Guild Wars 2

Fay.2357:

Right, so the problem I’m seeing here is the really limited illusion generation vs a competent opponent and the awkward and broken mechanics of the axe skills. Axe 2 is pretty clunky and requires very close range, but axe doesn’t have a good gap closer because axe 3 is just non-functional any time you’re fighting on terrain that isn’t flat. If the stars line up and you’re fighting a low mobility target on a relatively flat area, it’ll work well. Otherwise…not so much.

It could be that I was just fighting in optimal conditions all the time. I can’t really objectively analyze my gameplay on the fly but my experience was that I did not have issues with generation.
Maybe my opponents were just bad for a couple of hours and that’s where my perception is flawed but I didn’t have a lot of problems against daredevils, dragonhunters, deadeyes, weavers, other mesmers, or reapers. The only professions that really made me struggle were Spellbreakers and Scurges.

I would go further from what it felt like my main damage sources besides torch4+5 were axe2+3.

I’m not saying that I am right since I did not record any of my gameplay there’s no proof for that it’s just what I felt was happening.

Fay.2357:

It’s very possible to do heavy offensive burst and blow unsuspecting people up with mirage…but that’s nothing new. You can do that with every breed of mesmer in a decent variety of ways. However, the mirage method is a lot more susceptible to failure. You’re using infinite horizon, relying heavily on clones for that burst…but the only skill that can reliably create a clone is phase retreat. If you gave a kiting enemy, axe 2 won’t activate, so good luck keeping clones up vs someone evasive. Same deal vs heavy AOE damage, clones will squish faster than you can create them. Also, almost all of your burst is projectile based. Both the staff and axe ambush attacks are projectiles, so the entire concept of the build can be nullified by any projectile denial.

I’ve actually been using the build more around shatters and the axe skills than ambushes. I’ve been using Staff because of its defensive capabilities and because I’ve been using its ambush primarily to stack up might whenever I need to dodge. I have tried using the other grandmaster traits instead of IH but I do have enough stunbreak/cleanse and the extra condiduration didn’t feel worth it even if on paper it should be better.

I am also not saying that mirage is better than condichrono. I just shared what I’ve experienced.

Fay.2357:

Lastly, you’re burning all your defensive cooldowns on offense, which is obviously a risky proposition.

I specifically said that I was not doing that.

I must say that I have been quite successful on mirage as well but in WvW roaming. I was also playing a burst build. I used Axe+Torch/Staff and went Illusion332Inspiration221Mirage231. I was using MoR, SoM, Blink, MoR, Jaunt (Carrion Armor with Rune of the Berserker/ Sinister Rest 2x Sigil of Energy 2x Sigil of Geomancy)

From what I understand is that most people use their dodges offensively to apply more pressure via ambushes. I suppose the right moment to use your dodge is when you can profit in both pressure and evading. I personally find that quite hard to achieve on any weapon other than staff and axe.

I think where mirage shines is if you are tanky enough to survive quite a while without gettting bursted down. I’ve had that problem on Friday a lot when I tried berserker/viper/sinsister only builds. These didn’t work at all!

I’d like to throw in some love for Chaos Vortex
Compared to Ether Barrage chaos vortex has the exact same base condition damage values.
One has 4 stacks with 5s each and one has 5 stacks with 4s each.
But keep in mind that Chaos Vortex from clones applies conditions with 100% duration while Ether Barrage only applies 50% of the duration if used by clones.

Ether Barrage is single target and can proc a lot of bleeds from sharper images on this single target while Chaos Vortex is a AoE skill that also buffs your allies.

I think both skills are good in specific situations.

kitten saw the title and wanted to make fun of this thread being posted too early but it seems that I was late :c

apharma.3741:

Many will hate this build because it is literally summon 3 swordsman and then sort of afk pressing 2 when off cool down after an auto chain. For that I feel they are somewhat justified in their criticism.

Sadly that is how mesmer is designed. I suspect that Mirage will be in the same spot. Whether it uses clones or phantasms in the end.
If we were to use more of our kit the dps would decrease.

