Guild Wars 2

Alpha.1308:

Esplen.3940:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Alpha.1308:

e-specs were SUPPOSED to add something new, mesmer being bound to a target is so obnoxious to deal with

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Axes_of_Symmetry
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Ambush

I mean, yeah, the only good thing to come out of the elite spec are 2 abilities.

^^^^^ literally this

did this dude really just reply to me linking TWO abilities from the entire e-spec that will retarget ONLY 3 ILLUSIONS AT MAX?

Mesmers only have 3 illusion to be able to re-target…?

Alpha.1308:

trying to imply mesmer will be allowed to do different things with this?

You can use the abilities to re-target your illusions, such as on the mini/sub bosses at Vale Guardian when he splits, and Gorseval when he summons the charged souls etc.

These are all new things.

Alpha.1308:

implying, if they actually where useful, that it would fix literally everything else wrong with the spec and core mesmer?

I never said mirage or core mesmer was free of problems, I simply corrected some of your misinformation on Mirage’s mechanics.

Alpha.1308:

honey, the amount of shattering you do, and the fact that it’s so pitifully worthless in pvp

Do you mean shattering is worthless in PvP, or that the effect of re-targeting your illusions is worthless in PvP?

Alpha.1308:

in PvE, you aren’t taking an axe, you’re still using sword, i’m mostly talking about pvp, but if you honestly think i meant pve, then, just, it’s still bad….. like….. no……..

If you are going to run Mirage in PvE, I can’t imagine you would run a sword over axe. Mirage doesn’t bring anything to the table for direct DPS mesmers, so either Mirage won’t be taken at all, or you’ll run a condition damage version of mirage.

Once we get access to the new elite specs in the Special Forces Training Area we can better judge the DPS of Mirage, and hence the developers will be able to better tweak the duration and intensity of the conditions.

Alpha.1308:

if you mean condi builds…. you pump out clones so fast the re-target means absolutely nothing for clones

Good point, this means condi Mirage in PvE will have another way to swap targets quickly!

Alpha.1308:

you know, like how this expansion gave EVERY OTHER CLASS a new mechanic………………………………………………………………….
and Mirage gets MORE shatter builds……………….

It seems your problem isn’t with lack of new mechanics, but rather the mechanics we did end up getting with Mirage. Mirage gets a new dodge/ambush skills and can re-target illusions.

The problem isn’t with the design, but rather with the specific values and balancing of the skills.

The only case where re-targeting is desired but can’t be achieved is with power based phantasm builds, because axe won’t be run and the CD on the utility skill is too long. However, Mirage isn’t really meant to be a power based build. With some tweaking on Ambush skills and a reduced CD on the utility skill, it could become semi viable.

Alpha.1308:

e-specs were SUPPOSED to add something new, mesmer being bound to a target is so obnoxious to deal with

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Axes_of_Symmetry
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Ambush

zoomborg.9462:

mirage cloak is overall worse than a normal dodge w

I could agree with a lot of what else you said, but I’m confused by this.

The only slight drawback is it doesn’t make you move, but superspeed pretty much makes up for that. So it’s only a slight drawback, but has other far more important upsides.

Mirage cloak allows us to dodge while stomping, dazed, immobilized, while casting abilities ( try CCing my heal! ) etc.

Rikimaru.7890:

I don’t even understand why so many players wanted them, are they suppose to compensate for something? But anyway here are the reasons why they are useless:

1) Waypoints are faster.
Which I point out with insufferable smugness is something I said since the leaks came out and for a fact even ANET agrees with me here. How do I know that? Simple the Crystal Oasis is only about 33-50% bigger than Frostgorge Sound, however Frostgorge Sound has 16 waypoints while Crystal Oasis has only 3. So it’s obvious you need a source of fast transportation when you have so few waypoints in such a big area, but it doesn’t really give much use in the old areas as they have a high concentration of waypoints. So in other words it’s a forced necessity.
Now someone is going to pull out this BS argument that there can’t be so many waypoints in the Crystal Desert because the Asura didn’t have time to set the WP network there properly. Well ok but what about the newly discovered places in Heart of Maguuma like Tarir or Rata Novus? They obviously had no link before their discovery either yet they have their own waypoints.
Still regardless of the argument on the lack of waypoints their lack is the main reason the mounts get their use from.

2) They do nothing new.
Honestly we already have lots of masteries that do exactly the same stuff as them i.e. jumping over gaps, reaching high places: Updrafts, Leylines, Bouncing Mushrooms, Nuhoch Wallows, Rift Traveler, Explosive Launch, Thermal Propulsion, Oakheart’s Reach. We can already do all that the mounts can do ok? Heck even normal Gliding would work if this was for real, because how often do you see gaps which have edges on both sides that are level? But if they were not the Raptor could only jump over them from the higher edge, while from lower it wouldn’t make it just as Gliding can’t.
The only reason we need them is because HoT masteries are useless in the Crystal Desert.
And I find it a real lack of creativity that all 4 mounts will have separate masteries.
Why couldnt we instead have a mastery that is focused on the magic portals from GW1?
I mean even one of the mastery points requires solving one of these nostalgia puzzles. These portals however would work in a way that they have many different exit points and our mastery rank would decide which exits we can and cannot use and be required to solve higher tier puzzles for the portals.
Which would also be a good replacement for the waypoints as it would work kinda like the temple waypoints in Siren’s Landing.

