Showing Posts For Tharinock.9306:
Time Zone/ Play Schedule: Eastern Time (EST). On occasionally in the evening ( depending on day some time between 7:00 PM and 2:00 A.M.).
Characters: I have a zerker geared Mesmer, and a level 80 ranger with whatever it gave me when i used the instant 80 device (I think soldier’s). Additionally, I have a level 60 Revenant I can raise pretty fast since I haven’t done any crafting. I have about 60 gold if I need to get different raid gear, plus a whole bunch of random currencies laying around.
Playstyle: Generally I just try to have fun. However, lately I’ve been wanting to try out the content I’ve been missing, mainly raids and guild missions. I have no previous experience with the raids, so I’m not looking for a top tier raiding guild, but preferably one friendly towards newer players.
Chat: I’ve got a mic, so I can use whatever client is preferred by the guild.
Mesmer takes twice the skill to play for half the result, compared to other classes.
I think your looking at this the wrong way.
Players have different skill levels. Playing a higher skills class and being good at it is the reward. If you put a new MMO player in your build your using how efficient will they be compared to say running a lb/gs ranger build or something? Prob not very viable at all. Most MMO’s have different professions @ different skill levels.
I choose to play mesmer because of the skill required to master it, i’d fall asleep rolling any other profession.
I think the biggest problem is that mesmer requires you to be a perfectionist. If you play perfectly, you will do well, but every mistake can be heavily punished. While many other classes can win by falling asleep and rolling onto the keyboard. It’s not that mesmers require skill to master, but thay they require skill to get to the point that other classes reach by mashing their face on the keyboard.
Honestly, at the end of the day, it’s about fun. I personally find playing as mesmer a lot of fun, and even though I most certainly get the same result with less effort on, say, a guardian or a thief, I find mesmer a lot more fun to play, so I play it.
As for the underwhelming part, yes you do need to be on your A game to play, and it requires a lot of practice before you can become proficient with mesmer, and see their uniqueness shine through.
I definitely agree, and I only really play my mesmer because all other classes seem lame in comparison. It’s also really fun to use non-traditional mesmer builds (I run a Rabid staff oriented build), since people have absolutely no idea how to handle you. Thieves are wonderful to go against, since they get surprised when I don’t die to their burst, and then they have tons of conditions on them.
Some other interesting things: Chronophantasma with the super speed on shatter trait means that when your phantasms are low, you can quickly shatter them and refresh their hp. And since they get distortion on the resummon, they have a buffer to survive the burst. If the really don’t have the time to run to a target, f4 shatters them in place. If you have the illusions phantasm shatter reduction trait thing, then you can summon 3 phantasms (if your enemy is nice enough to let you), let them do their burst, shatter them, let them do their burst again, shatter them again, and will have shaved 12% off the cd. If you can get off that full burst, it may be worth dropping dueling for domination, to get the bonus shatter damage on inactive foes (f3 shatter->f1 shatter), 15% illusion damage buff, and blurred inscriptions (for 20% more signet of the ether).
Mesmer takes twice the skill to play for half the result, compared to other classes.
I think your looking at this the wrong way.
Players have different skill levels. Playing a higher skills class and being good at it is the reward. If you put a new MMO player in your build your using how efficient will they be compared to say running a lb/gs ranger build or something? Prob not very viable at all. Most MMO’s have different professions @ different skill levels.
I choose to play mesmer because of the skill required to master it, i’d fall asleep rolling any other profession.
I think the biggest problem is that mesmer requires you to be a perfectionist. If you play perfectly, you will do well, but every mistake can be heavily punished. While many other classes can win by falling asleep and rolling onto the keyboard. It’s not that mesmers require skill to master, but thay they require skill to get to the point that other classes reach by mashing their face on the keyboard.
I imagine the chronomancer’s role in pve will be quickness sharing, since they are the most reliable source so far. Interestingly, scepter might actually work well for this, possibly with sinister armor if conditions are pve viable. With high quickness uptime I imagine you’d be able to run chrono/inspiration/illusions. Confusion on all shatters helps recharge your 3 skill, which hits pretty hard regardless of build. Quickness helps you keep up clones, and with the + 1 clone after a shatter you’ll only need 2 aa chains, or 1 chain + a phantasm to have 3 clones again. You admittedly lose a TON of clone/phantasm production against slow attacking bosses due to the reliance on blocks, but the scepter 1 in between boss attacks should help in those fights. I imagine using a shield offhand for extra quickness, and either a sword for extra illusion generation, torch (because the phant applies confusion, which means less scepter recharge!), or focus (for when you need those reflects). And every time you resummon a phantasm for your shatter chain, it’s a boon share with quickness and might for all (do we know if that will have an icd yet?). With the various sources of alacrity you have, it should help shave another few seconds off of the cooldowns to keep things up better.
