Guild Wars 2

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Verificus.4320:

So this is PvE right? One of the main reasons why you don’t see Mesmer going condi in PvE is because the type of conditions Mesmer is best at are more suited for PvP (Torment and Confusion). They are also decent at bleeds, but so is everyone else. You will simply never approach the amount of Condi DPS a Engi/Ranger can do. You probably won’t even be able to keep up with Necro/Warrior. The output is just too low. You will do more damage as a Power mesmer. And honestly, as a mesmer, DPS is kind of a side thing. I’d suggest putting that Viper on a Necro, would suit it well there.

Hybrid mesmer can put out very good dps in PvE.
Power isn’t generally better because condi can’t dps, power is better because it always works, and has better reflects to boot.

But hybrid dps is very strong.

That said, shatters are the wrong focus for hybrid pve dps.
The real meat is Sharper Images + Phantasmal Fury + iDuelist and iWarden.

iDuelist in particular does strong physical damage and strong condi damage with dueling and Viper gear. Once they fix Berserker Runes, they’ll be a top tier rune (just middling right now because the t6 condi damage boost is broken).

But shatters do terrible physical dps, even in a full power build, so going hybrid shatter is worse than full power OR full condi.

So has it been tested/confirmed that Phantasmal Fury is better than Duelist’s Discipline for a PvE condi hybrid build? I’m in a similar boat as the OP in that I want to try mixing Viper gear into my Sinister stats, but don’t know if the drop in condi damage and precision is worth it.

Guild Name: Arcus Pride [ArcP]

We are a PvX (a little bit of everything) LGBT gamer community. We range from dungeons, fractals, world bosses, Personal/Living Story runs, PvP, and WvW. We have members across several servers; with our core WvW members stationed on Devona’s Rest. Anyone from any server is welcome to join. If any member wishes to move servers, ArcP will handle all expenses!

We run Guild Rushes, Challenges, and Puzzles every Saturday around the daily reset time and Guild Bounties every Sunday at noon EST. Other events such as low and high level fractal runs, Silverwaste chest trains, and PvP/WvW roaming parties are held throughout the week.

Anyone is welcome to join by either messaging the guild leaders Noah Ballet (Noah.9654) and Soto Urchin (Urchin.3514) or by going to join.arcuspride.com.

Hope to see a lot of new gaymers soon!

Fay.2357:

Luckily, the devs have already obviously rejected foolish ideas like this one. Many people complain that the balance devs don’t pay enough attention to the forums. I, on the other hand, would be perfectly happy if the balance devs never read a single forum post that wasn’t a bug report. While I more or less continuously malign the competence of the balance devs, the general intelligence of “suggestions” posted on these forums make the devs look like a Mensa focus group by comparison.

I can tell you for a fact that none of the balance testers look at the profession forums while they are in the process of making changes. They look to actual tournaments and occasionally Reddit.

The devs have stated at least 3 times that all Elite Specializations will never take away mechanics of a profession, only add to or modify existing ones. They said this in the original Elite Specializations blog post—where they said that stronger mechanics will be given to E.Specs with only off-hands, again in the Chronomancer blog post, and a third time in the Dragonhunter livestream (although I think they were specifically referring to the Druid iirc).

No other current E.Spec has had a mechanic taken away (Distortion in Larv’s case). Dragonhunters didn’t lose their virtues and Reaper didn’t lose their DS. They were both modified into something different. The Tempest didn’t lose anything, but instead gained the ability to overload their attunments with no downside to them other than having a longer CD if they choose to leave the attunement (which can me heavily mitigated in their traits).

Warriors won’t lose their ability to burst, Engineers won’t lose their tool kits, Thieves won’t lose initiative, Rangers won’t lose their pets, and Chronomancers aren’t going to lose one of their shatters.

Personally, I don’t think Mesmers are ‘OP’ but are one of the stronger classes. You still don’t see a ton of Mesmers in higher tier play, granted we are seeing more use. The fact of the matter is that a lot of players lower in the ladder of sorts just don’t know how to fight us. They don’t know how to LoS our dazes, dodge or bursts (harder to do but you don’t see people in ESO getting bursted by a Mesmer nearly as much as you would in unranked or lower ranked), or react to our tells (GS2 mainly).

Basically, we’re very similar to where we were before the patch; players who aren’t as great in PvP still have trouble with us and players who are good in PvP know how to handle us. The only difference now is that bad players will get 100-0’d and good players need to be a lot more careful. I really hope ANet balances the classes based on data from the higher tier play instead of what we can pull off in uncoordinated groups.

Are we very strong? Yes.
Are we balanced? Nothing in PvP is.
Are OP? No
If I wanted to win in higher tier play, would I bring something better such as a d/d Ele or Rampage War? Absolutely.

Silverkey.2078:

Duelist’s discipline adds bleeds without crits, so this works perfectly fine. That’s about 5.3 bleeds/unload. The sharper image gives bleed on crits. With 100% crits that is 8 bleed. In sinister, with banners, your phantasms get to about 60% crit (80% for you thanks to fury). That’s about 2 bleeds less per phantasms than Rampager. And you partly make up for it by the extra condition damage. At the end, the DPS loss is minimal. Also, if you add some crit food + some maintenance oil + a spotter ranger, you’re back in business (Rampager + banner + fury is already above 100% crit for himself).

Thanks a lot! +1 for sure

While I’m asking questions, do you think this change has made staff viable for PvE? I know its kinda lackluster since the Chaotic Dampening nerf, but do the clone aa, chaos storm, and iWarlock make up for it?

Silverkey.2078:

If you use duelist’s discipline to increase pistol bleeds, then go rampager to make up for the lack of phantasm fury and use sword. If you use phantasm fury, you loose bleeds but you can invest in sinister for the extra condi damage. Then scepter may be a better main hand.

