Guild Wars 2

The build linked in my sig is a power build that uses PU. It’s killer for WvW roaming, but does well in small groups, too. It’s OK in zergs, and with a few switches shines pretty well in support roles. There’s a PVE variant there, too, but the basic build can work in PVE, too. It’s just not optimal for PVE damage.

The gear is mostly for survival, so I almost never die solo and can stand firm and provide good support for zergs. If you get better at not dying, start switching out tough gear for berserkers.

Great Idea. I’m really interested to see where this will go. We’ve had mesmer guilds/meetups on this forum before, but this looks like it can become something more.

IGN: Duma
Server: TC
Playstyle: WvW and PVE, mostly WvW and some guild stuff in PVE these days.
Role: Scholar, Teacher. I’ll do some testing, too, but I don’t have the time to do it very much.
Playtime: 9-12 pm EST a few times a week.

Thanks!

Sensotix.4106:

Maybe this will persuade you
People have a lot of respect from good mesmers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLbPvZs2VKc

Are you serious? The mesmer in that vid looks like a girl. The OP said he did NOT want to look girly.

@OP: Does this look girly?

The mage is intended to be the GW2 equivalent of the GW Backfire and Empathy skills, so I doubt they will change the basic function of it from confusion and retaliation, but honestly I feel it only needs a buff to its current mechanics.

For the most part it really needs a lower cooldown and faster projectile speed to make it more reliable. I’d lower the CD to 20s for sure.

After that, it could use 1 stack and 1s buffs to both confusion and retaliation and perhaps higher damage on its attack.

The other way to go is make its attack create a field around the target instead of bouncing. Perhaps an ethereal field. For every second an enemy is in the field, it earns stacks of confusion, plus whenever it uses a skill it gains another condition. Weakness, more confusion, torment, and burning are all fine with me. Allies would gain stacks of retaliation per second in the field.

Funny how experiences are different for players. My mesmer was a challenging bore from 25 to about 40, but on my engi I only had trouble pre-20, then it really took off – not post-40 mesmer, but few things are.

From 20-40 on my engi I ran mostly pistols with Healing Turret, FT, Rocket Boots, and either Bomb kit, EG, or a turret for the last slot depending on the situation. Bomb #4 then BOB after a few seconds was especially helpful. So was planting a turret, Flame was my choice for the AOE and blind field, then kiting around it with FT/pistols.

When I didn’t need to be mobile, I dropped the boots for flame turret and bomb kit. Chaining the blindness bomb withe flame trurret blind, Napalm, then spamming bombs into a BOB when the last blindness wore off was brilliant for most PVE situations.

power/prec/crit dam do not apply to conditions, only condition damage does.

Against trash mobs/open world, GS usually offers better AOE damage, although staff is better for support. Decide what you want to focus on and what your team needs. For damage in general content while using a power build, the staff pretty much relies on shatters, so you may want to consider a build with 30 in Illusion for Illusionary Persona.

When you get to bosses or champs, the staff is generally better. Once 3 warlocks get going on a boss, nothing will out-damage you, and you can continue to provide support with your other staff skills.

Everyone knows mesmers have a higher skill ceiling than warriors. But you also ignored the easy, even higher DPS way I mentioned. Warlocks and swordsmen are easy single button pushes that produce more DPS than a warrior or thief once you get up to speed. You were comparing a single fire and forget summon’s damage (of which we are balanced to have up to 3) versus channeled burst skills; that is not exactly even terms either.

Yeah, not all classes do DPS or burst the same way. Warriors and thieves are fast burst, rangers and mesmers require pets. We (mesmers) take a little longer to setup or cannot rotate as fast, but once we get going no can keep up or it’s harder to mitigate, respectively.

Eliyahu.1467:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I would expect a 10-15second cool down slapped on it sooner or later.

ICD was just added. Before it was added, you could apply an AoE of 8 stacks of torment with a traited mantra.

You think that’s impressive, engi Med Kit has a 1s CD! Perma 25 stacks easy (no traits).

As far as the Mantra heal, it can do about 5200 of healing every 13s (~400/s) as opposed to a full Ether’s 7600 every 20s (~380/s) with no Healing and NOT traited. So it’s actually more, with a drawback of having to channel it every 10s, but with RM it adds an extra 2600 and with HM another 2600, so 10,400 every 13s (~800/s).

jportell.2197:

Well after running around in the new areas of the map for queens jubilee with a base of 3400 power and 67% Crit chance with phantasmal fury. My zerker only hits for a max of 7-8k on a legendary target that had 25 stacks of vuln on it. Meanwhile my friend is pistolwhipping it for 20k and a warrior is 100bladesing for 17k. There is a huge disparity between mesmer dps/burst in pvp and pve and other classes.

