Showing Posts For Sezneg.8630:
In solo PVE, creatures move enough that the Torment damage is probably higher.
In group PVE, it’s useful for avoiding the bleed cap.
In pvp, torment has been fun.
I’ve recently come back from before it was added to scepter, and I’m loving the change so far, it’s still not a perfect weapon but that’s mainly down to attack speed/animation issues IMO.
I keep seeing people agitate for Sceptor to cause bleed instead of Torment… doesn’t that hurt us at large events since we’re more likely to lose damage to the bleed cap than torment cap? Seems it would be a downgrade to me.
What I’d like to see for a baseline mesmer fix?
1. Phantasms made immune to aoe damage.
2. All illusions given distortion upon activation of a shatter.
@jportell.2197
Your generic statements are irrelevant for the discussion. Balance comes ‘from gear and traits’….really??? What about all the cc and invulnerability that comes just from your weapons. What about quality and synergy of traits? What about class mechanics etc….For your info:
Balance comes from TRADEOFFS. In other words, if class gets A and B, then it cannot have C and D at the same time. Problem with mesmer is that it gets pretty much everything in one package at the same time:
1. Insane dmg (spike + aoe).
2. Insane defense (2sec invul every 8 or so sec PLUS 4sec invul every 42 sec). In the first 50 sec of fight that guy can be invulnerable whole 20 seconds (yes…not a joke..that is invulnerability almost 50% of time). Also teleport away from enemy on 10sec timer or so.
3. Insane cc (2sec stun at 25sec cd. 2sec snare at 10sec cd, random condition field, random condition
4. insane group support. (teleport, 10sec group haste..wtf? )So let us recap:
in the first 50 sec (or so) of fight mesmer is:
1. Defense: invulnerable about 20seconds. He can teleport away from you about 4 times (when he is not invul, just to get away from you).
2. He puts on 6 seconds of stun (3 × 2sec). He puts about 12 seconds on snare (6 × 2 sec). He is dazing you twice with shatter and twice with random condition field.
3. he super-aoe-blows-you-up (with 25 stacks of vuln and daze on you) twice. He mini-aoe-blows-you up (without 25 stacks of vuln) about 4 more times.
5. He pops 10 seconds of haste….teleport to ensure instant presence on two points…You mention thieves….do you know glass thief has 14K of health in standard setup, while glass mesmer has about 19K? That is a lot more health.
It is as I said above: Anyone with a clue would know that giving a class everything (great defense (through invulnerability of almost 50% of time), great offense (aoe that can insta blow up entire team from 100% to 0% on 36sec timer), great CC (read above), great team utilities….) is a bad idea for balance.
Anet decided to differentiate themselves by making a class with ‘new feel’ , and they essentially made class that has everything. Wow…what a strike of genius….
There’s so much wrong in this post…
Your “in the first 50 seconds” list accurately states what we can possibly do… but when you account for actual action time during that 50 seconds we can NOT in any way shape or form do ALL of the things you list:
1. Using sword invulnerability precludes all other actions for 2 seconds, so 8 seconds out of that 50 is otherwise occupied and no actions will take place.
2. Using pistol stun twice in the sequence requires you to start with sword/pistol out and then either keep it out (which precludes using the AOE random condition field and the short cooldown teleport), OR swapped which precludes us from using the sword invulnerability on cooldown.
So while it’s a good list of some of the things a mesmer can do, you’re flat out wrong about us being able to do everything you list in a 50 second window.
It’s a very powerful class, I’m fine with the changes:
1. SS was over the top. Go back far enough on the mesmer forum to when this was buffed up and you’ll find plenty of posts from mesmers predicting a quick nerf in the next patch. Im actually surprised they let it stay as long as they did… but Christmas/New Years tend to cause a lot of productivity loss.
2. The global cooldown is an acceptable bandaid fix for what was a pretty rough exploit. I’m actually hoping they change the shatter mechanic and do away with the illusions running up to their target, which was how this bug snuck in to begin with. Just have the illusions poof as soon as we hit the shatter and cause an AOE effect centered on our current target. The only thing this messes up is people who put illusions on multiple targets for dazes… and that’s not a lot of mesmers.
I’m not a fan of Mantras, as the extra frustration of having to manage their charges, resetting them on zone in/out grows with the more Mantras you slot.
1. Increase the recharge time of Mantras slightly
2. Recharging any Mantra refills the charges of all Mantras.
Now Mantra builds benefit greatly from slotting more mantras (currently they just… drive you nutty with extra casts).
