Guild Wars 2

Look man, I don’t really know. I’m using all rampagers (power/precision/condition damage) and I’m specced 10/30/0/0/30 (So all precision and condition damage) and my survivability seems fine. The only time I die it’s usually my fault. I don’t know if my gear is optimal, or even good, but it’s what I got and money is too annoying to come by to have me get another set. All I know is that power/precision/condition damage works pretty well, though I think if you truly want to compensate that I would do it via traits. 300 toughness and vit is roughly as much as you would get from more survivable gear. Though, I just cant live at all without illusory persona. It’s too good being able to tag mobs instantly, get 1s of godmode whenever I want no on global cooldown, etc. Illusory persona is something I can’t live without, so I figured instead of having my only condition damage be +300 from traits I would also get it on my pieces of gear. I don’t know if this is awful or not or even if it works (I have only done Arah, CoF and a few other explorables) but that’s my input.

Does anyone have any additional input?

The set is available on the broker, for example Rampager’s Exalted _________. I’m also looking at Flame Legion armor which has the EXACT same stats. Anyways, I’ll just show you a comparison.

Berserker’s Exalted Coat:
101 Power / 72 Precision / 5% Crit Damage

Carrion’s Exalted Coat:
72 Power / 72 Vitality / 101 Condition Damage

Rampager’s Exalted Coat:
72 Power / 101 Precision / 72 Condition Damage

Power / Precision / Condition damage.

However, it’s less Power than Berserkers and less Condition damage than Carrion. Is it worth it to invest in all these points at once? I’m mostly interested in Greatsword / Staff / Sword&Pistol / Sword&Focus.

I currently have rampagers but I’m wondering if it was a bad investment.

In my opinion, this would be literally the best thing to happen to Mesmers. As far as anything else is concerned, I think it is fine. Mantra’s are really annoying to recast in combat and take away from the combat value of the game. I would prefer if they just had, say, a 10s cooldown after you use them and you would automatically get 2 charges back.

Carighan.6758:

Yeah I know, doesn’t sound good. But it works out really well. Ok, for me.
GS damage is no problem for me, not there to burn down enemies fast. I use Mirror Blade a lot, plus I dodge a ton (I get Vigor from critting, Clones on dodge, and shatters give everyone nearby more Vigor) to get more clones out.

I actually started using the Signet of Illusions just so I can reset shatters. I shatter a lot. It gives Weakness and Vigor, plus if the clones get killed otherwise they still cause Confusion and Cripple. Plus it gives me ample access to Distortion and Diversion, and interrupting attacks is a large part of what I do in instances.

Sword/Sword is tricky, I’ll admit that. Backflipping out of harm’s way is incredibly important, but often you have very little time to do so. But don’t underestimate your interrupts. Being in melee range means your clones are there, too, means you can always instant-Diversion. And betwee that, Mantra and #4 Sword, I get by most attacks by virtue of the enemy never getting to use them.

For the other times there’s Time Warp and Feedback.

I will try this out then, I love the sword/sword archetype but felt that in dungeons it was really hard to stay alive. My main issue now is interrupting, you make it sound so easy. How can you tell when an enemy is even casting something? The only thing I can tell are the melee enemies that have a severely telegraphed knockup. Am I not looking close enough? Do most enemies have tells that I can look for to know when to interrupt, or is it dungeon-to-dungeon and the best way to find out is to experience it once and learn from there?

Yeah, I suppose it’s not fair to have our monstrous utility coupled with the best damage, and I’m not looking to do tons of DPS but be a detriment having to be picked up constantly, so I suppose I’m just looking for a build that can do damage from a safe distance.

Sword/sword kind of scares me, especially with greatsword. Greatswords autoattack is super worthless, the 3 roots you and 5 does meager damage and doesn’t knockback large bosses. The phantasm is nice because when you use it the damage is instant and he often times spins himself to safety, but after I use my 2 and phantasm I Just wish I was back in my primary weapon.

I feel like sword/sword will severely hinder my ability to do damage from a range, and I fear I’m perhaps not good enough to simply get by with the block and invuln and having to be in melee range.