Edit: And my ranger longbow number 2 hits for 10k in pvp. Once again mesmer doesn’t hold a candle even with a similar number set.

You just compared a 1200 range whirling AOE CC ability to 2 rooted, channeled melee burst abilities (Rapid Fire is a 4s channel, too). Of course your zerker is not going to match single target DPS. NEVER expect it to. Throw 3 warlocks at that target instead and then tell me how your DPS compares to your friends’.

If you want something quicker, in 4s (comparable to 100b and RR channel) you can create 3 clones -> swap/BF/MW/COF -> Illusion Sig -> MI+dodge -> MW/COF for 25K+ AOE!, then repeat a BF/MW combo every 10s or switch to warlocks/swordsmen.

Not necessarily, especially in phantasm build when you have 3 phantasms up already. The daze (especially if traited) would be much more useful than a clone overwriting a phantasm, particularly if that daze prevents a timely heal or interrupts a burst.

Nerf to condition builds; buff to power builds.

Neko.9021:

It is a fundamental weakness of the Mesmer that they’re supposed to be ‘slow’ out of combat. They’re incredibly tricksy with clone generation and a few stealth skills if they want them as well. On top of this, they have a Medium health pool so even if caught, they’re not instantly dead. If they had superior mobility as well, they’d be far too strong.

This not true because we can be just as fast as most other classes. We just have to jump through far more hoops to do it. If it were a balance issue, it wouldn’t be possible, or at least very difficult. Right now it’s just slightly difficult or requires an non-class specific gear investment or is stupidly frustrating and not intuitive.

To be perfectly honest, I feel the mesmer (and guardian) way of doing it is closer to the right way – there should be a meaningful investment to being mobile. But when most other classes get it for next to nothing, well it just creates a sad situation for the few left out.

No, because our phantasm provide good sustained DPS combined with our fair weapon attacks, and shatters are awesome AOE bursts. Anything more would be OP given the utility and support we can provide without sacrificing much of our DPS.

If you want damage try out a good phantasm build. If you want burst, try a shatter build. Fay has a great list of builds in the sticky.

Personally, I’d prefer more leaps, or rather for our current leaps to be available OOC without spasm-inducing camera jerking, over a simple signet. Sword #3 shifting you straight ahead when no clone is summoned would be a great start. But anything that buffs run speed would be appreciated, too.

But leaps do stack. Check out the plethora of leaps warriors have (and yes, speed buffs do stack with leap animations) and you’ll see why it’s on top of their considerable movement abilities. Even without perma swiftness, they’ll leave you in the dust if they want to. They aren’t forces to take a certain, single weapon or rune set either.

^ When they trim back the wind up for CI I’ll agree with you.

Until then, it requires a stealth build to hide the animation against competent players. Fine if you have the stealth, but requiring a mechanic that is not considered a class-defining feature at play levels higher than noob bashing is not good weapon design.

Not a good idea, simply because the mesmer does not have enough MH options for either sword or scepter to be wholly power or condition focused. Sword favors power, but at least it offers enough utility to be useful in a condi spec as a secondary option. Scepter barely supplements either condi or power spec, but just barely as a secondary option for niche, defensive power builds.

Making it focus more on condition damage would probably lead to further nerfs for power specs. Until we get a 3rd MH option, our 2 MH options should be viable for both condition and power builds since we have 2 weapons sets, and 4 great OH options. When that MH pistol comes around , sure, then we can devote scepter to condition damage.

EDIT:
What scepter really needs is to disconnect the attack rate from the animation so it fulfills the role its usually taken for: MH ranged attacks without losing its potency at farther range. Cutting back the windup for CI and adding weakness to the auto-chain wouldn’t hurt either.

The better phantasm builds designed for duels/1v1 generally run sword/pistol and either scepter/sword or GS. I prefer the sword/sword and scepter/torch (or pistol) because I feel the iswordsman is one of the best single target pet harrassers in the game and having a block on each weapon set works extremely well for me, plus stealth – more stealth.

Traited properly, phantasms can do serious damage (up to +40% more than typical phantasm and have perma Fury), but the real danger to them is the ridiculous amount of evades, stealths, and combat mobility mesmers have access to. A good phantasm mesmer will generally do what he needs to to avoid your attacks at all cost while pooping out phantasms as fast as possible. Can’t apply conditions unless your attacks hit. I run condi removal in my build, but you are right, many don’t, and I feel that’s a weakness, but in wvw many run melandru runes (or air) and lemongrass soup in the current meta.