I have done reasonably accurate calculations, and the rampager build takes a bit more time to build up damage than assassin (but converge to the same DPS). Rampager thus corresponds to a 1s loss of DPS. If you are 5 people, then that is 0.2 s DPS loss. So this is perfectly viable.

I’m running sinister (may use some rampager trinkets) but am also using Duelist Discipline. How much crit chance do you think we need before we start seeing results with our bleeds?

This argument is almost laughable.

I don’t understand where you are getting this “thieves that miss steal are no better off” nonsense. Especially now when they are squishier as ever and because of the many buffs to many classes (including ours), a thief that misses their steal is a dead thief. Period. I have PvP’d relentlessly since the patch and everytime a thief tries to steal, I and many other power shatter Mesmers are able to burst them down 100-0 in a second. I think your view on this is extremely biased and without proper knowledge of other classes.

That being said, yes, I do believe that phantasm play is contradictory to shatter play. However once the Chronomancer is released, we will actually rewarded for shattering our phantasms. Between Chronophantasia (sp), alacrity, and the trait we have now that reduced our phantasm recharge when we shatter a phantasm, I think we will have absolutely no problem keeping up sustained DPS.

I’m going to play around with Sinister to see if it will have any viability in PvE.

The build: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMEXAHYBXw~

Staff + Scepter/Focus. Either perplexity runes or krait runes. The goal will be to maintain a high upkeep or confusion, torment, and vulnerability while still having the reflects that we need. Might not be that great against trash mobs, but I can see this being pretty fun vs bosses.

Diederick.7906:

I don’t know much about mesmers with celestial, but you might want to check this out:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Celestial_Shatter

I have already tested this build and I have to say I’m not a fan. You survive a bit longer than the standard\DR shatter builds but you don’t really have as much power as you would want. Most of the time, your only might stacking comes from pistol #5 and your bursts are underwhelming. I found myself kiting around the point for most 1v1s which I could do much more efficiently than the DR shatter build.

I’m not the biggest fan of PU builds because it takes forever to kill enemies in WvW and you’re pretty slow. However, I want to see if I can somehow manage an offensive build that still puts PU to good use.

Does anyone have any good power or hybrid PU builds? Also, I see a lot of people running Rabid or Dire stats, but would Sinister stats work as well?

I think Mesmer’s success in Stronghold depends entirely on how the Chronomancer will work and whether it makes good use of the quickness buff. Its safe to say that Chronomancers will have at least one skill that either slows down opponents or speeds up allies with quickness. Assuming its the later—and also assuming that quickness will work on NPCs in the same way that Time Warp speeds up building siege in WvW—I could really see Mesmers/Chronomancers having a very unique and important role of getting the doorbreakers to the enemy gate as well as portal-hopping too and from the supply depot for teammates.

We don’t know enough about Stronghold or Chronomancers to really state any facts, but I have this suspicion that Chronomancers were designed with Stronghold in mind

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Noah.9654:

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

Yes it is better than nothing, but this was promised 2 years ago.

Please add more maps asap, we cannot wait another 2.5 years!

You are not entitled to anything other than the $60 worth of gameplay that you bought (which is about half of your personal story imho). If you’re unhappy with the amount of gameplay, don’t buy the expac or don’t play the game :V

Developers can’t just “add more maps asap”….that isn’t how the company works.

He’s entitled to that content, actually. It comes with the $60.

As for adding more maps, it’s the cheapest and easiest way to revitalize WvW. Especially since they’re doing it on rotation so people can’t get their fill in two weeks and leave. Adding more maps would lead to periodic surges of interest and a healthier overall playerbase and better experience.

I don’t think you quite understand what the retail value means. You pay money for items that are of equal value of what you pay. If you spend $60 of your earned cash, you get $60 of the merchants’ work, resources, and time. Period. Full stop. ANet extends this by giving us way more content than what $60 is worth for free! Their customer support is essentially free as it isn’t in the $60 value (which might be why customer support can be slow at times), Living Story was about $40 worth of content for free if you logged on in time, and all of their updates are pretty much free as well. Promise or not, we are not entitled to any more free content. Should we get the content, of course! Do I want more WvW content, heck yes! But I don’t have the right to complain that I’m not getting something asap for free. That isn’t how life works lol.

Luckily\hopefully, we’ll be getting more WvW content that we don’t know about with the expansion—something we’re paying for. If ANet doesn’t meet customer expectations after the expac, then we might have liberty to complain.

My fiance and I are starting to really play together and we were looking for some good challenges in open world PvE. Would anyone mind suggesting some meta events, champs, or mini dungeons that 2 players can do? My fiance is a lv60 Necro while I am a lv80 Mesmer.

Thanks in advance! ^^

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

Yes it is better than nothing, but this was promised 2 years ago.

Please add more maps asap, we cannot wait another 2.5 years!

You are not entitled to anything other than the $60 worth of gameplay that you bought (which is about half of your personal story imho). If you’re unhappy with the amount of gameplay, don’t buy the expac or don’t play the game :V

Developers can’t just “add more maps asap”….that isn’t how the company works.

Ayrilana.1396:

CountzuCrytus.7256:

They seemed like they were a couple hundred feet in the air when the airship blew up. It looked like logan was hanging off the edge of the ship holding Zojja and Eir on top of it Shooting her bow. Pretty hard to survive that. I doubt that they had falling damage trait or rune :P

On bright note… does that mean Traherne( however u spell it ) is evil or dead now too?

I’d prefer evil and alive so I can personally kill him.

I’d like to formally claim dibbs on killing that glory stealing cabbage.

The amount of troll/QQ in this tread is downright laughable. “I can’t fight this class and I probably haven’t rolled this class to see its weakness so I’m just going to pull (made up) facts out of the air and complain about them”.

