Guild Wars 2

Aaaaaand another post to hopefully fix the forum-bug… unless it gets merged with my previous post… wells; gotta try and see!

Edit: Worked.

Not gonna bother responding to the actual topic (cause I think I already did and it won’t make a difference anyway… OP will happily ignore all the facts and claim to be omniscient and infallible/inerrant despite being proven wrong again and again).

But I really wanna ask who this Frostball person is, since everyone here seems to know… and I’ve never (at least not that I would remember) heard or read that name before it appeared in this thread, lol.

…I don’t even. I think my brain is melting due to the ignorance in this thread. Why did I ever think it’s a good idea to quickly check the Mesmer forums before going to sleep…

Chronology of events:

1. Mesmer never really was meta
2. Mesmer gets nerfed again and again and again
3. HoT gets introduced. Mesmer finally is meta, with a build that is really strong (maybe a bit too strong), but actually not nearly as good as other classes if it wasn’t for portal and moa.
4. Mesmer gets nerfed by a huge margin. Other classes are (sometimes) a little bit shaved from. If they are even touched.
5. Mesmer gets nerfed again.
6. Mesmer gets nerfed again. Nobody would ever think Mesmer is really viable; especially not in high-level play.
7. Tournament starts that disallows class-stacking. So now the teams start thinking which class to pick instead of just going double-something… and decide to chose portal and moa. That’s the ONLY reason for why you see Mesmers.
8. Person pops up and goes like “amagawd Mesmer meta, anet was right, everyone is stupid and I’m right because I’m right and can’t possibly be wrong; all the logical and obvious arguments don’t matter cause my word is law and I’m always right”.
9. I feel like smashing my head onto my desk until it’s a bloody pulp. But since I’d like to keep being alive and such, and I’m also not into pain… I decide to write this post instead. Like, I won’t get enough sleep anymore, but ya… still the better option out of the two.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Mesmers are also one of the natural counters to Necromancer

It actually is, and pretty much always was, exactly the other way around. Since HoT even moreso. And if you as a Mesmer happen to encounter two Reapers at once (doesn’t matter if teamfight or not), you’re dead before you can say “oh sh…”. Unless you quickly hightail out of there.

IF I want to have a chance to beat a Reaper in any fight, I need to seriously outplay them.

Matty.1953:

Yeah, but Mesmers have always had some of the highest burst, which has allowed them to fill a dps role. This was especially true before the patch because thieves didn’t dominate the metagame. Pre HoT Mesmers had some of the highest burst. At the start of the game Mesmers had some of the highest burst.

Sure, Mesmers now don’t have some of the highest burst.

burst != dps

Mesmer burst = shatter

shatter = garbage in PvE due to extremely low dps

Long version: We have/had some decent burst with shatter, yeah. But burst means you do some big amount of damage at once and then you autoattack. Which other classes do better as well btw. But ya; due to the very nature of burst, dps is usually lower with a burst-build than it is with a dps-build. Dps was always phantasm for Mesmer. With the addition of Chronomancer (read: Chronophantasma), we can also incorporate some shatters (not only shattering to finish a target) into the phantasm-playstyle, though.

Matty.1953:

Mesmers have traditionally played DPS for years. It’s only after recent patches that the play style fell out of favour. You guys already probably know this, so why are all being facetious?

Yes, Mesmers did always run full glass in PvE. However, Mesmer’s DPS also always was subpar compared to pretty much all the other classes. Not to mention our DPS has a ramp-up time and can die easily (although the latter part improved quite a bit since they’ve reduced non-targetted damage on player summons/pets). Thus, if you want to play DPS, don’t go for Mesmer. Mesmers were and are only brought for the support they can give, and not for their DPS. Because every other class did/does way more DPS than Mesmer.

The videos are nice and I’m definitely gonna try it out, since condishatter was always my favorite build to play. However, I do have one suggestion for your future videos: Try decreasing the volume of the music a bit during the parts where you are talking in your videos. The music is really nice and all, but since it’s louder than (or maybe the same volume as) your voice, it’s sometimes quite hard to understand what you are saying.

Molch.2078:

(burnserker hurr dur)

You mean 30k burns + 8k bleeds + autoattacks that crit for more than the autos of Zerker-Mesmers? While giving decent support to your party? Peanuts! Warrior underpowered; please buff.

First let me say that scepter isn’t maximum dps. Then a question: Are you running power, condi or hybrid? What kind of equipment are you using?

From your traits and stuff, I would guess it’s a hybrid-build of some sort.