Mesmer is my top toon, but I’m spending more time on my engi lately. Guns and wonderful batman toys are just too fun.

Also working on a warrior, thief, and ranger when I feel like mixing it up. I really really wish I could just combine the engi, ranger, and thief into one class. Then I’d have it made. The range of the ranger, but using the guns/toys and a bit of stealth from the engi and thief, respectively, is my ideal character concept. So just give me a sniper kit with a stealth skill, and I’ll be totally happy with engi. No other characters needed .

Nah, I like how we can chain it to stealth the zerg. One of the few zerg skills I find fun while running with mumble in a multi-guild zerg/alliance.

It doesn’t reflect damage. The in-game tooltip is wrong and the source of most confusion. You still take damage from every attack that hits you, but you also deal a set amount of damage (based on your Power) back to the attacker for each hit.

Unfortunately, lowering the CD on Veil, while it could use it, would make it OP for ZvZ. And I don’t want to see that function go away; it’s really cool. What it really needs is a slight duration increase and a negative effect for enemies that pass through. I agree blind is a good pick, so is confusion, maybe even both.

That would give us the bonus it needs to be viable over say, Decoy, while roaming/small group, but not make it OP for ZvZ since you’d generally have to choose whether to stealth allies before engaging or put it over the enemies and making it less useful as a group stealth.

It creates an issue when using IP. The trick (the other one besides the exploit) was to string shatters together in order to daze the target so your MW+CoF could hit without them using skills to evade and add extra damage and confusion to the attack from IP.

What’s better? A spike that does 12K and allows the opponent to evade/interrupt your other skills/counterattack, or a spike that does 12K plus adds 2 stacks of confusion and dazes/interrupts the target?

Very true, Arenis. That was the original argument made pre-launch, and it was picked apart with the same evidence you present. Not to mention the process for crafting simple, ancient firearms and powder are even simpler than the process American indians used for curing leather.

At some point, Anet basically said rangers don’t use guns as a political statement to resist rise the technology and affect the charr are having on the environment. Which would be fine for a particular group of associated rangers, but for all of them across Tyria? Especially Iron Legion charr rangers? And yet rangers of all races pick up all sorts of technological thingamajiggers and ride in airships and use explosives, etc, throughout the personal story. Hmmm…..

jcbroe.4329:

The problem with the rifle is that it would not have a unique function among the weapon sets already available. There is already a ranged power weapon and a ranged condition weapon.

You’re not getting a weapon that doesn’t have a unique function or purpose. There are an abundance of other classes to play if the weapon is more defining to you than the actual mechanics behind the gameplay.

/thread

Considering Anet determines a weapon’s function and purpose by unique skills independently for each class, this statement makes no sense. There is no rule in GW2 that states a ranger must use any given weapon to fulfill the same role another class uses it for. In fact there are plenty of skill sets that dictate the exact opposite.

Look at how a warrior uses the rifle compared to the engineer. They are vastly different, and there are several other examples within the game too. Too many to list actually, so the evidence against this mentality renders your opinion somewhat questionable. You are free to keep it, of course; I just don’t understand the logic considering the Anet’s design philosophy.

You say there are already a ranged power and condition weapons. There are no long ranged cc or support weapons for the ranger. I can certainly see rifles used for long ranged cc and even some support with the right set of skills. It would actually compliment the LB quite well and create a unique playstyle opening new builds for current LB players. Who knows what other synergies will emerge for other weapons.

I was steering away from increasing the stealth duration based on illusion count to avoid balance issues, but that would be cool, especially the synergy with IP. Hehe, PU + IP would rock for a 60 point investment. o_O

As I stated in another thread, I agree MI does not feel elite in most cases, and would be happy if it granted stability for the cast.

To make it truly elite, I would have it shatter all illusions with an offensive effect (daze?) and then when you reappear it creates 3 clones for you to hide among.

I’d love to see rangers get rifles and believe it fits their theme, but don’t think it will happen due to Anet’s past stance on the matter. I’d like to see them get staves too if no proper druid class is in the works for an expansion.

I must admit I’d find it hard to believe that Anet said they’d give all weapons to each class. Can you produce a quote for that?

Anyone telling you mesmers suck at pvp and wvw are wrong. I’m sorry, I value most peoples opinions for being opinions, but in this case the facts just don’t support that in any way. Mesmers are devastating in spvp and specifically recruited in wvw for their amazing utility abilities along with being one of the best small group/solo classes. I’d go so far as to say they are top-tier in both right along with guards and eles.