Also, the stability mantra needs to provide at least 5 seconds of stability. Two is just… bad. You’re better off slotting signet of illusions to reset distortion and relying on that.
Osicat, thank you for posting your great videos. They are a great example of what this class is capable of, and very entertaining. I’ve found your guide very helpful.
Here’s how I tag at DE zergs in Orr:
1. Memorize where the mobs will spawn.
2. Trait 20 into domination for the “confusion on enter/exit glamour” trait
3. Slot Portal.
4. Grab some condition damage (either through spec, gear domination signet, etc).
5. Place portal on spot where mobs will spawn.
Any of these mobs that so much as get an attack off will take a nice little chunk of damage (confusion 1 if they attack while standing on the portal, confusion 2 if they spawn in the portal and then exit it before attacking).
It helps if you give the mobs something to hit (stand in their spawn area and use your survival skills/blinds/dodges as needed).
You’ll tag plenty. Not as good as an engineer, but faster than relying on shatter/phantasm.
The portal will last a full minute and not have a cooldown if you do not place the second portal.
Ok, then charr has the short end of the stick for light armor all together, which kinda sucks… Basically any charr who wishes to pick up magic is destined to be fabulous…
As for the skirt being longer, yea, would be fine, I suppose, but I mean really? Can’t even cover my knees?
Honestly, it’s the first char kilt/skirt I’ve seen that short. It was more than likely not made that way on purpose.
It’s also low level armor, so you’ll be rid of it soon enough.
Honestly, I have no problem with how this class looks on my asura, and didn’t mind the human armor on them either.
Wouldn’t mind the char armor you linked either if the skirt went lower.
Easymode: are you on SBI? I find your posts extremely helpful/informative.
Turtles: If you’re running a lot of mantras, you can use mantras while you charge other mantras. It’s definitely “different” from other builds. It’s busy, but a different kind of busy for this class (i’ve messed around with the 30/30 a bit, it’s more fun than I expected). The main downside is as easy said, very low mobility overall and the shatters are weak for me as I am used to either playing a crit shatter or condition shatter build.
Wow… that’s not even long enough to call a skirt.
Definitely “fabulous” armor you have there…
Condition damage is the best way to get damage out of the staff.
The bounce trait + staff clones = a lot of conditions. Medium sized stacks of bleeding with good burn uptime.
Mirror image is a lot of fun for the staff (also for the trident).
The pvp and bot grief uses are of course great!
For pve: if you trait for glamours (confusion on entrance/exit especially) you can get insane confusion stacks from portal in pve.
edit
A bit of an explanation of above; if you don’t place the portal exit in 60 seconds, the skill doesn’t go on cooldown. This means you can have this thing up almost constantly and just kite mobs over it over and over. It lasts a minute, so it’s great in DEs for tagging if you know where the mobs are going to spawn.
Don’t get too concerned by the stats granted with each line. They only make up a small part of your total at end game (they are more of a big deal for leveling up).
So yes, you get some condition damage out of the illusions line… you also get condition duration from the domination (power) line. Both are useful for both power AND condition damage builds.
In pvp, I get a LOT of damage off the confusion my shatters cause (due to the 15 point minor trait in illussions).
Yes. (also words)
I like the build.
The videos were pretty good, though the shaky cam (you had someone film your screen with a hand cam I’m guessing?) was pretty distracting and made it so that your ability bar or target health bar kept drifting out of view.
Critiquing your play; a few times you let yourself go down while you had distortion ready to go. No reason for that, especially given your build’s constant stream of clones.
Also, early in the second video you let a warrior bull rush => 100 blades you down, even though blink is sitting there ready to fire.
You moved through the map very well (though you burned blink for a slight speed burst and on at least one occasion died because you didn’t have it ready when you needed it).
Quibbles aside, I enjoyed the videos. You played a few pretty nice matches there.
The reason there are no common mantra builds is because, despite all the synergy you gain from the 4 mantra traits, having to recharge up to 4 mantras in combat (or even out of combat) destroys those synergies.
If mantras automatically recharged out of combat? That would be a big help. Having potentially 16 seconds setup time between combat is nuts for this game.
Better still is if they INCREASED the recharge to 5-6 seconds, and let it recharge all of your mantras.
The cooldowns not being reduced is a display bug. They actually are reduced.