With all the new info on mesmer that just came out, I’m kind of curious what builds everyone is theorycrafting and excited to try. Especially ones that break away from the traditional mesmer role. Of course, these are all subject to changes between what’s out now and the actual state upon release.
I’ve been thinking this could be a fun build: http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/#profession=mesmer&traits=“Chronomancer”,1,6,7-“Dueling”,2,5,9-“Chaos”,2,6,9
Slap on some rabid armor, with a staff and a scepter/x (shield most likely, although focus and torch have their uses too). I’d likely go runes of the undead, and use condi on crit sigils, although generosity might be worth it to get some extra condi removal.
This is meant to be a tanky “half shatter” sPvP condition build. The chronomancer master and gm traits+dueling minors should provide tons of crits, which proc tons of bonus conditions. Having the staff out gives me very high chaos armor/protection up time. Wells and glamours help keep up chaos armor with staff 2 (not sure which skills I want for sure yet, but I’ll at least have one or 2 of those). The primary goal is to keep 3 clones out, and then shatter as I can produce more. Staff clones and high chaos armor uptime will keep me loaded with boons, which will further enhance my conditions thanks to the Chaos minor.
If you go torch, you can of course swap in PU instead, although you lose some defensive utility on shatters. Chaotic transferrence can be taken instead of Chaotic dampening to sacrifice defenses for damage, but given the staff cooldown bonus on dampening I’d only do so if damage turns out really lackluster, or if I swap to a scepter oriented build. Blinding dissipation can be taken instead of evasive mirror, depending on if you see more melee or ranged enemies. The chaos line can be substituted for illusions, sacrificing a bunch of survivability to gain condition pressure on shatters. It would also likely be a more scepter oriented build, with the scepter trait and MtD. The quickness on shatter would help with scepter clone generation and torment application, and the crits proccing confusion will help reduce scepter cooldowns.
Because clones are supposed to be how a mesmer tricks an enemy and confuses them. And the enemy will only be more confused when they see you not wielding an off hand weapon! /s
When I create a clone, it’s because my mesmer is so awesome and fabulous that the universe can’t comprehend how that could all fit into one body. Therefore, the universe has to construct additional bodies to had all that awesome. When I shatter, the universe realizes that it has upset the balance of awesome in the universe, and in order to maintain 4 super awesome fabulous mesmers it would have to drain the awesome from everything else. While this would totally be worth it, it might make everything else that’s not looking at my mesmer sad, so the universe has to destroy them in a blaze of glory (and butterflies) to free up all the fabulousness for everyone else to use. Also I don’t dodge roll, I simply do another turn on the catwalk.
It doesn’t work with banners. It works with minions, pets and spirits. Companions that really are ones.
My clones ARE companions. We go out drinking together, play games together, and they help me out when I am fighting stuff. My clones are actually pretty cool guys, we have a lot in common. Plus, my clones are thousands of times more fabulous than any “companion” a ranger or necromancer can put out. Although I think they SHOULD update runes of the mesmer to interact with illusions somehow.
Did you have a mini pet out? I think those count for rune of the ranger too.
2. See above, Yes. I Get that some people would love a shield as mesmer, but think about it thematically. we already have a defensive phantom (Guardian) and about 4 different ways to cloak or ditch aggro, and many defensive skills on weapons already. We need more damage skills. And most likely we’re just going to get an engi-esque shield toss and a defensive clone or a buffing clone….that we already have. Hence, it doesn’t come off as an interesting choice at all as the first big “New” one
I doubt mesmer shield will do what you think it does. The whole point of Mesmer is illusion and misdirection. When Mesmer got greatsword, it wasn’t just a copy of some other class’s greatsword. It was literally the opposite of what other people do with greatswords, requiring as much range as possible. Likewise, shield may be hyper offensive. You’re making assumptions about what the skills will be, and then saying it sucks because those assumptions are boring. In fact, we don’t even know if specialized mesmer will have phantasms, since they claim they are changing the core mechanics a bit in specializations..
I think you are trying too hard for perfect symmetry when they’ve said ‘a specialization = 1 new weapon’ rather than ‘a specialization = 5 new weapon skills’.
I also think people are overly focused on the new weapon when the new elite, new utility skills, and new traits are probably far more important in terms of the specialization being competitive in any play mode.
