Showing Posts For Murdurus.9182:
You could definitely run with GS and Scepter/Sword, however, the sword offhand doesn’t really provide you with anything that the pistol doesn’t. The block is sort of nice I suppose but you already have a block with the scepter if you need it and they shouldn’t be in your face most of the time since you’re staying ranged. As for the phantasm, the Duelist tends to stay alive longer since it doesn’t have to be in melee range whereas the Swordsman does. Also, if your crit is at a decent level (and if you’re using Dueling II which you should with 10/20/0/25/15), each crit shots the Duelist does will also apply a stack of bleed.
I would probably recommend either 10/20/0/25/15 or 20/10/0/25/15 for beginners, especially if you decide to try and stay ranged to learn fights. I generally recommend using a Greatsword and Scepter/Pistol for either of these set ups for beginners. Both of these builds rely more heavily on having your phantasms deal the damage while you’re able to concentrate on not dying and learning the mechanics of the fights.
10/20/0/25/15 is a more standard one, taking everything that beefs up your phantasms for damage as well as some glamour buffs. 20/10/0/25/15 is similar to the first one but it gives you the GS cooldown and additional power over the cooldown of the pistol and bleed (from illusions).
After learning the fights (and your character), you could progress to using a Sword/Sword and Sword/Focus or Sword/Pistol because swords have a higher damage output as well as applying the vulnerability debuff and stripping boons. Some people are hard set on having the focus as an offhand weapon, I personally find it to be overrated in terms of utility other than on very specific circumstances.
I believe what they’re saying is that 10% decrease in damage will mainly affect Berserkers and Assassins because of the nerf to crit damage but if say you were Solider or Knight, the crit damage nerf probably won’t affect you that much or any at all if you don’t have crit damage. But as they have also already said, Berserkers and Assassins (probably more so Berserkers than Assassins) will still remain the best DPS set to wear for what you’re trying to accomplish.
What this ultimately means is that other stats become to look a bit more appealing in comparison to crit damage if you’re willing to sacrifice some damage for say more defense or healing (I wouldn’t recommend healing for Mesmers though).
I’ve only been playing the game as an 80 mesmer for a bit over a month but I feel like that the focus offhand is overrated for most of the time. I really now only use it for the swiftness more than anything else. Here’s why I think that:
1.) It needs to be traited to reflect projectiles.
2.) The #4 skill requires accurate placement (i.e. right where the projectile will make contact with your character rather than in its path).
3.) Focus #4 doesn’t last very long (5 seconds).
4.) Phantasmal Warden is buggy and won’t attack sometimes.
5.) Phantasmal Warden has a longer cooldown than any other Phantasms.
6.) Phantasmal Warden requires the target(s) to stand still for it to deal its full damage.
Of course, I’m not saying the focus is completely useless, there are times when the reflect is useful but I must say a large majority of the time, I think it’s overrated. The Warden is pretty good for AoE’ing things but a lot of the time, it dies before it can finish its full attack. The pull effect with #4 is scarcely used and is rarely necessary.
Currently, I run 0/20/10/25/15 with Scepter/Pistol and GS for most boss fights and use S/S and GS for the boss fights that I know I can stay in for the majority of the time or know that ranging isn’t an option. I’m running full Assassin at the moment but I think I’ll switch over to Knight armors for when I make my ascended and modify the build to be 10/10/10/25/15 and stick with S/S GS. It’s a more defensive build than the more standard DPS builds but the way I look at it is that if I’m downed/dead, it not only means that I’m not dealing damage but so aren’t the people who are rezzing me, not to mention I look and feel like a total noob. Illusionary Defense and the 100 toughness helps out a bit in terms of survivability and with the ability to generate illusions rather quickly through Illusionary Leap and Illusionary Riposte combined with Blade Training and Illusionist’s Celerity, having a constant supply of illusions should rarely be an issue. Metaphysical Rejuvenation could be better but it’s better than nothing and I don’t rely on it being an effective lifesaver anyway. The rest is pretty self-explanatory I think and I would use Temporal Enchanter/Persisting Images since I won’t be using a focus.
However, in terms of utility skills though, I almost always take Ether Feast as my heal; Signet of the Ether just doesn’t heal me fast enough in a pinch and when it’s on cooldown, I’m just screwed as I have no heals for a very long time. The other three are Feedback, Mantra of Resolve and Null Field and of course, Time Warp. I will sometimes take up Blink depending on the fight since I don’t always need to remove conditions/boons and likewise, I will switch out Mantra of Resolve for Mantra of Concentration.
By the way, I feel like that Deceptive Evasion is overrated for PvE, in most situations in which you have to dodge, the clone is just going to die instantly anyway so it’s rarely beneficial; as usual, there are exceptions to this such as fighting the golem in CoE where your sword clones’ auto attacks are very useful. In fact, more often than not, because DE will always create a clone, I feel like it destroying one of my phantasms happens much more often when I don’t want it to so I eventually just got rid of it completely and I haven’t missed it since.
Interesting that you bring this up because I was thinking along very similar lines (I prefer Assassin over Berserker). I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to try and go with a full set of Assassin ascended or Knight ascended and then just keep the rest (weapons and accessories) as Assassin/Berserker. Of course, the whole point of me even bothering considering Knight is because now that I’m lvl 19 in Fractals, the mobs are starting to deal noticeably more damage. I would prefer vitality rather than toughness but since there isn’t a set like that (power/precision/vitality), I would have to take toughness as the next best thing.
Now, my main concern mostly is whether or not it’s worth giving up the power/precision for ~300 toughness. I’m not too overly concerned about crit damage since the set itself really only gives 17% and I’m sitting at 106% at the moment with my Assassin set (not saying crit damage doesn’t matter, I just have ‘enough’ of it). So in my case, I’ll be giving up 17% crit damage and some precision for 300 toughness.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to two questions for me: 1.) How much difference does 300 toughness make and 2.) Is it worth giving up precision and crit damage for it. Of course, depending on how much difference toughness makes, the second might not even become a question. Also, something else that might be of concern is how much will the toughness affect aggro; I think that’ll make a difference in our decision as well.
I think I’ll wait and see what the devs have to say about crit damage today; that, in itself, might answer my dilemma. Sorry I didn’t have much to add to the conversation but wasn’t too sure if my concerns are the same as yours.