. Yes you do get that +50 precision on both swaps, and you get to have both blocks on 1 bar. However, you need to consider how important 50 precision really is over having the ability to focus on 1 ranged condition dmg/crit swap, and 1 melee setup that focuses on power/crit and crit dmg.
With sword/pistol your putting your i.duelist in melee range which doesn’t take advantage of duelist disc trait at all. Furthermore your limited in building your stats to favor 1 phantasm over the other. Swordsman is best with high crit dmg and power for those almost guaranteed 6k crits. While i.duelist benefits more from condition dmg over crit dmg for that nice 6-8 stack bleed. Now consider what the scepter needs. It too benefits from condition dmg over crit dmg. So pair them up and get yourself condition dmg/percision/power exotics on scepter/pistol.. while at the same time your sword/sword can focus on power, precision, crit dmg. Thus creating much better synergy and you always have a block on each swap. Not to mention the playstyle just feels better. For example i.duelist + scepter #3 from 900-1200 yards out that will do great dmg on impact plus stack 5 confusions and 6-8 strong bleeds. Then swap to sword/sword and move in with swordsman and blurred frenzy for an easy 6-10k burst on top of the opener you just did from ranged. Try it out, you will find that +50 precision doesn’t matter as much as the reduced cooldown portion of the trait, thats the real reason to get blade training after all.
I have done nothing but Mesmer since beta and its funny because I too have become satisfied and truly invested in these same weapon combos. Not sure why it hasn’t been more popular with the masses, but most likely because its an odd balance of range and close combat. Your build is much different than what I run however. I think you should do some dps testing on inspiration’s 15% more dmg for your illusions verse 30 power. I came to the conclusion that maxing power while using sharper images does more dps because it lengthens the bleed duration while boosting dmg. You gotta think is 15% dmg to just the duelist and swordsman worth more than raw dmg to every skill and longer condition times on bleed and confusion?
This is just 1 area I think you should look at. Our builds actually differ a lot and I have tried stuff very close to what you have. I like your idea on blocking though. Gaining retaliation since you do block quite a bit on these skill sets.
Anyways I’m glad to see someone else who has tried everything and settled on this weapon combo.
Trying to get back on topic here. To the OP, I thought the question was how to level as a condition spec and if sharper images was necessary in doing so. Had I known you just wanted to know the fastest way to jump from mob to mob with minimal cooldowns I would have suggested other skills. To answer your original question, yes sharper images really does make or break a Mesmer who uses condition damage. Outside of confusion what else do we have for condition damage? I played around with the prestige before it was fixed and even broken the burn wasn’t even keeping up with sharper image bleeds.
Also sharper images makes it so your clones contribute in dps (especially sword clones) I run a burst spec in Orr that focuses more in power/crit and crit damage, but even I take sharper images and phantasm fury. Because even on a burst spec where my swordsman can crit for 6k, I like to switch targets knowing that the old ones will bleed their last 10% HP. This allows you to summon new illusions on another target instead of that long wait between swordsman or duelist attacks.
Not sure why you mentioned the mind wrack trait while trying to go condition. You are already level 50 so I wont bother suggesting you go necro which really is a condtion damage class. Honestly if you want to level as condition damage you need a staff with a scepter/pistol swap. Dont worry about using focus for leveling. The I.duelist with fury will stack 6-8 bleeds in 1 volley of shots. Not to mention you get magic bullet which can CC 3 targets. Drop an I.Duelist and scepter #3 and watch as your foe has 8 stacks of bleed and 5 stacks of confusion in seconds. Then go ahead and swap to staff and stack on more conditions.
I’ve played with a handful of builds using different phantasms (though nothing exhaustive) and I find the Duelist has a solid edge 1 on 1 in terms of DPS. It’s ability to stack bleeds gives it that edge. It obviously loses in AoE so it’s clearly not superior across the board, but in WvW/PvP I tend to like it coupled with Phantasmal Haste for faster recharge and Duelist’s Discipline so it can be farther back and the cooldown reduction (stacks with Illusionist’s Celerity).
From what I have noticed Duelist’s Discipline does not stack with Illusionist’s Celerity. I wish it did as I really wanted a 9 second CD on I.Duelist. However I notice that Celerity brings the tooltip number physically down from 15 to 12 seconds but Duelist Disc only effected magic bullet’s CD.
Infact, if you play around with all of the weapon specific traits such at blade training for sword; it too only reduces the cooldowns of non-illusion summoning skills. So really even with blade training that 20% faster recharge is only for #2 skill in main hand and #4 in OH. kinda makes them less appealing now.
