Guild Wars 2

Ryouzanpaku.1273:

NashEquilSeek.2801:

Hi guys,

However, I only have the zerker ascended gear for PvE.

Are you aware it is quite cheap to swap stats on Ascended gear?

I do, but what if I want to go back to being a “Utility DPS” mesmer in fractals?

Hi guys,

I always wanted a clone-based deceptive play style (ie clone factory) for solo PvE.
So I would like to transfer the chronophantasma shatter build from PvP to PvE.

However, I only have the zerker ascended gear for PvE.

So my question is: is this a good build?

I know the saying that “you can play anyhow you want in PvE”, but at least could you help me improve the build, with the following constraints:

• Zerker Ascended armor
• Legendary sword, shield, staff
• Another ascended zerker sword, and greatsword

Thanks! Feel free to shoot any (constructive please) opinions.

Edit: Even if you think this build is beyond hopeless, please also let me know.

I agree with what all these people said. I have just steamrolled through TA story mode with my Minion Master Power Reaper. I don’t complain though, I really enjoy soloing dungeons.

Now now… please go easy on us casual unranked pvp’ers

I have played quite a number of (only unranked) matches, and is Rank Tiger. But quite honestly, I still have little clue on how to properly rotate! Sometimes, I don’t get how an opponent can just kill me with ease. I guess I’m a slow learner…

Of course, having good teammates always make my life easier, and I’m always thankful in those occasions!

If I may, for those of you who think that your teammates are rubbish and are losing, please don’t be kittened off and go AFK just because you’ve had enough… I think that’s just rude, discouraging to new players, and prevent them learning from better players. Arguably, if you can somehow learn to overcome (even slightly) the infamous “MMR problem”, you’ve made yourself a better player.

Cheers

LOL
This thread has given me a good laugh!

Anyway, have you tried submitting in the bug subforum?

Levetty.1279:

It does have perma swiftness though

Exactly what Fay has been saying to OP about mesmer as well

But to quote OP:

“I was referring to the actual signet not traits or runes, sigils or armors, weapon skills or any combo fields I was referring to perma swiftness that other classes have that this one doesn’t not referring to the 25% movment speed from a trait again I will stress the point PERMA SWIFTNESS not 5 seconds of it every 10 seconds”

If I understand correctly, OP specifically wants a signet (for mesmer) that provide perma swiftness. Why though?

Budman.2934:

I was referring to the actual signet not traits or runes, sigils or armors, weapon skills or any combo fields I was referring to perma swiftness that other classes have that this one doesn’t not referring to the 25% movment speed from a trait again I will stress the point PERMA SWIFTNESS not 5 seconds of it every 10 seconds

I second Fay:
Why are you insisting on making Signet of Inspiration as a mesmer’s source of perma swiftness? eg Guardian doesn’t have speed increasing signet, and Revenant doesn’t even have signets…

An equipment piece will have a rarity rating: Basic, Fine, Masterwork, Rare, Exotic, Ascended, Legendary.

Once you reach level 80, you should get at least exotic gears. Don’t worry about Ascended/Legendary for now.

Another suggestion that pops into my mind:
Once you used an upgrade component to a gear, you can get it back (with 100% certainty) by using Black Lion Salvage Kit. This is especially important if you have a very expensive upgrade, eg Force

Also, you can play around with the build editor here. In that link, I have provided the DPS build that I was referring to. Note that when choosing an equipment, the orange colour indicates Exotic, while Red/Pink indicates Ascended. For now, just use Exotic.

Also, here is a guide on how to use that build.

Let me know if you have more questions.

Hmm… Are your armor pieces ascended? If yes, the second slot is called infusion slots, which is mainly for agony resistance for fractals, and I suggest that you ignore that for now.

If they are only exotic, then there should be only one slot…. AFAIK
However, two-handed weapons do have two upgrade slots.

Anyway, the way how superior rune works is that a certain type (eg, Scholar, Pack) has 6-tiered bonus. For each superior rune of that type you are currently equipping, you activate a tier. For instance, if you are currently equipping 3 Superior runes of the scholar, that means you will get +25 Power, +35 Ferocity, +50 Power.

Also, note that you cannot equip two identical sigils at the same time. For instance, you cannot equip two Superior Sigil of the Force to your greatsword.

Hope this helps.

Since you are using Berserker, typically Superior Rune of the Scholar (armors) and Superior Sigil of Force/Night/Air (weapons). They are a bit pricey though…

I believe this is the typical DPS build for dungeons pre-HoT. You might also want to get off hand Sword, since its phantasm is one of the best for DPS.

