Guild Wars 2

i’m only counting minimum shatter damage into consideration in the dps difference between scepter and staff.. taking into consideration quickness from shatters for the scepter. minimum shatter damage is atleast 4 torment and 8 confusion.

just to be clear.. i didn’t debate with woc damage being lesser than scepter aa… it was about scepter aa with quickness from stm is higher dps than staff auto attack without quickness in the sword build that you mentioned.. not to mention scepter auto attack also summons clones dealing torment again.. but if you consider retreat and warlock.. we’r talking about counter and confusing images.. and counter is only on a 8 second cd without alacrity being added into the mix.

we need to have 3 clones upkeep on staff for the dps.. we cant shatter and get the clones back without dodges.. it’s overall a dps loss than sticking to scepter and shattering once or twice in the 7-8 second window and counter atleast once and confusing images.. regarding our priority damage pressure coming only from shatters and weapons dont really matter.. which i strongly object with.. weapons do contribute a lot to the pressure.

you got the topic into my build when i mentioned i dont switch to staff and camp in scepter.. to which i answered.. unless chaos storm is out of cooldown.. it’s a dps loss in staff, that means i’m counting all the spells not just auto attack.

lol.. thx.. i knew something was wrong when the attkspeed of the clone was shown as 1.25 sec in gw2wiki

you seem to be mistaken.. when i mention meelee range.. that doesn’t mean.. i stand at a spot and get smashed by champions.. it means i keep kiting around but i’m very close to meelee if not meelee, ofc i’m at meelee range at every counter.

Embolism.8106:

Okay, some more in-depth numbers. These are actually timed instead of lifted from tooltips.

.

Ether Bolt melee DPS: ( ( 337 +337 + 506 ) * ( 0.5 * 0.4685 + 1 ) + ( 234 + 312 ) ) / 2.55 = 785
(^ With Runes of Tormenting and Malicious Sorcery)

Winds of Chaos DPS: 2* ( 223 * ( 0.5 * 0.4685 + 1 ) + ( 836 + 345 ) / 3 ) / 1.32 = 968

.

Right off the bat, Staff has a 23% DPS advantage over Sceptre. This isn’t taking into account all the time you wouldn’t be attacking in Sceptre thanks to the cast times of IC and CI, while Staff skills have relatively short cast times.

.

Now also consider this. If you camp Sceptre in melee range, ALL your Torment damage is halved. Not just from the Sceptre, but also from your Shatters: the primary source of your damage.

.

Now let’s try it at range.

.

Ether Bolt ranged DPS: ( ( 337 +337 + 506 ) * ( 0.5 * 0.4685 + 1 ) + 467 + 623 ) / 3.2 = 796

.

Moral of the story is: don’t camp Sceptre in melee range. You’re far better off getting doubled Torment damage (for both Sceptre AND Shatters) and eating the RoF penalty.

.

For reference, here are numbers with Quickness…

.

Ether Bolt melee DPS: 785 / 0.67 = 1172

WoC DPS: 968 / 0.67 = 1445

Ether Bolt ranged DPS: ( ( 337 +337 + 506 ) * ( 0.5 * 0.4685 + 1 ) + 467 + 623 ) / ( 2.55 * 0.67 + 0.65 ) = 1080

.

So yes, with Quickness Ether Bolt is stronger at melee than at range. But… all your Torment from your Shatters are halved. Worth it?

You dont go malicious sorcery, and for the most part, you have quickness from shatters, dont calculate with any changed traits.. we’r calculating a shatter build.. lets stick with ineptitude.

and if i remember right.. the last balance patch pre-expansion shows all the tooltip damage numbers accurately.

please.. talking about torment damage being halved is getting ridiculous… the numbers we are calculating are torment damage when target’s not moving.

and regarding the calculations.. i’v mentioned it in the post above

Embolism.8106:

And yet you used my 1.75s for Ether Bolt as your calulations.

.

WoC: 2 * ( 330 + 223) / 1.32 = 838

Ether Bolt: ( 386 + 515 + 337 + 337 + 506 ) / 3.3 = 631

.

I knew the tooltip numbers are not quite correct, but I also knew the same applies to Ether Bolt. I was being generous. These numbers make WoC even better than Ether Bolt in my original, tooltip-based calculations (from 24% better to 33% better).

where’s the quickness going to? with stm? you either seem to add quickness to staff in your chronophantasma build or you remove quickness from scepter with stm.. wierd calculations. calculations are wrong once again.. and i thought you put in a 1.75 as a quickness combo.. where did you get the 1.75 number from? i was generous getting it to 1.8.. wait.. why 1.8.. give it a 2.0/2.2 with quickness

.

the topic started when you tried to prove sword dps is close to a scepter dps in a condition build..