So then: Cry of Frustration might also be a good shatter to use. You’re rarely gonna interrupt mobs in PvE; so I’d consider Deceptive Evasion over Mistrust. That way, you’d also be less tempted to use the scepter-autoattack for clone-generation. In the Illusions line, Maim the Disillusioned would add more to your DPS than Shattered Strength. I’d also think about switching Compounding Power with Persistence of Memory, although that highly depends on playstyle (and sometimes also the utilities used). I guess Compounding Power might indeed be the better option in your case. In Domination, I’d probably go for Empowered Illusions instead of Rending Shatter. Signet of Midnight should only be used if you really need that blind or want to tag lots of mobs at once with a single stack of confusion (if it actually even does enough damage to tag). Otherwise, the passive effect would do much more for your dps than the active. Signet of Domination should also not be spammed, unless you really want to break a breakbar quickly. The passive increases your dps, while the active actually decreases your dps, since you lose out on the condi-damage and stunned mobs don’t use skills and don’t move either, thus confusion and torment deal way less damage to them. Last but not least, not every Mesmer has access to Mistfire Wolf or Hounds of Balthazar. My recommendation would be Timewarp (in groups) or Signet of Humility (for breakbars and an okay-ish passive). Or you could go Mass Invisibility if you find yourself in need of stealth. Of course; if you prefer to use one of the other two elites (one being from a premium option when buying the vanilla game, and the other one being a human racial skill), feel free to do so. It’s okay in open world I guess.

Oh, and Staff is superior for condi-dps (possibly also for hybrid-dps) in melee-range, so don’t forget to switch to it once you get close. Back when I was running condi in PvE, I would spawn an iDuelist (or iWarden), run in while casting Confusing Images, block for the torment, dodge for an additional clone (with deceptive evasion), shatter with Cry of Frustration, switch to staff, use Chaos Storm and Phase Retreat, dodge backinto the mob (basically try to get 3 clones up asap) and then auto-attack from melee, while shattering as soon as I could quickly get 2-3 clones up again. Mirror Images can also be a funny skill for that purpose.

Reminds me of this video:

^I’ve never actually seen anyone using reflects in any of those fights before. Well, except the harpies with their annoying knockback (plus they hurt a lot; at least they did pre-HoT… didn’t get to do fractals yet since HoT released).

Sometimes, in weak moments, I kinda dream about you know… learning when and how to reflect in those fights. But then I usually find it’s impossible without seeing it done ingame, and prolly not really worth the hassle either. Even moreso since most of the reflects require group-stacking for all I know, and the majority of parties almost never stack on anything. Thus I only use reflects on the harpies, as that’s pretty much the only situation where I’ve found reflects to be pretty much necessary. Unless you stealth-skip; but I’ve never done that either and never had a party who wanted to do that. After all, they drop loot.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Bunker mesmer is turret engi 3.0.. Its brainless and too OP for what’s supposed to do (bunker while it can dps/pressure teamfights too much)

You must be confusing Mesmer with Revenants and Scrappers. Or even Tempests and Druids. They all have equal or even more sustain than Mesmer, while dealing more damage than Mesmer, and in case of Revenant and Scrapper even while actually using a glass-cannon amulet and dealing tons of damage.

Windwalker.7421:

Two condi removals on a 35s CD, in the current meta? Really?
…

The healing signet is bad. You’ll end up having to blow it’s heal just to clear a couple of condies or get a burst heal off, and then you’re outta luck for 35s.

You’re forgetting the condi-removal on shatter, though.

Windwalker.7421:

The same build would IMO be better without sigils, among other changes.

Signets. Sigils are the things you slot into your weapons.

Archon.6480:

The funny part is that your name is hahaha, so when he is writing nasty things to you, he sounds unhinged. Example:

I hate you hahahah!

I mean come on hahahaha, what are you doing?

Hahahah I am going to get you and your little doggie too!

:) sounds kinda crazy…

Except that “hahah” is the title of the message, and not the name of the receiving player. ^^

@topic: Well, I can only hope that bumhole gets a couple of days to cool down and improve his basic social skills/manners. Aka a couple days of ban-time.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Wow.
My mind is blown with how lacking your knowledge of mesmer is.

Yeah; clearly 2k+ hours on Mesmer over 3 years mean I have no idea about Mesmers.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

I’m just not going to respond anymore, because everything I’ve got to say, has already been said. And your cognitive dissonance, your need to be right and for me to be wrong on this issue, has blinded you.

Your desire to get Mesmers nerfed even more has blinded you. You do not actually bring ANY arguments to back up your claims. You just keep repeating that you are right, I am wrong, and everyone who doesn’t agree is a bad player and has no clue.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

SOOOO MUCH, that you think the first part of my post about not seeing it, was about the players being bad.
(Hint: No, it was about them pretty much always taking blink & portal)

Let’s see. You’ve said everyone who doesn’t take portal AND blink with bunker Chrono is a bad player. Everyone in the Mesmer subforum who posted a bunker Chrono build or talked about one, did not take or suggest to take Blink and Portal at the same time. Heck; some would take neither. Therefore, according to you, they must all be bad players with no clue about Mesmers, cause otherwise they would always take both of those utility skills.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

sigh
“I’ve yet to see a bunker Mesmer who takes both of those. Heck; some take none of those. Just look around the Mesmer subforum for example. And no, they are not all noobs.”
I looked. Not sure what you’re expecting me to find?
I stalk that forum a lot as is.
If you were expecting me to see a decent bunker mesmers not running blink and portal. Sorry, didn’t see it.