MOA is not OP. Have a mesmer use it on you so you can read what the Moa skills do. You can actually defend yourself quite well in Moa form if you know what you’re doing. The best thing about Moa Morph is that it counters other elite skills that change their user’s form. Once a player knows how to use the skills in Moa form, they can easily survive AND contribute to a fight as a Moa.
I CRINGE whenever I read someone say you should be kiting with the staff.
Staff is for chaos armor tanking. You WANT to get hit. I guarantee you will get enough procs of regen and aegis to make up the damage, especially if you’re chaos armored inside of a chaos storm.
It also helps you burn your foes down faster if they proc more conditions from hitting you with chaos armor up.
Also if you are trying to kite while using a condition damage build, the mobs will waste your confusion stacks. You WANT them to swing at you. Between chaos armor (the skill, and comboing with staff 2 through various fields) and dodges you should have NO REASON to kite with staff out.
Temporal curtain.
Put your temporal curtain on the wall as close to the edge as you can.
Detonate it.
Laugh as you pull several people onto the ground unexpectedly.
With coordination you can assassinate defenders this way (coordinate CC on them once they hit the ground, use pulls like flamethrower kit backdraft to pull them away from the teleporter back into the keep).
I'm seeing a lot of sadness about Scepters. Here's a 101 on them if it's a weapon you've never really used.
in Mesmer
Posted by: Sezneg.8630
The first skill chain could certainly be sped up a bit (though the people saying it takes 4-5 seconds to get a clone are really overstating it). It’s silly to say “you can get more clones with sword + dodge trait”, as the dodge trait can be used with scepter to get even MORE clones than any other weapon + dodge trait.
Really, the only thing I think the scepter needs is a pass on animation delays and responsiveness. The skills on it are quite good with the right traits/stats.
My only real problem with mantras is having to recharge them every time I zone. This is very annoying when doing story instances and/or being popped into a zone and then out of the overflow, etc.
edit
You can learn a lot about this class by just reading every post by EasymodeX.
(edited by Sezneg.8630)
My 2 Cents:
Right now HOD is the most organized, beastly server in WvW gamewide.
They have better comms, they consistently get larger organized groups out (large groups of single guilds instead of small groups of many guilds).
So they maul face. So both Stormbluff and Jade are trying to play for second place. More or less accepting that HOD is going to win and trying to knock the other server down out of the matchup.
Really, Jade and Storm should be teaming up to fight HOD. That’s how 3 way matchup realm wars are supposed to work; the weaker teams group up to fight the stronger. This is how it worked in DAOC.
Why isn’t this happening in WvW so far? IMO it’s the matchmaking system. We aren’t “stuck” with our matchups, so we are not given the normal incentives to work together to knock the strongest faction down a peg.
TLDR: Stormbluff and Jade SHOULD be ignoring eachother and both fighting HOD. In DAOC this is how it would have happened. That it’s not happening is a somewhat troubling sign of how the incentives are working in the WvW server matchup system.
You missed the part where I said the strength of the shatter build is that it doesn’t matter if the odd illusion dies because it is designed to crank them out at such a high rate.
Your build on the other hand is very vulnerable to pet death.
Don’t confuse one big number being better than lots of small ones. With all the confusion/other condition stack in addition to mind wrack damage and the fact that phantasms will still get a volley or two out, it certainly does add up.
You are somehow envisioning a perfect set up where you have 3 warlocks standing there in one spot, (which takes a long time to set up relatively), safe from harm with no target changing. It’s so far from the reality of GW2 play it’s bizarre.
I should add that yes, the maybe a few situations where the fight mechanics will permit you to /popcorn and let phantasms do their thing but that situation is a rarity to say the least.
Jesus tap dancing Christ, did you really just insult my reading comprehension when you failed to address ANYTHING I said about a shatter build’s flaws. Oh and then the shot at my ability to understand or do math when your own numbers are far from factual. They do not in fact add up.
1: Your build is limited by Wrack’s Cooldown! It doesn’t matter how many useless pets you can field if you have more than you can reasonably shatter. This is a huge flaw in our shatter builds that you need to address
2: You need to prove that Wrack can consistently outpace 2 locks that live to see a third volley. At 80 on a boss that’s about 13k worth of damage
3: Clones can and will die before they reach their shatter target a good percentage of the time. Warlocks have the advantage of ranged delivery. You are vastly understating how frequently 1 or 2 clones don’t arrive.