Strawman. I said no such thing. My claim was that most Condi Mes DPS comes from Shatters, so your weapon choices are not as important DPS-wise. Sword provides defence, which can be important in Maguuma.

Sorry on that part, but if that’s the case.. sword isn’t even needed for defense when your using a staff and scep/pistol.. you dont need a sword for defense anywhere in maguuma. your just gimping yourself using a sword. condi mesmer dps doesn’t come with shatters alone, you can easily maintain 10 torment stacks with just counter.

Which results in halved Torment damage and makes WoC even more powerful compared to Ether Bolt.

all the damage i linked are torment damage when not moving.. no reason to point out damage getting halved.. it’s already halved damage.. and i hope you did the same.

The rest of you comparison doesn’t make too much sense unless you take into account weapon swapping, which is the whole point of this discussion: you want to camp Sceptre. Confusing Images for example is likely only able to be used once or twice during a swap, so swapping isn’t going to lose you the entire DPS, only a small fraction.

which comparision do you need weapon swapping to make sense? counter is far more potent than confusing images.

thanks fri,

Embolism.8106:

0.75 is the base cast time of Winds of Chaos without Quickness. Like I said Quickness is not a concern here because it either affects both or none at all.

.

I don’t think Illusion uptime and Shatter damage are a factor because both would be similar regardless of what kind of condition build you run, as long as the limiting factor is Shatter CD and not Illusion generation then it’s fine and no comparison is needed.

Anyways the reason this started was because Telekinesis claimed that the Sceptre is the only way to get enough Illusion generation, I questioned this until I realised it’s because he camps Sceptre exclusively. When you factor in weapon swapping it’s obvious that illusion generation is not a limiting factor for any build, so the discussion goes on to about a DPS loss when swapping to Staff.

As I showed Staff’s auto DPS is significantly higher than Sceptre’s, without factoring in Sceptre’s weirdness with range and how this interacts with Torment requiring constant movement (it would make its DPS even lower, possibly by a lot).

I’m sure you can go on to calculate the DPS contribution of all the other skills and effects, but the thing is these skills all have CDs and in general you won’t be casting them all that much in one weapon swap cycle; in which case you may as well swap weapons and get to cast all the other skills in your other weapon, swap back, so on so forth and not lose much because most of the skills on your first weapon would be on CD anyway.

(Why am I explaining weapon swapping?)

.

EDIT: Actually, Quickness does affect Staff and Sceptre differently. It benefits Staff more. Why? Because Ether Bolt’s after cast is not affected by Quickness, it depends on projectile speed. This goes back to the dilemma of staying in melee range and halving Torment damage, or staying at range and losing RoF.

your calculations plummet with 1.32,

winds of chaos – avg condition dmg – 2*330/1.32 or 330/0.66 = 500
winds of chaos – avg physical dmg – 2*223/1.32 or 223/0.66 = 337

gets to 837

etherbolt combo – avg condition damage – 386+515/1.75 = 515
etherbolt combo – avg physical damage – 337+337+506/1.75 = 674

gets to 1189

the topic started when you tried to prove sword dps is close to a scepter dps in a condition build.. regarding scepter wierdness with range.. it’s 3.9 seconds at the farthest range and 3.3 seconds at the closest range.. i did mention staying close for the most part cause of really low cd on counter. i’v also mentioned swapping to staff with chaos storm is the only worthwhile switch.

lets not debate about quickness on staff.. in the sword build you mentioned.. you have chronophantasma.. no stm.

with my stats -

sword chain calculation – 475+475+949/2.48 = 765
sword blurred frenzy – 1728 over 2.5 sec (12 sec cd compared to counter’s 8 sec)
sword ileap – + vulnerability stacks

scepter etherbolt combo physical – 353+353+530/1.8 = 686
scepter etherbolt combo condition – 298+496/1.8 = 441 (target not moving)
scepter counter physical – 706/time you spend channeling (preferably last second)
scepter counter condition – 6941 (target not moving)
scepter counter condition – 13881 (target moving)
scepter confusing images physical – 2118 over 2 sec
scepter confusing images condition – 4934 (target not activating skills)
scepter confusing images condition – 991 (activating)

with the above results.. lets compare sword frenzy to confusing images cause both of them are on the same cd.. confusing wins outright.. unfortunately there’s nothing to compare counter’s damage to in a sword.. since i leap and auto attack vulnerability application doesn’t come close to the damage counter deals.

