Guild Wars 2

Guhracie.3419:

sorudo.9054:

Romo.3709:

“I want to tell you how much I want to pay for the thing I want”. Welcome to the real world kid. Things don’t work that way.

however, this is a game, a really horribly managed game, prices like that would never happen in the real world because the real world would just give the finger and never buy something as expensive as that.

Actually, prices like that happen all the time in the real world. You do realize a diamond is just a rock, right?

They’re minerals marie! Jesus.

Mammoth.1975:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Real question is, do you all play warriors?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

HEY YOU’RE ALL WELCOME FOR THIS BTW

Having the same issue, ran two virus scans, neither found anything malicious. Fresh installed GW2 and the problem still persists. I can change the password and if I log in FAST enough, whether it be the game or forums, I can get in. If I delay more than 5-10 seconds, it’ll say invalid account name / password.

Alissah.9281:

Ugh. One of these again.

I remember when the mesmer forum was a pleasant place where new people can look for advice without being attacked.

Go away

First response to this thread, a player who focuses on pve theory crafting responding with the correct answer. Read the second response. Please do, go away.

@OP: Don’t “learn” the fights with a GS, it’ll only instill bad habits that you will have to overcome anyway in the future. Zerk mesmers are among the longest lasting in melee with the short cd survivability at relatively no dps loss (warrior dodge roll op).

The GS has one useful button in the phantasm. Outside of that, you’re stuck with a weapon that is outclassed in every single way by 1h sword. Boon radius avg’s out to 600 as well iirc. The GS needs ~1200 to hit harder than a necro’s flesh golemn auto. The knockback is >never needed whereas the focus pull is much better, the warden is another reflect along with temporal curtain, the duelist with sharper images stacks up bleed/confusion/dps, magic bullet is better cc, sword 4 can block if you don’t need the reflect and paired with a duelist, the two phantasms do the most damage possible.

For non organized groups, including every single boss in this game (fractal or dungeon), the only one’s you might prefer range on would be ashym from 50%-GS phase in the urban fractal, archdiviner without a guard in cliffside, legendary shaman, and melandru in arah 4. For these fights, keep your superior offhands and use a scepter/sword. You’ll do more damage, have another defensive swap, and be closer for boons without hitting like a pillow.

Following this post will be an influx of ignorant players unable to read that the thread mentioned DUNGEONS that refuse to listen to reason or better themselves arguing just for the sake of arguing.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I still have the same opinion hundreds of runs later.

Curious, do you run dungeons for the experience the trash mobs offer? With the hp rivaling the bosses and none of the reward to show for it (looking at you fotm). I don’t clear every mob that I run across in open world, because I would probably still be working on explorer instead of having shiny footprints.

I still don’t see the problem here. I happen to like my time in game used to the best extent when pugging. I look for players that share the same interest and group with them. Why not use the LFG tool and specify that you’re clearing every trash pack? Is it because you’d spend longer waiting to get started than the group that went to the dungeon for the end reward and completed it already?

Lucius.2140:

Bright.9160:

Except that we get threads like this one every few days, and in fact, there is another thread discussing exactly this on the front page, which means you didn’t even bother to look for other discussions like this one before trying to waste our time.

In fact i have posted in that thread before; also in this one theres a post up of your first one, redirecting the OP to it. The difference is that you arent (at least werent) saying him to go there, you said him basically to not put his opinion.

His opinion can not be of your like, but if his using the proper way to express himself ,he has the right to put it. That is the point of my answer, beause he alredy has been redirected to a proper thread (and seriusly the part about using the forums properly will be really good as well as improving the quality of posts, including yours).

In other words: What you just answered me is totally a different matter than the one i posted or what you did originally, reread.

However, this one is about skipping mobs not stacking or exploiting, but since the community thinks its similar i supose he can go there (because i dont plan to argue you about it been different, that will be tiring, so stick with the part when i said hes been redirected to a proper thread).

Read the OP carefully. It is one player, who is probably newer, that has yet run dungeons enough to grasp how to skip trash packs. His post isn’t about changing the structure, it’s because he’s mad the other 4 people left him behind.

My suggestion to the op would be to research the runs more carefully before joining an lfr group that most likely said (experienced players). I can all but guarantee that there is no chance you will still have this same opinion after a few hundred more of those dungeon runs.

