Showing Posts For Hiemdal.4367:
Sorry, my speculation was PvE based – I’ve done far to little of pvp or wvw to make any predictions there.
I’ve seen a lot of posts about Mirage being a condi spec. While that’s certainly an option I think people are mixing up the “mirage” and “axe”. The axe will certainly be a condi weapon, but it seems like Mirage will be quite good for power builds as well.
I just wanted to look at some options and have people theory craft (which will be much easier after the trial weekend next week).
Specialization trait:
Mirage cloak – should work fine with power builds
Ambush attack – could be good with power builds. Remember, each weapon gets its own ambush. So while axe and staff (shown in the woodenpotatoes video) were condi barrages, its likely sword and greatsword will get power based ambushes.
-Note: with traits (grandmaster 1), ambush attacks can trigger on both clones AND phantasms. We currently don’t know what phantasms will do in practice though – maybe mirror your mainhand ambush, or possibly do nothing.
Traits (summarized):
-Adept
—1. Self deception: deception skills generate clones. Works with power
—2. Renewing oasis: mirage cloak gives regen + shortens conditions. Works with power
—3. Riddle of sand: ambush gives confusion. not useful
-Minor: Nomads endurance. Shatter skills give vigor, which grants condition damage. Works with power but not ideal
-Master
—1. Shards of glass: Shattered illusions can trigger mirage cloak. Works with power
—2. Mirage mantle: Mirage cloak gives protection. Works with power
—3. Mirrored axes: Reduce axe recharge. Power probably not using axes, not useful.
-Minor: Speed of sand. Superspeed when you mirage cloak. Works with power
-Grandmaster
—1. Infinite horizon: Ambushes trigger for illusions (clones and phantasms) as well. Works with power.
—2. Elusive mind: Dodging breaks stun and removes conditions. Works with power
—3. Dune cloak: Mirage cloak inflicts aoe condition damage. Not useful with power
With this in mind, I could see a build like Sword + X, GS (depending on ambush skill for GS), and 111 in traits (deception generates clones, shatters give vigor, shattering can trigger mirage cloak, superspeed in mirage cloak, and illusion ambushes). It will likely come down to the quality of ambushes for sword and GS – other thoughts?
Credit to Aluren for posting the traits/info from the stream:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/All-Mirage-Skills-and-Traits
Personally, I’m waiting to see if they are going to release pvp versions of the Seeker’s and Diviner’s pvp sets.
Seekers is power(major), precision(major), concentration(minor), and ferocity(minor)
Diviners is power(major), concentration(major), precision(minor), and ferocity(minor)
Both sets would be good although I’d lean towards seekers myself.
I wish they would give us +5 concentration infusions or an amulet enrichment variant, it would be another way to add +6% to boon duration.
Do you think Sigil of Earth would give you better results than Sigil of Geomancy? Geomancy gives bleeding for 10s on a 9s cooldown (with weapon switch) while Earth gives 60% chance of 5s bleeding on critical with 2s cooldown (your build should be at 100% crit chance with fury).
I think you’ll find there are roughly 2 different types of players (excluding those who only do WvW and team PvP) and the enjoyment of the expansion falls at opposite ends of the spectrum for each group.
Group 1 – these players enjoy experiencing the content, exploring, and find the story/dungeons/fractals to be rewards unto themselves. They aren’t super concerned with getting every skin, unlocking every mastery and skill as soon as possible, or rushing through maps for completion. They are likely to watch the animation for the vistas to see what the artists have created rather than click through and head to the next area. These players tend to like the expansion as it promotes exploration and challenging content, as well as the methodical unlocking progress. They will also run content with sub-optimal groups for the fun of trying it out and helping other players (to an extent)
Group 2 – these are the reward focused players. Much of the gameplay is simply a barrier or timegate to crafting the legendary of their choice, getting the skins they want, or completing their achievements. Long events and repetitive content simply slows their endgoal to a painful halt. -Playing- a fractal isn’t nearly as compelling for them as the -reward- of an ascended weapon, armor, or skin, so they would prefer to optimize runs to minimize time.
Both of these play-styles are completely valid and should be catered to simultaneously. But I think what you’ll find is that group 1 is tending to have a better experience with the expansion than group 2.