• Every newly summoned clone/phantasm is a dps loss
• every shatter is a dps loss

The problem is that 2-3 skills on our weapon bar are summons which means we’re stuck with 2 skills to use (autoattack and one dps skill).

Lily.1935:

Dodging while ressing…….

Dodging while stomping…… <3

With dodge jumps you travel more distance because dodging is faster that walking.
It’s like jumping with swiftness or superspeed. It will get you further than jumping normally.

I loved his gameplay. One of the very first — and last — phantasm mesmers.

I don’t think so. Back when burning didn’t stack intensity we had skill facts that stated multiple burning stacks because the skills hit multiple times with the same duration. A good example was ele dagger’s fire breath.
It had 5 ticks and each tick increases the burning duration on you.

Pyro stahp trollin plz.
But yeah the game will be out for 5 years on august 25th.

Hey, this thread is not about PvE.

I’ve just been thinking that mirage could run scepter and axe and would probably perform quite good with that choice. Now what offhand weapons would you use?
Torch seems to be the only weapon that is a condition choice.
Pistol needs to be traited, sword is purely power and focus also doesn’t offer a lot of condition pressure except for sharper images.
So if we don’t take dueling we’re pretty much stuck with only one offhand option aren’t we?
What do you guys think about that? Any ideas on how we could solve that? Should we go hybrid with grieving instead? :s

I just told you to read axe 3…
It says that it teleports your axe clones to you. The next sentence doesn’t even mention axe clones. It says:
“This attack breaks enemy targeting and your illusions change focus to the targeted foe. "

Topic “illusion based”: imagine we’re dodging the whole time so do our clones. Also we can grab deceptive evasion if generation would be a problem.

Added: since 2 duelist attacks are ebough to kill most pve mobs i guess that 40 condies (even torment and confusion) +15 bleeds should be enough for the same damage.

Levetty.1279:

Ambushes so far are confusion and torment base, crap in PvE.

Let’s say torment and confusion damage is crap in PvE, ok. How does condi rev deal a lot of damage via torment if that’s the case? Numbers of stacks. Oh guess what, we just got the option for 20 stacks of these conditions on a single skill not including sharper images.
So let’s say we do 2 ambushes with 3 scepter clones. – since it’s 50/50 we’ll get 20 stacks of torment and 20 stacks of confusion. Additionally we’ll get about 15 stacks of bleeding (considering you’ve got 50% crit chance). How’s that crap for open world?

Illusions don’t work well against easily killed mobs and once you have done your big attack, now what? The rest of your skills are kitten.

We just got a tool to retarget Illusions… Read Axe 3 again

People keep saying Mirage will be able to evade all over the place but I don’t see how. We already have vigor on shatter in Chaos and Dueling used to give perma vigor, and Mesmer can use Sigils, you’ve never seen Mesmers evading all over the place.

I guess you don’t understand what I am saying.
I’m almost certain that even in PvE 2 ambushes like that are potent enough to kill a mob. Sigil of Stamina refreshes your Endurance on every kill to 100%. That’s how you’re evading all over the place.
Evade+Ambush->Evade+Ambush=Kill->Evade+Ambush->Evade+Ambush…
Sure this will be different for Bosses but we’re talking about open world aren’t we? most mobs will die rather quickly if you stick to offensive gear.

Levetty.1279:

No, its setting up clones as if they were Phantasms to do the damage, anybody who plays open world PvE can see this spec is kitten. Its a gimmicky PvP only spec.

I am pretty certain that Mirage will be really strong at Open World PvE.
You’ll be perma evading and spamming ambushes all over the place.
(Hint: Sigil of Stamina winkyface )

Ah found it.
Screen
Source

I’m on my phone right now so i cannot prove it but I’ve taken a screenshot (from wp or peachy) that shows mantra of resolve’s tooltip.
It seems to grant resistente and cleanse 3 condis instead.
I’ll post the screenshot later.

@Hot Boy: I guess if you want to force it you can still run Mirage on Power. In every trait tier there’s at least one option that doesn’t shout “CONDIEE!”.