Amir.1570:

Ranty Snip

You—somehow—understand less about the Mesmer class than the OP. To do a successful shatter burst takes quite a bit of practice against most classes. You more than anyone need to learn how the class works before going on some ill-informed rant.

1. 10 million dodges? Gosh I’d really like to see that. If Mesmers run energy runes/sigils, we have slightly more dodges than the average player not running the same runes over time. Heck, I actually wish we had more dodges so we could mitigate our main weakness – close combat fights.

2. There is the beautiful thing called stun breaks. If you’re fighting a Mesmer (or even more, a Theif or War), you need to conserve those stun breaks and not just blow through your cooldowns. Mesmers have at most 3 stunbreaks at any given time without being crippled; Staff 2, Decoy, and Blink. If you see a Mesmer running Decoy, there is a good chance that s/he is either not running Portal to reset the fight or condi cleanse. All classes have stun breaks. Good players conserve them.

3. Has really nothing to do with Mesmers. Mesmers don’t even reset fights as well as theives. Resetting also usually means you’re giving up a cap which means free points for you.

Have you noticed that WTS only had ONE Mesmer (who btw was the reason EU lost to NA imo) while everyone ran War? Doesn’t seem like Mesmers are a problem in actual competitive play. Most of your issues are LTP.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

aye i hate mesmer sometimes.

especially when i pop stability and was activating battle standard trying to revive downed team mate.

then somehow they remove my stability and shove my warrior’s face into the ground.

A super common ‘mistake’ I see while fighting a lot of Wars is that they forget that Mesmers are first and foremost the boonstripping class and try starting the fight with their boons. Between any of our shatters, Arcane Thievery, Null Field, and even Sword AA, the only class that can consistently keep boons up against us are eles and good engies. If you’re in a team fight and you’re focusing on the teams needs, try not to blow through your vital boons until after the Mesmer has used their stripping skills. Else you’re just giving the Mesmer a lot more power to burst with. Pay attention to what the Mesmer has used and you’ll have a much easier time dealing with them :P

I’m trying to come up with a Mesmer support build and was wondering if Illusion of Life has any viable use in any mode of gameplay? It seems like other classes have better revival skills.

Also, does anyone have a PvE support build?

Fay.2357:

The 3 skill takes just as long to come off cd as every other 3 skill does. In fact, I think it might even be affected by IC. Unlike other 3 skills, the phantasm hits like a truck (I regularly see it doing upwards of 9k), and sticks around to keep doing that damage over and over.

Literally everything you just said, but adding a bit more. I am pretty sure that iRouge has the highest DPS out of all of our phantasms. That thing alone has saved me sooo many times in PvP that it isn’t funny. iRouge is able to down a lot of people from 25% health and its usually what wins you fights against other downed players.

That last part is the most important part. iRouge hits so hard that Mesmers are usually guaranteed to win in double-downed situations. Wars can still win if they vengeance and your #2 is on cooldown and Rangers can still win if you can’t interrupt/kill their pet before they rez the Ranger.

People should really walk in other classes shoes before saying our downed skills are bad.

Iris Ng.9845:

Frifox, you may add “in dungeons”. Based on your data, staff looks quite good for World Boss.

I recall the only time I use staff is at Brie. Pump clone -> Shatter while 111 with sword. Not sure what is the best way there.

I would like to clarify that staff is actually one of my favorite weapons on Mesmer. You are absolutely right to say that staff is a good weapon for most world bosses (I can think of maybe 2 where you will definitely want to run GS over staff) and staff is a fantastic weapon for PvP and WvW.

Dungeons, unfortunately, aren’t in favor of our staves

Firfox, thank you for doing the calcs and tests. Its really nice to see numbers to clarify things.

DeathReign.7821:

I’ve made plenty of relevant points but you’ve chosen to ignore them because they are relevant. If they really are irrelevant, please point out how so.

I’m not the one standing here saying “let the real mesmers talk”. Do you know how infantile that sounds? The hypocrisy is strong in this one.

Either way, I’ve decided that I’m done with you. You’re quite clearly so obsessed with your own opinions, you don’t care what other’s opinions are. That coupled with your hilariously inflated and fragile ego make for a rather pointless debate.

Your points are so far off focus, and so amusingly inaccurate, but I’ve decided that I don’t care enough about your opinion anymore to address them.

Go ahead and make more self aggrandizing assumptions to make yourself feel better. Knock yourself out. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

You will still be an apparent “real” rank 78 mesmer that doesn’t know how to phase dash, doesn’t know how chaos armor works, doesn’t know how to read two same opinions that are worded differently, and doesn’t know how to see past his own ego and opinion.

Have a good day.

Your last 6 post were nothing but misued ad hominem, insults, and “I’m laughing at this”. Where is the relevance in that? Thanks for the amusement though!

Knowing that I can always look at this great discussion and how awesome it was will help me sleep at night <3

@BoohDuh, glad you like the name! I shall now shout “You’ve been NoahMoa’d” Every time I down an enemy lol. The link, unless I’m not seeing it, pretty much says that I always want to use s/s s/f with the occasional pistol. However, it is still always a good read because its so knowledgeable so I’ll definitely go over it again

DeathReign.7821:

The argument when I called you out on your fragile ego was whether or not I was personally attacking you or not. As with most “adult conversations” topics evolve to other topics, and main points get divided into sub-points. Read up on that. Calling you out on having a fragile ego is in direct relation to the argument of whether or not I was personally attacking you. I was not, but you perceived it as an attack, due to your very fragile ego. The list could go on about each and every instance of “ad hominem” you described, but I hope you get the point. Or would you rather I spell it out for you, as I had to most of the conversation for you to keep up?

