(edited by deltanium.7543)
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For the Soul-hoarding argument, I would have to ask whether or not resurrection implies the returning of the soul and whether or not the soul is a power-source. As seen by the Lich fight in Guild wars 1, souls can be used as extra 1ups, so the latter is probably true.
About the former, it seems pretty unlikely that Zaithan is returning souls to corpses or that flesh-golems have a soul to begin with or are given one as a result of the summoning. Unlikely, sure, but possible nonetheless.
As far as theories goes, it’s a pretty interesting one, but a theory nonetheless.
As stated, he was deemed cruel and unjust, not greedy. If he was a power-hungry god, it should have been the foremost of Grenth’s motive.
About the premature killing in terminal phase, again, nothing is mentioned if a God was springing around in the hospital or something. It’s unlikely that history would have forgotten about that.
As for the playerbanning, in his entry on the official wiki, it is explicite that Dhuum’s appearance as a part of the process is non-cannon.
About the perma-death argument, I doubt it is a “death” when you fail to rally. You are most likely unconscious and weakened and with your last moment of lucidity, teleport to the nearest asuran way-point when you fall out of combat when you are “considered as dead”. It’s the best shoe-horning I can manage in regard to the canon of the game mechanic. On the other hand, you have the “ressurection orb” which doesn’t leave much to interpretation, and in Guild wars 1, ressurection is the mechanic by which you return a player to an active state and the players were returned to a ressurection Shrine. However, in Guild wars 2, it is refered to as reviving which may be interpreted as ressurection, but may also refer to the return of consciousness (ressucitation, not ressurection). Furthermore, the point at which a player returns is a waypoint, not a ressurection shrine.
Furthermore, I would like to underline a little “thing” about that ban of necromancy: At the time of his reign, the gift of magic was not granted to the humans… so how could they perform necromancy?
From my research, they had a rudimentary understanding of magic, elementalism for the most part, when the humans were brought to Tyria. Could it be that, back then, Necromancy was so unrefined as to be dangerous? What I am trying to say is that the context might have been different back then and the necromancy of the pre-exodus might have not been the best type of magic to use. Speculative nonesense or clever foresight, I really can’t say…
While planning a personal roleplaying campaign, I have been doing a bit of research on Dhuum. Here’s a summary of my discovery:
1. Dhuum is the former god of death.
2. He was deemed cruel and unjust, appearently due to a fervent intolerance of undeath and ressurection.
3. He was overthrown by Grenth and the seven reaper.
4. He was imprisonned in the hall of Judgement.
5. He broke free, but was subdued again in the events of Guild wars.
6. DHUUM USES ONLY UPPERCASES AND SPEAKS USING THE THIRD PERSON.
So here’s my point: Why is he the bad guy here?
As of yet, I guess he can be blamed for the mess in the underworld in Nightfall and did not win any popularity contest among humans or fellow gods. Furthermore, he has shady alliances with Abaddon… and that’s it?
I mean, one can argue that undeath isn’t necessarely evil, except when it is: The lich, Zaithan, the ascalon shennanigan and whatnot. But beside being a little extremist on the subject-matter, how was he unjust or cruel? Did he hunt his followers for fun or something? Death is an inevitability, so his moto is kind of an axiom rather than a threat. He was assaulted by Grenth and the reapers and was justified in trying to retaliate in the events of Nightfall. I cannot find a single wrongdoing or unjustified transgression about him.
So, if no one intends to take the mantle of prosecutor on this trial and bring counterpoints to the table, here’s my conclusion: let Dhuum out.
While this argument of “What they stand for” seems strong on an emotional level, it is merely a fallacy as far as rhetoric goes by way of Ad Misericordiam, or call to pity. The nature of corruption is often related to deception and, ultimately, tragedy, meaning it is possible the darkness embraced by the Nightmare Court is one of a Dragon in some respect or other and they cling to it unwittingly. For one, the basis of the Nightmare Court was originally to embrace the darkness in the Dream of Dream as part of their nature and accept the possibility of evil as a path to reach a greater good. It’s the good ol’ alignment shennanigan again. However, based on their actual behaviour, the Nightmare courters don’t merely embrace the darkness, they are consumed by it and act pretty aimlessly in the name of Freedom, proving their points with more hypocrisis than probative value, see for instance Bercilak. As far as actions goes, the Nightmare Court is, at best, wrong in assuming that freedom is equal to a formal opposition to Ventari’s teaching and, at worst, cartoonishly evil because they can and will, but I’d like to think Arena Net’s narrative is deeper than that shallow end of the metaphorical pool of motivations.