Look at this staff ambush skill. With 3 clones+yourself that skill provides 12 stacks of might for your allies. Sounds interesting.

I suppose our main damage will still come from sharper images. Now with mirage instead of chaos.

Levetty.1279:

http://i.imgur.com/FValrpB.png

Tell me what gear is going to boost those numbers above joke values. I can run other classes naked and get more damage out of thier defense or support weapons then we get out of our DPS weapon.

Viper. I don’t see your problem. Look at the 3rd autoattacks condition doration. Yes the ramp time will be long but the values aren’t a problem i think.

Daishi.6027:

Levetty.1279:

Btw Mirror seems to be those prisms that you can create that if you run into gives you the new evade, gives enemies weakness and does a absolutly massive 80 damage. Thats your kittening DPS spec people, a utility that does 80 damage and a weapon that does 600 and people are already calling it OP. kittening amazing.

My question to those people is how is any of this more OP than current DD?

Do you guys know what gear WP wore when he was playing with mirage? How can you talk about damage values? (but yeah 80dmg on the mirror is a joke tbh)

Levetty.1279:

Btw Mirror seems to be those prisms that you can create that if you run into gives you the new evade, gives enemies weakness and does a absolutly massive 80 damage. Thats your kittening DPS spec people, a utility that does 80 damage and a weapon that does 600 and people are already calling it OP. kittening amazing.

Mirror Found it in WP aftershow while rewatching it. It grants mirage cloak as well which means 1s of dodge.

Adding to the List of stuff:

• An interesting trait that recharges on shatter – source
• The grandmaster trait that makes your clones strong – source
• To go PvE Grandmaster – source

pico.6402:

Did U saw tooltip on Mirage feat. It have 7 tabs – every weapon will get it own Ambush

Ohh…
so we get 3 Axe Skills +7 Ambushes + A Set of Utilities = 16 skills I’m impressed.

Just noticed: Look at the Vigor Tooltip

I’ve been watching Aurora Peachy’s post stream for now and it seems that you can still move while you’re evading. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• The duration is the same as a normal dodge roll 3/4s Source
• There’s a Minor granting superspeed when gaining “Mirage Cloak” Source
• There seems to be a second Mechanic that they haven’t talked about yet that’s got something to do with Mirrors. Source1 Source2

Sorry for the low quality it’s screenshotted from 2 twitch clips I’ve created while she was showing mirage.
Clip with skills
Clip with traits

The reasons you list are pretty valid.
My only concern is the Sigil still since it requires you to constantly swap weapons which is not required. You only really need to swap when doing your Quickness rotation.
I for example only swap to gain in the concentration buff and usually camp focus/whatever in the meanwhile.
And since water procs on hit and not on crit I don’t think your water Sigil will proc much less than its cooldown.

As I’ve said monk Runes would provide more healing and if that is not your intention it’s better to use durability yes.

Another thing to note. I don’t think that top groups (these that you would ruin gotl for if your healing is too good) require a minstrel tank. Maybe for deimos but since I don’t even run minstrel in my rather casual groups I don’t think this would be the problem.

I’d consider minstrel a way to carry groups that normally have problems with the basics than a way to minmax the game and that being said gotl won’t carry these groups either.

This is pretty much the full tank build you’ll find on the Internet right?
As long as you have the highest toughness and you can keep up Quickness your job is done. As long as your group doesn’t try to deal over 200k group dps it doesn’t matter if you deal 10k or 2k dps.

• In cases where you need to sustain yourself (e.g. Deimos) I’d recommend Mantra heal and restorative mantras.
  While the rezz bubble can carry groups sometimes the manta can sustain yourself at most bosses without the need for a druid.
• If you want more heal on your allies you can swap a few stats around and take rune of the monk. (66.4% doon duration). Is what i’ve come up with (idc for these .6% tbh)
• If you don’t keep your weapon swap on CD the superior Sigil of Water could be better for healing. ( renewal: 83hps if used all 9s // water 104hps if used all 5s)

Try to adapt your build for every boss. For most bosses with toughness aggro it’s enough if you just get about >1,400 toughness. (or even less if the warriors don’t rezz)

Nice guide pyro (as expected from a veteran mesmer player)

I actually play something quite similar for roaming.
The major difference is that my stats are much more aggressive (fullzerk) and that I use SoDomination instead of SoInspiration because it’s not supposed to be a group/zerg spec.