Spvp only. I would gladly sit in a longer queue if the option to ban sky hammer from my personal rotation was in place. Not only do I spend the time I would be in sky hammer not playing anyway, but I feel a large (and by large I mean the entire playerbase that has any experience), would be banning the map anyway, so queue times probably wouldn’t be a problem to begin with.

You felt TA F/U was enough of a failure to permanently remove. Apply that to skyhammer, please.

Buttercup.5871:

Kline.9561:

10. make rewards give the player a feeling of satisfactory and accomplishment. presenting a cool reward or item after a match with flashy presentation. is a good way to start. encouraging the player to achieve more rewards.

I am not a PvP player, yet. I know I will be one day, as I used to be in other MMO’s I’ve played. I’ve been following the PvP threads a bit since launch, and Kline’s above comment is the one that rings through all threads since launch.

PvP needs some serious rewards. It needs to be cool, it needs to be exclusive. I’m talking legendaries, shiny gadgets and minipets, even stuff exclusive to sPvP.
Don’t be afraid to let the rewards of sPvP spill over into WvW, and the other way around. You want those crowds to mix.

Serious PvP’ers – whether in sPvP or WvW – provide the beating heart of any game. They’re usually the guild leaders, fansite builders, and streamers – energetic people that you want to be around with.

sPvP in particular, needs incentives to excel. It needs rewards. Serious rewards.

I congratulate the winners of the tournament.

First step to rewarding the actual players partaking in spvp would probably be to scrap the current ranking system. Ranks in the current state of the game are meaningless. I’m not referring to meaningless in a rewards sort of way, but meaningless in the prestige associated with being anywhere in the 50+ range.

WoW comes to mind. Players didn’t grind out glad, sit on rating for months in broken seasons (4, 8, 9, 11) for the physical rewards. A strong motivator was the permanent feat of strength / title Gladiator. Now look at GW. The 40+ is completely plagued with skyhammer glory farmers. I congratulate the dev team on eventually fixing it, but the damage is far too done. There needs to be prestige given back to spvp ranks. Rewards would work well for ranks in GW (Honestly…the same set of chests at every rank with different items of the same quality is a complete joke, sorry for the harshness, just how I interpret it).

You’re doing seasons in wvw, why not tournament seasons? There is 0 incentive to currently grind out a solid portion of time in t/spvp There is no end game, prestige, value. Just hotjoin with different achievement points.

Backbreaker 30s cd / Magic Bullet 20s cd
Bull’s Charge 40s cd / Decoy- 32s cd
Shield Bash 25s cd / Blink 30s cd
Staggering blow 20s cd / Diversion 34.5s cd
Earthshaker ORSkull Crack (shared cd) 7.75s cd / Blurred Frenzy and Illusionary leap 9.5 s cd

That’s if the warrior is the NON meta mace/shield hammer build with the most single target lockdown available. Most run lb/hammer which gives them even less of a foothold against a mesmer that knows how to trait with the bandwagon meta game.

stop using GS / Staff and you won’t ask why warriors are stomping you. Same with my necro, influx of P/U mesmers, stun warrs that are completely built around being anti condition I went a tanky blind spam MM spec. Trait with the meta game.

Edit: biggest problem people make in spvp (to a lesser extent roaming wvw/tpvp) is blowing their cds purely on rotation. This might work against idiots, but most players hold on to their abilities or wait for certain enemy abilities to fall off (zerker stance makes them almost immune to conditions for 10s) etc.

Haven’t looked at it lately, but iirc phantasm mesmers use ruby orbs since their primary source of damage doesn’t benefit from the scholar runes. I do use scholar runes on mine in assassin’s set for lupi, but everywhere else ruby orbs. Just for mesmer though, chrysocola orbs erewhere else.

Without the demand for people willing to pay, you wouldn’t see any parties in that screenshot.

So are you mad at the dungeon design, guardians, rangers, pugs, or better players? Trying to get a focus on this post because you went everywhere.

I also like how you took hyperbole and replaced it with proven.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Menacing-Change-Up-Demon

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/GW2-Burning-Minion-Master-build-Updated

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/The-Near-Perfect-Shattercat-Build

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Shackled-Diablo-Build-A-PvE-Hybrid-Build

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/New-Mesmer-Utility-Trait-Elite-Skills-Ideas

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/All-of-Menace-s-Builds

etc. etc. etc.

