Guild Wars 2

Illusion Bleeds still stop doing their damage after the clones die, so I figure the next nerf will be to turn those Illusion Bleeds into a heal.

Then they are going to take Duelist’s Discipline and just fill the description with random letters. I’ve submitted that ridiculous “pitol” misspelling numerous times since the game launched, and the typo is still there. Pretty embarrassing they can’t fix blatant spelling errors however they can find plenty of time to cut iBerserker damage by 50% without telling anyone.

Greatsword takes both hands to wield…

What is your other weapon? Staff?

Used keys to open 5 more BLCs to check out the Mystic Forge…

Got two skins from those 5 BLCs (rifle and 1h sword). That puts me at 3 skins from opening 13 BLCs.

Opened 5 chests, got 1x BLC key and the Rifle skin.

Bought 2 more keys, then opened an additional 3 chests. Got nothing from those…

splepage.3561:

I think your build is all over the place, and will end up being sub-par (in terms of damage output).

Pick between Shatter or Phantasm as your main damage source, and go from there.

If you want to make a Shatter build, 30 in Illusions is pretty much necessary for Illusionary Persona. Same with 20 in Dueling for Deceptive Evasion and 10 in Domination.

If you want to make a Phantasm build, you need 5 in Dueling, 25 in Inspiration and 15 in Dueling.

I know people love Deceptive Evasion and all, I just don’t think it is as critical as some people make it out to be. I just use Mirror Images. Then I can still dodge when I actually need to, instead of being low on Endurance in case I actually need to dodge something because I burned my endurance keeping clones up.

You can control it by not using the Scepter OR Shattering your Phantasms once you have two up and the cooldown is ready to summon a third. Shatter -> immediately summon another Phantasm.

If you want to get up three Phantasms and then stand around spamming an autoattack, the Scepter is the wrong weapon for this.

Here is the real problem…

People who spent $50+ on keys and got nothing are not likely to spend that muckittens again. This is a trick that only works once. Even hardcore gamblers stop taking chances if they don’t feel they will ever win.

If you ever watch people buying scratch tickets, they usually keep buying scratch tickets on a regular basis. This is because scratch tickets usually have a ~1:5 chance of paying back $1. So if they drop $20 on tickets, they win back a few $$$ and go “Aww shucks, at least I got $4 back! I will keep trying”. If those same people kept spending $20 and winning nothing, they would stop wasting $20.

Having the drop rate too low will quickly burn out players who are ready and willing to drop real lift cash into the game economy. Once that group of players moves on, they won’t come back.

Ghost #2:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/UIP9w.jpg[/IMG]

First you need to find Serene who is standing directly next to Magister Tassi. She gives you a book with two clues in it to find ghosts.

Here is Ghost #1. Enter the sewer (see mini map) and swim to the lowest point. Equip the Candy Powered Matter Metter (requires one Candy Corn) and scan the area shown to find Samson:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/ftnkJ.jpg[/IMG]

I still don’t know what to do. I found a kid, got a book with two clues, followed a clue to “where all the garbage of Lion’s Arch flows”. Then I burned through most of my corn using the “Candy Powered Matter Meter” down in the lower depth of the sewers where the broken ships are. Based on the clue, something should have happened?

Even if you get behind the door, he isn’t there. There is a thread on this in the bug section…

Well this would be a really unfortunate oversight. I went looking for him as well, presuming he would be hanging around in Fort Trinity ready to hand out some free items…

Just to be clear, people were snookered by this because the BLTC is running an adverstisement for keys that clearly shows new Halloween items. I know at least a couple other people that opened chests tonight once they saw the BLTC update with the new image. They were excited to (possibly) be among the first people to get the weapon skins.

Here is the graphic for anyone who may have missed it:

[img]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo288/ocellaris3000/BLTC.jpg[/img]

You are really overestimating if you think it would take “thousands” of tests to reduce the margin of error on iWarlock spam. The damage range isn’t very large when there are not Conditions on the targeted mob.

You can get similar results by cranking up your video output saturation and contrast to very high levels.

For people with Nvidia cards, the saturation setting is referred to as “Digital Vibrance” in the drivers.

Power level does not matter at all. What matters is the % increase of critical hits over the average normal attack.

For example…

Naked, no traits, iWarlock //THIS IS NOT ACTUAL DATA, JUST AN EXAMPLE
1000, 990, 1500 (crit), 1010, 1500 (crit)

From this data, the average normal attack would be 1000 and the average critical is 1500. This means the critical attacks are hitting for +50% (which is the normal baseline for critical damage)

Now lets say you throw on some Berserker’s and apply traits…
4300 (crit), 2000, 1900, 2100, 4290 (crit), 2000, 4310 (crit)

In this case, the average iWarlock attack is hitting for 2000 and the critical attacks are hitting for 4300. Basic math tells us the critical attacks are hitting for +115% damage in this example. Subtract the base 50% crit, and this means the attacks are getting +65% critical damage from gear. Now if the in game tool tip for +Critical Damage is +65%, you could be confident that the iWarlock is getting the full benefit of all the +Crit Damage on the character.

If that character happens to be showing +85% critical damage (on the tool tip), and the critical attacks were hitting for +115% instead of +135%, this would indicate that +20% of the critical damage is getting “lost”. Then you could use trial and error to figure out what was not being counted.

