Guild Wars 2

Hase, you are a saint!

Osi,

Been a (long) while since I checked mesmer forums since I’ve been working up my necro. So good to see you back!

If you don’t like Moa then do a 180, hit #5, and take a breather while the mesmer has to try and chase you down. Moa used to be a pain because none of it’s abilities were any use. Now, as mentioned, you can do damage with it or just bug out. It’s great against the unsuspecting opponent. It’s a waste of an elite cooldown otherwise.

At about the 1:50 mark there’s a clean dodge-roll with no Well of Blood. Haven’t watched the video to tease it out but Blood Magic V (Vampiric Precision) would make a lot of sense given the spiked critical chance.

Knights in head, chest, legs and using azurite orbs in all but back item exactly nails the hp seen at about 3:45.

Fiddly details can always be fiddled with but my take is Scarran has it nailed down.

Too bad. I started playing a Necro when I bumped into these videos on Youtube. It was only after I started playing that I realized I could have just looked at the first pinned forum thread. I wish they’d re-pin it.

juno.1840:

Senjun.8149:

The only time this is any good, is runinng away at 100% hp or if a necro comes up and randomly blows all of his wells on you first thing.

But what he can do is have his golem ram you for like 3k dmg, then blow all of his wells on you and you aren’t recovering from that because u now have a useless GM trait.

Not true — the trait is not suppose to be “god mode”… nor is it “easy mode”. It’s simply another tool available to you as a player (and it’s a good tool).

If you get hit for 3k, then top yourself off so you’re back above 90%.

What did players expect for this trait? Seriously? I think it’s very good, but I see many complaints about the 90% mechanic. I’ll ask you this: What threshold would make this trait “good” for you? Can you provide an answer that doesn’t make people laugh?

I’d be game for 90% threshold or even 85% against damage. It needs to not work against chill, cripple, or immobilize (I’ll even go with it working against fear). If you are a necro (I am. 80 everything but War) you can’t even close to fight if you are a condi build.

Wearing my (Staff) Ele hat something needed to be done about having a low hp pool and conditions melting us. A staff ele is still going to have issues dropping below 90%. But your d/d ele with easy condi clear, easy healing, and easy mobility is OP against pure condi builds.

Enjoy it while we can (I plan to run it) cause the devs will come back to their senses eventually.

Balefire.7592:

Please tell me when was the last time a power Necro killed an Ele.
Especially given the fact we can no longer Chill, Cripple or Fear you to catch up with your mobility.

That’s so unfair. I, as a power necro, killed an Ele just the other day before the patch!

I’ve leveled 3x mesmers to 80. (Charr was too Charr, Human felt clunky, Asura was just right.) While levelling power (and bloodlust sigil) all the way. Build out for shatter. sword+focus/staff. If anything less than 6 mobs are alive after 10 seconds you haven’t got your clone rotation/shatter/chaos storm/clone rotation/shatters down. When you hit 60 get curious about other builds.

Oops. Didn’t answer the original question. Yes, we are that fragile. Mesmer is about active defense. Dodges, invis/blink/daze, reflect, etc. I started on a mesmer first and EVERY other class seemed like it was wearing plate. But when I play every other class like a mesmer it’s really tough to bring me down.

It’s pretty straight-forward. Scepter/Dagger + Staff. Buy “condition” armor (rabid when available) and weapons every 5 to 10 levels. Use a sigil of earth and sigil of corruption. Use Blood is Power and Epidemic. Round up some mobs. BiP, sc #4, sc #5, sc #2, epi, death shroud, ds #5 (run around so mobs chase), ds #4, out of shroud, sc #2, weapon swap, st #2, st #3, st #4, wait for st #2, weapon swap. Rinse, repeat. With full stacks of corruption the mobs you gathered probably died back at ds #5.

For traiting I would suggest curses II, then blood magic II and V. By the time you’re that far in you’ll have a feel for PvE condition-mancer. Check Nemesis’s https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necromancer-tutorials/first or any of the dozen’s of builds that get posted for motivating ideas on where to go from there.

Hi Nemesis.

Deleted my first 80 necro over 6 months ago and decided to try the class again after finding your vidoes. Good stuff!

LOL

Message Body length must at least be 15.

What’s your point?

If you want slow go talk to a Guardian or Necro. “Oh well!”, you’ll reply, “Just because someone else is slower doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be faster.” Except someone’s always going to be the slowest and someone is always going to be the fastest.