Please don’t feed the troll, move along people. I’m surprised he hasn’t been banned yet with the massive amounts of reporting that his threads spawn, but hey good reads nonetheless if you want a good laugh.

Xyonon.3987:

Can’t confirm nor agree with that. I allways start with Sword 3, Focus 5, Sword 3 again, then 2 and switch to gs while rollback, 4, 3, 2, and 1 on the farest target to hit them all in a line. Its easy to outrange them and by that time they are pretty hard hit. I would never melee them since after BF you don’t have anymore to evade the brun. They rarely die fast enough to not damage you any further. Also additional Illusions of the GS will will take aggro maybe and protect the team a bit. This is one situation I’ll allways use sw/focus GS over sw/x sw/y.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Iks7jDi8Ek#t=0m29s

Even in pugs with godawful players, generally people stack when you use focus correctly, unless they’re clueless and midway in between swapping to gs to get maybe a global in before the mobs die.

ib4 hurr 3 warrior guard mes group. I’ve yet run into any problems with stacking.

@lordbyron’s cut and paste typical response

I’m not sure if it’s my being tired or not, but half of your post made absolutely no sense to me.

From the bits and pieces I could understand, ele’s in melee have it worse off than mesmers so any point you were attempting to make there is kinda, yeah.

Your bit on warrior’s damage is pretty funny. I’m sure, being a GS mesmer that you feel this way. You should try to find those items of the “berserker” and then retrait to a build that does “damage”. You also implied that faster fights make them easier. Kinda contradicts the whole camping GS thing, doesn’kitten

Your reply on legendary shaman. If you aren’t terrible, you have a warden for the focus pull + aoe stacked in melee for shield phases. Your offhand would be the phantasm that has the least chance of dieing here (not the izerker, it shoots guns, I’ll let you look around).

FYI….aoe attack will 100% kill mesmer after BF due to long duration unless you blink during it.

Do you seriously start meleeing the moment you see the grapic appear? So you basically use your invulnerabilty to invuln nothing at all. Great understanding right here.

As always, another clueless GS user posts some more wrong and is again shown to be wrong. Will this stop the simple beast from ignoring any response and just using some typical “elitist” ad h reply? Stay tuned.

On a serious note, Lordbyron, every single one of your posts that I’ve seen posted here (I’ve noticed because they just stand out), have been incredibly wrong, filled with misinformation, or shown a complete lack of understanding of basic aspects of this game. If you look at your replys, they’re usually responded to with trolling, because you really don’t deserve anything more than that. Even the non clueless, but kinda blind to reasoning posters that defend GS don’t back you up. It’s time to move on

Im kinda tired and don’t want to tell another clueless individual how wrong they are about their entire post, but I’ll give it a shot.

Fractal level I’ll be referencing is 48 for these ones, the “higher up” one that gets farmed the most. I don’t do them anymore since they’re a waste of time but here we go:

Asura golemn- max melee range makes it fairly simplistic to evenly spread the damage between battery refills / fan. That’s without a guard. With a guard the fight is trivial. So yeah, you’re wrong here

Swamp Tree: Was that a joke? It has the same attacks as oakheart with an incredibly dodgeable agony application / tremor.

Mossman: Any group over 48 thats pugging tanks him in the water, but if you wanted to melee, the one person kiting is the only one that needs be at range. You have plenty of time to dodge his axe agony throw. He looks at you? BF then disengage for the 3 or 4 seconds he’d chase you before giving up after being re-rooted. Better than the 8 seconds you’d spend auto attacking at 3-400 range with an awful weapon.

• Hammer – Boss, Fire part & two sides part
  I sure wanna see your whole party with only melee abilities to do those.

I’ll assume you mean cliffside. Archdiviner is very easily meleed as his leap won’t be happening to you, and if you happen to dodge roll too far back to be lept at, you still have time to evade again.

The rest of cliffside is either stacked in a group on the “fire part”. Or stacked on the corner for the “two sides part”

Dredge pre boss is stacked on, ice elemental / dredge power suit is easily meleed as well. Funny thing since most pugs stand all over the place kiting him (like jellyfish), sending an izerker at him will most times cause him to focus it setting you back. The duelist however, can be optimally placed for maximum efficiency.

• Ascalon – Boss
  Are you fighting that guy in melee range ?
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBdWsz4N92Y&feature=youtu.be is that a naked guardian?
  Meleeing ashym is actually easier for a mesmer than that naked guardian. His oh so damaging staff aoe happens in the same way everytime.