I’m going to assume that you don’t have many adult conversations. How often do adult conversations start as a discussion, evolve into trading of cute insults, and end in me having to educate you about what an ad hominem is as you clearly misuse it? As with every other question I’ve asked, it seems like I have to guide your through this. The answer is never. Adult conversations have at least a bit of maturity. People who engage in adult conversations also don’t compare them to forum discussions. Lol.

DeathReign.7821:

My opinion is the same as it was at the start. Staff has its uses (e.g. skipping mobs) in dungeons, and has a decent dps output (iWarlock). It can be used efficiently and will carry your own weight. It is, however, not optimal, and will therefore not be used in elitist groups. If your only concern is whether it will be used in elitist groups, it’s safe to say that you’ve gotten your answer from post one.

Are we really about to go around this for a third time? Do you normally make a point, throw a small tantrum, then make the same point only to repeat the process? Usually, people make a point and then wait for an opportunity to expand or improve said point. I’m going to assume that you just want to get the last word.

DeathReign.7821:

Oh, and as usual, you ignore my rebuttals to your points. Have you actually participated in formal debates before? This tactic of sticking your head in the sand when you can’t address a point is deadly.

I’m choosing to ignore most of your rebuttals because quite frankly, you have yet to make any relevant post after your first one, which itself was kinda lacking. You’re arguing for the sole sake of arguing. Pretty childish in my opinion. This apparently isn’t an ad hominem since, according to you, true statements don’t create fallacy in discussions.

DeathReign.7821:

Calling you out on having a fragile ego isn’t ad hominem as it’s true. If your ego wasn’t so easily shattered, you would have actually taken what I said into account; it wasn’t meant as condescending, and that is how you phase dash.

Okay, I’m going to explain to you exactly what an ad hominem is; as you don’t seem to quite grasp the meaning despite crying it out about eight times now.

An ad hominem is an attack on someone’s character to further an argument despite the trait in question being attacked either not having anything to do with the argument, or causing a fallacy.

What was the argument? Staffs in dungeons.
What was the ad hominem? In short: something about being new to Mesmers, PvP, and reading. Also something about egos.

Does any of that—specifically the part about egos—have anything to do with staffs in dungeons? I’ll help you through this one too. No it does not.

Have I answered all of your questions about basic adult debate? I’d hope so. Now let me ask you a final question that hopefully you’ll be able to grasp. Do you even know what you’re arguing about anymore? I’m going to assume the answer is no and that you’re just arguing to make yourself feel better (this is an ad hominem). As I’ve asked before, let the actual Mesmers who want to contribute to relevant discussions about ways to efficiently use a staff in dungeons talk.

Dondagora.9645:

Noah.9654:

Dondagora.9645:

Noah.9654:

Dondagora.9645:

I’ve had success on my MtD build, with its traited torch and disenchanter taking care of conditions while each shatter bombs heavy conditions on the enemy zerg, along with Chaos Storm and The Prestige’s burn. Staff clones and iMage have bouncing attacks, which also help me burn and bleed the enemy’s ranks given how close they are. I also use Lich Runes and Carrion stats, so my survivability in team fights like that is pretty decent. And, given the staff and iMage, you’re also giving some decent boons to your team.

All in all, I think this mass AoE that condi shatter has works very well in Courtyard compared to the glassy single-focus power Shatter, which only has a single decent AoE damager[Mind Wrack]. It’s easier and more effective to fight in front without worrying about being burst down.

This is all just my experience, so someone might have a different idea on it, though.

Would you mind posting this build? I’d really like to try it. I’m currently using power shatter and I feel like I’m not contributing as much as I should to my team in these zerg fights.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWnsISjaWoGOoB3aGp1gQdVGTPJZAKQJbQ1A-TJRHwAILDca/BAnCABPBAA

Don’t be a stranger to retreating to the back sometimes and supporting your team with staff clones until you’re ready to dive back in. Also, don’t forget that your torch skills can cleanse. Prestige and iMage has saved me multiple times from immobilization.

This set looks like a lot of fun to play around with even outside of CY. When you are in the zerg fights in CY, how does this set work against teams with dedicated condi-cleansers? I’ve fought a few teams where a Mesmer would sit in the back and spam Null Field all day. Do you think that simply focusing the condi-cleanser will solve this problem?

All in all, good build

It’s still good in any other map, yeah.

So far as I can tell, this build’s ability to pump out constant conditions, and the high burst of those conditions, counters the limited condition cleanse that the other team may have. And, at the least, if your enemy is sitting in condition cleansed area, your clones and phantasms will be supporting your team’s direct damage, and Mind Wrack[direct damage with this build isn’t the worst] and Diversion/Chaos Storm are still useful for damage and dazes.

Gotcha! I’ll definitely try this build out soon.

You don’t even know what you’re arguing about anymore, do you? You just now agreed with me that staff isn’t optimal in higher tier dungeons, you’ve stated yourself after I had to that staff is bad DPS weapon, and we’ve both come to the conclusion that staff support doesn’t really support the team. Ergo, taking an entire 2 weapon slots to skip trash mobs instead of only taking a utility slot and maybe an elite slot (apparently Time Warp isn’t as important as it used to be) is not a good idea.

DeathReign.7821:

That first example you posted was honestly not meant as any form of ad hominem. I even stated that it wasn’t intended as condescending. Apparently your fragile ego couldn’t handle that, and that’s not my problem.

So are you just trying to prove that you know what an ad hominem is now, or are you just bored?

DeathReign.7821:

Thank you for quoting the relevant parts so I don’t have to on my phone. Pyro says that the iWarlock hits very hard, but does not hit hard enough to make up for the dps loss in the auto attack. I’ve stated that the iWarlocks hit like trucks, but staff will never out-dps a sword/sword or sword/pistol set up. He states that staff has a lot of utility for yourself. I’ve stated how you can use it to skip mobs (utility for yourself). Basically, he says toe-may-toe and I say toe-mah-toe.