On the other hand, Faolain being the instrument of a Dragon in any respect seems pretty farfetched and this boat would float a lot better with Cadeyrn or other courters. She acts most likely with the exclusive intent of winning Caithe back using pretty despicable, yet desperate, means. While being the Duchess, probably out of raw power than anything else, she is more akin to a Yandere like Yuno Gasai than a corrupting tyrant. So, while not impossible, she would be the less likely candidat should this hypothesis be proven right in some way or other.
As for that hypothesis about the Nightmare Court or the Pale Tree being a dragon’s something or other, it seems pretty baseless, but could explain the endoctrinal nature of both parties: The Pale Tree is sending her children to slaughter a dragon, a rival dragon if taken in perspective of another dragon, then the Nightmare Court corrupts the Pale Tree to awaken their true master.
Doomsaying nonesense and conspiratorial theory-crafting as far as evidence goes, but the possibility lingers and could explain a lot in the long term and that’s pretty much the overall answer to the original topic: it’s just an hypothesis, an idea that needs proving of validity or invalidity and, by lack of means to experiment, remains just as is.
Physically speaking, the smallest human size allows you to create a character of equal height with a (this may be a case of lost in translation) “fillette” in french, meaning a 12-14 years old.
This being said, even the smallest body structure still sports a decent size of breast, unlike the “fillette” avatar.
As for the maximum age, I’d tend to say it could go as far as around the eighties, especially with a white hair male provided a wrinkly face such as Pete’s is used.
Anyhow, I’d tend to say the character creation allows a range of 12-89 years old.
That being said, it’s just an approximation.
Using a giver’s axe/focus, it’s pretty easy to pop the 25% extra damage through vulnerability. It’s a nice combo with a 30 in minion mastery since minions do no scale with your statistics, making axe/focus the only way to increase your minion’s damage output actively.
On the other hand, since axe is prone to multi-hit attacks, it’s a pretty sure bet with proc-based sigils.
Well, for the spell animation thing, charged mantras are instant-cast meaning you can cast them in the middle of another casting and it will launch while not cancelling the casting one. Therefore, that animation is probably irrelevant to show because, as an opponent, you can’t counter it ot see it coming. The animation they can react to is the charging one with the symbole and the three words of power-thing.
That being said, one thing I would love to see is another damage-dealing mantra with a one second cooldown, maybe inflicting random 1-2 conditions every cast. That way, with 3 stacked mantra, I could cast 3 mantra charges while charging one, and cast 3 mantra charges of the other while charging the first.
That way, mantra’s downtime in battle wouldn’t be that much of an issue.
That seems like a personal problem, but I think there are some clues as to why this is happening, and it’s somewhat the result of a clever direction.
Take for example WoW in which most races have humanoid traits, especially human-based anatomy. It’s pretty alluring, then, to choose, say, a night elf or a blood elf, or even an undead and a spacegoat because you can fantasized about it pretty easily using your knowledge of the human anatomy to translate your fantasies. To state the obvious, an elven breast is just as if not more desirable than that of a human.
On the other hand, Guild wars 2 races are, with the exception of norn, “not” human-like:
Asuras are somewhat more akin to gremlins, have weird toes and have no indication of analog anatomies other than the basic bipedal movement and such. Furthermore, most of them are bald. Even the cutie-doll-looking Zojja is bald under her goggle-like headgear.
Norns are somewhat largely human-like and akin to viking and scandinavian origins in the real world. They are the somewhat more relatable race of the game next to humans, so it basically comes down to personnal preference and fetishes whether they appeal to you or not.
Charrs are more akin to cats and bulls than humans. They have the horn and puff-ended tail. They are covered in fur and (Thanks god, arena net dodge that bullet when WoW took it right in the face with female taurens) they do not have a human-like breast. Without armor, they still have a cloth covering the chest, but it’s pretty clear there is nothing there.
Sylari have no sexual intercourses, or if they somewhat do, have no purpose other than recreationnally since the Pale Tree is the only one capable of reproduction. Their skin is also not exactly what one may see as closed which is somewhat uncanny and their facial and capilary traits are more of a disformation of a skin rather than epidermal opening or hairs in the traditionnal sense.