There’s a great mesmer-how-to guide at dulfy website. Have a look if you haven’t already done so.

I’m not too great at comparing builds except by actually playing it and judge which one is easier to use. I personally think they are of different use.

1. I found that Rabid condi build is easier for solo PvE. In addition, apparently condi chrono is meta for high level fractals. Also, I’m enjoying the easier play style, though I should warn you that fights will be longer (but at least I will eventually win)

2. Having said that, you technically can solo PvE with Zerk build – but I’m not skillful enough to do that! You have access to shield blocks, F4, Sword #2, and dodges. That might be enough for survivability.

3. For team PvE (such as dungeon/fractals), maybe the usual S/S /Sh power chrono is better due to shorter fights (stacking bleed takes time). However, a Zerk build is rather squishy, so I have to be more careful.

TLDR: It is of my believe that power mesmer is more versatile. But Rabid condi build is easier for solo PvE.

Having just recently switched to condi build from power build, I actually have two gear sets: one condi and one power. This allows me to switch build if necessary.

I’m currently using this Rabid Bleed build which I believe is what you want – survivability (high toughness) while still creeping in damage. I use this build by keeping 3 pistol phantasms up to stack massive bleed damage, while my char just running around using scepter AA to stack torment, and constantly generating clones to distract aggro if one of your phantasms is down. Very easy to use. Signed of Inspiration will give you swiftness regularly, and you will benefit from Chaotic Persistence trait.

An alternative Chronomancer variant can be used if you do not need those extra damage reduction from Illusionary defense trait. And you can equip shield instead of staff for extra blocks.

I have had a similar discussion in another thread. A more offensive variant was suggested.

Sadly, however, none of these builds use GS. In addition, I believe these builds are somewhat popular, and you might have already looked into them.

Hope this helps
Let me know what you think.

Assuming that the total damage dealt by a stack of Duelist’s Discipline bleed is still the same, doesn’t shorter duration only mean that the build becomes more burst-y? This is more desirable, yes?

I couldn’t conclude whether my Assumption is true based on your video – you see, I’m not really good at calculating damage

Xyonon.3987:

25k, 250k, 42k DpS!? Holy poop you guys are horrible at math! O.o xD

Ok, here we go:

---

Duelist’s Discipline: 1,617 damage à 50% * 8 = 6,468
Sharper Images: 1,323 damage à 49.76% * 8 = 5,268
Phantasmal Duelist direct damage: 928 à 69.76% crit chance à 50% bonus damage = 1,252

(6,468 + 5,267 + 1,252) * 3 / 6.6s = 5,903 DpS without might and / or vulnerability.

---

DpS stands for “Damage per Second”, and is a completly different thing from burst damage or just “Damage”.

If you’d be able to set up 3 Phantasmal Duelists immediately, they would unload all their bullets and deal 38,961 damage, however since they have (traited with phantasmal haste) a 6.6s cooldown on this, their damage per second will be only 1/6th of this.

After 2 min you’d still have the same DpS, but you’d have dealt 708,381 damage in total.

---

Condi Chronos are a thing in veeery specific areas, like high level fractals, soloing hero points or under specific circumstances even an, or even, the optimal pick in raids.

I suggest you this build tough:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAr6ensIC9fiNoBWoBUrhlcjC9HWiZoMAStWreVr1bF-TxhHQB5S9nMqEkc6FAwJBYXK/o1DAAE7PQKAFVWB-e

Depending on the situation and allies, the heal and utility skills may be better more supporty than solo dps.

Greez!

Thanks for the clarification!

Although this is disappointing, now the number makes sense. Never thought the number shown in the build editor is the total damage, I though it was the DPS!

Cyninja.2954:

Using your numbers this would mean you get a cap bleed damage per rotation of:

(12 × 1323 + 6 × 1617 = 25578 DPS) + (12(3.25/6) × 1323 (8599.5) + 6(5/6) × 1617 (8085)= 16,684.5 DPS) = 42,262.5 DPS

That is assuming your numbers are correct. To lazy to pull actual numbers atm.

Of course you are right! However, that is still a great DPS, no? That hasn’t included the DPS from torment.

Hi guys,

I’ve just tried the following bleed build (inspired by Ilyavi fractals 100 solo), which I found to be very easy to use for solo PvE due to high Toughness and huge bleed stack from the phantasms (thus you can stay away from the enemy).

This, of course, is essentially a condi mesmer build. But the emphasis is to maintain 3 iDuelists to provide bleed.

I’ve got to say that I’m not a skillful player. For instance, I’ve never been able to solo the Arrowhead HP in AB if I use the meta DPS chrono build. But with this build, I easily solo’ed it last night (like, really easily). In addition, this build is quite cheap – you can use exotic armors and weapons and it’s still pretty good.