I’m far from raging about how you messed up on chaos armor. It’s perfectly fine to not know something. Unless you act like a pompous booty cavity and resort to ad hominem to make yourself feel better.

And we’re back to full-circle for a second time to my original question: how can we make staff viable in dungeons without it being outclassed by other professions or even yourself. In terms of skipping mobs, Blink + MI + Torch 4 (the main skill Mesmers are using to skip mobs in Arah btw) are either better or have father range. I’d rather not use an entire 2 weapon slots just to skip trash mobs; same reason I personally don’t like using torch in Arah. My question on whether or not staff is viable in high tier dungeons has been answered—its not. You seem to keep fighting that.

As for ad hominem, for the love of god, please start using this term correctly XD The first instance of actual ad hominem was

DeathReign.7821:

You don’t go into combat when using phase retreat to skip mobs at all. (This isn’t meant as condescending, but I can tell that you probably don’t do much PvP or WvW as this is a pretty well known tactic in both).

DeathReign.7821:

If you’re really level 78 in PvP, Mesmer must not be your main class, as I find it hard to believe that a Mesmer main with that much experience in PvP doesn’t even know how Chaos Armor works.

This is the finest example of the kettle calling the pot black.

In case you couldn’t tell, this was an intentional ironic example of actual ad hominem.

Dondagora.9645:

Noah.9654:

Dondagora.9645:

I’ve had success on my MtD build, with its traited torch and disenchanter taking care of conditions while each shatter bombs heavy conditions on the enemy zerg, along with Chaos Storm and The Prestige’s burn. Staff clones and iMage have bouncing attacks, which also help me burn and bleed the enemy’s ranks given how close they are. I also use Lich Runes and Carrion stats, so my survivability in team fights like that is pretty decent. And, given the staff and iMage, you’re also giving some decent boons to your team.

All in all, I think this mass AoE that condi shatter has works very well in Courtyard compared to the glassy single-focus power Shatter, which only has a single decent AoE damager[Mind Wrack]. It’s easier and more effective to fight in front without worrying about being burst down.

This is all just my experience, so someone might have a different idea on it, though.

Would you mind posting this build? I’d really like to try it. I’m currently using power shatter and I feel like I’m not contributing as much as I should to my team in these zerg fights.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWnsISjaWoGOoB3aGp1gQdVGTPJZAKQJbQ1A-TJRHwAILDca/BAnCABPBAA

Don’t be a stranger to retreating to the back sometimes and supporting your team with staff clones until you’re ready to dive back in. Also, don’t forget that your torch skills can cleanse. Prestige and iMage has saved me multiple times from immobilization.

This set looks like a lot of fun to play around with even outside of CY. When you are in the zerg fights in CY, how does this set work against teams with dedicated condi-cleansers? I’ve fought a few teams where a Mesmer would sit in the back and spam Null Field all day. Do you think that simply focusing the condi-cleanser will solve this problem?

All in all, good build

DeathReign.7821:

You are hilarious. Boonshare =/= dps staff. They are different things altogether, and while boonshare is deadweight, the dps the staff brings is not.

DeathReign.7821:

Staff will never out-dps a dual sword or sword/pistol set up, and will therefore never be used in “good dungeon parties”

I’m going to assume that you are not actually reading what you are typing. Take that as you will. I’m also going to assume that you didn’t read what everyone else wrote where they agreed that iWarlock DPS is still relatively terrible compared to the rest of your skills. You should probably stop trying to make staff a DPS weapon. It is not a DPS weapon.

Fay’s opinion:

The primary downside to staff is that the autoattack does close to zero damage in a power build. While the phantasm hits very hard, it doesn’t hit hard enough to offset the total lack of damage from the autoattack. The staff has good utility purposes…. for yourself. It doesn’t really provide much of anything in the way of party utility.

How is this similar to your own? Where exactly are my assumptions? I guess we can both be cute together You’re absolutely welcome to keep raging about how I messed up on Chaos Armor while everyone else discusses things of actual relevance.

Dondagora.9645:

I’ve had success on my MtD build, with its traited torch and disenchanter taking care of conditions while each shatter bombs heavy conditions on the enemy zerg, along with Chaos Storm and The Prestige’s burn. Staff clones and iMage have bouncing attacks, which also help me burn and bleed the enemy’s ranks given how close they are. I also use Lich Runes and Carrion stats, so my survivability in team fights like that is pretty decent. And, given the staff and iMage, you’re also giving some decent boons to your team.

All in all, I think this mass AoE that condi shatter has works very well in Courtyard compared to the glassy single-focus power Shatter, which only has a single decent AoE damager[Mind Wrack]. It’s easier and more effective to fight in front without worrying about being burst down.

This is all just my experience, so someone might have a different idea on it, though.

Would you mind posting this build? I’d really like to try it. I’m currently using power shatter and I feel like I’m not contributing as much as I should to my team in these zerg fights.

Daishi.6027:

I’m not one to typically talk about viability for dungeons, but man I think you should use w/e you think looks cool and feels good! Unless your playing with ppl who require the 100% optimal or else you get /gkicked

I agree with the sentiment, and I normally only dungeon with guildies anyway, but I figured I would try to find a way to sneak staff into the #DungeonElites community without worrying about being kicked. Since others think that this might not be possible, we can start to look into the fun-runs! Any ideas?

DeathReign.7821:

Not optimal, but far from useless.

DeathReign.7821:

If you’re talking about a boonshare build in PvE, then you truly are a deadweight since it’s completely redundant. The only important boons in dungeons are might and fury, both of which a might stacking ele provides.

If that isn’t contradictory, I don’t know what is lol. Try again.