Try 20/20/0/0/30 with Blink and Runes of Air, and Mirror. 100% swiftness uptime plus the extra distance from Blink.

Until Rocket Boots got fixed the best an Engi could do was 100% swiftness uptime and back when I was running my mesmer as above my Engi was the slow one. For Ele’s that run Staff they can get 100% swiftness uptime and their 900 from Blink. Same as Mesmer. It’s true Ranger, Warrior, Thief are faster. What’s your point?

Mesmer movement speed is a tempest in a teapot.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Lanny.6987:

Swiftness (+33% movement speed) for 25 seconds. Distance covered = 9975 units

Temporal Curtain (swiftness for 12 seconds) + Blink (900 range) + TC remaining cooldown (13 seconds). Distance covered = 9588 units

+25% movement speed boost for 25 seconds. Distance covered = 9375 units

There’s nothing wrong, in general, with mesmer’s out-of-combat movement speed. The specifics of managing it can be quite annoying.

Units for calculations taken from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Movement_speed

what about those with access to constant swiftness?
what about those access to skills that move them forward?

You would have to use Into The Void (12 seconds every 25) and Blink(900 range every 30seconds) would would STILL be out paced by an Engineer, warrior and pretty much anyone else with any sort of access to swiftness and 25% movement increase and/or movement moving skills such as Ride The Lightning(ele) Rocket Boots(engi) Swoop(Ranger) and Rush(Warrior) to name just a few.

Swiftness (+33% movement speed) for 25 seconds. Distance covered = 9975 units

Temporal Curtain (swiftness for 12 seconds) + Blink (900 range) + TC remaining cooldown (13 seconds). Distance covered = 9588 units

+25% movement speed boost for 25 seconds. Distance covered = 9375 units

There’s nothing wrong, in general, with mesmer’s out-of-combat movement speed. The specifics of managing it can be quite annoying.

Units for calculations taken from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Movement_speed

I have 7x 80s. I got human mes to 80 then wiped her because I wanted to play Asura. If you have a free char slot and don’t want to take the 30s to respec between Pve/WvW then play up a new mesmer. You get a LOT more achievement which is nice for the chests. If you gather you get an extra char to gather with. There’s no reason not to play up a second mesmer barring you feel short on char slots.

That said it really is as simple as a new set of gear and an extra 30s on transition to have a PvE mesmer and WvW mesmer on the same character.

Ok. Good posts above but I think you should step back and examine how you play. Guard is (ok, it’s how I play my guard so YMMV) about face-tanking. Engi (yes, I play pistols and pots) more along the lines you need to be thinking of with Mes.

Guard is in their face-I can take it-you are dead. Engi is I’m dodging-look at all those conditions-hmm I wish these fights went quicker-oh and you are dead. Mes on the other hand is I’m in your face-but no I’m not-oh look at that shatter-but now you can’t find me-oh here I am in my clones but now I’ve blinked-and this shatter BOOM and you are dead. My thief is S/D so I play it pretty much like Mes.

You play guard, engi, mes, and thief. It sounds to me like you like to press the attack so I think shatter is the build you want to run. Certainly try GS for the sit-back pace it provides but I think you’ll do better by changing how you approach the fights rather than by a specific build or magic tweak.

Good hunting.

Except that’s not why ALS and others (SOS woo!) left (to coat-tail to #1) and in fact Dragonbrand enjoyed receiving a bunch of new but dedicated WvW players. My personal opinion, with which it and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee, is that the randomization would probably have kept the AR guilds in place if the frustration levels hadn’t been so high the heavy wvw guilds jumped servers. Sadly that’s a speculative hind-sight thing and I’ll never get to learn if it would have been so.

As for the BP/DB matchup it happened only 4 weeks ago.

24-31 August 2013
Dragonbrand 285k
Maguuma 186k
Borlis Pass 147k

Suddenly numbers and coverage are on the other foot and… yeah. I’m aware it’s numbers and coverage btw and not saying otherwise. There are skill differences between guilds and servers but they get swamped out as far as weekly score goes.