Last nail in that coffin: Interacial relationships never produces offsprings, that is to say if intercourse is even possible.
So you can’t identify to other races for one and you can’t fantasize about them either, unless you fall in that kind of fetish-based categories(zoophiliac and phytophiliac for instance: look it up).
And before anyone asks or dismiss this argument for that reason: Everything is about sex. That’s just human’s nature to self-insert itself into something they can either identify sexually with or fantasize sexually about.
That being said, I admire Arena Net for using that kind of design as it renders most sexist arguments moot and allows characters like Almorra, Zojja or Caith to shine without the help of aesthetical motives. That being said, tabula rasa characters such as… player characters tends not to have a personality and their physical feathures are the only thing in the equation, unless you roleplay, which I do.
That’s my opinion on the matter.
(edited by deltanium.7543)
According to the wiki, it scales to 85% of your healing power so… maybe when you reach a certain level of healing power it actually grants greater benefits than others?
I know as, an elementalist asura, there are situations when ether renewal gets on my nerve while not scaling as highly as it would otherwise. Not to mention that unlike support necro whose well of blood is AoE healing and support guardian which can spit watery-life in the face of people, elementalist do not have a support-oriented healing and have lower healing-power-scaling heals. Engineer’s blessing to dwayna is also another potential candidat if you don’t want to geopardize your elixir throw and give everyone swiftness in a dire regen-needing situation.
I see it as a defensive skill rather than an offensive one. Less incoming attacks, slower movement, AoE effects. It’s somewhat of an alternate version of the necromancer’s 5 horn ability which is meant to deal damage and be up in the opponent’s face.
Theory : When you buy a make-over kit, 80% of what you pay is invested in hair-bleach. Therefore, to make the most of it, players revamp their hair color to white.
Theory : Most players intend to make their character die of cancer when guildwars 3 comes around.
Theory: Most characters are above 70 years of age, but benefits from highly successful facial and epidermal surgery.
Theory: Most player, being the 1/8 of males who appends to be color-blind, are afraid of miss-matching colors later down the line and give their characters neutral colors to avoid this issue.
Personnally, I fit the bill for the last one, but I happen to have a non-color-blind friend to make my characters for me. That being said, characters I have personnally created are black-haired or bald which are also valid alternatives.
For your mesmer, use Mimic while weilding a GS: She can carry the thing with one hand with the blade parallel to the ground. Heavy-lifting much.
Grenth is the god of darkness, ice and death and, compared to his predecessor, believes in the concept of resurection and undeath.
Necromancers have minion(resurection), wells(darkness), corruption(death) and a bit of ice spell (ice). They are indubitably the ones using Grenth’s magical purview to the fullest.
Thiefs have assassination(death) and stealth(darkness). That being said, stealth may also be the result of illusion and deception, the purview of Lyssa.
Warriors have death-dealing abilities, sure, but they are more akin to war, the purview of Balthazar.
Elementalist can use water-based spell that happens to be frosty in nature, so they might have a thing there.
Mesmers are Lyssa’s all the way.
Engineer are basically magicless in the traditionnal sense.
Rangers have hunting abilities(death), frost-based abilities(ice) and natural life’s themed abilities, Dwayna’s domain, and Dwayna is Grenth’s mother, so there is something there.
Guardians have mostly “light”-based abilities, and by “light” I mean life because there is no such thing as a light purview in the god’s pantheon.
So, conclusively, I’d say Necromancers are closer to Grenth than any other professions followed by rangers and thiefs, followed by elementalist and warrior which are tangentially linked followed by engineers, mesmers and guardians.
While we are talking about gods, there is still in theory one god left on Tyria, and wouldn’t you know it, he happens to hate the concept of resurrection and undeath because he though it was a bad idea. Right now, with Zhaitan, he’s kinda entitled to the infamous “I told you so.”
Just saying, he’s just one padlock away from being able to clean this mess… and maybe reap a bit of vengeance while he’s at it, but still, just saying…
I’d vouch for that guy.
Addendum: He would also get rid of that pesky ghost problem in Ascalon while he’s there.