4: No idiot is going to stand in one place with their auto on and spam 3 on any boss. Fortunately you have these cool movement keys that let you place your pets at safer areas in the room. You can get 3 out on basically any fight. The ones where this is problematic are the also the ones that chunk shatter builds and even still you can usually field two constantly. See above.
5: Confusion is a very poor condition in PvE. Boss attack speed is usually too slow for it to contribute a significant source of our damage.
6: Most bosses have 0 target changing. Other classes can swap more efficiently than we can anyway.
7: Shatter builds do have their uses, Phantasm ones simply cover more bases while being harder to kill
So, lets propose builds that solve these issues shall we?
Can’t really take your build seriously
1. You lose a lot of potential damage to weapon downtime. Other than warlock, the entire staff skill set is crap for someone running power/crit for a phantasm build. You have a lot of time spent in your build just using our weakest attack for a power build (staff auto-attack), and being stuck on a weapon that outside of the phantasm does not have any synergy with your stats/traits. Even when you do swap to your greatsword (really all you can use), you have to avoid using 2 of the skills outright and really the knockback is a dead skill in the boss fights you are basing your arguments on (as they are pretty much all immune to it). So… your weapons consist of a staff which is terrible for power/crit builds, and a greatsword that you pretty much don’t/can’t use 3/5 of the skills on.
2. Your view of what constitutes a successful build is tailored and narrow to absurdity. And even then… you can’t prove it! There are no DPS meters or combat log parsing widgets as of yet. So your build has what… a few big numbers when the phantasms fire, then pretty much NOTHING else. And you assume that this is our best possible DPS build. I’m sorry, but you are mistaken. With good timing and play you can get more damage AND more utility out of just normal phantasm use. Others have tried to explain this to you on these forums. You simply ignore it. So I’m not going to give you the same play by play list on how this is achieved.
3. In your quest to /afk in dungeons you ignore the amazing support and utility your class can provide. I would honestly not even invite you to a dungeon (let alone sPVP or WVW).
No character essentially gets any better, you more or less have all your abilitys within about the first 10 hours of play, with level capping per area in place also it will always feel the same.
People have started noticing this at about level 40-50 that they are not actually progressing, this is apparently how the game is designed, I cant say im fan of that aspect character progression is the primary point for me in any mmo.
Progression continues through trait acquisition. Access to traits opens up new wrinkles to your current build, as well as new build possibilities.
Mesmer at level 80 is vastly different from mesmer at level 20, due entirely to traits.
Sorry no, saying Mesmers are squishy. Shows you dont know much about them.
They one of the best control class’s in the game(meaning one of the easiest to do control with). Meaning being up close in the enemies face and keeping them under control.
I am Melee on my Mesmer 70% of the time, if not more.
With Sword/Focus you can put out really good aoe damage as well, while at same time doing control.
In PvE ive control over 10mobs solo before. This is with being melee for pretty much the entire time.
You are a better player than me. I suck so bad at melee in this game that I’ve chosen staff and greatsword so I can play at range. I enjoy the Mesmer very much until I face a thief or ranger 1v1 on PvP…haha.
There a lot more, but I tell you a basic combo for sword/focus to own a good size group.
Us 4 then place 4 again, if place right. You pull all mobs near into one small area. Then use 3 and 3 again to immb them, use 5 and then 2.
Most reg mobs, would be own by this combo. Because 5 phant does aoe to anyone near it and 1 and 2 of the sword is the same, does aoe to anything near you.
Plus 5 is really high dam, as well as 2 and if ya use 1 to stack teh vul, then they do even more. I have decoy and def phant rdy if needed. Plus number 5 protects you from all projectiles.
Thats a basic knowledge, but the build is a lot more then that.
If I could add to this; if you toss a field down (usually feedback as it is instant) your Illusionary warden will cause mass confusion and you will give yourself and your clones/illusions chaos armor when you illusionary leap and swap into the field. This combo holds up quite well throughout the leveling up experience.
What I’ve found is that you have to build to get around this.
There are several ways. As others have already said, a clone factory shatter build can get a lot of AOE damage in fast. You can work out some simple rotations to get 3 clones out and shatter right away.
So can a sword focused build. Sword + Focus has a lot of AOE potential, and the added bonus of being able to pull mobs OUT of other players AOE so you can get your damage in. Be sure to grab both blade training and the focus cooldown trait, along with 5+ points in illussions to get warden’s cooldown even lower.