As for guards, they can certainly do damage. Everyone sees them as bunkers and healers, but that’s a stigma they brought from other games. Just realize you won’t be the super support tank that most players run while using a dps build. Guards are pretty much how anet intended the game to work and are working to bring other classes in line with that design.

Necros have a new spot in the meta since their recent buffs, and most players are figuring them out, and some players starting to find new counters for them, too. It’s not very stable yet, so expect some changes, but in my limited experience with them, they are fun and offer a different experience by playing with cc and condition/boon abilities.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

For the 0/0/20/20/30, I’d actually trait the Scepter instead of the focus. The +200 Condition Damage rocks (especially if you grab Signet of Domination for another +180) and a traited Scepter can apply Torment almost constantly

Did I miss something? Is Malicious Sorcery finally working properly with Illusionary Counter!? When did this happen?

As for my top 5:

1: Deceptive Evasion: The best source of clones for most of my builds.

2: Prismatic Understanding: I like stealth. I love sleath with this trait.

3: Wardens Feedback: Sooo much utility. It’s hard to pass up when using a focus, which is also chock full of utility.

4: Blade Training: I dual wield swords often. Best bang for the buck by far in my current build.

5: Illusionary Persona: Although I’m not running a shatter build at the moment, it’s too good to not make the list.

I’d be happy if MI granted stability during the casting animation.

Although to make the skill a bit more elite, I’d go further if I had my say:

You and your allies are granted stealth for 5s and shatter all illusions dazing nearby foes for 2s. Reappear along with 3 clones. CD=120s.

AWWW, CRAP!!

I decided in favor of mesmer over ranger in beta due to greater stealth (and I LOVE mesmer stealth btw) and over thief due to long range range options, so I can can be a stealthy sniper. Now they go and put 30% uptime of stealth (traited) on the weapon with longest range in the game!

kitten you Anet! Time to level my ranger. (Though firing “lazers” from stealth is still pretty sexy. )

Btw, has anyone tested yet to see if the attack has to hit to grant stealth?

Though its not a mesmer change, the change to centaur runes is helpful since mesmers need to use it more than most other classes.

The build in my Sig is designed just for that, thought there is a slight trait variant for PVE. Staff/sword-focus is the most versatile weapon setup if you can’t afford the others.

^ GW2 mesmer is not the GW mesmer. Thought Pyro made that clear earlier in this very thread. Must have dreamed that I guess.

Ninja’d by the man, himself.

I don’t always QQ either, but when I do, I prefer the GW2 forums.

Xenon.4537:

I think when you guys take your “points in defense” in to account, you should remember that healing is a terrible stat. Personally I wouldn’t even count those points from healing.

That really depends on where you get your healing. Yeah, for Ether Feast its meh, but in an Inspiration build Healing is an incredible stat. Regeneration scales rather well with Healing, and its fairly common to pull near perma regen with Inspiration traits. Couple that with the RM trait and some points in Chaos and you boost its effectiveness even more.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Gaiawolf.8261:

GS is called the noob stick because is seems that just about every noob mesmer player, especially during beta, runs around with it, and they tend to charge into close range while spamming spatial surge — then die.

I go in close, i use The Auto attack. I know what i am doing though you need to be close for the might boons, the Interrupts. Except i dont die, very often

Might boons and interrupts imply you use more than just Spatial Surge. Congrats! You are already better than those that earned the GS it’s nickname.

GS is called the noob stick because is seems that just about every noob mesmer player, especially during beta, runs around with it, and they tend to charge into close range while spamming spatial surge — then die.

Levitas nailed it IMO, and in that order mostly. I’ll sign that one, but move OOC speed up in the list a bit and legendary GS animations down.

+1

That’s pretty much the problem with the torch. It’s only fully useful in a very strict, niche build (a melee confusion/stealth build), and only semi-useful in confusion or stealth builds. I get good mileage out of it in my stealth build, but due to the crappy phant, I have to work extra hard to maximize the Prestige and my other weapons to make the weapon worth it at all. Builds like yours have to work extra hard to make the phant’s confusion worth it as well.

That is not good design for weapons in a game like GW2. Weapons should offer you general build options (and most others do); not be limited by them. Filling in options to to make niche builds work or optimize builds is the job of traits, and in some cases utility skills. The torch needs to be useful for more than 2 types of niche builds to be a complete GW2 weapon. Right now it’s a locked set of 2 utility skills, especially with 2 long CD skills on it.