3) It’s not a realistic approach.
If there is one thing that the battle with Zhaitan taught me is that thechnology is the answer. And I know for a fact that mobile vehicles do exist in this universe – there is a mission in Orr where you guard tanks and the HoT adventure Drone Race is where we drive vehicles.
So if this was for real I would ask the Pact to get me a Desert Buggy or something like that for my upcoming trip to the Crystal Desert.

4) They don’t fly.
Really if we got a mount that flies that would not only be far more exciting, but that mount would be able to get around all the obstacles the other ones can.

So no I’m not excited for the mounts, I’m just really curious why would ANET give in and listen to the community on this one? Because there is really no point in this game for them.

1. There’s less waypoints in the PoF maps.

Furthermore, even in the old maps you still have to run from a WP to your final destination, even if it’s not a long distance. Whether your running to a world boss, guild missions, etc.

2. Mounts can perform their mobility skill whenever, while updrafts, leyline gliding etc. are only at certain parts of the map. The raptor’s leap isn’t only used to cross canyons, but just as a general mobility skill to go faster. Also, mounts have a base movement speed boost.

Additionally, mounts bring new visual customization. It’s a new way to tailor your character’s style and look.

3. Lore reasons, really?!? Why would someone bring a dagger to a gunfight? How comes I can hide my helmet but still get the extra protection? It’s a game, don’t expect it to be realistic.

4. Flying mounts are really hard to balance and develop. It would be like complaining about gliding: How comes I can ONLY glide, and not just fly? Because that could easily break the game!

Leo G.4501:

Not that I’d truly care if they added mount skins like in the OP, but I’m going to have to disagree and hope they stick to the current skins. But just because i think a raptor mount should stay a raptor mount doesnt mean there isn’t room for custom mounts. Some examples:

Raptor

• base raptor has 1 dye channel so introduce raptors with 2, 3 and 4 dye channels
• armored raptors with metal plated breasts, barbed tails and protective sattle for the rider.
• google raptor and look at the different types of raptors you’ll find. Feathered, frilled, pointed snout, broad snout, varied scale patterns.

Hopper

• along with some of the above, have varying mixes of the rabbit and kangaroo hybrid with some looking more like kangaroos than rabbits.
• varied ear shapes and sizes with accessories like collars, earrings, ankle bands and the like.
• one word: jackalope.

Skimmer

• most easily the most varied. Add more or larger trentacles or even vary the trail they leave behind when hovering over water. Even make them look more stingray like.
• similar to octopi, you can make them light up and flash different patterns.

Jackal

• the most liberties i feel can be taken here. With their power to teleport, the are open to more mystic variations like a shadow jackal, one made of water or fire, or uses a mist like teleport that resembles a Revanant’s abilities.
• straight up mistfire wolf version.

But my opinion is, a raptor should be a raptor, a skimmer a skimmer, a jackal some kind of quadriped predator, ect.

Yeah, that’s definitely one way to go about mount customization. When you say a quadriped predator, do you mean potentially a lion or jaguar?

A kangaroo “hopper”? Sounds cool!

That’s what I’m trying to get at, enough variation so your not just running around with the same four animal genus, but still easy enough for the developer team to expand on.

A change from bunny to kangaroo allows for greater visual tailoring compared to simply a different looking species of bunny or jackal.

Aveneo.2068:

Don’t know if ANet is ever planning on changing a raptor into a horse or a frog though.

The idea is the raptor is the “basic” skin for its archetype/family, in much the same way there is a “basic” skin for the glider in HoT.

It’s the skin you start off with when first unlocking that “class” of mounts.

We all know Path of Fire is launching with four mounts, with a fifth probably coming in LW4.

This feature has huge potential, but will they harness it? With only four mounts, everybody will be running around with the the same exact mounts, with very limited visual customization.

In comparison, there are currently forty-six glider skins and counting. The very heart of gw2 IS customization, with hundreds of armor and weapon skins, YOUR character truly is YOUR character.

Each mount has a unique ability, while gliders are purely visual. How do they get around this development obstacle?

Each mount skin should fit inside one of the four skill archetypes: Horizontal leap (Raptor), float (Skimmer), vertical jump (Springer), and teleport (Jackal).

Example: A horse skin changes the look of your raptor, but it still keeps the same unique ability, the leap. You could customize your "skimmer’ archetype with a dragon skin, retaining the “hover” ability that corresponds to this class of mounts.

In this way, GW2 preserves its legacy for visual customization, while simultaneously making it significantly easier for the developer team to pump out new skins.

Want to ride a pony? You got it! Want to ride a jumping frog? Sure thing! Want to ride a lion? Let the developers know!

melandru.3876:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

melandru.3876:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

FINALY ANET NURFING THERE FAVERITE CLAS FOUR ONCE MEZMURZ HAV BIN ON TEH TOP 4 2 LONG TIME FUR OTHER CLASES TOO HAV CHANCE ON PVP AL WAYZ HATED CUZ IT JUST 10 MEZMURZ WIT CS AN MOA 1 SHOTING GUD JOB ANET KEAP UP YUR BALANSING SKILS !!!

back to your cave, hobbit

favorite class? lol if only…no other game has a class unique like mesmer. while every typical mmo has the rogue, the ranger, the warrior and the elementalist. it’s a shame how mesmer gets buttkittened time after time because casuals do not care to understand mesmer class mechanic, and how to counter it. why would they, hop on the forum and see democracy at it’s finest LOL.

so well done, u got moa nerfed

what is the next item on your agenda?.

according to you, 5 mesmers vs 5 mesmers, if all were kitten each other so hard, how come only non-mesmers qq on the forum?