(edited by Hiemdal.4367)
Any suggestions for this? Just a quick throw together to try and maximize Crit while not sacrificing too much power.
I would aim for a max of 70% personal crit rate, taking into consideration all food, runes, sigils, etc. For organized group content you’ll likely have fury (20%), ranger spotter (7%), and warrior banner (8%) which will put you at a final of 105% crit chance; the max I would shoot for in raids.
I already suggested once that they switch it to 1 strong hit instead of 3 weak ones. Doesn’t look like they noticed or cared.
I’d be fine with one stronger hit as it would kill 2 birds with one stone – they could level the damage in the process bringing it more in line with other auto attacks, and it would open up more on-crit abilities without the knee-jerk ‘but what about the 3hit greatsword auto’ fears.
GS is so weak right now that it’s barely used in serious PvE.
I use it in fractals, but typically only for places where I want to trait for perma-cripples: the Grawl fractal where the mobs knock npc’s into the lava is the chief culprit; it’s amazing how many-pick up groups don’t have the crowd control to handle the spawns. [/quote]
4. Unlike other classes, mesmers don’t actually have many on-crit anything. We get vigor on crit. yayyy.
Then honestly, I’d rather have a rework to give us some on-crit abilities compared to complete rework of greatsword 1. Unless they overhaul our damage significantly, changing our ‘terrible damage’ to slightly better will still have us paling in comparison to most classes (I’m speaking from a pve standpoint only, my experience with spvp and wvw is extremely limited and I don’t feel confident discussing them in any way).
I would certainly take some tweaks though, perhaps removing the ‘damage with range’ qualifier and making it a set value, somewhere between the two extremes.
The greatsword already has reliable methods of aoe damage with the phantasm, mindstab; and to a lesser extent, mirror blade.
For me, the benefit of the current greatsword auto attack is its ability to apply ‘on critical’ abilities; its damage is extremely secondary. Three attacks in rapid succession allows reliable application of lifesteal (with food), vigor, bleeds, and slow (with the expansion).
It’s still not clear how much of a factor break-bars will play in Heart of Thorns, but if they become more important the Greatsword may be an important tool for chipping away at them.
As far as I know the only Assassin trinkets you can get are earrings, which require collector achievements from two dungeons.
For a power build, berserker will still be the best option. In the event you need more survive-ability, substituting in some knights may work but it’s still unclear if we’ll need more defense for raids at this point.
I would have been nice if an additional well were added with a reliable way to apply aoe condition damage – perhaps 3 pulses of bleeding/burning, or 1 pulse burning, 1 pulse bleed, 1 pulse torment. Balance for WvW may be tough though.
Thinking about the upcoming raids, and the fact that I have enough materials to craft my ascended weapons finally, I was just wondering what people thought about stat combinations in the new dungeons.
I know we have precious little to go off off, but the devs have stated there will be some forms of unblockable damage and they would like to change the zerker-only meta (although we’ve heard this before).
It seems like we need a fair mix – power for our paltry damage, precision if we need to reflect, and perhaps some toughness/vitality for survive-ability. Celestial seems like a partial waste given a few unneeded stats, but I’m not sure exactly what I should be aiming for to maximize a chronomancer (for raids or any content for that matter). Any thoughts?
Chronomancer will be strong in PvE (dungeons and raids). Its still unclear what equipment choices we need to make – Arena net claims full berserker will be rough in raids (due to unblock-able damage and non-self healing sources being important) but whether that’s true in practice no one knows. If healing/defense does take a bigger roll I expect mesmers to possibly pick up some pieces of tanky gear, or perhaps even full celestial.
I haven’t played in any of the betas yet, what is the damage like on the wells (calamity in particular)?
Meh.
Ha. Ok – I figured their main benefit would be the alacrity/condition cleanse/heal but some extra damage would be nice. At least its AOE and consistent.
I like the idea of this build and am interesting in giving it a shot (in addition to some the variations presented here).
I haven’t played in any of the betas yet, what is the damage like on the wells (calamity in particular)?