Legendary shaman / grawl: Why wouldn’t you melee the first? You BF the impossible to miss red circle and dodge his knockback. Null field if you’re bad at strafing fire. Shaman is ideal in melee, not only because you have to worry about physically dodging one attack, but the shield part can have the group stacked on with reflects to kill the grubs.

Jade maw: can also be moa morphed and dodging their two attacks isn’t incredibly challenging, especially with a lolmantra

The only two examples where you could argue a group can range would be ashym (for a fraction of the fight seeing as you clearly have no idea how it works, and archdiviner if your group has absolutely no synergy or coordination.

Bosses:

• Tequatl- I have the casualbringer title. I meleed the entire time. You clearly have experience in OF pugs to back this statement up that wouldn’t kill him regardless. A fully organized group RANGING teq would never make the dps timer.
• Jormag- That’s weird seeing as after you get past the gimmick part where your non weapons break the wall down, you melee him to death.
• Golem- I dont know where to begin.
• Fire Shaman (some phases):Why did this guy even post, but it’s like a moth to a light, I just can’t stop.
• MegaDestroyer (usually in lava; possible when everyone’d melee): asdiofmisanfosi
• FireElemental: I CANT TAKE THIS ANYMORE

• Twilight armor – every boss is meleed down
• HotW1 – every boss is meleed down
• Arah every boss but >>ONE<< in all 4 paths is meleed down

Please bring these assumptions of yours to the dungeon forums. I would love to get their insight on this. They do dungeons and stuff. They can help you here.

Dear god and you have a build in your signature. Please go.

[quote=2945343;Nretep.2564:]

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Ezzyz.6045:

I’d assume that would be for the player mentality that melee = death while auto attacking from 1200 range is the best place to be.

More on the scepter, with the range, you’re guaranteed to benefit from party driven boons as well! For range scepter > gs.

For fights like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBdWsz4N92Y&feature=youtu.be
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7fWSETTFIg

you know, those 48+ fractal bosses that you just cannot melee.

The opener is asking for dungeon advice on a very basic level (at least I got the impression). Level 48+ fractals are obviously in no matter relevant at this point. If he had this much experience with the content, he would probably know a specc right now, that was working for him.

He wants more survivability as he dies a lot. Sending him in with pure melee and offensive specc might be the overkill as he stated that he is dying a lot with his current setup.

So the advice should be, learn the dungeon and the pulls/bosses. Nothing wrong with a GS in this case. He is not looking for super efficiency guys. He is not going to play with 100% efficiency anyway. Maybe he never will be the super dungeon raider, but not dropping on a ground every pull like a wet noodle will help him to enjoy getting through the instance.

If he gets addicted to running dungeons, he will be exprienced enough to roll mostly melee, but for now, he just wants to know what he can do to stay alive a bit longer.
Range will help to some extend.

Playing in melee taught me the mechanics to each boss more than staying at range with GS (I did once upon a time) ever did. To each their own, but with an on call invuln + dodging / reflects, I think you underestimate a mesmers melee lasting potential.

OP, last bit of advice would be to go through strife’s walkthroughs prior to entering the dungeon. An example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akoLjsITrk0

I was a guard / warrior until around feb, and those vids helped me get a solid understanding for the mesmer’s role in speed clearing. Not all of the vids are mes perspective iirc, but they all handle the mechanics of the fights well.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

My advice was:
Play (pure) melee when you know what you are doing.
I thought this was in your interest. And in the interest of the opener.

Using a scepter though is so different from your other statements, that I am surprised that you are defending it…

I’d assume that would be for the player mentality that melee = death while auto attacking from 1200 range is the best place to be.

More on the scepter, with the range, you’re guaranteed to benefit from party driven boons as well! For range scepter > gs.

For fights like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBdWsz4N92Y&feature=youtu.be
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7fWSETTFIg

you know, those 48+ fractal bosses that you just cannot melee.

[quote=2933766;Larynx.2453:]

Bikkan.4605:

No warrior specces like that although its theoretically possible.

You weekend “I read an intothemist guide to learn how to play my class” players that q solo are not the one’s running that build. Swap in your signets since you have no idea of team coordination or maximizing a class’ usefulness then with that kind of blanket statement. Put on a longbow too, not to actually use it for might stacking over a blast field, but because that guide told you to, and a range wep looks cool even in melee!