MEZMURZ NEAD THERE 30K DAM AGE NURFED AN THERE 10 ILUSION SHATERS GONE AN THERE 30+ STAKS OF BLEAD AN IDK MAY BE THERE NEER IN VOLUNURABILITY THEN BALANSE BE FAIR

i 100% agree with you

or, when you see that you have confusion on you..cleanse it, or stop pressing 1?
try it, you won’t kill yourself any longer i swear

U SAYING I SHOOD UZE HAKS TOO BEET TIS OP CLAS OF YURS ??? READ TEH COC PLZ

EDIT:

PS: on a scale of 1 to 10, how good did I do of inpersonating all the QQ people that come to the mesmer forums? As a mesmer main, I just needed to get it out of my system to prepare for the next wave of people QQing about mesmers and how they need to get nerfed more. And yeah, that other post was making fun of the same people. And I managed to squeeze all 6 traitlines in because the point was making fun of the PU QQ people with the whole perma stealth. Because clearly it’s soooooo overpowered and gets used once in every 10,560 games on average xD First WoP since expansion, then moa, what’s next? Guesses anyone? Oh and when was mirror blade changed again? I got a hard time keeping up lol.

melandru.3876:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

FINALY ANET NURFING THERE FAVERITE CLAS FOUR ONCE MEZMURZ HAV BIN ON TEH TOP 4 2 LONG TIME FUR OTHER CLASES TOO HAV CHANCE ON PVP AL WAYZ HATED CUZ IT JUST 10 MEZMURZ WIT CS AN MOA 1 SHOTING GUD JOB ANET KEAP UP YUR BALANSING SKILS !!!

back to your cave, hobbit

favorite class? lol if only…no other game has a class unique like mesmer. while every typical mmo has the rogue, the ranger, the warrior and the elementalist. it’s a shame how mesmer gets buttkittened time after time because casuals do not care to understand mesmer class mechanic, and how to counter it. why would they, hop on the forum and see democracy at it’s finest LOL.

so well done, u got moa nerfed

what is the next item on your agenda?.

according to you, 5 mesmers vs 5 mesmers, if all were kitten each other so hard, how come only non-mesmers qq on the forum?

MEZMURZ NEAD THERE 30K DAM AGE NURFED AN THERE 10 ILUSION SHATERS GONE AN THERE 30+ STAKS OF BLEAD AN IDK MAY BEE THERE NEER IN VOLUNURABILITY THEN BALANSE BE FAIR AN OTHER CLASES BEE USE FULL

FINALY ANET NURFING THERE FAVERITE CLAS FOUR ONCE MEZMURZ HAV BIN ON TEH TOP 4 2 LONG TIME FUR OTHER CLASES TOO HAV CHANCE ON PVP AL WAYZ HATED CUZ IT JUST 10 MEZMURZ WIT CS AN MOA 1 SHOTING GUD JOB ANET KEAP UP YUR BALANSING SKILS !!!

BTW WEN U BANING TEH AME BOTING HAKURS ?!?

yes please I’m sick and tired of mesmer being first place in this game. time for a new class to take the role anet or i leave

/s

Xyonon.3987:

Simonoly.4352:

All it needed to do was to not apply evade/invulnerable for the wells duration. It should have been an applied buff at the end of the well so that there was still the chance of a strong AoE party buff but with an easy to understand counter.

Maybe we can get that group unblockable attack buff back from the HoT BWE? I actually thought that was pretty cool.

It once was invuln in the end of the buff, but that was a terrible design since you need aegis / blur / invuln / evade on demand, not “in a few sec”.

---

I suggest to change the well so it’s not aegis that makes you block, rather the well itself. While standing inside that well you block, no matter how many hits. Aegis is too unreliable for this kind of skill to work properly.

It would also be nice to have 3s unblockable in the end of the well rather than enduracne noone really notices …

greez!

“It would also be nice to have 3s unblockable in the end of the well rather than enduracne noone really notices …”

The same problem with having the blur on the end would come up if you made the last pulse give you unblockable. The endurance on the end was always nice, and with the energy sigil nerf would be even better.

Yeah go zerk ( or assassins ) because there is plenty of ways to get perma quickness already ( sigil of concentration, SoI, WoR, TW, ToT, rune of the chronomancer etc ).

I agree, moa every 50 seconds 3 times with Signet of illusions + mad condis ( 30 stacks of cripple, 25 immob + 5 stacks of fear + mad bleeds with all your phantasms that never die ) + nearly unkillable illusions + through the roof condis removals from inspiration ( and here I thought shoutbow was immune to condis ) + 7 to 8 ccs chained together + perma invis ( WTF is even the point of thief?!?!? ) + instant one shots on short CD ( alacrity OP who even thought giving only 1 class something this OP was good?!?!? ) + 25k health or MORE. I don’t see how anyone can defend this mesmer OP. The second they got a unique mechanic like alacrity is the second anet stepped out of the shadows and showed they biased towards mesmer ( not like we didn’t all know from launch mesmer is there baby ). Time for some other class like ele to get a chance in the spotlight plz ty.

FJSAMA.2867:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

SoI isn’t in the trashcan and shield wasn’t brought for alacrity ( https://youtu.be/M0c55SlQ3kE?t=1911 ).