Aeros.2046:

I call it how I see it. I have no respect for Guilds that jump ship and run to a high powered server like Dragonbrand that does not want or need them. If you don’t like your server, that is one thing. But running to Dragonbrand, SoR, etc just screams “I want to be Number 1 without having to work for it!”. I honestly hope Borlis Pass will one day get to fight Dragonbrand, if only so I can run into ALS and wipe them like we did when you were on Anvil Rock. A change of server does not change the end result for your guild.

When I kill a thief it’s because

0) He’s Skeletor

1) Other skills not honoring stealth.
I have been in 5-mans and good perma-stealth thiefs can avoid us as long as they want. The trick is using high-damage long cast or channel to get them on those few times they pop visible. Without this mechanic a thief wouldn’t just always get to start a fight to their advantage and always reset a fight to their advantage but could, in the right circumstances just never be brought down.

2) Lag.
Because, you know, I have secretly installed a tap into the ANet servers and have 4ms round-trip traces. Oh wait, that’s not right. No, lag gets everyone killed. Nothing to see here. (Pick any pure melee class with some long attacks. The fact that CnD is bread-and-butter to D/D doesn’t mean you need special treatment for lag.)

3) Use of blocks/shield/aegis to stop CnD.
I know right! I love this one. Back and forth fight. Thief is stealthing about every 4 seconds but I’ve got my secret weapon and… aegis BOOM! And the thief is dead. I love that!! I mean right?? insta-kill!!! Woo! Who doesn’t love the insta-kill when you block the one CnD out of the thirty that have been thrown. LOVE IT!!

4) Leaving the circle of stealth and return.
Really? You want to push a button and be insta-invis for 15 seconds? Really? That sounds fair. Now I never kill thieves this way. I prefer AE or perhaps to cast SR myself. See, I’ve got an 80 S/D thief (along with 5 other professions at 80 all of which have had to deal with thieves) so have some idea how annoying all the things above are on each side. Invis gives thieves first-in, last-out ability and in the hands of really good thieves it is definitely OP. These folks would probably end up being labeled OP on any profession they put their time into but to give them first-strike/reset is where invis gets broken. Most average thieves (I’m in that lot) it’s a fine mechanic.

+all on @Rissou’s answer

Can you provide a link to this statement? Before last patch folks were saying it was going to be nerfed as well.

Caom.9251:

I’m gonna sound pessimistic again but Anet has confirmed that they are going to nerf S/D.

Just a word of warning, don’t get too comfy.

Staff Ele has perma swift, a tport, mist form, and will beat the pants off a thief in the zerg for utility.

For thief as support I’d be using SB and */P with at least Tricky 10 (V). Shadow Refuge, Caltrops, and probably Blinding Powder.

Rather than support you might just use that mobility as a stomper, anti-stomper, and to get at their backlines.

The rifle, net, fire, and rocket turrets are area denial. I’d probably take down a rocket turret if it was alone. Rifle won’t kill you by itself. Fire is slow and range isn’t great so can be left alive (just don’t stand on it). Net is quite the pain and best to just avoid the area. The healing turret is used for the water field and blast or the initial heal. Any good roamer will pick it up as soon as they throw it down (if they didn’t blast for water field) because you get a few seconds off the cooldown that way. lunyboy above is spot on. Since turrets can’t move just back off and wait em out. If Supply Crate is on cooldown and it didn’t land on your head you’ll probably win 4 out of 5 fights. (That 5th Engi, rare but out there, didn’t need the supply crate to kill you anyway.)

Here’s Jumper’s description of S/D. Near the end he goes into classes that are easy/dangerous. He notes D/D Ele’s as “warm, buttery toast”. Well, ok. Those are my words but he does spell out how easy it is for S/D to beat them. S/D Ele on the other hand is a “difficult fight” if they can time the lightning strike. His guide is well worth the time to read for an inside look at S/D.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/S-D-Guide-Now-On-IntoTheMists/first#post2669743

Condi engis are tough because thieves have low hp and the pistols have bleed, poison, blind, a really painful burn (the more so the closer you are when it hits), and a cripple (as do grenades). With the toolkit they can also throw on a long range pull/knockdown and confusion. Grenades and blowtorch don’t care if you are invis. And the Supply Crate is a 2s stun, flame-throwing, net-throwing, bandage dropping I-win button if the cooldowns are all in line when it hits you. (I do so love my Engi

So, same advice that thieves always give. Go play an engineer and see where they are weak. My experience is that D/* works better against me than P/* or S/*. (My thief is now 76 and I’m running S/D so need to go pick some fights with Engis to see.) Keep your range for a bit then start to move in. They’ll (well I’ll; YMMV) hit you with blind (the bouncing lightning-bolt) and as you get in melee range they’ll unload blowtorch. Dodge that burn and you’ve got 12 seconds to play around. Clear the burn if you get hit but ignore bleed. It’s gonna hurt but bleed get stacked right back up while burn is the big damage dealer. If they drop supply crate get out of its range. If they are foolish they’ll leave its protection. If not just wait em out or move on.