Are there any official quotes stating that a new profession provides 1 weapon, as opposed to just more weapons? I’d imagine each specialization also loses a weapon when they gain one, I’d assume of equal status, so mesmer might get shield and lose torch, while druid gets staff and loses longbow. I know they are changing up the mechanics (the F1-F4 skills?) along with the right half of the skill bar. Does anyone know if they are changing the left half for existing weapons?
You can check out metabattle.com for the standard meta builds you would expect to see. In a dungeon, the meta mesmer runs assassin/berserker stats, runs a phantasm dps build, and in some fights specs for lots of reflects. with the focus trait and signet of the ether, you can very quickly put up 100% reflect uptime against a dangerous ranged foe. Time warp is usually taken on the elite slot, for faster dps or to fast res an ally. Mesmers are also great content skippers. Mass invis+veil/decoy+blink+portal=free long range skip for the whole party (I don’t think I’ve seen this outside of Arah, though).
I don’t wvw, but mesmers are supposed to be great for roaming and portal bombs. The portal bomb build runs similar to the dungeon skipper build, with the intent of invisibling past your enemies and dropping a portal in some inconvenient location behind their front lines, with 25 of your guys waiting to pop through.
With any mesmer build, the most important thing to consider is style and panache. When you play a mesmer, you are the most beautiful class in the game. And at any time, there are up to four of you at once. So make sure you dress in your best looking clothes! And generally, fuschia/purple color palettes are your go to options. The last thing anyone who would dare oppose a mesmer should see is flashes of purple, followed by beautiful butterflies to carry their now departed souls to the afterlife.
(edited by Tharinock.9306)
Does “Sigil of Renewal” count towards the “Mender’s purity” talent? Or is it just for the “heal” skill?
If you want to maximize mender’s purity, I believe each activation of the heal mantra will give you the cleanse. Mixed with the 3 mantra cast trait, that’s a ton of heal/cleanse, although you may have trouble slotting for that on a tank build.
This is the build I’ve been playing with lately: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7dnsISpa2oGuqB3aGZ2YMdFr0BKTqpSGQyA-TZBGAB1s/AAXAAnKDUwRAw4HCAA
It seems to be working pretty well so far. It’s weak to condition spammers like necros, and doesn’t have enough pressure to take on a good engineer, but besides that I’ve had no trouble handling things. I just can’t justify not taking feedback, it’s so satisfying when a ranger presses 2 and doesn’t know why he suddenly lost half his hp. I primarily fight with the staff out, but swap to scepter to change it up a bit. With the focus and the torment, it’s also great at chasing down a fleeing foe. This build is especially useful against thieves. Thieves see a squishy mesmer so jump on me, but I survive the burst then apply massive condition pressure to them with 3 staff clones+myself. Null field is great for boon stripping, and is useful to throw down as a very strong supporting skill in a fight. I also use chaos/null field/feedback with staff 2 to get really high uptime on chaos armor.
I’ve been playing around a bit with the masteries, and found this to be the most effective setup so far. The only real essential part is 5 in chaos for toughness to condition damage, combined with runes of the undead it lets you build tanky and still hurt. This also gives you staff mastery, and reduced damage for keeping up your clones. Deceptive evasion helps a ton with clone maintenance in larger fights, and illusory elasticity helps keep the condition pressure up with staff, but you can make good arguments for other traits as well.
As for signet of the ether, to passively heal the same amount of health as ether feast, it would take ~20 seconds (the cooldown of ether feast) if you can keep 3 clones up. I find them to be fungible, and swap them depending on my mood, with a slight preference towards the signet.
(edited by Tharinock.9306)
Druid in now way implies support. Druid implies nature based abilities. For example, morphing into a ferocious bear and tearing your foe limb from limb. Tearing your opponent apart with a fearsome storm. Summoning a horde of wild animals to consume your enemy. Enchanting/strengthening your staff with nature magic and bashing the kitten out of your enemy. As far as support, one would expect the druid to have methods of triggering adrenaline surges (might stacks, furor, maybe vigor), enhancing natural armor (aegis), corroding the enemy’s armor (vulnerability), and generally providing the useful stuff for a dungeon.
Zhaitan fed on magic. Could have tried to give him bad magic that weakened him. Maybe set up a field to drain the magic from him. Asuran shrink ray. Anything other than the stupid King Kong fight where you aim a cannon at him while he calmly clutches to the side of a building while you repeatedly press 2 over and over again. After he dies, you don’t even get to see his corpse. He falls into the fog, never to be seen again. Even if we had to walk up to his body with a torch and light it on fire, it would have had more closure.
It isn’t our fault Anet wrote themselves into a corner making Elder Dragons so monstrously huge and making them the big bads we had to fight. They set them up as the enemies, it is up to them to make the fights compelling and rewarding. Turrets are NOT compelling or rewarding. They remove you from combat.