Wow, the guy on that video is clearly wrong.. He assumes alacrity (old one) is a 25%, sometimes less dps boost or even 0% for thief! Balance dev said it is a 66% dps increase and between these 2 i will obviously pick the dev, he is Anet, and like other dude in other topic says, Anet knows better. Kappa.

lol

SoI isn’t in the trashcan and shield wasn’t brought for alacrity ( https://youtu.be/M0c55SlQ3kE?t=1911 ).

Curo.2483:

Please reconsider your change! 3 seconds of Aegis on a 45 second cooldown is absolute garbage.

Dev 1: But alacrity so it’s not a 45 second CD which makes it waaaaaaaaaay to strong.

Dev 2: Let’s nerf alacrity!

Dev 3: Can I have some of what your smoking? At least split between PvP and PvE? Reduce cast time?? Add more endurance on the end since energy sigil nerf?!?!? ANYTHING, just don’t ruin it!!!!!

~Anet dev team

Curunen.8729:

Personally I wouldn’t use it because the idea of rng positioning sounds painful – what if you port into a DH trap or similar bad position?

Winds.3087:

F4 shatter should give aegis instead of invulnerability too cmon anet be consistent

Nah aegis too strong 1 second regen plz.

At the very least, even if they want to still change it to aegis, make it instant cast and maybe buff how much endurance you get back.

Fay.2357:

msalakka.4653:

This forum is not the place to discuss scepter/anything. Here it’s Chronobunker or bust. I sent you a PM.

Regardless, there’s no ambiguity with the amount of damage scepter does: it’s not good…For power, you’re better with sword…

This. But last time I said this everyone seemed to think I was out of my mind.

Lumpy.8760:

a mesmer’s damage is balanced with phantasms in mind, and phantasms are not affected by force and accuracy.

air and fire have a cooldown period, which means it’s irrelevant whether phantasms can trigger them.

so yes, air and fire are superior

I think we already addressed the whole air, force, accuracy, and fire thing and what to take.

Downscaling. Also, the revenant could have had gear that is closer to his lvl, such as lvl 13 with as much gear as possible. Your gear could have been outdated. At lvl 80 you can unlock chronomancer, which is really good for mesmer. It gives out a ton of quickness/alacrity which is really good for helping out teammates. But revenant does currently do more personal damage than chronomancer, while chronomancer buffs your teammates to do really high damage.

Saturn.6591:

^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.

If you want to know which fights have projectiles, this guide could help you out below. Just click on what dungeon/fractal shard then look over the different creatures attacks.

http://gw2dungeons.net/

Cyninja.2954:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Cyninja.2954:

Saint.5647:

roamzero.9486:

Warrior has been OP in PVE for a very long time, and it still is.

It really wasn’t. It was recommended because every 5 man group needed banners, PS, or EA. That said, only 1 warrior per 5 man group was taken. At the very most 2 warriors would be in a single group.

You do know that 1 or 2 out of 5 is a VERY good % of the group composition right?

That’s like saying warrior was not in demand because they made up no more than 20-40% of the group? That’s out of 8 (now 9) classes. Some classes were happy if they got taken along at all.

On topic, yes condi berserker does very good damage and is a lot easier to be played compared to an engi.

So warrior was OP because only 1 was ever taken in a group? I guess that made thief, guardian etc OP too. What a great way to judge if a class is balanced or not. If it’s taken, it’s useful, so it MUST be OP.

Yes good point.

Now be so kind to point me to where:

- I said warrior was OP
- this thread was about warriors being OP

I must have missed that memo.

Warrior in pve was in a good spot pre HoT (due to uniquness of banners) and is a good spot post HoT (thanks to mostly still banners). A class being desirable does not mean it has to be OP.

“That’s like saying warrior was not in demand because they made up no more than 20-40% of the group?”

You said this in the whole discussion about warrior being OP. Because what the guy was saying was warrior wasn’t OP because only one was taken. Leading me to believe you were trying to use demand as another another word for OP. If for some reason that’s not what you meant, thank goodness lol.

Cyninja.2954:

Saint.5647:

roamzero.9486:

Warrior has been OP in PVE for a very long time, and it still is.

It really wasn’t. It was recommended because every 5 man group needed banners, PS, or EA. That said, only 1 warrior per 5 man group was taken. At the very most 2 warriors would be in a single group.

You do know that 1 or 2 out of 5 is a VERY good % of the group composition right?

That’s like saying warrior was not in demand because they made up no more than 20-40% of the group? That’s out of 8 (now 9) classes. Some classes were happy if they got taken along at all.

On topic, yes condi berserker does very good damage and is a lot easier to be played compared to an engi.

So warrior was OP because only 1 was ever taken in a group? I guess that made thief, guardian etc OP too. What a great way to judge if a class is balanced or not. If it’s taken, it’s useful, so it MUST be OP.

Carighan.6758:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

They would be still taken for the quickness they can give it.

At least last time I checked this wasn’t true because the DPS gain is lower than just getting a different class instead. It’s Alacrity + Quickness that is better than having someone else.

There’s an additional problem: Our Quickness is redundant compared to what Guardians push out.

Guards quickness isn’t even close to touching chronos, and while chrono isn’t terribly damaging compared to other classes, don’t just take into account the quickness, take into account quickness AND chrono DPS.

Khisanth.2948:

I blame all the people who asked for multiple races. Same goes for the lack of armor! Furries and munchkins ruining everything. /fistshake

I agree, since asura>all other races, asura should be the only race. That would teach all those bookahs !!!