staff winds of chaos physical – 233+233/1.32 = 353
staff winds of chaos condition – bleed – 1217
staff winds of chaos condition – burn – 424
staff retreat clone – inflicts winds of chaos – ^
staff warlock damage – 1339 +10% per condition
staff chaos storm poison – 734
staff chaos storm physical – 257*6 = 1552 over 5 seconds

fri, need help regarding staff clone attack speed

i’m on my way home now.. btw 0.75 isn’t winds of chaos cast time.. it’s more than 1.25 if i remember right without stm..

now that you feel gap is close, now that’s where duelist comes into play.. no chaos storm = no dps increase in staff.. cause switching to staff without chaos storm is a dps loss.. you’d rather have another duelist out in that time.

also, it’s not /0.75 without stm for staff in sword build you mentioned

we are talking about others skills aint we? when i mention retreat and ilock, those are other skills.. you may auto attack in staff when you’ve used retreat and ilock, but that’s not the case in scepter, you counter every time it’s off cd and the cd is really really low.. but lets not count chaos armor, duelist etc

i clearly mentioned that as far as conditions are concerned regarding auto attack.. staff has more applications meaning more condi dmg but slower attack cause you take chronophantasma over stm, when you switch to staff you can retreat and you’ll have an clone asap but, for every clone after that you need to dodge.. you dont dodge in scepter.. you block off cd and auto attack for the most part, confusing images off cd as compared to warlock.. so basically unless chaos storm is off cd.. there’s no point in switching to staff.. cause that’s where the dps increase comes from.

Embolism.8106:

As far as conditions are concerned Staff conditions are much stronger than Sceptre conditions. I mean really, look at the raw numbers:

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Winds of Chaos: 1/3 chance 692 Bleeding, 1/3 chance 298 Burning, 1/3 chance Vulnerability. Average condition damage: 330.

DPS: 2 * 364 / 0.75 = 880

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Ether Bolt: 287 Bolt, 430 Blast.

DPS: ( 287 + 430 ) / 1.75 = 410

.

The above is without Runes of Tormenting. With it Ether Bolt becomes:

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Ether Bolt: 386 Bolt, 515 Blast

DPS: ( 386 + 515 ) / 1.75 = 515

.

If you’re using Sinister (I assume you are) then you can make an argument about Sceptre direct damage and condition damage vs Staff’s (although I believe Staff still wins in this department).

However the above still doesn’t take into account Ether Bolt’s horrendous aftercast if you’re not in melee range, or the fact that Sceptre Clones only use Ether Bolt and never the more powerful Ether Blast, or Staff’s Might and Vulnerability stacking, or the fact that Torment does less damage if your target isn’t moving.

I don’t doubt the speed of Clone generation, but as I’ve showed you don’t need the Sceptre for Clone generation and if relying on Sceptre for this means camping it then, as the math above shows, you aren’t doing your DPS any favours.

As for Quickness, that applies to both Staff and Sceptre if you’re using it, so not really relevant talking about DPS.

I am on runes of tormenting.. it’s not biased towards sceptre alone but shatters as well.

what are the calculation variants? auto attack damage should be included as well.. whats the division with 1.75? and you will be in meelee range using illusionary counter as well off cd.

the math above shows only condition damage that’s output from both weapons without regarding illusionary counter 6 torment and physical damage from the auto attacks.

and as far as quickness is concerned.. how does it apply to staff and scepter when you’re running chronophantasma with sword/pistol?

and lets say we’r talking about the build with stm, how are you going to keep shattering after you switch to staff? after retreat and lock, you need a dodge for the next shatter.. and more dodges for the next one.. that’s a dps loss.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Um.

Offhand Duelist
GS #2
GS #4
Rolls
Chronophantasma
Reversion

you’re using a gs? in a condition build?

Only after all of those are expended would you even need to consider channeling scepter auto for 3 seconds to get more clones. And during that time you could have already summoned 2-3 sword clones using Sword #3.

you summon an illusion in 1.5 seconds with quickness from shatters.. that’s 3 seconds for 2 clones is what you need for another shatter, even if you count it at 2 seconds per clone, that’s 4 seconds for 2 clones… also you seem to forget illusionary counter.. there’s just no way you can summon 2-3 sword clones in that time.

The fact of the matter is that there simply aren’t that many occasions where you would even want to channel a skill for 3 seconds to get a clone when you could just weapon swap or roll instead.

read above.. seize the moment over chronophantasma as i’v been debating with.

Embolism.8106:

Ehhhhh. Sceptre auto is weaker than Staff auto, even more so with Clones as Sceptre Clones don’t get the longer duration second hit. I have no idea why you’d do that.