I had a lot of success using the vacuumagic. You get a choice of who to recruit in the previous mission. I suspect that some choices (the melee ones) let you steamroll this and some (the vacuumagic) you need to use the weapon your sidekick can provide you. Also run up and stand by the lighthouse when you fight him. Sample size of one but he seems to stay towards the lighthouse end of the platform and not reset (which he did a bunch when I was at the other end). Good luck with it.

Bud.5617:

… and it seems like when they do happen, the other classes are so much more forgiving.

I play an S/D thief and you’ve nailed it. They are not forgiving. And to be fair that’s just the profession. About every guide or vid I’ve watched says, “Have a way out if the fight is going south”. My advice would be to go in against a necro or stun-war with the idea that you’ll do better than last time. I’ve actually found after they beat me just to ask, “What could I have done better?” and often I’ll get good advice (sometimes crap but it’s easy to tell the difference).

vinceftw.5086:

Everyone who still plays a thief, is A) a noob who needs this class someone who only likes ganking people C) someone that can’t press more than 5 buttons.

Keeping it classy. I like that.

You forgot D) has every other profession in the game at 80 and wants to collect the set.

Don’t overlook WvW. You can get any armor set for the tokens being dropped.

That’s not quite true on the bleed duration math above. It is correct given a single application you won’t see the extra tick unless you can round up to the next second. However if you are continuing to stack durations as is common in a pistol build then the quarter second boundaries that conditions are timed in will add up. +45% bleed on 4s is 5.8s so will fall out kitten -3/4 sec and every 4 shots will give 23s of damage ticks rather than 4 single applications (letting the bleed drop between) which would give 20s of damage ticks.

Full time staff ele here for last 2 months or so running 0/15/10/15/30. If I kill someone 1v1 with staff I know they were drinking too much cough syrup. I can stay alive a good while against all but thieves (for which you are just warm, buttery toast solo). In small group fights if the other side is smart enough to focus on me (and they always seem to be) and your team isn’t smart enough to focus one of them there isn’t enough defense with the staff to keep you alive. Once group sizes get to 5+ or if you are running with a sharp team then staff as area denial weapon is an asset. As above posters state it’s not a roaming or solo weapon.

RoninDB.9540:

Virtute.8251:

FirstRyder.2091:

jinx.8169:

The Hour Of The Mice.2910:

fun times in TCBL tonight!

I heard there was 30+ golems in the rush. If so, please tell me there was video and post it!

There were fifty golems, 23 mesmers, and at least one person recording (though I don’t have any links, unfortunately).

http://www.twitch.tv/legendarydisco/profile/pastBroadcasts

We siege-capped the map for golems.

We thought 35 golems, but 50 works too. It was pretty epic. I was standing at Hills South Gate when they started to make it up the stairs… half the golems were still walking up the steps when the gate busted. There was this gigantic line of golems. I just want to know how long it took you all to make those!

No idea how long it took. They were built for the event start. But the kick-off for it went this way. (As accurately as I can recall it.)

DB Commander: Oh man. Bunch of guildies just mailed me a bunch of siege.
Someone: Yeah. That’s gonna make it a lot easier on commanders that you can mail it.
DB Commander: I mean they sent me a ton. I must have like 70 golems…
DB Commander: Hey. Y’all get on at 5pm tomorrow and we’ll give TC a 70 golem salute!

And that’s how the 50 golem siege limit was discovered.

P * (1 – C) + P * C * (1.5 + D)
P * [(1 – C) + C * (1.5 + D)]
P * [1 – C + 1.5C + CD]
P * [1 + 0.5C + CD]
P * [1 + C * (0.5 + D)]

I’ve always liked the following thought experiment. Consider D = 0 and C = 100. Every hit then does 1.5x damage so each percent of crit is 0.5% more damage. At D = 50 then every hit does 2x damage so each percent of crit is 1% more damage. 1% more damage from power costs P/100. 1% more crit chance costs 21/(0.5 + D). So until 2100 /(0.5 + D) power it’s “cheaper” to increase damage with power.