DeathReign.7821:

Debaters like you are adorable. You can’t seem to read (I don’t know why I’m surprised since you clearly don’t read your own skills) and formulate your own self aggrandizing conclusions laced with mild ad hominem.

This is, by definition, bootyhurt lol. No contribution to the actual conversation but instead replaced by cute condescending insults? Check. Anger that someone disagrees with your opinion? Check. Bringing my ability to read to what was supposed to be a civil discussion? Check. Instead of adding absolutely nothing but a good laugh to my day, how about you let the actual Mesmers talk? At least Fay and Hamster bring respected dialodge to the discussion :P

DeathReign.7821:

If you’re talking about a boonshare build in PvE, then you truly are a “deadweight” since it’s completely redundant. The only important boons in dungeons are might and fury, both of which a might stacking ele provides.

Then you’ve answered my question: staff is a useless weapon in hier tier dungeons. Not sure why you had to get so bootyhurt just to prove yourself wrong :P

Fay.2357:

The staff has good utility purposes…. for yourself. It doesn’t really provide much of anything in the way of party utility.

I figured as much and its a bit sad that the staff can’t really help my party as much as I’d like. Do you think it would be a good support option for solo’s?

Hamster.4861:

I warlock hits like a freaking truck, and should not be discounted. Since GS sucks in dungeons, you might as well use staff if you’re going to have a 2h weapon.

Since you brought it up, I would like to discuss the pros and cons of staff/GS in dungeons. Whenever I absolutely have to bring a ranged weapon in dungeons or (especially) fractals, I bring GS because of the DPS at max range. GS is a terrible weapon because of the constant stacking though

As a ranged weapon, what about Staff is better? Is iWarlock an inherently better phantasm than iZerker in dungeon situations? Does the auto DPS from GS outweigh the support from staff auto?

DeathReign.7821:

“Arguing” is used very loosely here.

Well that’s a tough pickle to swallow, as “good dungeon parties” basically means “highest DPS parties” in this game. Most of the dungeons are easy and require little to no team co-ordination. If you want to be top DPS, you are limited to the 2-3 weapons or cookie cutter builds that provide that top DPS.

I thought you were looking for ways to utilize staff in dungeon, because, you know, fun, without being a dead-weight. There is a difference between being able to carry your own weight and being optimized into dps.

Staff will never out-dps a dual sword or sword/pistol set up, and will therefore never be used in “good dungeon parties” (read: high dps parties). You can’t make a pig fly no matter how high the window you throw it out of is. That is why no one uses Torch in dungeons either – but at least iWarlock has the potential to hit like a truck unlike the iMage.

If you’re really level 78 in PvP, Mesmer must not be your main class, as I find it hard to believe that a Mesmer main with that much experience in PvP doesn’t even know how Chaos Armor works.

Mesmer is my only class XD I’m guessing you either don’t PvP much or didn’t understand what I was asking. I was asking that in situations where you are stacked tightly, and thus the mob is/should be hitting you as frequent as the rest of the party, if the boons you get from being hit while in chaos armor would proc every time said mob hits the stack. How often are you stacked in PvP? The answer is never XD

While DPS is important in higher tier dungeon parties, that isn’t the only option. There is the support Ele’s give with their might stacking, Guardians and Aegis, etc. That is what I wanted to explore with the staff. If that just isn’t possible, then at least I will have tried.

DeathReign.7821:

Noah.9654:

DeathReign.7821:

I find it hilarious when people say staff is useless for dungeons. If you’re running with an elitist group anyway, go roll a warrior or ele instead.

In a phantasm build, iWarlocks hit like single target trucks (averaging 8k crits in CoF).

Skipping mobs in Arah? Phase Retreat your way through. You suddenly don’t feel like the slowest class in the game with no speed signet and no constant access to swiftness outside of your focus.

Not optimal, but far from useless.

I run with my guildies, but I don’t want to be carried. The main reason staff is kinda bad IMO is that condis aren’t as powerful in PvE as they are in PvP. In a phantasm build, how are you going to rack up enough condis quickly enough for iWarlock to deal significant damage? And why use that over iSwordsmen or iWarden? That’s the mindset I have while I try to find other ways to make staff useful.

Skipping mobs with Phase Retreat seems like an excellent idea though! Would there be a way to do this without putting yourself in combat? You have to leave a clone if you wanna retreat forward unless you do that retreat turn maneuver and the clone will attack/aggro the mobs.

Side note: Does anyone know if Chaos Armor surrounds everyone in your party if you are stacked close enough? If the entire party is in your armor, will enemies have to hit the chaos armor to hit them? That would be useful if true.

Vulnerability, bleeding, weakness and burning are common conditions that are applied regardless of build. Chaos storm does significant direct damage, and applies many unique conditions (chill, poison, etc) that add damage to your iWarlocks. In specific situations, you can position your iWarlocks, while you can’t your iSwordsmen. iWarlocks will without a doubt deal more damage than iWarden, so if you know that there will be nothing to reflect, it’ll be less of a crutch than the iWarden. Like I said, it’s not optimal, but it is definitely not useless.

You don’t go into combat when using phase retreat to skip mobs at all. (This isn’t meant as condescending, but I can tell that you probably don’t do much PvP or WvW as this is a pretty well known tactic in both). Switch off auto-targetting, and assign about-face a hotkey. About face, phase retreat, and about face again. It will take a bit of practice, but once you’re able to make this a smooth motion, you’ll be, as some people call it, phase dashing through dungeons like a pro.

If by Chaos Armor you mean Staff #4, no, it’s a single target ability (meaning only applied to yourself). I don’t quite understand what you mean in the last part of your sentence.