Zenith.7301:

You remove alacrity as it currently is from mesmers, and they’ll be dropped from raids.

Mesmer is bar none the lowest DPS class ingame, if it can’t have the strongest utility there’s no point to having one.

While I think removing alacrity from chronos is stupid, this isn’t true. They would be still taken for the quickness they can give it.

I Deschain I.4623:

Goldberg.4831:

ham.8209:

I Deschain I.4623:

Pathetic how this thread got even started and is still going on. Like your life is gonna take a dark turn after you hear a spoiler from the new Star Wars movie. Even so, if spoilers from the new Star Wars are okay to be reported, then all spoilers should be. What privileges the new Star Wars movie from other movies?
Sad how this community turned to be a bunch of easily offended whiners.

no it is the community doing the right thing for the right reasons . and yes the same should go for other things too . like i said already in other posts . this is not other company . it is Anet and they call the shots here and make the rules as they see fit . we in turn give them money for that said game to be given to us as they promised it to be and not with other things added into the game by other people like mods and so forth . and talking like that can get a ban as well from what the toss and form rules tells me

Pathetic, is the fact that I have deal with kitten hats, ignore, reported, all is good until the next one comes along.

Seeing how the forum software has to censor certain words in your posts.

Thanks, just another guy to go on my report list for a hopeful ban on the forums. Will probably get to reporting it sometime tomorrow because I got a couple of thousand other users to check out and report in addition to pushing the devs to ban the dungeon/fractal community. Another loss for the hackers, exploiters, and CoC breakers : )

Just be patient man, you’ve only been waiting since Fractured OK? Give it a couple more years and a few more false alarms and you might have something along the lines of a leaderboard, alright?

On the more serious side, hopefully it will be within a month or two at the most.

Mr Contact.6708:

It is funny how every chronomancer PVE thread turns into a discussion about who has the biggest p…. ehmm…. I mean highest quickness/alacrity uptime. Be careful to not be too theoretical about it. Things may get more difficult once you start to take Mr. Vale Guardian out on a waltz.

“Things may get more difficult once you start to take Mr. Vale Guardian out on a waltz.”

Exactly! Far too many times I see people underestimating how far things can go from optimal in a actual raid encounter. For example, in theory it would appear a damaging phantasm is better than avenger. In practice, how many people is the avenger going to be actually giving alacrity too? In practice, it won’t always be 4 other people. Which just further shows that a damaging phantasm is probably better. And with quickness up time, stuff happens. I’ve seen several people who simply see that ToT can hit 10 people on paper, but in reality, how many does it actually hit? Not only that, but then what about dodging, rezzing, gliding, splitting to kill the elites at gorseval, splitting to kill champions at VG, moving gorseval to the wall, gorseval teleporting to the middle etc.

TL;DR: Don’t look at quickness charts too much. Watch some videos of your build in action from either you or someone you deem competent. From there determine if your build has enough, too much, or not enough quickness for that specific fight.

Jacob.4280:

Ye thats what I was tring to say Fay
@TFFF you as a mesmer player are here talking about mesmer personal damage, really man …
Everybody who plays chrono these days knows that almost 1/2 of the time ur doing whatever else than personally damaging (casting wells, phantasms and so on).
Not even mentioning that mesmers personal dmg sux compared to whatever else u can find in raid.

Did you even watch the video? xD

Xyonon.3987:

It’s not about IF you can keep up 100% alacrity for your team. It’s about how many shield phantasms you require to do so with your build.

But using the shield phantasm can actually be pretty bad because you lose personal damage.

https://youtu.be/M0c55SlQ3kE?t=1920

Good Tofu.9376:

I think people are really failing to see that the dps difference between Assassin’s and Commander’s is so small. Its actually quite imbalanced as to how good Commander’s is in comparison.

Imbalanced? Hardly.

Firebird Gomer.9563:

ArthurDent.9538:

Sorry to say it but this is good. This is meant to be hard content, and in a game that is based around quickly reacting to animations, having high ping should be a severe handicap. I know it sucks for those people but content that was challenging and required good reactions is greatly wanted by the people who have good ping. For what it is worth, VG and Sabetha don’t really have any thing that requires good dodge timing. And for gorseval you can anticipate his smash fairly reliably from the skills he uses before it.

Wow Just WOW…. That’s terrible. And arrogant. Because what you pretty much just said is no one is allowed to play hard content except people with good ping. And that if you have bad ping you should be handicapped.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOL. THIS is terrible. And arrogant. This is supposed to be CHALLENGING group content, meaning people who have a handicap ( high ping ) are, wait for it, going to have a handicap! Asking for raids to made easier ( one of the suggestions put forth ) just because of the handicap isn’t a good idea. The game ins’t designed around handicapped people, and it shouldn’t. I understand it sucks, but making the raid easier ( AKA more lee-way ) is a bad idea.

“This means 64s quickness every 51s.”

Sry just glancing through the thread, I already talked about this with you xD

It’s every 56 seconds because you have to take into account from the start of CS to when it’s off CD not the end of CS till it’s off CD.

softblackcarbon.1537:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Pandabro.8743:

softblackcarbon.1537:

Can you beat it with 2-3 condi reapers instead of engis? Of course. Should a brand new group that’s trying to make getting a kill as easy as possible for themselves bring 3 condi engis? I think so. That’s all I’m saying.