PS – Any well-formed formula is an algorithm since it can calculate a desired value in a finite number of steps. But yes, labeling such a thing “formula” or “equation” is more common.

Very nice work. I used to do something similar with pen and paper. (Obviously not 30k data points.)

You may have come across this in your research but here’s the only post I found around healing back when I was doing this http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60838-math-damage-reduction-toughness-and-vitality/

Wait. I’m confused.

Nice. (And the last solo vid too). This one was classic defeat-in-detail but I see why they got suckered in. “Bunker guardian. Take down the Engi first!”

Video of the “totally new build” or I’ll claim it never happened.

Said it before, Osicat, but I don’t mind repeating it. Your efforts raise the entire class up. Thanks for putting so much time into and then sharing what you’ve learned about running a Mesmer.

Grimms detailed his scepter/sword + sword/focus build in the last SOAC: Mesmerized. At a guess it’s the scepter/sword + staff gear and 10/10/30/15/5 (I know the traits are correct because that’s what he said in the podcast). Improved phantasm damage, Increased Manipulation Range, Prismatic Understanding, rest as before. The podcast is worth a listen if only to hear Grimms get a huge lightbulb over his head at one point on the use of a utility. I won’t spoil which (go listen!) but predict a video at some point showcasing it.

@thelma – Use of staff is replaced (or augmented if you can break agro and switch to it) by increased range on blink. Invis – blink – run like hell to drop agro.

I think everything above is a correct understanding from the podcast but “reader beware”.

Masterful.

So you’ve already mentioned the sigil switch to might. You no longer swift on heal. Conditions seem to slide off you. And you’ve also mentioned extra bounce on staff. I’m guessing

- Traits and Skills from SC Mist 2.0 with…
– Less damage for each clone (from SC Heavy)
– Illusionary Elasticity in place of more damage for each clone
– Melandru runes
– Battle/Strength + Battle sigils

Update: It is Battle/Accuracy + Battle and Hoelbrak instead of Melandru so… yeah. I wasn’t very close at all since Osicat had already told us everything else.

Osicat.4139:

New spec, still experement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrWWc_kIvFg

/Osicat

Well played. I love how the video shows very well that confusion was nerfed, not removed.

@PandaBear – Just go to first page of this thread and look at “power pistol” build. Grimms has it all written out. If you look back a few posts you’ll also find a gear setup I wrote up that gets close but doesn’t use ascended.

PaLeRiDeR.5908:

Fraeg.9837:

PaLeRiDeR.5908:

Fraeg.9837:

PaLeRiDeR.5908:

No, we thought it was sad. Please do bot speak for EBay any more. You make us look like we care. If you wish to kiss our enemies kitten do so as yourself and not as an EBay representative.

You guys left NSP for EBay how long ago? And already you feel entitled to tell your fellow server members what they may and may not post on the forums?

Way to make friends on your new server

Hey champ, I’m from EBay. They can add new members fron the server they moved too and all. I won’t give you to hard of a time but there is a guild on my signature thats NOT REKZ. This guy is poorly representing our server and im not a fan. How would you feel.if someone on your server was kissing our kitten

My bad if what you are saying about your time on EBay is correct /shrug. That said this forum has plenty of BP posters who I strongly disagree with. However, they paid for the game = they paid for the right to post on these forums regardless of what I might think.

For example: Kalkz and I disagree on pretty much everything including what color the sky is. IIRC we both have each other on /ignore in game. But I make no attempt to censor/control what he posts, because at the end of the day it is his copy of the game and his forum account and he can play and post as he sees fit.

My advice, if you truly have issues with what some of your fellow EBay members are posting, send em a tell or a PM

No big deal, I understand the mix up. At least I see we agree about one thing on who should be ignored for their lack of ability.

I’ll say up front that this is a troll so just ignore me but… put your money where your mouth is. Rekz should transfer to another server, T5 or lower, and show us how you’ll just raise the average play so much that your mouth was worth putting where your money went.

:) Enjoy.

Osicat,

I know I’m not sharing any secrets here but your sense of space and tempo are unreal.