And all’s said and done autoattacks contribute very little to your condition pressure in a Condi Shatter.

sceptre auto attack hits harder than a staff auto and as far as conditions are concerned.. bounces do apply more but you attack slower, i keep mentioning quickness with shatters in sceptre.. your underestimating the damage you deal and the speed of clone generation :-) try it.. i can make a video if i get to be at home and have time to spare.

yep, you camp in scep/pistol untill you get chaos storm again.. there’s no point in going back to staff without chaos storm. scepter isn’t a burst condition weapon :P illusionary counter’s got a very low cd with alacrity u keep getting through shatters.. use it to block everytime it’s available.. and your auto attack with quickness from shatters is pretty awesome.. applies torment and keeps spawning illusions. you can easily maintain 15+ torment and confusion in scep if not more.

your blocked in staff for 6-7 seconds which isn’t a great thing cause damage potential in staff is very limited untill you end up having 3 clones and dont shatter.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Salamander.2504:

Atheismo.5164:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

and your scepter auto isn’t going to be boosted by Alacrity.

Uhhh…name a weapon who’s autos are affected by alacrity?

I think he’s just pointing out that the only skill that generates a clone on the scepter doesn’t benefit from alacrity, whereas sword 3 does.

That’s exactly what I meant. You will likely get more clones in practice from sword than from scepter, assuming you even ever need either past your initial burst.

you wont get more clones in sword than scepter.. ever.. it’s impossible in any practice

Embolism.8106:

With a Chrono build you don’t need many Clones at all. Between Persistence of Memory and Chronophantasma you can Shatter Phantasms all day long. Toss in Illusionary Reversion if you still feel you need more, or even Deceptive Evasion if you want overkill.

Sceptre’s Clone generation is nice but not essential. It’s a bonus, not something you rely on: it’s too slow at generating Clones by itself, and Sceptre lacks an on-demand Clone generator like other weapons do (which is actually pretty annoying when trying to set up your first attack).

I am in no way saying Sword is better than Sceptre but a Sword in a Condi Mes build is in no way bad. And with the increased difficulty in HoT there is a real need for defensive options, and Illusionary Counter really isn’t comparable to Blurred Frenzy when it comes to defence.

not counting continuum split duration.. and going ahead with after the continuum split.. with a best case scenario of starting in a staff with a sword/pistol swap.

fighting a champion in a staff and sword/pistol as condition mesmer — you tend to start with retreat, warlock and swap to sword/p and duelist, shatter after the duelist attacks.. will net you in lock/duelist – shatter again.. lets say.. your duelist cd is done and 1 dodge and leap will net you in another shatter.. downtime starts around here.. low condition pressure.. low alacrity.. you end up having low alacrity/quickness compared to a scepter/pistol shatter build.

chronophantasma phantasms are dazed for 1.5 sec and a 0.75-1 second attack animation after the 1.5 seconds.. which gets u to 2.25-.2.5 seconds before you can shatter worthily.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Sword mainhand is better than scepter mainhand for condi damage lol. Scepter clones do no damage (whereas sword clones stack vuln and have a faster attack rate for more bleeds)

and what does vulnerability help you with if you cant shatter or apply damaging conditions?

and your scepter auto isn’t going to be boosted by Alacrity, which you will have more of than quickness

neither is any auto attack boosted by alacrity.. quickness is achieved with seize the moment when you shatter.. so when you shatter.. the more clones you generate with scep auto attack.. the more shatters. you have more quickness than alacrity in a condition spec

And Confusion in general isn’t very good for condition damage output.

torment will be around the same stacks of confusion with stm or more

basically.. your post didn’t have a single mention of a condition.. it’s all about higher auto attack and vulnerability.. which is nt very useful cause the amount of bleeds you stack isn’t all too great compared to the amount of conditions you gain with a scepter even if you’re on a phantasm condition build with duelists around

and where do the clones come from for shatters? :-P

the whole point of condition pressure from shatters is from scepter clones and regarding defensive weapon.. rather stick to a block that inflicts 6 stacks of torment over a 2 second invul that deals less dmg in condition spec not to mention confusing images and autoattack inflicting torment.. sword really has no place for condition mesmer in pve.

scepter in a power build is alright cause confusing images deals a lot of damage but sword in a condition build is not worth it

i’m guessing it’s related to pve looking at your link in the other post

sword in a condition mesmer build is as bad as a staff in a power mesmer build :-)

sword doesn’t have any damaging conditions

condi mesmers can use phantasms duelist to be exact.. your link in the other post.. pistol is perfect.. but sword is pretty useless in a condition build

best condi phantasm is duelist.. so.. there’s the main weapon :-)

i haven’t tried phantasm condi chrono yet, but the downfall imo is lack of aoe with trying to keep phantasms up, meaning less shatters.

there isn’t a meta atm imo, but chrono is good for sword mainhand and since you go power builds with sword.. seize the moment is pretty useless since you dont shatter a lot and chronophantasma is a better choice if you can time your shatter properly

I had chronophantasma before i switched to stm.. i thought the same :-)

untill.. i found the dps output with stm is just better in the long fight than chronophantasma.