Carighan.6758:

For what is this?
If you do this for Dungeons, you’ll soon join the ranks of the “zomg dungeons are too hard”-whiners. Dungeons go from ridiculously lethal to fairly relaxed just with dropping glass-cannon setups for more defensive setups with Vit / Tough / Healing and fitting trait selections (don’t even have to respec).

The only three dungeons I’ve done were Ascalonian Catacombs story mode, Twilight Arbor story mode and Gates of Arah story mode.

Ascalonian Catacombs wrecked us at level 30, but we got through with throwing our corpses at it. Twilight Arbor was left unfinished because the second boss was simply too overwhelming. Gates of Arah was really easy comparatively. I don’t believe we wiped once, there were a few deaths here and there but the entire group was completely blind. I’m trying to find a consistent build that will not only do damage but allow me to not get killed in one shot. So far, my impression of dungeons is that there isn’t much indication of when you’re about to take “big damage” because the big damage is always there. An autoattack from a ranged mob does 1/4 of my health with 25 points into vit. I have no idea what to do when my spell reflects are off besides sit around afraid to do damage. Melee seems like suicide so I guess I’m mostly interested in whatever weapons will allow me to do damage from a safe distance as well as not have to rely on

1. The mob dying and I lose all my clones/phantasms
2. The mob having any form of simple AoE which means my phantasms/clones don’t stand much of a chance
3. Being in melee range as almost every single mob ability cleaves and will 1-2 shot me

I don’t know what weapons are for me, I don’t even know if Mesmer is for me which is a disappointment at level 80 after about two weeks of playtime. It feels like no build really feels right and it’s all super gimmicky with phantasms, except it’s not executed too well because there’s so many problems that come along the way with Phantasms.

So, if possible, what weapons

1. Don’t rely on phantasms for DPS
2. Are safe and reliable for a majority of encounters

echofoxtrot.4239:

I’m confused…you say you prefer having phantasms up, but you want to not use your phantasm heavy build anymore.

if youre going for a condition build (aka shatter build that focuses on confusion, bleed, burning, etc.) then you want +condition damage. if youre going for a phantasm guild, then you want +crit.

as far as capping conditions, not sure if they do cap, but my build focuses on stacking confusion as much as possible and I’ve never seen that capped, even on bosses (probably because stacks of it are dropped when a skill is used). confusion does more damage in a condition build than burning or bleeding, so I wouldn’t worry about the cap affecting your dps. this build works best with scepter/torch + staff.

for a phantasm build, I hear pistol/sword + staff works the best, so if you don’t like the scepter and want mainly phantasms then it sounds thats what you should go for. and in that case, again you want +crit over +condition damage.

hope this answered your question.

For the first part, I simply mean that I don’t think a phantasm build works. I love the idea and love three wardens / duelists up. So satisfying. But in terms of dungeons, one aoe just kills them all and they don’t walk out of poisons and stuff, so I’m feeling like my viability through that build is kittened. I wanted to try out a condition build, but confusion seems pretty ehh considering most bosses swing very slowly so it’d be say, 2k damage every 3-4 seconds.

I’m conflicted on what weapons to use for dungeons because neither seem effective. I suppose once I’ve already done the battle and know the hazards of the fight I could kind of be more flexible and swap, but I don’t want to have to re-trait, nor would I.

I just want a build that will do consistent damage.

Phanx.4832:

i use carrion armor (power+vitality+condition dmg) and berserker jew (power+crit+crit power), so as result i have nice attack+condition dmg+hp, but need a lil bit def (so runes of dolyak mb),
weapon – berserker

so Flame Legion set is your choice

What weapons do you prefer? Power/vit/condition damage seems nice but I’m not sure which weapons are good with Precision.

I’m conflicted as to what I would want on my armor.

Power/Precision/Condition Damage or Power/Precision/Crit.

I’m making my 80 exotics.

The main weapons I’m interested in are:

1h Sword, Pistol, Staff, Focus.

At the moment I’m GS + Scepter/Focus. I absolutely hate scepter. I don’t like constantly making illusions and I prefer having phantasms up instead, so I’m thinking of changing my phantasm heavy build into something like Staff + Sword/Pistol or something. Regardless, I’m wondering what the toss up between condition damage and crit damage. I know condition damage is just okay because bleed caps at 25 and for most bosses it will reach there.

Regardless, please let me know your thoughts and hopefully your reasoning. Thanks a lot, friends