In this last vid I saw you get thumped by knockback shield off downed guardians several times. I know you portal stomp on occasion to avoid the big “I’m stomping, light me up” effect. Have you played around with begin-stomp/phase-retreat/blink for a similar effect?

Seven,

Been running your latest build (at least as teased out here in the forums) and I was really missing my portal stomps. I did a WTK?! when I saw you do one in your last vid and you weren’t running portal. Phase-retreat with a blink back for the pin is on my to-be-practiced-until-perfected list now. Thanks!

Here’s as (surprisingly) close as I could get to your build numbers without ascended items for those just getting into it.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.3|b.1n.h1h.c.1n.h1|6.0.h1m|1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r|1c.67.1c.67.1c.67.1c.67.1c.67.cg.67|0.u24a.k5a.f5.5|40.1|31.3l.3d.34.3o|e

The best advice I’ve ever found for leveling is to consider buying level appropriate gear and weapons from the TP more like renting because you’ll sell back to vendors for nearly the same price. I usually buy gear at the 1s and 6s (e.g., levels 16, 21, 26, 31, etc). It’s slightly cheaper than buying at the 0s and 5s because that’s when the gear becomes available and you pay a premium for not waiting that extra level.

Two gear setups (exotics only) I recommend you start as bases with a power build.

More crit-y: soldier armor, knights trinkets + ruby gems
More hp-y: knights armor, soldier trinkets + ruby gems

That will give you ideas on the stat ranges that are available. From those you can decide if you want more toughness, more crit, more whatever.

Note that the retaliation field exists for the duration of the curtain even if you use the curtain to pull people around.

I think this should go in your build thread. It’s pretty fundamental information and having the gear and traits is only about half of what a skilled mesmer brings to the table. Or perhaps a new thread that goes over tactics and how to think about fights as a mesmer. Talking through what was going to happen and providing insight into why it was going to happen was EXTREMELY helpful.

Two thumbs up!

kokocabana.8153:

The healing turret change is the only thing I’m concerned about. One of those dev guys said he mained engie so I’m confused when he said most pick up their turret when they actually detonate. And they also mentioned they wanted to make the overcharge generate a water field which it already does since it only goes off when the turret refreshes regen. Who actually relies on healing overcharge to cleanse? You have to stand still and pray that your turret survives the 1-8 seconds that it takes to actually go off.

So Grouch isn’t a dev, he’s the host of SotG. And if you pick up the heal turret instead of detonating you get a slightly quicker cooldown. SotG seems to be mainly from a PvP veiwpoint so what you’ll hear as “standard practice” is going to vary if you mainly play PvE or WvW.

Cloaking device breaks target while protection doesn’t. 3 seconds of protection let’s you live (maybe) for 3 seconds while you are being beat on. 3 seconds of not being beat on while you are locked down anyway is amazingly nice. I ran Protective Shield for a week of daily WvW and missed Cloaking Device right away. Stuck with it just to make sure but it never got better (for me).

While I understand your reluctance to use the staff it does complement the melee side of sword surprisingly well. When you have everything on the sword/x on cooldown swap to staff. Chaos Storm, staff #2 for the clone and a chaos aura, staff #3 for phantasm, dodge back into Chaos Storm to grab a boon or two and get another clone (if spec-ed for that). Let the phantasm take its shot, shatter, staff #4 for chaos aura, wait the 1/2 sec for staff #2 and weapon-swap cooldown and back to sword. You now have a clone already out, chaos aura is up, you’ve shattered them (I like confusion in that sequence) and you are ready to restart your sword/x pattern. The staff is a melee weapon if you treat it like one.

penatbater.4710:

Just don’t craft your mes from 1-80. Maybe you can craft the last 20-30 levels, but the early levels are incredibly important, as they teach you the combat basics of playing a mes. More so when you level in wvw :p You learn to time your skills such that izerk + mindstab + shatter + mantra of pain all occur within 1-2sec of each other :p

I find it simplest to level to 30 and then craft to 50 via cooking and artificing (both cheap and straightforward). That gives you a nice amount of time to learn your skills but jumps over a number of levels where your traits fall behind just a touch. At 60 you can start gearing and specing to what you think you’ll run in the end. Armor getting 3 stats at 60 is why you wait until then. Up to that point just grab the power/precision armor.

Allies have 5 sec to portal up…, 4, 3…

(The 10 sec duration once portal is activated is the correct figure. Just couldn’t resist what looked like a countdown.)