Example with stm – start in staff, retreat—warlock—dodge towards the target- split -chaosstorm--(swap)—duelist —gravity well/timewarp--well of recall—dodge—cry of frustration- split end -(this is where stm comes into play bigtime.. producing clones very very quickly with quickness @ every shatter)

Example with chronophantasma – start in staff, retreat—warlock—dodge towards the target- split -chaosstorm--(swap)—dodge—cry of frustration—duelist —gravity well/timewarp--well of recall- split end -(this is the spot where shatters start getting slower cause of slower illusion count after the duelist chronophantasma dies)

the effect isn’t seen immediately.. but after a bit into the fight.. your out of weapon swaps and illusion cd’s, not to mention stm also increases dps cause of faster auto attacks on both weapons especially scepter which is what you’ll be in for the most part.

chronophantasma is only ever used in phantasm builds atm, seize the moment works for both but a must for shatter builds with a sceptre

Condition Shatter still works very well, not the same kind of burst as bwe 1, but we can keep shattering with a scepter and dodges.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7anknBNoh9fCWoBEgilcjqMAStep+Vn1dF9HKpcA-e

tobascodagama.2961:

The primary stat is Adorability, with Fuzziness and Playfulness as secondaries.

hahahaha

Not exactly, many mobs in HoT keep moving, charging, attacking fast.. confusion and torment are good.. i played zerker for a while in verdant brink and decided it’s pretty useless in most scenarios, low mobility, low defense, harder to solo veterans, champions, low on interrupts since you dont want to lose your phantasms with shatter.

Confusion and Torment were meant to be bad earlier cause the mobs didn’t move a lot and attacked slow.. that’s rarely the case now, not to mention the fact that we have a lot of quickness/alacrity uptime cause of shatters which deal damage in sinister gear and spec compared to zerker where mind wrack is the only worth while shatter.

Also, you dont camp in staff, infact staff is only a start out weapon.. you will be on scepter after dropping chaos storm, phase retreat, warlock. quickness on shatter is very powerful on scepter.

Sinister and you can go complete glass cannon without chaos traitline duel, illu, chrono

staff + scep/pistol.. you’ll have a lot of survivability with chaosstorm, chaos armor, magic bullet and shatters while every shatter adds dps.

alacrity doesn’t make any difference to clones, but quickness does :-)

Curunen.8729:

I’d rather run with full berserker if I wanted to play glass.

Even with Sinister/Viper, conditions still take time to tick, but you lack all the damage mitigation of toughness and also all the ferocity.

Your underestimating condition damage if you meant it for pve.

Sinister for now imo, viper’s gonna take time to aquire anyway.

cause people dont know the meaning of “grind”, “gating” and “hard”

Artorius.6178:

bigbobpataki.4796:

Artorius.6178:

Oxidia.8103:

Or orrrrr, here is a fun idea. Play for fun not grind. Masterys are going to happen eventually.

Eventually isn’t an option when you want to do the HoT story, I’ve ran into 4 or 5 ‘’mastery walls’’ now, at least once per map so far, you then have to force yourself through a 2 hour long mastery grind when you want to be doing the story instead.

Maybe…just maybe Anet wants you to take your time with the story?

Maybe, just maybe, I don’t want Anet to decide that for me?

Maybe, just maybe, if you felt the same for pre-expansion storyline

1.) Dragon Hunter is not worth the 400 Hero Point investment. I don’t know how others feel, but the 400 Hero Points for an alternative style of play is quite frankly a complete and utter waste of my time. If ANet decides to carry on with this terrible decision, then once I decide to do the Hero Challenges, I’ll simply horde them so I can spend the points on something I’ll actually enjoy.

(utter waste of “my” time).. your opinion mate, i dont feel it’s a waste of my time to play my character differently.. (“I’ll” simply horde them) horde it, your choice of enjoyment. Dont want to? dont do it.. nothing in the game’s forcing you to choose elite specs since you feel it’s a waste of your time.

2.) Let me understand this: you want us to complete everything in the game to get our Elite spec so we can… sit around in Lion’s Arch? By the time me and any of the other people have our Elite Specs we will have completed ALL of the content of HoT, leaving us to do nothing but play repeat content in the game.