Am I close?

There are currently several high ranked >>teams<< queueing running 1 of the above specc’d warriors. AoE CC chains are absolutely ridiculous when coordinated in a team vs team setting. We actually were able to bring in a mesmer finally just to add a temporal curtain to reset back to our necros wall.

Coordination in using abilities is not skilled, its a basic pvp tactic. When employed in a game that makes it so incredibly abusable, you get endless situations that are not fun for either side.

Larynx.2453:

Ezzyz.6045:

Larynx.2453:

Back in WoW with the 40 second CC chains.

Your 40 seconds is an over exaggeration unless you’re referring to vanilla hunter’s ice trap, so I’ll just take it as clueless on your part.

MLD

Enjoy the 2v3.

Yeah, you clearly haven’t played the game in any recent form at any kind’ve competitve level. Players whining about MLD was somewhere around s7 and at the start of mop with the DS 2x chaos wave champions while the druid could iceblock off of symbiosis on the mage.

CC in WoW is nothing compared to GW2, and you denying it? Or just being dumb, not sure which, is evident you have no clue.

Larynx.2453:

Back in WoW with the 40 second CC chains.

Your 40 seconds is an over exaggeration unless you’re referring to vanilla hunter’s ice trap, so I’ll just take it as clueless on your part.

Here’s an actual setup in this lolsport:
A single hammer/mace/mace warrior can perma stun 1 person for over 10 seconds. Of that 10+ seconds Fear Me, Staggering Blow, Stomp, Earthshaker, and Tremor are all AOE effects. Lets add that up shall we?

Single target stuns capable in a single warrior build:

Backbreaker (2 seconds)
Bull’s Charge (2 Seconds)
Skull Crack (2 seconds)
Pommel Bash (1 second)

AOE Stuns capable in a single warrior build.

Staggering Blow (1-2 seconds)
Earthshaker (2 seconds)
Stomp (2-3 seconds)
Fear Me (3 seconds initially, can be more easily increased than other stuns)
Tremor (2 seconds)

Juggernaut:
Kick (1-2 seconds)
Throw Boulder (2 seconds)
Stomp (2-3 seconds)

So that’s a total of over 20 seconds actually, with quite a few of those CC’s being AOE’s.

I can then go onto my necro and stack staff 5 + ds 3 + wall of terror + maybe proc a nightmare in this time, while my cc not only doesn’t break from damage, but actually DOES damage.

I can then go on my PU mesmer and gain over half a minute of aegis/regen between decoy, veil x 2, mi, torch 4.

People defending chains like the above are either completely new to pvp, or are average random solo qers that play the above classes.

Anyone else that actually knows what they’re talking about feel free to post some more possible combinations of hilariously long chains. Thanks to the lack of control on conditions we now have teams of 4 hammer/lb hammer/x/mace warriors running with a guard teams that can lock down entire teams for well, see above.

Good reply though.

It’s the internet, people are the same in any game, thinking the community has changed; or was at some point different in just this game, is looking through rose tinted goggles or just being naive.

Xavi.6591:

Main hand scepter would not be a good choice if you are trying to keep 3 phantasms up.

You try it? Since traited duelist/swordsmen are quite amazing together, you’re probably better off /dancing in between scepter 1’s 2nd chain reset while 3 duelists destroy that uh one fight where you need to be at range, for a fraction of the boss’ hp. Ashym, yeah that one guy.

You could even be fancy, since his agony cast is the small burst of flame followed by the larger and swap back to s/s in between during that really small part of that one fight. I’m genuinely curious about the exact numbers swapping to scepter for any time you feel like being at range in comparison to GS s/f.

In the phantasm department we have 3 duelists who are not only the most resilient, but with sharper images / duelist discipline, the most damaging over timed fields. In the other ring, we have izerker’s lovely recharge time coupled with the stationary warden! If you’re forced to go range, that might not be good news for mr warden.

That leave us with GS’ fantastic auto attack that pierces that one boss to the squire, if he happens to be near by, but he wont. You also get a #3 boon removal which hits almost as hard as a condition and your number #2 bounce off of, well nothing. While mr forced to range scepter has a pretty auto attack that you want to cancel before the 3rd, and a better looking purple beam on it’s 3 that stacks confusion!