People need to realize that rotation complexity factors into actual damage. Few people can actually pull off a engineer’s rotation properly and add in boss mechanics and that percentage dips even lower.

this

The entire point is that dps is so irrelevant on VG that new groups should be bringing the classes that make the mechanics the easiest to succeed at. I think it was Nike who said something along the lines of “you should take away the weapons of your circle team so all they do is focus on circles” (which is obviously not to be taken literally, but to make a point). There is zero question in my mind that engi just deals with seekers and circles better than reaper. While it may be true that engis and reapers both have an easy time keeping seekers off the circles, reapers lack the knockbacks that engis bring (and fear is not nearly as useful as the seekers move so slowly) and the same burst healing with water fields/blasts. (I understand that they can heal.)

There’s also no doubt in my mind that a skilled engi will out-damage a skilled reaper on VG currently even while running circles. That’s just reality of the current class balances. Again, that’s not to say that reaper damage is too low or that you shouldn’t bring them to this fight.

tl;dr: Dps on VG is largely irrelevant (DnT is getting sub 4-min kills). New groups who are (and should be) focusing on mechanics should bring engis if they want the easiest time possible because of utility, not dps. You can be successful in this fight with basically any composition.

“There’s also no doubt in my mind that a skilled engi will out-damage a skilled reaper on VG currently even while running circles. That’s just reality of the current class balances. Again, that’s not to say that reaper damage is too low or that you shouldn’t bring them to this fight.”

I’m not convinced but /shrug

And yeah for your first few times a engineer would probably be better just because it’s better with the seekers.

“Your video itself says that you shouldn’t try what the video did, and should have ascended.”

And what did the video do? It had EVERYONE as FULL exotic. Didn’t the guy in the video even say it was to show you don’t need full ascended on everyone and that experience matters more than ascended, so if there’s say one guy who doesn’t have say ascended armor it’s alright?

Xyonon.3987:

@Lyger.5429
Short: The shield gives quickness and alacrity. A damage phantasm only gives you like 2.5k dps. If you are the only mes in your group I highly recommend to rather boost the dps of your allies than your own. You should see what an ele or engi can do with alacrity, it’s insane. Ofc those peps also have to be capable of handling it ^^ So again, different builds for different allies.

@TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275
Sry I do not have any footage right now :/ I have no program to record stuff so I’m kinda not able to do so :< Maybe you can help me out with a GOOD one. (sadly shadowplay barely doesn’t work on my comp)

Yea my rotation is always 3 phants -> T(F5)W -> all the wells -> ToT -> F5 -> ToT -> WoR -> all the wells -> what’s off cd -> repeat.

I’d say scholar is only good if you are not tanking, so far only good for Sabetha. At veil guardian and gorsy it’s most likely you that should tank. At veil they are never good, since the aura just keeps you below 90% most of the time. Gorsy would be ok if you wouldn’t tank, tough.

“Short: The shield gives quickness and alacrity. A damage phantasm only gives you like 2.5k dps. If you are the only mes in your group I highly recommend to rather boost the dps of your allies than your own. You should see what an ele or engi can do with alacrity, it’s insane. Ofc those peps also have to be capable of handling it ^^ So again, different builds for different allies.”

That’s what I thought at first too but then I watched the build guide by Zui and he did some napkin math. I linked it above somewhere in one of my comments. Also, did they ever end up fixing the bug where it prioritizes pets over players?

“I’d say scholar is only good if you are not tanking, so far only good for Sabetha. At veil guardian and gorsy it’s most likely you that should tank. At veil they are never good, since the aura just keeps you below 90% most of the time. Gorsy would be ok if you wouldn’t tank, tough.”

Yeah that was along the lines of my thinking.

“Sry I do not have any footage right now :/ I have no program to record stuff so I’m kinda not able to do so :< Maybe you can help me out with a GOOD one. (sadly shadowplay barely doesn’t work on my comp)”

I don’t have a program or anything and I know nothing about how it works : (

Lyger.5429:

For Mesmer raids build why should I use shield over focus or pistol. Even with the alacrity am I not losing a significant amount of dps if I 2/3 phantasms are avengers. Also I am seeing well of eternity in some builds instead of signet of ether. How do you get that 3rd phantasm seeing as you can only use deja vu if you are attacked during the channel. This doesn’t seem as consistent at casting ether.

Any answers would be appreciated thanks.

The signet heal is good, and shield’s usefulness is debatable, and focus isn’t always needed. And if you do run shield you should try to cancel your shield 4 right before it ends so it doesn’t spawn the phantasm if you already have 3 DPS phantasms up.

Good Tofu.9376:

Dont want to start a long quote chain, but two points:

1. If boon duration can exceed 100% , there is no doubt that commander+ leadership is better. This should be tested out.

2. As far as SoI goes, it is not better in a standalone setting. You almost need the 50% boost from Herald as it solely depends on the amount of quickness you can stack on yourself. If you only have 0-20% (dep on food), you are at most spreading 1-3 secs of quickness to everyone else (which can easily be replaced by a Well of Action).

“2. As far as SoI goes, it is not better in a standalone setting. You almost need the 50% boost from Herald as it solely depends on the amount of quickness you can stack on yourself. If you only have 0-20% (dep on food), you are at most spreading 1-3 secs of quickness to everyone else (which can easily be replaced by a Well of Action).”

Like I said I was talking about optimal situations and seeing as a large part of instanced content is raids where you want to optimize your group comp. And I didn’t mean SoI over WoA I meant SoI, WoA, and WoR as your utilities.