Okay; so that means everyone who posts and/or talks about builds in that forum is a bad player.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

“Condi isn’t the best choice for Mesmer/Chrono in high MMR matches; that’s right. But how exactly is regular condi-Mesmer outclassing condi-Chrono?”

This is answered easily by “How does chrono benefit condition mesmer?”
Other than alacrity and the traits that summon a clone on 2 shattering, or chronophantasm, it really doesn’t.

LOL! You’ve answered your own question. Also, you can add shield to that list. And the F5-shatter. And of course, the movement speed. By your logic, Chrono would benefit no Mesmer-build whatsoever.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Now, lets ask which trait line we would even swap for Chrono on condi mesmer.

Chaos? PU is still really strong for resetting fights.
Dueling? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA you’re not swapping this, who the kitten are you kidding?
Illusions? This is where a large part of your confusion & torment comes from. You’re not swapping this on a condi build.

You do not need Chaos at all in a condi-build. PU always was garbage in PvP. Since why the heck would you want to camp stealth? Because it’s fun to have your points decapped? Even before Chrono, I would run Bountiful Disillusionment instead.
Dueling? With Chronomancer, you do not need Deceptive Evasion. So why would Dueling be mandatory?
Illusions? Well yeah, Illusions has to stay, obviously.

FYI; every single condi-build I’ve seen used and/or posted in the Mesmer forums (since HoT) uses either Inspiration/Illusion/Chrono, or Dueling/Illusion/Chrono (this variant trades sustain for blind on shatter and one additional stack of confusion in combination with Ineptitude).

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

“Every build that doesn’t take Domination. And yeah, that’s probably only condi-Chrono and condi-Mesmer. But since they already are that bad and unviable in high-lvl play… why nerf them even more by making them slower? Not to mention that PvP isn’t the only gamemode.”
Condi-Mesmer is left unaffected by the change, they don’t take chrono either, duh. Only condi-chrono, which is already a bottom tier build.

Yes they do. Chrono is actually a buff to condi-Mesmer. Still not enough to make it REALLY viable, but at least a bit better.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

And since we’re on the topic of other game modes.
WvW is left unaffected, because there’s ONLY 2 BUILDS THAT ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING IN WvW. PU Shatter & Chrono Shatter.
If you’re running anything else, then you’re in a zerg and it doesn’t matter what you play.
The 2 I mentioned are parts of the small organized 15-20 man center of a zerg blob. The guys that do GvG in their guild halls.

And before you say “But they could be running another one!”.
No, they couldn’t.

Chrono ONLY brings gravity well to the table. Which would be out classed by a venom share thief in the necro party. Unblockable CC wells? Hell YES! PLEASE!

You’ve never heard about roaming; right? Also, condi-Mesmer/Chrono is used for soloing dungeons and fractals.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

“Domination is about dealing damage and preventing them from running away/doing stuff”
Thank you for proving my point.
What better way to prevent someone from running away, than sticking to them like glue?

That was how I killed people back in the day as a thief. Sat right on top of them with a billion gap closers until they were dead.

It just makes sense.

No it doesn’t. The Domination traitline is about damage, and about stuns and interrupts. It’s not about making yourself more mobile, but about making your opponent LESS mobile. And if you want to talk about Thief… Deadly Arts brings stuff like damage, poison and immobilize. The swiftness on dodge as well as other mobility-traits are in other traitlines (Acrobatics, Trickery and Daredevil). Also, you can use gap-closers regardless of your traits. On Thief as well as on Mesmer. Heck; if you want to use MORE gap-closers, you’d maybe want to trait into Trickery on Thief (for more Initiative and lower Steal-cooldown), or Chaos on Mesmer (shorter cooldown on Blink). Not Deadly Arts or Domination; as they have nothing to do with your own mobility whatsoever.

StickerHappy.8052:

You have yet to see a mesmer take portal or blink? LOL.

That’s not even close to what I’ve said. You should re-read it.

StickerHappy.8052:

How can a mesmer bunker nowadays? sword 2 and what shield block?

So you are saying bunker Chrono is dead? Okay. But not really relevant to the topic. Also, if you look around the PvP-forum, people still complain about bunker Chrono.

StickerHappy.8052:

Here is the problem: Most of you guys flock to meta battle to band wagon on meta builds.

If you are still playing 3 wells after Precog Nerf, It is such a shame.

…the bunker Chrono build on metabattle actually doesn’t use 3 wells. That being said; I only check metabattle to get an idea of what others might be running, and to maybe get some inspiration for my own builds.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Blink & Portal. Which utility for movement are they sacrificing again? Because I have literally never seen a decent mesmer NOT take portal & blink.

That’s bunker or otherwise.

I’ve yet to see a bunker Mesmer who takes both of those. Heck; some take none of those. Just look around the Mesmer subforum for example. And no, they are not all noobs.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Chrono Condi mesmers are already pretty crap, with regular Condition Mesmer out classing it.

Condi isn’t the best choice for Mesmer/Chrono in high MMR matches; that’s right. But how exactly is regular condi-Mesmer outclassing condi-Chrono?