I suppose we completely disregard the fact that more or less the last half of the personal story was all about denying Zhaitan the magic it feeds on, and thus making it weak enough to attack?
We fought Zhaitan long before we took it down in Arah.
This is true, however you have to mash 2 for way too long. If Zhaitan went down with a couple of cannon shots, I would have been fine. Instead, I had to sit there for awhile mashing my 2 button against a non-threat.
I would guess that you would get gibberish until you get the mastery. Since there are potentially many languages, it is probably not worth it for ANet to actually construct a full language for every race. Also note that it seems the masteries have multiple levels. So perhaps as you rank it up, you will also gain a better cultural understanding (and unlock lore info) of the race, as well as learning the special fighting techniques (or climbing/swimming/etc…) that they use. Here’s to hoping there’s a Quaggan mastery tree!
Remember how Rytlock speaks of sylvari in the concept art trailer? I thought it would be epic if our first meeting with him as a sylvari begins with a fight as he wouldn’t trust us, forcing us to defeat him and prove our loyalty.
To be fair, I hardly think beating someone in combat would prove your loyalty. I’m certainly not inclined to trust you any MORE if you punch me in the face a bunch of times.
This is the build I use in sPVP: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7dnsISpa2oGuqB3aGZ2YMdHrUBKXqpSGQyA-TJRTABAs/QGlBo5iAE5TAAA
I find thieves to be trivial to fight. The worst enemy for this build is engineers. I just can’t burn them fast enough, and they dish out good damage to me. Tanky guardians are a pain too, but since they run zerkers so often, they usually aren’t an issue. Warriors, rangers, and thieves are my generally the easiest classes to fight, especially if they don’t know how feedback works.
Based on the video, it seems mesmer gets a shield. The most popular term to refer to the as of yet unnamed specialization is “Chronomancer”. As for your request to change the color of the particle effects on the mesmer, you clearly just don’t understand the beauty that is a mesmer. Mesmers are clearly the most beautiful class, that’s why when we fight there are 4 of us, and the most popular builds involve making our clones hug people.
The one mesmer ability we saw was an aoe with a clock hand that slowed then stunned (stasis’ed?) the enemies. Some have speculated that this will be an aoe focused spec. The use of the shield implies access to stronger defensive abilities. The whole time magey theme (assuming that is what the clock face aoe means) thematically implies strong control/support abilities, possibly at the loss of direct damage or some of the deception/trolliness capabilities of the mesmer.
I imagine access to stuff like quickness, slows, and stuns will be the staple of the spec.
The new expansion looks like it will be adding new weapons to the classes with the specializations. Are there any weapons that you want on your mesmer? I think that there needs to be a shortbow wielding specialization, because of all the classes, mesmer DESERVES the dreamer the most. Also, with 3 clones, that would produce 4 unicorn spamming mesmers, and I can’t think of anything more beautiful.
What are you looking to do with it? If you plan on doing dungeons, offhand sword is used for maximum damage, while offhand focus in the other set gives you 100% reflect uptime. Pistol can replace focus if you don’t need the reflect, or sword if you want your phantasms to be safer but slightly less damagey.
I have just started doing some sPvP, after a long break from the game. The build I’ve been using is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8dnsISra2oGmqB3aGZ2YMdHrUBKXqpSGQyA-TJRTABAs/QhXEgMKDQzTAAA . I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts, comments, or tweaks I could make to it, and how generally viable it is.
In general, I’ve been doing pretty well. I spend 95% of my time with staff, mainly swapping to my secondary weapon for focus 4 or sword 3 for chasing/mobility when I think chasing someone is worth the effort, so am very flexible on the secondary weapon set. The runes I selected for more condition damage and cleansing, since null field is my only other cleanse on my bar. The general goal of the build is to capture points by outlasting anyone that comes at me. The general strategy is to spam staff clones and then focus on not dying and staying on the point. Sword clones can be used if I am really in need of boon stripping, however I have yet to actually use them. I may at some point try out a build focusing on them, since it seems like it’d be a little more annoying to throw 3 sword spamming clones in someone’s face that they can’t kill without receiving conditions (I’d swap the 6th point in chaos for a 5th in dueling at that point). Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve upon this, or if there are better builds for accomplishing similar tasks, or if this build/goal is utterly horrible and should be scrapped for something better?
-In dungeons, I will intentionally use my time warp right after a boss spreads AOE confusion.