By the time you finish verdant brink, your nearly finished with elite spec if not 3/4rth +

3.) Making us earn hero points to unlock our specializations is not content, it’s a barrier. It doesn’t make me want to play the game, it simply makes me want to horde the Hero Points for the next Elite Specialization. When I pick up most other MMO’s, when I choose mage I get to play as a mage. I don’t have to roll a Rogue in order to play a Mage.

Where was your intelligence when you had to earn skill points to acquire skills?

4.) Don’t try to tell me that there is no leveling, when there totally is. Don’t try to sell me the whole “But your level isn’t going up!” BS because it’s insulting. Instead of your actual XP bar going up, your XP is replaced by Hero points. In order to gain these hero points you gotta do the challenges in HoT. The only difference is that certain things give you this type of “XP” instead of everything. Honestly, I would have rather had the level grind and the gear grind back rather than this embarrassment.

What is insulting in a horizantal progression than a vertical progression? (“I” would have rather had the level grind) again.. your opinion, i hate the level and gear grind cause it means all the hardwork i put in to get my gear in the past 3 years has gone to a waste.

You’re free to have your

bigbobpataki.4796:

Artorius.6178:

Oxidia.8103:

Or orrrrr, here is a fun idea. Play for fun not grind. Masterys are going to happen eventually.

Eventually isn’t an option when you want to do the HoT story, I’ve ran into 4 or 5 ‘’mastery walls’’ now, at least once per map so far, you then have to force yourself through a 2 hour long mastery grind when you want to be doing the story instead.

Maybe…just maybe Anet wants you to take your time with the story?

i mean ofcourse.. why would you wait 10 levels for the story.. that’s absurd or before the change, 2 or 3 levels for the story? no no.. story should be continuous, it shouldn’t be gated by levels…. hahaha.. lol

people who wouldn’t speak previously speak out now, cause the mechanics implemented now feel alien to them.

by the time you finish verdant brink, elite specialization is nearly unlocked behellagh, dont really see the point most of them are trying to make regarding elite spec.

Suinz.5968:

This expansion really reinforced the fact that everything is about GRINDING, GATING, and GOLD.

What “grinding” means.. doing the same event over and over again to attain something you desire, you really dont need to grind any event over and over again to attain something in the expansion, there’s way too much content, you can freely go from event to event when you suddenly notice u’v finished xp for mastery.

“Gating” – if you go by the literal meaning without why it’s used in games, u can go by “levels are in itself gates” why play an rpg? rather play a fps. more examples of gating? here you go – levels, ilevels, once per day or once per week(that includes everything inc raid loot) etc etc etc

Not to mention a lot of the items are locked behind RNG and gated by GOLD

What does this even mean? gated by gold? o.0

I can’t believe it took me this long to realize that once you reach 80, all you can really do is GRIND just to prepare yourself FOR the FUN stuff! Everything is pretty much GATED!

What do you have to “grind” to have fun? and what is gated? it’s unfortunate that you feel bored.. but pls dont use words that dont fit what you’re trying to explain.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Clone overwriting phantasm is a good thing, and due to the mechanic impossible to change.

Clone overwriting is a good thing, not phantasm overwriting. to be clear, phantasm summoned over a phantasm is alright, but a clone summoned over a phantasm is not

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

@Telekenisis
How does assassins and sinister have the same power output?
Same power doesn’t mean same crit chance nor same ferocity which both affect power damage and reflects. The condi builds are lacking in damage multipliers which further weakens their reflect damage (traits, runes, sigils and food all apply here)

Instead of phase retreating mirror image etc, just drop a bunch of wells, phantasms, MoP when you run at them. Worked fine for me in the beta. Then I just sword autod…

Why change your gear for just husks is the better question. That 20k sinister engi condi dps is going UP a lot. They have 4 main heavy hitters with burning. Reduce that CD with alacrity and their DPS goes insane. Quickness and alacrity on them in general… I’m guessing they could easily get to 30 maybe 40k DPS once a mesmer buffs them.

So minor DPS quibbles aside for a moment, at the end of the day, I just use power on mesmer because it’s less reliant on a specific trait setup that gets screwed if I want to bring inspiration instead of illusions or chrono for specific fights. It doesn’t get shafted as much in a lot of encounters. Other classes do condi so much better. Even something as simple as boon removal in the raids is going to be easier in zerker gear.