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

So, which build would this impact, other than bunker mesmer?

Every build that doesn’t take Domination. And yeah, that’s probably only condi-Chrono and condi-Mesmer. But since they already are that bad and unviable in high-lvl play… why nerf them even more by making them slower? Not to mention that PvP isn’t the only gamemode.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

And btw, kitten the RP argument. Although it makes perfect sense in “domination”, as how the hell do you dominate someone if they run away faster than you can run?

Lol; that’s just moo-poo. Domination is about dealing damage and preventing them from running away/doing stuff. And not about chasing them or running away yourself. If anything, it would make more sense (if you were to move the trait) in Dueling, due to being swift in combat or something. But ya; obviously you’d also need to rename the trait then. And make up a trait to replace it in the Chrono-traitline. One that fits Chronomancer.

LordOtto.2650:

So before it will become a meta stronghold tactic, I have to wright this down, to show you I was who invented it.

…right. Because you know that nobody else has ever done this before. Well; let’s see then.

LordOtto.2650:

1st everyone knows, 2 healer (ele and druid, or 2 ele) heal door breakers, and advance..

Can do so, but I wouldn’t call it necessary or even the right choice at all times.

LordOtto.2650:

2nd When the game begins you notice that everyone lets the door breakers free, or give them speed, max that, max 1 ppl is guarding them.. The tactic is that 3 ppl who will defend goes and kills all door breakers ( if a guardian goes with those 3 players then the door breakers die, no mater what),

If only one player is going with their doorbreakers, one person is usually enough to kill them. Why send three? The additional two players are more useful doing something else (one could for example join your attack, and the other one run supply/help defend when needed).

LordOtto.2650:

then the other team panics, no more meta rule, no more brain, and starts to struggle, after that you rule..

If an opposing team starts to panic after you’ve killed their initial doorbreakers, they must be REALLY bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen myself.

LordOtto.2650:

Step 3 if your door breakers didn’t die then 3 attack, 2 defend.

What if no doorbreakers are coming towards your gates? Why would you need 2 defending in that case?

LordOtto.2650:

Step 4 don’t let them get mist warriors, you get them!

Well yeah; that’s kinda obvious I guess. There’s exceptions, though.

LordOtto.2650:

Step 5 If all doors are broken 4 attack 1 defend.

Again depends on what the other team is doing. If they have 3 players about to break into your lordroom, you should have more then one player defending. If all 5 of them are defending their lord, you should send all 5 of your team for attack as well.

LordOtto.2650:

Good luck!

Thanks.

LordOtto.2650:

I’ve won battles that we would have been lost,

Congratz!

LordOtto.2650:

opponent had 2 bunker healers many times for door breakers.. don’t let them play!

Yeah; letting your opponents do what they want to do is usually something you should try to prevent from happening.

My main point is… strategies need to be flexible, and will have to be adjusted on the fly, depending on the situation at hand. Of course you can optimize how you react in certain scenarios, and you can also try to find out which strategy works best for you right at the start. But there’s no road-map that you can always follow exactly and you’ll win; which is what you seem to have tried to do here.

Are people REALLY suggesting to take away the 25% movement speed trait from the Chronomancer traitline? Are you kidding me?

Mesmer was always the only profession (well; depending on build, Guardians were in a similar position outside of PvP) who had to use traveler runes or some other rune for movement speed in most of the builds. Now that Chronomancer fixed that, you want to take it away from some builds again. Not every Chronomancer who isn’t a bunker takes Domination. Besides, the trait thematically fits into the Chrono-traitline really well. Wouldn’t make much sense in another traitline.

Also, Bunker Chrono only has three utility slots, just like every other Mesmer build. Thus, they already have limited mobility compared to other Mesmer/Chrono-builds.

So, bunker Chrono is faster than Tempests. So what? Tempests can bunker better and actually are still able to deal considerable amounts of damage (and that in AoE) compared to Chronos. So if you take away the movement speed trait, you should also increase the sustain of bunker Chrono, give them some reliable and hard-hitting AoE-damage, and then rename the class to iTempest (Illusionary Tempest).

Lol wtf; this surely doesn’t belong into this forum lol. Unless they re-organize stuff. But as for now, I think a mistake happened here. Maybe you can write a support ticket or so and ask them to move the thread back.

mambastik.8735:

Absconditus.6804:

Take a moment and visit the Signet of Humility wiki page. Familiarize yourself with the skills you will be having access too there, instead of panicking in-game pushing buttons and not knowing what to do.

You may notice that you can use Flee to evade some attacks, and it even sends you running a short distance if you wish to try create somewhat of an gap between you and your target(s). Perhaps to LoS around a corner, down a ledge, or otherwise.

You can use Screech to apply Weakness and lower the potential incoming damage coming your way. It’s not huge on range, but should serve its purpose.

See a field you can Combo Finisher: Leap from to gain something beneficial? Use Kick, besides using it to Cripple your target(s). You could use this before trying to Flee as well.