You might consider using a Sigil of Draining because your builds’ aoe CC potential is quite high and a good Tides of Time or Gravity well can get you a really nice amount of health back.
I totally agree that Energy/Concentration is a great option though.

~ Me Games Ma

In pve I run full assassin armor + zerker weapons and trinkets using rune of the chronomancer it works well with any of my builds (none of them is basemesmer anymore).

I tried this too and i went full assassin/zerker with only one trinket being cavalier (we had to make sure that noone else has any toughness tho)

I’d suggest to take “Shattered Strengh” and “Restorative Illusions” and switch mimic for “Well of Action”.
You don’t need to go tanky in stats since you have a LOT of blocks, evades, blocks, evades, and blocks. Oh and Invuln.
Perma alacrity is easily sustained with this build and if you keep shattering your blocks should never be on a higher cooldown than 8s after blurred frenzy.

I didn’t read all of this but I’d like to add:
Mesmer blocks last a max of 4 1/2s (with continuum) when you just don’t mindlessly hit them while they’re blocking

Just in case some of you didn’t notice. With the new system that shows the distance to map exploration points and waypoints you can now place a personal waypoint whereever you want to put down a portal and hover over that location on your minimap.

When the range indicator is less than 5000 units away your portal will work.

Hint: this also works if you place your personal waypoint on a different map level (surface, underground, etc.)

Thanks for all the replies.
i’ll join in for a more detailed discussion than just saying “thank you” once i’m home.

One thing I’d like to clarify just now though is that i’m thinking of instanced pve (fractals/dungeons/raids) and that i expect having full buffs (at least 25 stacks might from my beloved warrior and at least enough initial fury to get the enemy below 75%)

See you guys soon c:

edit:
@ pyro: what about the damage increase by our dom grandmaster minor?
Having dmg*1.125 or dmg*1.005^25? (~13.27 dmg)

Hey guys out there I’d like to start a discussion on the traitlines we chose besides Chronomancy. (Regarding an Alacrity Build using “All’s well that ends well” “Improved Alacrity” and “Chronophantasma”.)

Here is what I’ve figured out yet:
Domination: (damage)

• 15% more phantasm damage
• up to 20 stacks vulnerability from breaking breakbars with a 4 person 2Diversion"
• up to 12.5% more damage from vulnerability
• damage on interrupt for trashmobs OR up to 30% more MW damage on broken bosses

Dueling: (damage)

• 20% more crit for phantasms
• a bit of vigor (yay)
• up to 150 more ferocity
• 75% selfbuff fury uptime
• Grandmaster choice is hard imo (not using mantras/conditions and not wanting to overwrite my 3rd phantasm o.O)

Chaos: (support)

• up to 9% damage reduction (or is Illusionary defense calculted by multiplication as well?)
• staff cooldowns and protection
• group buffs from shattering

Inspiration: (support)

• additional condition removal
• more phantasm health/feedback on reviving
• shareable distortion
• focus reflect/heal on shatter
• pDefender for free or boonshare on phantasms

Illusions: Utility

• phantasm recharge on shattering
• less cooldown on illusions
• faster phantasm attack rate
• faster shatter cooldowns (more alacrity and more continuums)
• #bettershatter

ATM I always stick to running Chronomancy, Dueling and Illusions.
Reasoning behind this is to have as much alacrity uptime on myself and on my allies and keep quite a good average damage.

Illusions gives me the opportunity to spawn more phantasms (more frequently) since I can almost recast any phantasm after having 2×3phantasms shattered in a row (12s cooldown reduction). Also I can timewarp more frequently because of my shattercooldowns being 15% faster from this line. 20% phantasm attack rate … I use this one because of the avenger (again for more alacrity) and finally we have #bettershatters in this line which allows us to F3 groups of trashmobs <3.