I’ve got three questions here:
1. What do you guys think of this build? Anyway to improve it for solo PvE? Anyway to adapt it for other purposes?

2. According to the build editor, each iDuelist attack consists of 8 damage proc, totalling up to 24 proc with 3 phantasms. This means, on average, Sharper Image will provide 12 bleed stack (with 49% crit chance) of 1323 damage each and Duelist’s Discipline will provide 6 bleed stack (50% chance from non-crit attack) of 1617 damage each. The total damage is 12 × 1323 + 6 × 1617 = 25578 DPS. Is this correct?

3. Based on the info in the build editor, the bleed duration from Duelist’s Discipline and Sharper Image are 11 and 9.25 seconds respectively. Let’s assume a hypothetical situation where you can always maintain 3 iDuelists. Since iDuelists attack every 6 seconds, does this mean the bleed stack is going to steadily increase over time? According to my simple spreadsheet “simulation”, starting from 0 bleed stack and all phantasms attack simultaneously at time = 0, the bleed stack after 2 minutes is 108 (sharper) + 66 (duelist) = 249606 DPS. The calculation also shows that the total damage accrued is over 15 millions.

I believe I’m missing something as the damage is just outrageous, even if I only achieve 20% of the stack. Furthermore, my experience so far indicates I can achieve at most about 40-50 bleed stack. Thoughts? Thanks guys.

It seems like there’s a bug when diving in this spot. As soon as my character leaps, the screen crashes (but game still going) and once the screen comes back normal, my char is without diving goggles (and sometimes still naked until I hit the water).

Server: dragonbrand

Let me know if more info is needed. Hope this helps.

Hi Ansau, could you please share the build? I’m interested to have a look. Thanks!

Fay.2357:

Short answer: no, that build is bad.

Long answer: I highly highly doubt that build can do 100% uptime on quickness. Additionally, it has poor alacrity uptime, expensive gear, and poor damage.

For dungeons and fractals you should be using a variant of the standard chrono raid setup: dom/ill/chrono with sw/f + sw/sh, or maybe sw/sw instead of sw/f. You can drop domination for inspiration if you need a lot of reflects, and you should be taking heal well, quickness well, alacrity well, signet of inspiration, and time warp. You should be using zerker gear and chronomancer runes.

Edit: I think the creator of that build is under the mistaken impression that the stability from BD and the quickness from sieze the moment is aoe. Neither are aoe.

Thanks for your comment!

Yes, I’ve been using the build that you mentioned. Except Chronomancer runes – I’ve been using Scholar since pre-HoT and am a bit too stingy to change runes.

Cheers!

Hi guys,

I found the Boon Spam build, which is not listed in the Mesmer page in Metabattle. Its purpose seems to be similar to the Boonshare build, but seems to provide more Quickness (and might, and vigor!) uptime.

I’m interested in using this build to play dungeon/fractals with some mates. I wonder whether this build is good? Since Mesmer (or maybe just me?) is not good at sustaining DPS compared to other classes, I though keeping 100% quickness for the others might make the fights easier (and faster?).

What are your thoughts? Thanks!

FYI, I managed to finish it by (following someone else’s suggestion) always stacking on Taimi (credit to that person). Cheers.

Can anyone confirm whether this has been fixed (following the recent update)? Thanks!

Astralporing.1957:

Interesting. I admit i didn’t check Zap yet – but for all those i did check it was the opposite situation. I guess i may do a calculation on every precursor and see which ones are profitable to craft and which aren’t.

I also did another one for Dusk, and it costs about 630 gold, compared to highest buy order price of approx 960 gold (last I checked). Anyway, if you are interested, we can compare our calculations. Moreover, if I were to extrapolate my observation, the majority of the crafting cost comes from the ascended mats (eg, Deldrimor ingots for Zap and Dusk). Thus, crafting a precursor will be cheap if we gather the mats to craft those ascended mats. I hope this info helps somehow.

Astralporing.1957:

Then you should definitely stay away from crafting. This part is basically the only reason why someone might pick the crafting route, as it is more costly than just buying precursor off the TP.

How can you say that crafting is more costly? I did a spreadsheet calculating the cost of crafting Zap (including the cost of the collections) and it costs only slightly over 600 gold, compared to highest Zap buy order of approx 870 gold. The cost is calculated assuming you buy (put an order at highest buying price) all materials (fyi, most expensive part comes from buying materials for crafting Deldrimor steel ingot). So if you gather iron ores and maybe platinum ores, crafting Zap is relatively very cheap.