If you were to put a Chaos Field on the ground and someone blasted it, your entire party (limit of 5 of course) will get Chaos Armor. But this isn’t exactly very useful in dungeons – groups would rather blast fire fields for might stacks.

I think we’re arguing about different things here. I’m not saying that staff is a useless weapon (I’m rank 78 in PvP btw), I’m saying that I want to find a way to use staff that is both viable in good dungeon parties and isn’t outclassed by other weapon choices or professions.

In terms of damage, iSwordsmen does more immediate damage than iWarlock as you don’t have to rack up different conditions first. Even iDuelist does more immediate DPS and, as you said, bleed is a condition that can easily be applied anyway. iDuelist can also be positioned and you have a better AA with sword. With all this, its safe to say that staff, and iWarlock with it, isn’t the best DPS weapon for dungeons.

This means we need to for other ways that it can be useful. Thank you for clearing up the chaos armor question. I didn’t know how to properly word the question but you figured it out.

I think the main reason why ANet requires us to be in HotM to queue up is to prevent people from ragequitting and not coming back. If you were in the PvE world before you queued up, logged out while in a PvP match, and logged back in, the system was more often than not unable to put you back into the match. This happened for both hotjoin and Solo/TeamQ. People in the PvE world could just quit and go on their merry way.

If you’re in HotM and relog while in a match, you are put back into that match. This has really helped with the 4v5 problems we were having before. Even if the person quit, came back, and just AFK’d for the match, he still will have dishonor and you can file a support ticket if it keeps happening.

As for the hotjoin problem, you will almost never finish a match before your q is up. This means you have to leave and creates an imbalance in the hotjoin match. While it isn’t as crucial since its hotjoin, players still find it frustrating to fight a 4v5, 3v5, or even 2v5 in hotjoin.

DeathReign.7821:

I find it hilarious when people say staff is useless for dungeons. If you’re running with an elitist group anyway, go roll a warrior or ele instead.

In a phantasm build, iWarlocks hit like single target trucks (averaging 8k crits in CoF).

Skipping mobs in Arah? Phase Retreat your way through. You suddenly don’t feel like the slowest class in the game with no speed signet and no constant access to swiftness outside of your focus.

Not optimal, but far from useless.

I run with my guildies, but I don’t want to be carried. The main reason staff is kinda bad IMO is that condis aren’t as powerful in PvE as they are in PvP. In a phantasm build, how are you going to rack up enough condis quickly enough for iWarlock to deal significant damage? And why use that over iSwordsmen or iWarden? That’s the mindset I have while I try to find other ways to make staff useful.

Skipping mobs with Phase Retreat seems like an excellent idea though! Would there be a way to do this without putting yourself in combat? You have to leave a clone if you wanna retreat forward unless you do that retreat turn maneuver and the clone will attack/aggro the mobs.

Side note: Does anyone know if Chaos Armor surrounds everyone in your party if you are stacked close enough? If the entire party is in your armor, will enemies have to hit the chaos armor to hit them? That would be useful if true.

So I know that staffs and ranged weapons in general are pretty mediocre weapons for Mesmers in dungeons. I also know that Mesmers kinda have to use a very specific cookie-cutter build so that we are somewhat relevant and viable compared to other classes.

That being said, I was wondering if we could brainstorm to see if there could be any good use for staffs in dungeons. At first, I thought maybe some boonshare tactic could work with CS + Sig but other classes do this so much better. Then I thought that maybe boonstripping with shatters but we do that better with Null Field, AT, and sword AA XD

Anyone have any ideas?

Sooooo it is apparent that you have little knowledge of how PvP works, claim that a mechanic is OP without any real proof of you own other than ‘I can’t beat it’, and refuse to try to learn the class to better yourself? Yeah, you deserve to lose.

Now, once you’re done throwing a tantrum, I suggest you read what people have said here. Chaos, and like 7 others, have made great points in that once a player is stealthed, they can’t hold a point. PvP is about capping points. If a class is able to get away multiple times, great! That’s something that makes them different. However, how is that helping their team? I am an experienced Mesmer and I will say that our best tactic against more than half of the other professions is kiting and ranging the heck out of them. In that time, we are giving up to 10 points because we usually can’t fight on point effectively.

Furthermore, ANet has absolutely no obligation to show any ‘proof’ to anyone who has no intent on learning how to actually play the game. I really hope this is an elaborate troll post because if not this is just sad….

I like how this build is different and shows a cooler support side of the Mesmer, but I feel like this would be more useful in medium-sized roaming parties in WvW. I say this because this build’s success seems to hinge on having a partner to share your boons with and support which could hinder your team if you’re up against a coordinated premade. That coupled with the fact that PU is bad at holding points (but good for this build) would essentially make it a 4.5v5 in conquest.

If you don’t mind, I would love to try using this in WvW or Courtyard in PvP as I can see real potential for this build in deathmatch!

Edit: I think Null Field over MoP could be really useful if you really wanna get into supporting teammates!

Mjgander.1905:

I’d rather have the odd 4v5

Than endure endless 500-50 blow outs.

And no, I will spam this forum every blow out until anything done to resolve it is in place.

Then you will be spamming for quite a while. 2-3 weeks iirc. In the meantime, nobody will really listen to you as you’re doing nothing constructive.

You guys do understand that there are 3 exits from the spawn point for each side, right?

You guys do understand that if you don’t want to die in 3 seconds, you need to clear some distance from the zerg instead of just jumping in their AoE pools, right?

Skilled players have already caught onto this, but if the enemy is huddled at your spawn point, you should take the right exit, run around the side of the arena, and stay out of LoS until your team can regroup. This kinda goes for every map but is more important for Courtyard.

+1 for Melanion. Stop complaining so much as you’re not helping the situation at all. I really wish more of the GW2 playerbase understood basic computer science. There is/will always be a few bugs after every new release. The devs have stated over and over that there is a problem with matchmaking program. Do people think that if they complain enough, ANet will be able to just snap their fingers and make everything better? That isn’t how coding works, my friend.