With dueling I am not sure if that is the right choice. I am using a sword ofc and that’s why I usually want to take Fencer’s Finesse to decrease cooldowns and increase damage. But I have no idea if the domination line would be a better choice here. Not only it provides a 15% phantasm attack boost but also a 12.5% damage boost for myself and the opportunity to highly increase shatterburst on broken enemies.

What would you guys say?
Should I even drop illusions and go with Chrono Duel Dom? Or should I go for the support abilities in inspiration? O.o I really have a hard time deciding what to use everything has a lot of pros and cons >_<

EDIT: I should add that in all cases I am refering to a berserker/assassin gear mesmer =)

Wow these answers… are you seriously thinking that I don’t know how mantras or MoA work?
Ofc I meant the channel of the mantras when I spoke about interruption and ofc i know that MoA does not prevent the CC (which I didn’t even state in my first post so I don’t know how one could jump to the conclusion that I thought this)

Seriously, do you think I’m stupid? I kinda feel insulted by these answers.

I just noticed while explaining focusparty play to a new mesmer that mirror of anguish does NOT work to counter illusionary wave or mantra of distraction. Is that known? Can anyone confirm that?

Power Block does NOT set mantra recharges on 15s but only on 5s cooldown. I hope that also with this one I am not the only one experiencing this.

~ Me Games Ma

I didn’t read the whole thread but with the search function I wasn’t able to spot the word “Precognition” which is by far the best well for PvE imo.
What it does now is not as relevant but the changes Robert posted for BWE3:
Pulse 1s of Blur — finishes in 35 endurance refill.
Don’t you guys think this is extremly powerful?

In the meta where the team stacks in a corner or on a wall this well makes the whole group invulnerable for 3 seconds and since chronomancers with “All’s well that ends well” can also provide a bunch of alacrity this well can be reduced to a ~30s cooldown.

Result for a group: 3s of free dps where you do NOT need to dodge any attacks which would result in a dps loss.
Since we should have enough slow and quickness from time warp we can fokus on different levels of support and one would be to apply blur or distortion to our group. Another way of chronomancy support is alacrity and the very last ofc we can cleanse conditions and heal with our Well of Eternity.
(if needed we can still use feedback to reflect)

Remember when…

• distortion turned into blur for a short time?
• deceptive evasion was a minor trait for 15 points in dueling?

The easiest way to fix the problem that you have one or two stacks remaining crippling you for the next fight or forcing you to blow these stacks into air would be check your mantra stack upon exiting combat mode.
If you got any stacks from a mantra left when you exit combat mode you instantly regain all of your stacks for the mantra.
If you don’t have any stacks the mantra needs to be charged normally.

This is my mesmer casting dark chaos magic which she isn’t supposed to know yet but… you know she’s seen a few reapers last weekend and figured out that she wants to do the same

Fay.2357:

Oh man, I wish I’d known about this one. That would have been a load of fun to screw around with.

I reported the bug silently telling them to fix it as soon as possible so noone could abuse it…^^

Here’s a vid about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpkSpaFTh1k&feature=youtu.be

I figured it out by chance when i wanted to protect our trebuche man from getting knocked back and TADAA the treb was invul too. Actually I screwed around with it for 2 hours and then made the bug report because I just figured out how gamebreaking it was.
>5 Mesmers could invul a gate/wall for quite a long time by using signet trait and Inspiration….

Btw: I was using my build the Dominating Inscriptions when I figured it out.

One thing to make it more fun to use:
There should be a big damage effect after the float just when they hit the ground again.
Like lifting them up in the sky and smashing them back on the ground! :o
I can’t be the only one who wants this!

The title refers to structures on the map.
In our normal tyrian maps every high structure (things the devs wouldn’t ever expect us to get on) are just textures without collision. In verdant brink tho, almost every texture seems to have collision!
It’s even possible to reach a heigh where the beta ends

And btw anet, make these cubes invisible pls

Menaka.5092:

I had one instance where – for some reason – I didn’t get ported back to the original position, but I couldn’t find out what it was… I’ll check if I recorded it, anyone else noticed something like this?