Dropping the CD on one or both these skills would go a long way to making it useful, and the phantasm seriously needs a buff to both confusion and retaliation application. That’s why I like the field idea above. It would expand the application of the phantasm skill without making it OP, though the confusion itself could use a small duration or stack buff as well.

It’s clear the devs are scared of the phantasm’s potential, but they need to find a common ground. Either that or they have no idea how the hell to change it without an overhaul.

I like the firestorm idea. Adds AOE confuse to enemies and retal to allies in the area. More mage-like, too. DnD style fireball would rock, too.

#1: Disengage the attack animation from the projectile animation (to prevent losing DPS with greater range). Ether Bolt causes 1s of weakness.

#2: No change. I miss the DD but it’s still good; better for condi builds, and #1 and #3 still good in power builds, so I’ll accept it.

#3: Decrease the wind-up animation.

I don’t do a lot of duels or 1v1, but the times I have come across solo roamers in wvw I generally just confuse the hell out of them. The build actually does decent damage thanks to crits and boon stripping, so don’t be fooled by the defensive trait lines. Between jumping out of stealth with BF, CI, Prestige, MW, and knocking back their own attacks with blocks on both sets while the swordsmen harass them, they don’t know where to turn as their Health plummets.

Those that are a bit better than me, I can generally outlast, and they usually fall before I do. This is one of the few mesmer builds that most builds besides thieves or d/d eles have trouble escaping too, because of teleports and perma swiftness. This build has no trouble living through most encounters even when I’m outnumbered; 1v1 is even easier.

UPDATE (7/3/13):

OK, the 6/25/13 patch hit hard, so I had to do some damage control and mods to the build. Obviously, the 5 points I had in Illusion had to go. I ended up going with 30 in Chaos due to the awesome buff to Prismatic Understanding. It’s working out really well, and actually adds some great D to the build while also covering for the higher CD on the summons, but you lose a bit of damage. That’s not too bad in a phantasm build, though. I put the condition scepter and torch back in due to the damage nerf/torment add on the scepter as well.

I am also testing out a more offensive variant, and I’ll post on that when I’m happy with it. I’m still not sure if it will end up with 0/30/10/30/0 or 0/20/20/30, but I’m leaning towards the latter.

Yes. I’ve been trying out some variants for the build in my Sig after the patch. I’ll be posting and update soon, but basically it stays the same while focusing mire in stealth with PU to cover the additional summon CD. 0/20/30/20/0.

I’m also testing a more offensive variant goes 0/20/20/20/0. I’ll let you know how it compares, but the stealth variant Is very viable so far.

What? You don’t like shouting out “I feel furious!” when running from a 30+ zerg? Me, I like taunting my lemongrass soup to , “come on, hit me!,” at the cooking station. :p

As for my previous comments, yes, I was talking about wvw/pve speed as well. Mesmers have absolutely ridiculous mobility in s/tpvp maps.

Yeah, cuz all the other classes just suck except for their OOC speed. Oh, wait…

Curunen.8729:

iMage retaliation is better than nothing – I quite like that aspect.

True story, but to be honest with you I never run with nothing in my off hand. In fact I’ve never seen a player over level 4 that does.

The cold hard truth is that no matter how underreted the Mage is, or how effective you can make him, he is still vastly subpar to the other weapon phantasms. Yes, you can get some juice out of him, but you lose so much more than you will ever get by not selecting another phantasm.

Yes, several builds, like mine, can make up for this in the way they use The Prestige to devastating effect, but I’m in no way under the illusion that the Mage does anything for me another phant wouldn’t do better, except versus FT engis maybe.

The biggest problems with scepter are the clunky auto attack and that people only think of it as a condition weapon. The former needs work and makes it subpar to MH sword (sword overall provides comparable, more reliable damage AND better defense/utility – hint: its the better utility that makes sword blow away scepter, not damage) and the latter is only a problem for build diversity.

Scepter #2 and #3 are actually pretty good in a power build. Not as good as sword, but if you really need to stay at range or want to go with 2 off hand options, its a decent pick. Yes, it needs a buff for condition builds, but don’t make the mistake of assuming that enemy scepter-sporting mesmer in wvw is a condi build or his block/CI can rip you apart.

Torch suffers from long CDs on one great skill and one kitten skill. The Prestige is so awesome in some builds, it can make the weapon worth it in some PVP builds despite the worthless phantasm. I’d like to see the CDs for both skills reduced and the phantasm needs a serious buff. The biggest problem here is that I cannot see anyway to make this weapon viable in PVE without a fairly big rework to the way the Mage works.