Where are they?

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Why again would you bring that up in this thread, but I will bite…

You should use a GS for everything in PvE but hardcore dungeon boss grinding. I know I will get flamed for that but let’s see.

Open word:
Killing stuff on the way, getting into melee range with S/x and S/x is too slow.
In DE’s you won’t tag kitten with S/x, S/x.
Leveling with S/x,S/x? Probably as fast as Staff,Scepter/Torch…

Dungeons:

Trash dies fast, cast iZerker, switch to S/x, more AoE, better dmg.

Unless you are mindlessly grinding dungeons, skipping trash and think that is fun (hey if that is what you like, more power to you), GS is your best option.

If you like to play in the open world, GS is your best option. If you are a solo player, GS is your best option. If you like loot in DE’s, GS is your best option. If you run in a zerg, GS is your best option. ^^

Yeah, the dungeons are the reason we all bought this game, so we can grind them.

The thread was already derailed by one of you GS fanatics. Can’t resist responding to you though, I’m a sucker for a build supporter defined by lazy playstyle. This thread is about DPS so I’m assuming DPS should be taken into account here. Correct me if I’m wrong. You are right though, GS is fine for mobs that take ~2 seconds to die. Good thing the topic phantasms were tested on mobs dying in ~2 seconds.

Also torch bombing with portal exit inside a zerg will have a much greater impact than Your izerker / auto attack. ^^

Xyonon.3987:

Using a staff grants you permanently chaos armor wich is very very strong in PvP. Also, noone will fight you in a chaos storm and if they do, they normaly die. There aren’t so many big numbers, but chill destroys rotations, poison prevents a good amount of heal, dazes everywhere. I see the staff in PvP, especially with safekill due “2” and blink. You can start finishing someone, 2 away, blink back again in the end to kill him.

Staff is also excellent for might stacking due interruption:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ahon_4l8ixY#t=558

You can save 2 skills that later people will argue are escapes for 1 f4 for safestomping. The thread was for Tpvp, not hotjoin or solo queue. Nobody stands in the chaos field or near it. Sword however will immobilize the target long enough for the duelist to shoot through a field as you are coming out of stealth on the opener.

If you’re using the staff, I’d assume sc/t offhand? With the current state of the game, BF is invaluable as ever in addition to a superior immo, cc (pistol 5), phantasm, boon stripping etc.

In a team fight do you want the guy auto casting in his own chaos storm for small amounts of damage who will get trained into the ground the moment after blinking. or the one who will be in the group stacking more confusion bleeds etc than staff/x could, while simultaneously bursting them down?

Edit: Another thought. Who stands to take more damage? The staff opener or the following: Decoy→duelist+feedback→leap→bf→prestige. Feel free to throw in a mass invis, null field mage sc 3 etc as you see fit.

Nretep.2564:

^
that’s why pyro said to remove your DPS ranking. It’ll make players like colesy say that pSword is better than pWarden.

No one ever denied zerker can do damage. What the abysmally hopeless posters in the thread that is no longer among us argued is that, the damage from izerker alone warrented using a GS in a dungeon.

Forget the auto attack being worse in the BEST scenario vs 1h sword
Forget the auto attack requiring you to do max damage at over 600 range away from the max boon radius (i.e a lot of damage)
Forget the boon strip on GS #3 is inferior to the built in auto on sword 1
Forget the cleave gained from GS #2 is inconsequential to swords always cleaving.
Forget their being not one single reason to ever have to use the #5.
Forget you’re losing the best invulnerability that also cleaves and also does fantastic damage in addition to a phantasm’s trait (duelist discipline) that doesn’t require an extra 10 wasted points in domination.
Forget the Offhand you’re dropping (swordsmen or duelist) contain an equal or higher phantasm with the added benefit of a torment block / superior cc on sw 4 and p 5.
Forget that there is not a single argument in pve that will ever make any actual sense to use a GS other than you are A: New to the game and unaware of mechanics. B: Lazy C: Just bad / slow at reacting Do what I want GS offhand torch only all day.

Follow the above and yeah, GS is fine.

Not posting in any more of the garbage that this thread is about to unfortunately explode into. Interesting results though.

Just wondering the reasoning behind these being used in tpvp still?

Convince me the superiority of staff/x or whatever that blackwater build is to sc/torch + sw/p which not only deals more frontloaded damage with increased survivability / escapes, but also does higher flat out condition damage.