Or go on the offensive. Kick them, throw in a Screech, then Peck the kitten out of their hides before you Flee and Dodge for avoidance. And before you know it, you have dealt them some damage when they least expected it, and find yourself back out of the Moa form ready to curb stomp them and teach them that Moa is not such a easy thing to win with after all. If you got a buddy, practice in a empty Lobby with them.

Good ones will just wait till you panic and burn your dodges, after that every lockdown/immob is 100% contact because no stunbreak or cleanse.

…that’s why you shouldn’t panic and instead try some of the things written down in the post that you’ve quoted.

Holy baby-meow! I started reading and was like “wtf?” until I’ve suddenly realized this thread is more than one year old already…

And uhm; as for your question, sirrealist… in group-content (PvE), condi-Mesmer isn’t considered to be a very good choice, for all I know. However, for open world or solo-ing dungeons, condi-Mesmer can be a decent choice. Although I wouldn’t take torch offhand for that, but pistol (or focus maybe).

Helseth actually made a video about power shatter these days, and in his very charming way *cough* he kept stressing that as a power shatter Mesmer, you NEVER want fair fights. You always +1; you NEVER fight with equal forces (also no 1vs1) or even outnumbered. Unless you are 100% sure you can win the fight quickly, that is. You’re supposed to quickly burst someone down and then leave and go burst down someone else.

Granted, that might not always work if you solo-queue... well, maybe unless you’re really good at it.

Edarkness.7543:

^ is that rune better than the durability one?

Define “that rune”. Because the linked build actually uses Durability runes.

^Viable or barely viable Mesmers/Chronos are heresy. Also, they are scary. Must. Be. Nerfed.

Now!!!111!1!oneleven!!!1!

…it’s always the same story. I mean; people seem to be so used to Mesmers not being anywhere in the meta, that as soon as they make a tiny bit of an appearance in it, it must mean that they’ve suddenly become completely broken and overpowered. It doesn’t matter at all that even then, other classes can do the same (and often they still do it better than Mesmers)… if Mesmers can do it, they are OP. Mesmers are supposed to be trash tier. How dare you to want to be viable! Know your place, filthy Mesmers!

(Part of that post was obviously sarcasm. Felt like I need to add this; otherwise surely someone would claim that I actually agree with the moo-poo of some people).

AivenPrimus.9184:

Looks like some people doesnt realize how strong, really is Inspiration spec on Mesmer.

Combining it with Alacrity and Quickness from Chrono spec, it far exceeds survivability and condi ’’immunity’’ than any other spec…

Lol. You do realize that even pre-nerf, there were specs out there with equal or higher survivability than bunker-chronos, while using a glassy amulet (chronos used a tanky amulet), right? And they are still out there; but obviously it’s Mesmer/Chrono that had to get nerfed… like it already happened so many times. I remember like once when they even said they are not gonna do any balance changes anytime soon, and one day later Mesmers got nerfed to the ground, while everyone else wasn’t touched. It’s always the same story. Mesmers aren’t allowed to be equal to other classes. Oh, and even before the nerf… bunker Chronos could get destroyed by condis, if there’s enough of them/if they are re-applied fast enough.

AivenPrimus.9184:

But who am I? Right.
Keep on using your Dom/Duel/Chrono builds.

I don’t know who you are. But you probably are not on the forums a lot; otherwise you’d know that most people are only using Dom/Duel/Chrono for PvE; and even there not always. (Almost) nobody uses that for PvP anymore.

Awesome!

/15chars

No Walking.6349:

and the reward was nerfed twice

Huh? How so? And when? o.o

I don’t recall reading anything like that. Ever.

st elmos fire.2987:

Heey. here is my new vid.

Where? Because somehow, there’s no link to anything in your post. ^^

Taevion.2896:

I already seen several raven staffs on people but 0 people walkin around w/ the shield.

Hm well; the staff is a legendary and looks quite cool (although I’ve not seen it ingame yet). The shield is the reward for the specialization collection and looks quite uhm… well, not really good imo. Just like most of the rewards for specialization collections (at least those I have looked up until now… never saw any of them ingame yet… might be that I’m not the only one who feels that way).

Jacob.4280:

(even from downed state, not sure about death – proly not).

Neither from downed state, nor from being defeated.

Pepsi.8907:

Jeez! You’re right! I wanted durability, but this and resistance have the same icon, I just never checked if I had picked up the proper one
I edited in OP, thank you for pointing it out
I’ll check melandru tonight when I have time

Aaaaah, haha.

Okay. Yeah; I was kinda surprised that you went for that rune, since you’ve got so much condi-cleanse in the build. I actually also first thought you’re using the other one, until I’ve put my mouse over it; but thought I’ve just confused the icons, haha.