Xyonon.3987:

Our guild always stays stacked behind gorseval, while the tank (mes) stays infront of him and all the wells and ToT’s gonna hit my allies. The first link’s gorseval vid is exactly what I meant wish “scared chickens”. Too much movement that isn’t required, unless you’re running 10% food, yet then it’s just bad positioning.

---

About 4x ToT:
CS has 46 sec CD, yet I want to cast WoR 2 times so the CD will rather be 48, +quickness cast time, 51 in reality. In that 51 sec I can cast ToT exactly 4 times:

• 1x ToT with 0 sec CD (from CS)
• 1x ToT with 12 sec CD
• 2x ToT with 18 sec CD

-> 12 + 18 + 18 = 48 sec, now just say 3 full sec cast time with quickness (I’d be rather 2 tough) and you’re fine, I don’t see the problem.

---

offtopic: I’ve just seen your signature – you’ve earned a cookie for that :’D bravo! xD

“* 1x ToT with 12 sec CD”

I totally didn’t realize ToT can have the CD reduction applied twice with two different ToT when using CS because even if you hit the same wall twice it still only does it once. But I went in game after I read this and apparently it works this way, interesting. This gives you more lee-way I didn’t expect.

I thought when you listed 51 you meant skipping WoR, but now that you explain it I see you made the mistake I made at first when I was considering different chrono builds. You compare a rotation from the beginning of CS all the way up to when CS is off CD, not from the end of CS to when CS is off CD. So the 64 seconds every 51 seconds is more like 64 seconds every 56ish seconds ( presuming you use WoR every CS ). That’s an extra 6 seconds higher than I thought cause of ToT.

Also, do you have any raid footage recorded/from other members in your raid to watch? One thing you note is stacking behind the boss, however the question is how tight? You have to worry about people being too far behind the boss and also to the left or right of you. In theory stacking tightly sounds easy, but I’m wondering how in practice how it actually works out. No doubt if your trying to go for a speed-run you would want to try to do that, but if your just wanting to kill the boss, how well does it work out? I’m not sold on it.

Also, how does pistol/sword offhand with SoI and rune of the chronomancer or sigil of concentration with scholar compare to well of calamity with leadership runes and shield?

One last thing to note is you still have to worry about the mechanics of the fight and blocking/evading. Especially for Gorseval this can be a big thorn in your side, which is why footage would be nice, but I’m still leaning on the side of SoI.

TL:DR: Some footage would be really nice along with some DPS tests to tell how good well of calamity is however with the whole 4 ToT thing it’s closer than I thought ( tho I still stand by the whole concentration with scholar, if you play the role of tank then I would wonder which is better )

Xyonon.3987:

In a real fight with my guild, everyone stays where they have to stay. They don’t just run around like scared chickens or stay whereever they want. :P This may be completly different with pugs so I totally agree with you that different mesmer builds and runes are optimal, according to your allies. But for my guild, I do expect everyone to stay in nearly every well and catch nearly every ToT.

So how do you get 58 sec? I cast 1x TW (22s), 3x WoA (18s) and 4x ToT (24s). This means 64s quickness every 51s. With that indeed might miss one or two skills and keep it up. That’s why I said “nearly every well / ToT”.

There is currently no place where you would miss your team with ToT in raids, if done correctly. SoI is not required to keep up quickness for your sub squad, you don’t need more than ToT, WoA and TW.

“In a real fight with my guild, everyone stays where they have to stay. They don’t just run around like scared chickens or stay whereever they want. :P”

I think watching some videos can do some good as to how often people are going to get hit with ToT and every WoA. I really don’t think in your guild runs that you all stacked up in a neat little ball especially on gorseval. And just because a real fight isn’t a vacuum doesn’t mean people are a bunch of scared chickens. Unless you call dragging gorseval to the wall running around like scared chickens, or gliding, or splitting to kill the spirits, or having the boss teleport to the middle, or knowing the VG will have to be moved soon, etc etc. Also, again, while in theory you might think 4 ToT is possible, you have to take into account cast time and more importantly if your already using a skill it will take time till your ToT goes off, and even without all that stuff ToT has a 30 second CD while CS has a 76 CD meaning your every 51 seconds would go up higher or you wouldn’t be using as many ToT in your second rotation. So this would be 11 ( TW ) + 9 ( WoA ) + 9 ( ToT )=29. 29 + 29 ( boon duration ) = 58. So as I said above due to boss mechanics, failed rotations, and players not being stacked up ( such as on gorseval, because he has such a big HB ) 58 seconds of quickness in theory ( presuming you don’t wait for WoR ) every 51ish seconds doesn’t cut it.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMidnightwinter/videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCySBtdfVwzNT37AkA8pphdw/videos

Good Tofu.9376:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Just a general reply to everyone. If you think you need more boon duration you can add sigil of concentration into the mix. That’s 100% with food and herald. However this isn’t always even needed since chrono has a lot of other ways to get quickness. Furthermore, sigil of concentration is better than running runes of leadership, and while the toughness from commanders is nice, it would be better to run something like knights.

The thing is that the +50% duration from Herald is far from guaranteed. There will be times where you don’t have the boost…especially in chaotic raids that involve split tactics (ie. Gorseval).

Furthermore, in fractals or other 5 man dungeons, you aren’t guaranteed to even have a Herald. The extra 30-60% in addition to food is a HUGE boost here. Sure, you do maybe 10% less personal DPS, but your party’s DPS experiences a huge boost with all of the extra boon uptime from Commander’s/Leadership.