I’d entertain an argument for GS, but just because I’m interested in the reasoning.

Alissah.9281:

I recommend Pyro’s supporting phantasm build
It uses half berserker/half soldier, so it will have more survivability than most other builds, while still keeping amazing damage and support!

I’d recommend not following this recommendation.

The OP is looking for a >pve dungeon build. Survivability as a mesmer isn’t needed since you have BF, f4 for falling asleep moments, and the lovely dodge ability.

Full zerker + ruby orbs or scholar sigils. Sword / Pistol + Sword/Sword/focus Sigil of bloodlust on MH to be swapped with Sigil of force/night/etc as you progress to higher levels of trying harder. Sigils of might on offhands.

Greatswords, staffs, soldier runes etc are all completely unnecessary in pve as you don’t take damage. So if the chance of taking damage increases the longer the fight goes on, obviously increasing your personal damage is the best type of survivability. I.E the above.

Trait 10/30/0/30/0 and avoid the GS trap while you still can.

—

Looked closer at that build…staff(condi) gs(kinda? power). What on earth.

Nretep.2564:

@Pyro
I usually run Inspiration IV (clean on heal), X (Mantra heal) and VIII (focus), so I don’t have the slots for persisting images. And even on most other situations, I barely ever use it.

??:|

That’s the most constructive thing I could come up with.

90% of the time sw/sw + sw/p.

Several bosses, I’ll swap to focus for either the pull on an event + warden, or if reflects are needed / speed running past arah trash.

Use GS on Ashym sub 50% and yeah that’s about it.

Since people are posting their wvw/tpvp choices, might as well chime in on that. sw/torch sw/pistol. Staff is no longer ideal in the current meta with people not standing in bad / warlocks damage nulled the majority of the time. GS as usual has one decent phantasm that is by far the easiest cast a mesmer has to see and dodge outside of casting a mantra.

Roaming? the sw/p sw/t option can provide more confusion faster than most any setup. Infinitely more escape options, and superior damage on zerg stealth bombing than channeling GS.

Reasons for all weapon choices are for maximizing my support and cc while still maintaining the highest dps weapons.

Are you having it shoot over the field? The tooltip hasn’t updated with the trait since at least oct of last year, it absolutely does stack confusion.

“izerker out of nowhere, his burst is out”.

well played

Having your guild hold down the turrets simplifies one aspect of the fight, which I don’t find to be the problem at all (minus people not making use of the benefits offered by the turrets, but whatever).

The problem is the superficial design philosophy that you can play whatever spec you feel like and it won’t matter. Unfortunately, the only steep curve on this fight, is that it is a dps check. BG had players decked in undead slaying runes food elixirs etc. to meet the timer. Unfortunately, many players either don’t care / have no desire to suck it up and go the “right” spec for the fight, i.e not: Bearbow ranger, GS heal shouting / 5 signet warriors, GS / Staff / Scepter/x mesmers, AH guards, shortbow/pistol thieves etc.

These are specs that are, to the general dismay of any player who looks towards traits as a way to improve their play in a dps setting, detrimental to the encounter and overwhelmingly popular due to their low risk >>>>low reward playstyle.

People will be stubborn and call the ones pointing out anything about their character choices as elitist etc. But this is an encounter that goes against the design that they base their trait/weapon choices on. I’m fine with these players in general, as I don’t play with them. However, when you create something like this encounter.. it’s difficult to ignore seeing exactly why you aren’t getting him past 25%… and good luck to you if you point that out!

tl;dr: Can a metal detector of some sort be implemented to the teq wp that might go off when a player goes through that is just there to leech off of the players who spend time and currency maximizing their characters potential to meeting the dps check?

The only place I see GS use in this game (if you care about maximizing your character’s ability), is two fights in dungeons, 2 fractal bosses, wvw zergs and event mob tagging….and skyhammer too I guess.

For those having trouble with the fight. To speed up p1, spectral grasp works on her images. Gripping in the 2nd one helps with the unfortunate timing of the second orb spawn.

Also signet of locust + 25% speed in DS as 30/10/0/0/30 full zerker glass canon with lich ulti and just nuke her in p2. To foolproof the 2nd orb in this phase, placing a flesh wurm after successfully surviving the first orb makes a handy teleport to use after her leap.