Loboling.5293:

Lastly, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Pepsi.8907:

Did I hint at anything about signet in my post/build by mistake? I don’t think they are viable (maybe the healing one with proper synergy with traits, but still), definitely not in a bunker build :/

No you didn’t; but the rune you used gives aegis on signet-use. Thus I’ve mentioned that you’re not even using any signets, and that Melandru does the rest of it at least equally good or better, and does some more stuff on top of that. ^^

Uncle Dalty.8327:

Remove temporal Enchanted. Resistance stops point capture as well so you won’t be solving that issue as well as you could

Wait; what? Since when? o.o

Edit: Looks quite standard bunker/support Chrono to me; except for different utilities, sigils and amulet. That being said, I’m not really happy with that amulet… condi-dmg is kind of a wasted stat. Also, Melandru runes would do the same thing, but better. They provide the same amount of toughness, more -condi duration, additional vitality and additional -stun duration. And you’re not using any signets in this build.

EnderzShadow.2506:

Ramoth.9064:

Ok. So everytime some one decides to play this skill-less chrono bunker build all we need is 3 people. Gotcha. If they enemy team has 2 chrono bunkers we only need 6! awesome!

anet math ftw

Of course. Because obviously, you can’t have, you know… have the same three people first focus down bunker chrono 1, and then focus down bunker chrono 2. And in case that shouldn’t work out cause they ress eachother too fast, then you still have two points with 0 bunker chronos on them. If they split up, you can easily focus-kill them. If they move together, you still have two bunker-chrono-less points… not to mention, bunker chronos don’t do any damage, while some of the other classes are just as tanky but do lots of damage.

And now with the change to well of precognition (as well as the change to the shield-blocks), the point-holding ability of bunker chronos got a serious nerf; so it should be even less of a problem now.

Silverkey.2078:

The thing is all those things should be adjusted together in one massive nerf. Because if you look at the meta right now, you actually need those to survive. There is a reason why scrapper, rev, mesmer and tempest are the only classes left: they have absurd survivability which is their only way to deal with the absurd damage.

Hold on. Chronomancers need to use a tanky amulet. The other classes can do it, as you’ve said before, with Marauder/Zerker/Viper (and achieve the same, if not superior tankyness compared to bunker Chrono). Meaning while Chronomancers are that survivable but hit like a wet noodle, the other classes are that survivable (or even moreso) and can still do A LOT of damage. But obviously, it’s Mesmers/Chronomancers who get nerfed heavily. #yayforlogic

Add to that, that bunker was pretty much the only really viable build we could bring… as our main means of damage dies before it can actually do any damage nowadays. Other classes don’t have that problem either. But ya. Nerf Mesmers. They are not allowed to be playable in PvP!

The sad part is, I only resort to playing bunker chrono, cause everything else I could do is just useless nowadays. Illusions usually don’t survive longer than 0.5-1 seconds after they spawn, due to AoE everywhere. So good luck doing any reasonable damage with Mesmer outside of 1vs1. Thus what’s left is bunkering. At least I can do SOMETHING that way. Of course I hit like a wet noodle, but that’s almost always the case anyway, due to illusions dying long before they could attack or shatter. I actually find myself whacking opponents with the sword-auto… not for damage of course, but for the boonstrip on the last part of the chain, lol. Of course only if the situation allows for that.

So ya. Either I play bunker, or I play another class. Sadly, that’s how it is nowadays. I really, really, REALLY wish I could play some different build with Mesmer/Chronomancer. But with those ridiculous amounts of AoE-damage flying around, that’s not gonna happen.

In this thread (or well; OP’s posts): “It’s silly of you to care about items in a game! There’s more to life than stuff in a game! But I really really really do want that item, and I do not want to play the content that it’s a reward for! I really care a lot about that item in a game!”

Fact is, everyone who wants the legendary PvP-backpiece has to play PvP. Just like everyone who wants the legendary fractal-backpiece has to play fractals. It’s a reward that you get from playing certain content. If you don’t want to play that content, you obviously don’t get the reward for playing it. It’s like if an athlete at the olympics would go “I want the olympic gold-medal for swimming, but I hate swimming; I want to get the swimming-medal for competing and winning in table tennis (which I happen to be competing in)! And of course in addition to the medal for table-tennis!”

Taltevus.3289:

What do you mean it’s irrelevant?
While this is done with Perplexity runes If I had runes of torment (Which I do) the stacks of that torment would be grand.

Each stack of torment would be 10.5 seconds long. that’s a lot to play in terms of skill cool downs.

I’d have to shatter differently but, in this photo I shattered to stack confusion.
If I man handle that scepter, trust and believe I can and, you can achieve more than 18 stacks of torment. The play-style is a bit different too.

And still, I disagree with the O.P.
I have the Tormenting Rune in PvP and I use staff scepter and torch.

So again…no the staff does not need a boost. I mean yeah, if you want to run into pvp and try to AA everything to death. Which will not work.

Staff is fine but you must utilize it differently for different types of enemies.
If you notice your opponent is generally ignoring your clones that have staves…it’s more than likely he’s not paying attention to conditions either.

Hence, kite’em around between them for a bit then proceed to apply pressure however you choose.