Nearly all of the meta Chronotanks I’ve seen in raids (ones with Eternal titles) are running Commander/Leadership.

‘The thing is that the +50% duration from Herald is far from guaranteed. There will be times where you don’t have the boost…especially in chaotic raids that involve split tactics (ie. Gorseval)."

About the only fight in the current raid wing that I can think of that you wouldn’t have it up 100% of the time is when you have to split to kill the 4 spirits at gorseval. But unless you have a 3 or so other players with you during the split you shouldn’t be applying quickness, and out of those 3 players one should be a herald.

“Furthermore, in fractals or other 5 man dungeons, you aren’t guaranteed to even have a Herald. The extra 30-60% in addition to food is a HUGE boost here. Sure, you do maybe 10% less personal DPS, but your party’s DPS experiences a huge boost with all of the extra boon uptime from Commander’s/Leadership. "

I was talking about a optimal team comp, in addition rune of the chronomancer is still better than rune of leadership even if your lacking herald 50% boon duration but can still run SoI. It’s debatable whether commander gear is better in a random team comp for fractals/dungeons without math.

“Nearly all of the meta Chronotanks I’ve seen in raids (ones with Eternal titles) are running Commander/Leadership.”

Even if most of the top players were running something doesn’t make it the best, and it’s very debatable in the first place what top players are running.

Firebird Gomer.9563:

Lee-way means: If I do a dodge before such and such a event, but the dodge arrives at the server after the event I would be given credit for the dodge. What would be better is if its client side not server side.

This is a bad example of what I would like to see but its probably the easiest example to say.

So one of your two solutions was to add more lee-way, which WOULD make it easier, because then people wouldn’t have to react to the boss as fast. I don’t understand, more lee-way = easier, I thought that was pretty clear. Like to me it’s like saying easier doesn’t equal easier.

Just a general reply to everyone. If you think you need more boon duration you can add sigil of concentration into the mix. That’s 100% with food and herald. However this isn’t always even needed since chrono has a lot of other ways to get quickness. Furthermore, sigil of concentration is better than running runes of leadership, and while the toughness from commanders is nice, it would be better to run something like knights.

Xyonon.3987:

You don’t need soi at all, it just deals 0 damage and spreads a boon that is already there. With leadership and a rev, your party has 100% quickness uptime and since the shield’s quickness is the only one that affects all 10 peps in the party, is better to have more boon duration than to share your own quickness to 5 allies. So leadership is indeed better than chrono in raids, yet not in fractals or that other content noone talks about anymore … :P

Same goes for alacrity: You have 100% uptime already with 4 wells and just one avenger and if you take mimic over calamity, you extrend your CD of your F5 since you have to wait for mimic to get off cd for like 10 rl sec. Calamity can be cast so often between 2 F5 that this and the more often casted F5 and it’s benefits will surely outdamage a 3rd damage phantasm wich is shattered sometime anyway.

If you take illusions instead of duelling wich I highly recommend, mimic has no place in your utilities. Neither does soi because of the reasons above and this gives you the sexy 12sec cd well wich huge damage spikes and great defensive abilities for ads like at sabby or gorsy – calamity.

“With leadership and a rev, your party has 100% quickness uptime”

But a real fight isn’t a theory vacuum or something. Things get messed up, people don’t stand in wells, the boss moves, you mess up a rotation, you have to split to kill different adds, have to dodge, glide, etc. As such, I still stand with SoI which is great for boosting quickness and thus rune of the chonomancer ( budget option ) or sigil of concentration with scholar runes or just air sigils with scholar runes if you think you have enough quickness just adding in SoI.

“and since the shield’s quickness is the only one that affects all 10 peps in the party”

In theory yes. In a real fight? Absolutely not. More people will get hit on say sabetha than on say gorseval where hitting all 10 people is a little ridiculous.

EDIT: Your build get’s 58 seconds of quickness every 52 seconds presuming your subsquad hits every tides of time and quickness well along with staying inside TW 100% of the time and you use CS off CD not waiting for well of recall. Already I would recommend SoI because they aren’t all going to be stacked up in a neat little ball to hit your ToT but when you take into account the other stuff I said above I really don’t see why my modifications wouldn’t be better. Also, one more thing to note is, if you still think that amount of quickness is enough in a raid, using sigil of concentration with scholar runes would probably be better than your current setup.

Also one more thing I noticed you mentioned was the shield phantasm which I think this video already addressed pretty well: https://youtu.be/M0c55SlQ3kE?t=1877

EDIT: one more thing to note is if you run shield, signet heal becomes pretty good because otherwise your stuck with only 1 phantasm skill which makes it pain to keep up 3 phantasms and perma self alacrity.

Firebird Gomer.9563:

And a lee-way system doesn’t mean to make it easier.

I’m a bit confused. If you get more lee-way, how isn’t that easier? And yeah there were two suggestions I was just addressing the one cause I ain’t technical to know if the other one is or is not possible and what that would all mean.

Pandabro.8743:

softblackcarbon.1537:

Can you beat it with 2-3 condi reapers instead of engis? Of course. Should a brand new group that’s trying to make getting a kill as easy as possible for themselves bring 3 condi engis? I think so. That’s all I’m saying.

People need to realize that rotation complexity factors into actual damage. Few people can actually pull off a engineer’s rotation properly and add in boss mechanics and that percentage dips even lower.

this