-Sometimes I just throw out three staff clones and then /sleep during boss fights
-My guildies all hate me because they aren’t mesmers
-I am planning on rolling a memser alt. I will wait until I have a spare set of gear for him and enough gold to craft him from 1-80 and then do so when my guildies are offline. Next time I party with my guildies, I will bring him out, and insist I am playing the same character I’ve always been, and have no idea what they mean when they say my sylvari is suddenly a norn
-I refuse to fight other mesmers, and mesmer bosses like lyssa. I refuse to kill something so beautiful
-I tried playing non-mesmers. I don’t understand how anyone can stand not being a mesmer
The way I see it I have two options, regardless of the patch notes. I can either play mesmer or not play mesmer. I see no reason to not play mesmer when I could play mesmer, since mesmers are just too damn sexy and manly to not play. Except the female mesmers. They are sexy and womanly.
Yeah confusing combatants only inflicts those 3 conditions. According to the guildwars wiki. I feel that the most useful one early on is Crippling Dissipation. I dropped the scepter and switched to sword so my clones would melee as well, using that with the staff keeps enemies at safer distances while I apply the rest of the conditions I need with staff skills. I want to give confusing combatants a try when I lvl up enough to trait it. Then maybe they will kill themselves swatting my clones. This is all for PVE btw I will bring my Mes into WvW later on and probably change my strategies around after I hit lvl 80.
In general confusion is a pvp oriented condition. Mobs don’t usually attack frequently enough to trigger it more than once if at all. For general purpose pve I’d stick with the random condition trait. If you want to try out confusion, most shatter oriented builds should go enough into illusion to get the confusion on shatter minor trait, and that actually stacks confusion more reliably anyway.
20 in Illusions is for the extra bounce trait, that basically doubles the damage from the staff, and will also add an extra hit on mirror blade if you are using greatsword.
Not an extra “hit” but a “bounce” . Which is not really useful against a single target, isn’t it?
You can bounce it off of yourself/allies for an extra hit.
Shatters do not trigger this. However, clone replacement will trigger it. And when it dies, it explodes in an aoe applying the effects.
You also forgot to mention some other perks, such as:
-Don’t have enough time to get ready for work in the morning? Time warp
-Trying to one up your co-worker in office pranks? Nothing beats a moa bird.
-We have illusory elasticity, if you know what I mean
-Mesmers can wrack your mind so thoroughly you may cry, but it certainly won’t be one of frustration
-Never fear running out of condoms again! Us mesmers are always prepared with Chaos Armor! Note: results may vary. Side effects may include blindness, crippleness, and general confusion
-Having a hard day, just feeling dead at the end of it? Illusion of life is better than a cup of coffee!
-Mesmers may have light armor, but they wield a mighty greatsword
-If you ever get mad at him, you can stab his clone to death to relieve the stress. All the joys of the real thing, and then you get pretty butterflies to play with!
-Only a mesmer knows what it is like to truly be a man.
-Mesmers are just flat out better than those non-mesmers
And for the men
-Screw threesomes, there’s enough for a full on orgy
Sure. I generally play the same way, mostly dungeons/fractals with the occasional run in wvw: http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.8.7.3.14.18.21.21.0.21.180.186.198.184.204.0.0.29.0.0.0.545.550.0.559.565.560.0.0.0.588.592.0.0.20.30.0.20. My gear is not complete yet, I have not decided on what jewelry I want thinking of maybe going carrion just to get a bit of vitality and power, but the rest of the gear I have. I use a set of Rabid armor/weapon (cond, precision, toughness). Utilities are generally set up that way, but can vary greatly. WvW and some pve situations have me swapping feedback for signet of illusions, and decoy for mirror images. In general the goal is to always have 3 staff clones out and attacking (unelss you need boon removal from sword clone or projectile reflect from warden). Any time where you can replace the three clones quickly, use a shatter. However, having 3 clones always up inflicting conditions is more important in this build than spamming shatters, so don’t shatter unless you can immediately replace the clones or they/their target are about to die anyway.
There are a ton of viable builds for dungeons and wvwvw. What do you like to do? What do you like about the class? I personally run a condition bunker build. cond/precision/toughness gear. It works great. Main hand is a staff, sword focus off. In wvw i can basically win any 1v1, and have plenty of utility in group fights (throwing people off of castle walls is the best thing since sliced bread). In dungeons, I just rack up the conditions, and the melees always appreciate perma might/fury. Somewhere on the front page you will probably see the shatter cat guide, that’s a great glass cannon shatter oriented build. Phantasms are kinda bugged right now, and by kinda I mean very, so I’d hold off on running a phantasm build until they fix it. If you really like supporting you can try a mantra heal build, that can pump out a ton of healing. Glamour builds are great for wvw, although not really dungeons since they are so confusion centric.