If you have someone hellbent on getting at you; bursty thieves.
#4.)
#5.)
#2.) at the end of #5 (or as optional) (or dodge)
Shatter of your choice (Likely f3 to keep them in #5 if exited early via #2 or dodging)

Don’t #3 until you get a good amount of varying conditions from #5 proceed from there.

Jfyi: 18 stacks of torment is pretty gnarly this is why we only get 1 stack per illusion shattered. Also 18 stacks WITHOUT Tormenting runes specific for torment stacking…I still got 18 stacks.

If you want direct damage…use the great-sword? (which can make a deceptive condi build)

All in all it is relevant because it can shift the Mesmers power band.
If I could do what I do with all the edits you guys want to make to staves…
I would have never known Miley Cyrus could be so good at pvp.

1. What the heck has Miley Cyrus to do with this?
2. Lol at the pic. So, you’ve just burned ALL of your shatters, and also hit all of them (also used two utility-skills, which happen to be stunbreaks too). And you get “epic” something-over-1k torment ticks. Great. You do realize that in a power-build, auto-attacks do the same damage, right? And you still have all of your shatters, and phantasms, and etc…
3. You claim this would work in PvP. Okay. Try to burn all of your shatters on the same opponent without getting killed before you get all the illusions to do so. And without your opponent dodging your shatters. And without your opponent (or random AoE) killing your illusions before they shatter. And without your opponent using a single cleanse and killing you as you just blew up everything you have.

4. Don’t get me wrong. I love condi-Mesmer. Mesmer is my main for more than 3 years already; I’ve got over 1k hours on it (don’t remember the exact number), and it’s the character I play the most by far. I’ve leveled it from 1 to 80 (and played it way beyond that) with Carrion gear and staff sword/focus, without any points in Dueling. And I still loved it (of course I’ve changed stuff since then, but I always chuckle when I see people go “amagawd, Mesmer so hard to level cause illusions die and low dmg and needs traits to be any good!”). Also, I’ve played condi or condi-shatter in WvW and also PvP, and had quite a lot of fun with it. However. Since leagues started (I didn’t play much PvP between launch of HoT and league-start), I started to notice more and more that the huge amounts of AoE are a real problem nowadays. Illusions often die half a second after they spawned. Also, many classes/builds have tons of condi-cleanse, and some are even completely immune to condis (looking at you, Diamond Skin Tempest… it was a sad day to face a premade with two of you, and each one of you would easily out-sustain three of my team… ugh). So that’s when even I started to think about switching the build, or maybe even the profession (for PvP). Currently trying some support-variant (basically a variant of what they call alacrity-bunker/support)… tried it first with Celestial amulet, but then I found I’m totally useless without at least 1-2 allies next to me… so I switched to Marauder… worked better… although after facing teams today which could burst anyone down within 1-2 seconds and/or applied unbelievable amounts of condis, I’ve switched to soldier amulet. Meh. I miss the fun I’ve had with condi… but as it is currently, almost everything seems to counter condi-Mesmer hard.

Watched part of the video, but couldn’t bear to watch the whole thing. Seriously. Stop. Running. In. Circles. All. The. Time. I felt like I’m gonna go crazy/lose my mind shortly, so I had to click it away. My head still feels all… weird. I still feel like something’s spinning somewhere inside my head. Uff.

Otherwise, I guess the video is nice, but the constant running in circles makes it unwatchable for me.

messiah.1908:

Saturn.6591:

messiah.1908:

dueling give you blind on shatter and with ineptitude you create doable the confusion
so with perfect shatter i can get 24 confusion stack while without dueling i will have 15
now in good fight sometimes yo wont be able to perfectly shatter thus from 24 i will get 15. an from 15 i will get 8 so more dmg with dueling over more sustain with inspiration

Hold on. I remember testing this a while ago, and at least back then, it would only ever add one or maybe two stacks of additional confusion. That’s because blinds that go on top of already active blinds do not add any confusion according to my tests back then. This means the only way you would get 9 additional stacks of confusion is, if you would shatter 9 illusions in a row (meaning you press three shatters in succession; 2 of them need to be 4-illusion shatters in melee range) and your opponent is spamming auto- or multihit-attacks like a madman (preferably with quickness active, and he actually has to"hit" you or someone else with every hit) so his blindness is getting removed fast enough for you to apply yet another one… but even then that only works if your illusions (including you) are perfectly lined up for each shatter, so that they do not hit at the same time. And if all that is the case, then said opponent would have suicided quickly even without those additional 9 stacks.