Also when testing this, it may be a good idea to do a test WITHOUT Sharper Images so you don’t have a Condition on the mob to further boost iWarlock damage.

Cliff notes: Power doesn’t matter. You should be averaging normal attacks and critical attacks separately, then figure out how much harder the critical attacks hit for.

I believe you just found the point at which abbreviations go from efficient to confusing. You may want to look at creating your build at one of the various GW2 websites and posting a link in your post.

Bump this. Thanks a lot for your help on this. I finished farming my armor a few days and respecced. I’m quite happy with that build, it’s funny to play, provides much survivability and support, while steal dealing a decent amount of damage, especially over the other classes when it comes to a very mobile fight (thanks to the conditions). It’s a shame there aren’t rabid jewels though …

What armor did your farm? Rabid dungeon gear? I play Staff + Sword / Focus myself and am running into the same problem you are. Stacked Condition Damage can become a hindrance once you switch away from the Staff.

Right now I have enough gold farmed to buy an Exotic set of gear + trinkets + weapons. And I can’t bring myself to spend the gold since there is no Rabid gear on the TP. I was thinking about going Carrion armor, Superior Undead Runes, and then Rampager for the weapons and trinkets. This would eat up ~75% of my gold supply.

I’ve also contemplated going full Knights gear to load up on Toughness and then use the Undead Runes (and the 6/6 bonus) and 25 point Chaos trait to raise Condition Damage above the baseline.

Shattering yourself only counts as one clone, doesn’t it? A single shatter is relatively pathetic, in all respects. It’s great in PvP when a Thief jumps you so you can just use Distortion and block out most of his burst for the next second, but in PvE? Lackluster at best.

This post is mostly about tagging mobs while Orr farming, not about sustained DPS.

That 20 points in Inspiration doesn’t seem to be getting you much except for slightly better Phantasms. And those Phantasms could get stomped at any moment. For your setup I would drop everything in Inspiration drop 5 points in Dueling, and put all 25 points into Chaos. That gets you Debilitating Dissipation (puts conditions on enemies), Metaphysical Rejuv (free Regen), Illusionary Membrane (free Protection when under the effect of Regen), Chaotic Dampening (the Staff trait is arguably more usable than the Sword trait for a Condition build, since the Sword causes no conditions), and more Condition Damage from Chaotic Transference…

So this…
http://tinyurl.com/8lwbqmt

Also those Nightmare runes do not affect Phantasms with +Condition Duration.

You kidding? The DE mobs are dead before you can get one of your shatters to run all the way into a group of mobs and explode.

Clearly the guy above has not played a mesmer, or maybe played it to level 15.

Illusionary Persona lets you Shatter YOURSELF. It works without any Illusions out.

Looks like there is only one person in this thread who hasn’t played a Mesmer before *cough*lollie*cough*

i dont think its weird but more like the thief in a sense idk how everyone is playing theirs but mine i chaos storm switch to duel blades illusionary leap switch with clone sword skill number 2 for invulnerability and dodge around the enemies in circles every dodge leaves a clone and by the time im done smash the clones to finish them off

There isn’t enough time for people to do that on some servers. When I play, if you can’t do a significant amount of damage in 2 or 3 seconds, the mobs are dead and you won’t get credit. Often I would try dropping a Chaos Storm as the mobs were spawning, get out a Clone, then start mashing Shatter and the mobs would be dead before the Clone walked a few feet to Shatter. Then I end up with no loot and move onto the next spawn point to try again…

i dont think its weird but more like the thief in a sense idk how everyone is playing theirs but mine i chaos storm switch to duel blades illusionary leap switch with clone sword skill number 2 for invulnerability and dodge around the enemies in circles every dodge leaves a clone and by the time im done smash the clones to finish them off

There isn’t enough time for people to do that on some servers. When I play, if you can’t do a significant amount of damage in 2 or 3 seconds, the mobs are dead and you won’t get credit. Often I would try dropping a Chaos Storm as the mobs were spawning, get out a Clone, then start mashing Shatter and the mobs would be dead before the Clone walked a few feet to Shatter. Then I end up with no loot and move onto the next spawn point to try again…

It is definitely not the same, but it will at least tag the mobs so you get loot. What I posted works for DE farming, but does little for solo PVE.

Without Illustionary Persona, I’ve done a many DEs where I got almost nothing for participating. Mobs were getting killed before I could drop an Illusion and have them run 5 yards to Shatter. Or if I was going with Chaos Storm, it wouldn’t have time to damage the mobs enough for me to get credit on the kill.

I was just going after Champions and Veterans so I would get something from doing the DE while other people are getting loot from groups of 8+ mobs at each spawn point.

Put 30 points into Illusions, get Illusionary Persona), run into groups of mobs and Shatter yourself with F1 and F2.

Also put Blink on your Utility Bar, because people with passive run speed buffs will be getting to the spawn points faster than you.

Carrioncrow.6872:

Come now admitt it, the 12 sec recharge on those skills were a little obscene considering the damage they put out, going to 18 secs isn’t that bad.

People would rather see the bugs fixed first, then address balance issues. All we got here was a pile of nerfs when there are numerous outstanding issues. Mesmers already had some weak points for PVE, and these changes make those issues even worse.

Pretty surprised that they made Phantasms worse. I definitely thought they needed a buff for more effective PVE use. This patch nerfs DPS and AOE, two areas Mesmers do not exactly excel at…