Even with a little higher crit chance and more ferocity, i dont think wells damage is noticable.. as i’v mentioned in the post above.. i completely agree with reflect damage in condition specs to be really low, hence power’s used for everything atm.

dropping a bunch of wells, phantasms, and pain is a power rotation.. there’s nothing wrong in it.. and using a mirror image and phase retreat is a condition rotation.. and condition damage isn’t a joke on trash mobs.

By no means am i suggesting go condition damage for husks and silverwastes, though it is better.. i was trying to conflict what xyonon mentioned “Or you just want to beat up husks in silverwastes (wich an engi would do 3 times faster)”

i’m not suggesting that people go condition mesmer.. rather i was conflicting with the points xyonon made regarding condition spec.

There are mobs in silverwastes (husks, the veteran ones that rotates with a torment afflicting path behind them, veteran ones that keep throwing bees around, veteran mordrem wolf that charges around) and verdant brink where using power mesmer isn’t as good as a condition mesmer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qtxJ_HtB1A

The above video has a veteran mob that kept taking 0 physical damage from the front (bwe1) in verdant brink.

Let’s see what HoT maps and mobs bring to the table.

What frifox mentions is absolutely right and is the reason why condition is not used for the present content except silverwastes.

Nitpicking about Xyonon’s post -

Xyonon.3987:

Sigh … ok listen Alphathe – there are TONS of reasons, why power mesmer (or chronomancer in future) is superior to condi mes:

Please dont add chronomancer and the new areas into consideration.. we have no idea about the content incoming.

• Focus offhand phantasm scales better with power than with bleed on crit. Also again, reflected damage is better with phantasmal fury + ferocity.

While i agree with the reflect damage, pistol is used in condition damage builds, so.. ehm..

• Curtain may proc aoe power block, a power based trait with good damage. It also may proc personal quickness for more dps.
• Shield skill 5, tides of time scales with power and may proc power block up to two times per target. Also interrupt = quickness = personal dps boost.

Interrupts – chaosstorm(random), magic bullet(reduces pistol skill cd by 25% per interrupt), diversion(yes your shatters deal damage in condition spec), signet of domination if your using it. not to forget mistrust procs and chaotic interruption on interrupts atm.. chaotic interruption will be neglected once chrono comes out though.

Quickness / Alacrity

• The quickness well deals power damage.
• Wells in general deal power damage, one of the best of them to grant alacrity is calamity, wich has such a HUGE power damage spike that makes you want to “face to desk” when you have it in your skill bar as a condi mes. This one is really a huge deal…
• Tides of time again, scales with power, procs power block and grants quickness on interrupt for personal dps too.

Assassins/Sinister has same “power” output.. again with the interrupt on tides of time.. u do know that condition mesmers dont use shields? or dont you know condition mesmers at all? and yes, condition mesmers aren’t good at high party alacrity uptime and quickness.

Damage

• iSwordsman and iWarlock will outdamage every other phantasm / clone on a condition build (unless you fight a husk).

i dont know how to reply to this statement.. :-(

• Sword auto attack and mantra of pain will outdamage every skill you have on a condi mesmer.

Try sword auto attacking everything in silverwastes and lets see how good your dps will be :-) that said.. the incoming new maps will be like silverwastes or as far as we’v played verdant brink.. condition just fares better, bwe 3 verdant brink seemed easy for some reason.. but i’m talking about bwe 1/2 difficulty.

• Condition damage against trash mobs is terrible.

Untrue, phase retreat while walking towards them, mirror image, cry of frustration, chaos storm, magic bullet and if u still have time you can channel confusing images making sure they’r in a line.

Unless you finally upload a vid, clearly showing the dps of a condi mes aswell the diversity it has to prove it to be better or at least on pair to a power mes for anything BUT to beat up husks in your beloved silverwastes, I won’t beleve, nor agree that condi mesmer is powerful enough to be considered strong or better than power. The only reason to play condi mes in pve is because you are bored of the meta that exists for a reason and when you have no eager to be utmost efficient for your allies. Or you just want to beat up husks in silverwastes (wich an engi would do 3 times faster).

We are playing a mesmer, aint we? why would we need to reroll an engineer to beat up husks? your wordings were like “you just wanna beat up husks (which power mesmer would do 3 times slower?)”

I probably just sounded like a total kitten , but sorry this is just how it is.

There are some known points you’ve mentioned which is exactly why power is better than condition damage for the present content available.

PU is a pvp build, nothing to do with pve content :-)

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_S/S_/F_/P

That’s the meta build with a couple o changes depending on open world or dungeon or fractal etc

Embolism.8106:

Sinister, but I wouldn’t go Condi Mesmer in PvE in the first place. It’s crap, and trying it in Verdant Brink and the raid that hasn’t changed.