Did they actually change that?

ok this is what i have tested
i shatter F2+F3+#2 scepter to put stack of blind duration
when i saw only blind (no torment nor confusion) i F1
according to you i should get only 1 confusion and not the second 1 cause the target still blind .
i got 2 as i put another stack of blind

hope it helps

Okay; I have tested it again. This is what I have found: You get one blind from each shatter. Not from each illusion shattered, but from each shatter. So if you use both MW and CoF, you get 2 additional stacks of confusion if you take the traits for blind on shatter and confusion on blind. Still not a difference of 9 stacks between with and without those traits, though. ^^

Additional post to fix forum bug.~~

messiah.1908:

and you forget #3 scepter 6 stacks

No I don’t. I’m talking about the 9 additional stacks you claim to get out of the combination of two traits. Scepter 3 is not affected by either of them.

messiah.1908:

dueling give you blind on shatter and with ineptitude you create doable the confusion
so with perfect shatter i can get 24 confusion stack while without dueling i will have 15
now in good fight sometimes yo wont be able to perfectly shatter thus from 24 i will get 15. an from 15 i will get 8 so more dmg with dueling over more sustain with inspiration

Hold on. I remember testing this a while ago, and at least back then, it would only ever add one or maybe two stacks of additional confusion. That’s because blinds that go on top of already active blinds do not add any confusion according to my tests back then. This means the only way you would get 9 additional stacks of confusion is, if you would shatter 9 illusions in a row (meaning you press three shatters in succession; 2 of them need to be 4-illusion shatters in melee range) and your opponent is spamming auto- or multihit-attacks like a madman (preferably with quickness active, and he actually has to"hit" you or someone else with every hit) so his blindness is getting removed fast enough for you to apply yet another one… but even then that only works if your illusions (including you) are perfectly lined up for each shatter, so that they do not hit at the same time. And if all that is the case, then said opponent would have suicided quickly even without those additional 9 stacks.

Did they actually change that?

As a casual player, I can’t really see where some of the complaints come from. Seriously. I’ve just finished the story last night, and I also got all of the HoT-masteries on lvl 2 so far… now working on gliding 3 because I love gliding, haha (likely gonna be the first one I’m gonna max out). So far, I have done EVERYTHING in full zerker gear, on my Mesmer/Chronomancer. Of course there’s events or champs I couldn’t solo (while others I could), but that exists in the vanilla game as well. Luckily, there’s usually other players on the map, or you could even ask guildies/friends if they could come and help you with something. And mind you, I’m by no means a pro player.

Thiefz.3695:

Question then: What if instead of streaming the matches with commentary, the matches were recorded and then the casters were able to stop, replay, continue matches to give people more information on why something worked?

I personally know that when we hear things like “Elementalist vs Elementalist, this will take awhile.” seems like a throw away comment. So perhaps if games were broken down into key moments, it might be better.

I would actually love to watch something like that.

The thing is, I have tried watching the streams (for EU) today/actually yesterday by now (the german as well as the english one), but didn’t stick around for very long; not even for a full match. The broadcasters tend to switch scenes and players quite quickly, and talk about player x and then you’re suddenly at the other end of the map and there’s player y and z fighting a, b and c of the other team, and then player w is being focused somewhere else… and you can’t possibly keep up with who is who unless you actually know all the players and their teams very well, and also know how their characters look like. Trying to read the nametags just doesn’t really do the trick. Another problem is, that for example there was an 1vs1 happening on another capture point and I would have found it very interesting to see that, but I actually didn’t get to, since the broadcasters switched to two or three different locations while said 1vs1 was happening. Which is sad, but kinda understandable… can’t show everything. But ya, if they switch cameras, the screen also zips over the map quite fast (guess it has to), which almost hurts the eyes. Then what I also found is, that even though I play PvP kinda frequently and daresay I know the maps quite well by now, I sometimes was confused as to where exactly the camera is right now (usually when it’s not on a capture point)… I tried checking on the minimap, but couldn’t spot any indication of the current camera-location.

All the necessary zipping around makes the whole thing appear to be quite chaotic and confusing at times, and you can’t possibly keep up with everything. You are also bound to miss stuff, unless maybe you’re one of those gifted individuals who can cut their fingernails while reading a newspaper, talking on the phone and eating lunch at the same time. However, I’d love to be able to watch recaps of matches, where key-moments and other interesting stuff are shown, and things are explained like how x leads to y and how that influences z.

On a sidenote (off topic), English sometimes really gives me a headache. I swear I wanted to translate the german word “Zusammenhang” or “Zusammenhänge” in plural, and the dictionary gave me like 10 options… and a person from the USA I asked told me maybe there exists no such word in English…

I dunno; faced a premade earlier this evening/night with two Berserkers. For some reason, we got rekt badly. One time I died, I had around 27k burning and 25k bleeding shown in the summary. Didn’t surprise me, as I simply couldn’t keep up with cleansing.

Fay.2357:

Thinks I don’t do: Download random files off of mega.

Well I did, and checked it with my antivirus, which said it’s okay. It’s a .rar-file. But ya… things I certainly do not do, is executing a random .exe of which I do not know what it does. Because that’s what’s inside… “Spec.exe”.

@OP: How about you just tell us what it is that you’re making? Maybe add a screenshot for illustration?

denis.9487:

Pvp is ok just my time was spent in wvw also. Pvp gets stale and since the release of hot in order to play the elite specs it forces you to do something. Just the force feeding of pve content I’m struggling with.

You do not have to play PvE to unlock elite specializations. You can get the hero points needed to do so in WvW as well. Look out for this item, which drops from WvW rank-up chests: Proof of heroics