I only use it on 1 or 2 of the fractal bosses with the trait that allows skills 2-5 to cripple enemies (i.e. when you need to kite), or when I want to aoe a bunch of trash like in the Ascalon fractal. Barring those situations, you’ll be better served with the 1-handed sword.
I’ve been using the greatsword a bit in PvE and it seems very solid – still not great but better than it was before. When traited you get might stacks on crit, and every activated skill cripples the enemy (which can be great on some bosses and terrible for others). With chronomancer the weapon should get even better, with permanent slow on enemies + increased crit chance.
I tested out condition hybrid vs a power phantasm build (my usual playstyle) and while I still prefer the phantasm build over all the condition hybrid is much more viable post patch. I was running rampager as well (I don’t have sinister yet) and was able to stack a hefty amount of bleeds rather quickly. Staff seemed to give better results compared to greatsword (standing close and autoattacking with 3 clones put up a ton of burn and bleed) and the pistol was a beast, as expected.
However, I’ll also add that conditions are not my normal playstyle so I’m sure the damage could be upped a good amount with a better trait/utility setup and rotation.
Thanks for the fast tests – I’m at work until later this evening and won’t be able to start crunching numbers until then.
Pretty excited for tomorrow when we can turn some of this theory into real-world tests. Sinister vs Rampager hybrid should be interesting, I’m not sure how the numbers will come out for PvE dungeons.
Oops – good catch, I meant to say try out greatsword in full sinister. When looking at the hybrid builds (rampager vs sinister) if using the greatsword the bonus from danger time would likely offset the reduction in precision compared to rampager armor. I’ll likely still go staff with the hybrid, but would be interested in the GS nonetheless.
I don’t have a sinister set yet (may craft one in the near future) but I do have both rabid and rampager sitting in the bank. I’m going to try some of these builds out next week and see what works/doesn’t.
I also want to test out the greatsword in full berzerker post-expansion to see how the combination of Danger Time and Lost Time changes the damage output.
Thanks for the quick responses. I agree with the rampager statements, the only tempting bit would be the increased ability to inflict more slow, bleeds, and confusion depending on the trait setup – however that would come with less condition damage per tick.
Didn’t think about the ferocity/reflect relationship – probably not a huge deal if the condition damage is solid but something to keep in mind.
For those running condition heavy builds with the update – what stat set do you see being the most useful? Sinister? Rabid? Rampager (probably overkill with the precision)?
I’m a fairly average player (only 1 character, though he has 500 hours on him) and I’ve been enjoying the game as much recently as when it launched.
I don’t grind. Ever. I play the game a) to have fun and b) to feel like I’m playing a role in the world, and circling the same champions or rushing through areas fulfills neither. I have picked up a full set of ascended trinkets from running the fractals many times, but I’ve never felt like it was needed for 99% of the content, its just not that challenging. I feel the same about legendaries and ascended weapons – its cool that they added them but I feel no need to stop having fun in order to get them (when they likely won’t change my access to content in any way).
I enjoy working through the story aspects of the living story, exploring areas, checking out the vistas (and re-visiting old ones from time to time), watching the antics that go on in the queensdale pub, and helping players learn the ropes in dungeons. As such, I’ve been glad to see new living world content come out on a regular basis, and I’ve been able to ignore repetition/grinding thus far. Now, that may change in the future, but from a -average- player point of view I’ve been having fun every time I log in.
Mad Rasputin.7809 – My mistake – Thank you for the correction. Pristine relics weren’t in the game when I started running fractals, and it would certainly slow down aquisition of the rings (as well as odd numbered fractals providing you no benefit other than regular relics).
I guess in that case its hope to get lucky daily chest rewards during the 10-20 runs, as well as saving up the pristine relics.
You need to have run 10 fractals to get to level 10, which should give you ten pristine fractal relics. Exchange those for the ring of your choice and you will have 5 agony resistance. By the time you get to level 20, you’ll have another 10 relics, so get a second ring. After running 20 fractals you should also have enough regular relics to get a backpiece, which can be upgraded with the mystic forge for another 5 agony resistance. If you do some daily’s in between those fractal runs you’ll also probably be able to get an amulet from the laurel vendor, putting you in good shape for 20+.