Even with the matchmaking error, PvP as a whole has been SUBSTANTIALLY better than what it was last week. I have not run into a single 4v5 (and those who have can rest assured in knowing that the leaver either has to come back or get an upgraded stack of dishonor), most games are pretty competitive and take a lot more skill, I’m able to have an actual say in the map I play in, and I’m able to just have some good ol’ zergfest fun in CY.

Seriously, its been one day. Chill.

Can I please ask who the kitty cares? This episode literally takes an hour to complete. Trust me, it is not the end of the world if you can’t lolfaceroll mobs with your precious lv80s. This is how video games work sometimes; you just have to play the game and get over it.

I don’t get why people are saying that they are being ‘forced’ to “play caithe” or “play the bad guy” when nobody is forcing you to play at all.

ANet should stop forcing players to be the ‘good guy’ all the time. To complete our person story, we have to save millions of lives and kill an evil dragon. Being forced into the position of killing an entire Risen population is just…distasteful.

Being forced into the position of killing so many innocent players in PvP/WvW is just…distasteful.

Being forced to kill anything at all in a video game is just…distasteful.

Jokes aside, can you guys really not come up with anything better to complain about? The story was a brilliant way of showing Caithe’s past as well as giving us some much appreciated insight to lore.

Hamfast.8719:

My sentiments exactly. Everything is crafting, crafting, and more crafting. Crafting even lets you level your character faster than playing. Why should I go out and fight monsters for a few weeks to get to level 80 while a guy can sit behind a crafting table and get there in less than a day? How does crafting teach someone how to fight? That just isn’t right if you ask me.

Realistically, it is actually very possible (and practical) to gain a majority of fighting experience from a professional trade such as crafting. If someone were to spend a lot of time making weapons, surely they would know how to use said weapons once they become an expert—or lv400-500. If someone where to spend a lot of time dealing with magical trinkets or enchanted clothing like the tailors do, an expert would surely be able to hold his/her own in a fight with their magical experience.

One thing you might want to take into consideration is that time (supposedly) moves a lot faster in-game. What might seem like a few minutes could be a few hours. So you’re technically spending quite a few ‘hours’ honing your weapon/magic/marksmanship skills which should be efficient enough to make you hold your own in a fight. :P

For the OP, Ascended weapons are supposed to take a ton of time to get. Its a time sink more than anything else. Aside from legendaries, these weapons are the strongest you can get so it stands to reason that you have to put a lot of time into obtaining one. What better way to show that you’ve spent a lot of time working for something than crafting? Just be happy that they are still easier to get than legendaries :P

Also, please learn how to use a comma XD

I’m like….90% sure this is an elaborate troll post.

Not EVERY MMO or RPG needs elves. Not every RPG needs to be some D&D fantasy world; especially a world with advance technology and many forms of firearms. Not every MMO or RPG needs to be similar.

GW2’s whole marketing strategy is based around being a different kind of MMO. One that isn’t cookie-cutter RPG for die-hard gammers. It seems like you’re looking for a game like Terra or WoW (which, btw, GW2 has beat in latest polls). GW2 isn’t Terra; its Guild Wars 2.

P.S. There is a castle. Stonemist Castle.

I’m a Mesmer so I don’t actually know this, but do Eles have reflects? 80% of Rangers in SoloQ panic when they are being reflected or don’t even realize they are being reflected until they RP themselves dead.

Usually, when a Ranger sees that they are being reflected, they go into melee mode and are then much easier to deal with. Keep stability on hand to break their fear, knockdowns, and imobs. Once they’ve used maul, get upclose and personal for your burst and they should go down.

denis.9487:

Again sorry if I mis read. But celestial stats for a mesmer is sub optimal. If you have other toons that can use then have at it. Hope it helped.

Yeah I’m just talking about the skin lol. I’m going to make the Beserker GS first. Whatever I make after that will just be for looks haha.

denis.9487:

IMO stick with your plan make zojjas better stats. The color might be better for celestial but the material/time/cost for those stats isn’t good. Save up transfer gold to gems or outright buy transmutation crystal and use a skin you like better on beserker stat.

I was still going to make Zoijja’s Claymore no matter what. I need the Berserker stats. But I figured I could make a second one afterwars for the skin :P

Hello all! I am close to making my first Ascended Weapon, Zoija’s Claymore. As I get closer and closer to my goal, I am starting to second guess if the skin is right for me. As much as I love the color, I’m not 100% sure if the crimson will match my Mesmer or my skills. My look is pretty much going off the “genderbent Kasmeer” theme with light shades of gold. Purple seems to complement the look nicely.

If anyone could suggest any other Ascended colors that would better fit my character, it would be really appreciated! I think Wupwup’s color might better compliment me.

Hello all. I’ve seen many discussions/arguments/flame wars about farming and would like to open a dialogue about the playstyle.

I’ve read many arguments for and against farming, but I don’t quite understand why many players are against it entirely. I know that zerg-farming allows many players to get the mats, items, etc. that would normally take long periods of time to get as quickly as possible with as little effort as possible. I can see how this can be both good and bad, but this strikes me more of a positive thing from the casual player perspective.

On the other hand, I know that mass zerg-farming has been a big problem in the past in areas such as Dry Top, Silverwastes, and COIL where the farming actually hinders players trying to complete certain events. To my understanding, these issues have been somewhat resolved and players aren’t having so much trouble completing events.

I would like to know the opinions of the playerbase on farming; do you agree with mass farming or not and why? If you don’t agree, why do you think that zerg-farming hurts the playerbase?

I would like to keep this discussion civilized and flame-free. Happiness and smiles people