Dungeons/raids will have niche uses.. but in silverwastes and verdant brink for what we’ve played, if you think power fares better than condition, you’re playing it wrong :P

i’m not sure on having high toughness in raids.. since you’d become an aggro magnet.

Condition damage if you rely on shatters is going to be bursty and not consistent. but if the boss requires you to be bursty in seperate intervals, it’s all good. Also, shield isn’t exactly a condition damage weapon if you’re looking to deal better damage and sinister will deal more damage than rabid considering you’ll be specced into duelling/illusions/chrono for condition damage output. (though i understand that the only choice in bwe was rabid)

Power is better than condition on vale guardian if you look at the mechanics. that doesn’t mean that power is going to be used for the whole raid, that also doesn’t mean it’s either rabid/sinister if not zerker/assassin.

Try not to forget.. in raids.. there are mechanics to follow.. that includes moving around, dodging stuff, forced healing etc.. it’s not going to be a faceroll dungeon mechanic where you stand together and dps fast and hard and compare dps while standing still. We cant compare damage to an ele or an engi.. our phantasms/clones still dps while we do the required mechanics.

Only chaos storm from staff applies random daze.

Most importantly.. “alacrity bot” is a far fetched word atm.. we’ve played 5% or lesser of the expansion.

frifox.5283:

Telekinesis.8312:

lol.. then it absolutely concerns us “scrubs” as he mentioned :P

Which is why I was questioning if it really belongs to the Mesmer subforum, Dungeons subforum is the place for that discussion.

True, dungeon subforum is the better one.. but i know a couple of my friends check only thier class forums.. so i thought it would benefit people who dont visit other sub-forums, but still are our dear mesmers!

lol.. then it absolutely concerns us “scrubs” as he mentioned :P

but on a serious note.. this is quite important for the lfg/pug mentality with “meta only” groups while they’r supposed to be better than much more casual groups, most of the time they dont tend to be and with influx of new players and raids incoming.. the community would be in a better place if we understand that the game can be played without meta classes as well :-)

ofcourse it does, unless u dont run pugs?

Blackhat.4016:

I think there’s one big problem with this video (and that’s not Nemesis hating on other players / players hating on Nemesis):

He mixes 2 big topics in 1 long video.

• 1st video should have been about the “Frostbow meta”.
  I think even the “pro” players can agree with most of his points here. Frostbow combined with buffs/debuffs and skipping completely trivializes PvE. A lot of players don’t even know how to play without it anymore meaning they just die once they need to dodge / use any other tactic. Besides that the frostbow is one of the main reasons why the community wants multiple eles in their parties instead of all the other profession.

• 2nd video should be about the necro.
  A lot of replies don’t include the “Frostbow meta” at all. Instead they criticize the flawed calculations and rightly so. Nemesis has some good points but he also made mistakes (if you’re interested just read the comments on reddit).

Right now you mainly see people either agreeing with the “Frostbow meta” or criticizing the calculations. It’s just 2 groups of players talking about 2 completely different topics instead of focusing on how to improve the game after watching the video.

Very well put.. the reason i linked this on mesmer forums, is because.. though we dont really care about the necro vs warrior dps :P but more importantly.. the community aspect that he mentions in the video

lets keep the dps differences and his calculations aside was what i meant by nitpicking :-)

i dont agree with zerker meta is a lie, buffs are overrated etc.. the important part about the video is the general conscience about lfg mentality and the “meta only” puggers.

http://gw2dungeons.net/records

lets be very clear.. meta/speedrun = elementalist.. you cant do a speedrun without an elementalist.. you will be slower.. no matter what you do. [prebuffs, and damage they bring to the table.. and mix frost bow in it]

while the video had some unimpressive thoughts.. it also had some really good ones.

very rarely have i done quick dungeons with a meta only group compared to a normal group that gets any classes in. feels like 90% of the meta only pugs would be better off finishing the dungeon with anyone rather than waiting 10 minutes to find the players only to do it at the same speed or lesser than a normal group.

This thread is just about perfect (popped up just a while ago)—

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3jmi1y/the_speedrun_meta_and_lfg_mentality/

Post started with the video link below

lets not nitpick about small things in the video.. but think on a broader scale.. watch the video with an open mind.

Nemesis about Meta DPS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2b7dpC0liQ

PvE specific only -

i prefer mistrust over deceptive evasion anyday.. as long as your good on interrupts, you shall see wonders :-)
imo, deceptive evasion isn’t needed for a pve condi shatter.
Also, your wrong, the new illusionary reversion isn’t worthless.. infact far from worthless.. basically works the same way it does previously.. you just need to have a phantasm up every 2 shatters.