Once. I used the experimental teleportation gun and pressed CS just before i started the leap. I saw the CS-Rift and the icon change. Leaped forewards and waited for the backport which did not come. This was the sigle time experiencing that. Oh btw CS went on full cooldown. Whatever it worked for ~30 other times just fine!

Another cool trick with CS for map breakers is: (only security of not falling down anymore^^)
Experimental Rifle Knockback prevention:

1. Start Casting the Leap of the experimental rifle.
2. Hit CS just when you’re about to leave the ground.
3. Place a portal as soon as you reach the spot you want to go to.
4. Wait until CS reverts you to your original position.
5. Place the second portal

The Idea behind this is that IF you fail the jump/get knocked back you wouldn’t die but just get placed where you originally came from

Esplen.3940:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Portal does not “really” work with CS since the cooldown of the portal starts on using portal entree and runs in the background. You can only revert back to that cooldown if you place the portal excount while under the effect of CS

Portal has 2 cooldowns. There’s the innate 72s cooldown that ticks in the background. This one only comes into effect if the Entre expires, putting your portal on a 12s cooldown. If you do cast Exeunte, then the 72s cooldown refreshes itself at 72s and starts ticking again.

That’s why if you use Mimic, you want to use it on the Exeunte, not the Entre (since you do refresh a cooldown, but it’s a dummy cooldown that you won’t benefit from).

Yes this is what I wanted to say
I’ve just figured out that Mantras work the same way. The cooldown is triggered on the initial charge AND when you spend the last stack. Further testing it right now.

EDIT: Mantras trigger the cooldown every time a stack is spend which means in order to reduce the cooldown to 0s you’d have to wait the full cooldown of the mantra just before using the last stack and use up the last one while under the effect of CS.

My few:

It is not possible to effectively blink 4 times by using
CS->Mimic->Blink->Blink->CS->Mimic->Blink->Blink since the CS will revert your position to where you activated CS first.
Anyways using CS->Mimic->CS->Blink->Mimic->Blink->Blink is a possible way of triple casting any utility you like (including movementrelated skills) since you didn’t travel in your CS.

There are some abilities which should be easy to cast withing the 1.5s of a non-illusion-CS but get on cooldown after a short delay. One example is Signet of Domination. If casted while under the effect of a non-illusion-CS the cooldown will trigger AFTER CS ended eventhough Signet of Domination only has .25s cast time and finishes its casting while under the effect of CS. (Anomaly?)

If you transform into something with more HP/get a huge health buff while under the effect of CS you will revert your HP to the TOTAL NUMBER OF HP YOU HAD WHEN YOU ENTERED CS! (Golems in WvW included) Works the other way around too!
If you manage to have more base health than the atm HP from a siege golem you can actually heal it!

Portal does not “really” work with CS since the cooldown of the portal starts on using portal entree and runs in the background. You can only revert back to that cooldown if you place the portal excount while under the effect of CS

Mantras will not restore stacks when used under the effect of CS Anyways if you use up the last charge of the mantra while under the effect of CS you can instantly charge it again… (sometimes?! further testing tomorrow)

When they had the stream of the chrono I’m sure it was 3->4 but yes you are right it’s 3->5 now :o

EDIT: Back then I downloaded the stream about the chrono from yt and looked at the times when the character had alacrity on it. 1 second of the video resulted in 1.3s of the cooldowns being reduced.

Alacrity is the counter part to chill this isn’t a false statement.
The tooltipps might be easy to missunderstand.
Chill makes 3s in real time cool down only 2 1 seconds of our cooldowns.
Alacrity makes 3s in real time coold down 4 5 seconds of out cooldowns.
Basically it additionally reduces .33s .66s per second ending up with 1.66s per second while chill does the opposite (adding .33s per second)

It’s a timing issue. :x If you hit Continuum while casting Tides of Time it should get the cooldown reset. If you hit Tides of Time too late the cooldown will start just after Continuum ends.