(edited by deltanium.7543)
Rampager gear
0
20(Sword traning, duelist discipline)
15(-3% damage taken per illusion)
15(+20% phantasm health)
20(Compounding power, illusionnary haste)
Weapons: Sword/pistol+Sword/focus
I am in the same opinion as Supervillain here: Snowball chance in hell illusionnary Warden would hit 2k a pop for 12 hits affecting a total of 5 targets and inflicting bleeding on top. Another explaination would be that the iWarden reflected a warrior’s killshot while he was in Frenzied stance or something.
Whatever the case, stacking everything right, with a complete disregard for survivability, the highest blurred frenzy I ever hit was around 6k total with a generous critical streak.
Alternatively, bleeding stacks counting as 1 hit, iWarden can hit for about 200damage/crit*12hit+90damage/bleeding/sec*5sec*12stack which would result in a 2400 direct damage+5400 bleeding damage for a total of 7200 damage in a single warden crazy flailing thing which would be technically my highest hit ever on a normal target(not counting damage debuff and critter killing).
In term of single highest hit, that would be an iSwordsman 4k crit+250 bleeding damage with a very rudimentary setup.
In terms of damage per second though, iDuelist, in a single target scenario will trumph and I believe it to be more important than whatever amount you can burst in one hit or one attack which would be (350dmg/crit*8hit+90damage/bleeding/second*8stack*5sec)/6 sec(Unload cd with phantasmal haste)=2800 direct damage+3600 bleeding damage/6 sec=6400 total damage over 6 sec=1066,67 damage per second. Compared to iwarden 7200/11.2=642.85 damage per second. According to the math, the swordsman would be around 1118 damage per second, but berserker set only allows around 50% crit whereas rampager(which was used for the math of the aforementioned duelist and warden) which can reach near 100% with a negligeable chance of non-critical hit.
Then again, here’s the obvious: phantasmal damage is independant from your own and consistent accross the board; an added bonus to that, should it survives, could stack up to three time + the mesmer’s standalone damage meaning your DPS can be up to nearly 4 times as high as a single phantasm’s DPS so, to get back to the original question, provided the setup and luck of having phantasms survive, at least long enough for a single attack, mesmer’s DPS ranges from great to amazing in dungeons. While you may not see 10k damage floating up like a thief’s backstab every 4 seconds, know that your damage is there, just slightly hidden.
Only a mesmer can stack 25 time the confusion condition.
Also, only a mesmer can say repetition is the key to perfection with no exceptions (such as suicide)
Most of the “not viable” arguments were anxiety based off recent patch nerfs. Those arguments were quashed after experiencing the content post-patch.
Although I highly doubt 10K-15K damage is in their line of work, especially not in one hit.
However, it is worth noting that they maintain their damage output throughout the fight if not increasing over time with the appearance of phantasms should they survive.
(edited by deltanium.7543)
Krait daggers: They look like sickles or miniature scythes.
DD condi, aoe condi
i believe you ment SB not DD
Deathblossom spam.
Pistol whip has a few appreciable perks:
1. Stun(wither determination on champion)
2. Some evasive property that works sort of half the time.
3. 9 hits(15pts with critical tree)
4. Hits up to 3 enemies in front of the thief.
I basically run a “spam that 3 dual-skill” build and Pistol whip and unload are the only skills which allows me to spam the dual-skill nonstop while dealing a pretty consistent damage throughout.
DD/PD with an emphasis on stealth utilities and here’s the basic:
In a standard multi-target fight, spam deathblossom until out of initiative, then fall back and shoot people in the face until full initiative and steal to get back in the fight. Rince and repeat.
In a standard single target fight, either use the the same strategy as multi-target or use Cloak and dagger to stealth up and pistol sneak attack for 5 bleeding stacks. The peculiarity here is that pistol sneak is a set of 5 100% projectile combo-finisher so, combined with any damage dealing fields(fire, poison, ether) you get the full 5 stacks for it.
I never used it seriously though, just goofed around in the mist for giggles.
The Historical Priory greatsword: Transparent with some purplish reflections(colorblind, I might be wrong)
Nevertheless, love that weapon set.
I personnally used to run with a sword/pistol + sword/sword with a full rampager gear(precision+power+cnd dmg). Few things I have noticed:
No 1. Sharper image was always always better with iDuelist laying 8 crits+8 bleeding stack per phantasm most of the time.
No 2. Sharper image is pretty decent with sword clones since their attacks are spammy and crits all the time as well despite not having spectacular crits(4-10dmg).
No 3. Sharper image is worst with iSwordsman, even worst than sword clones, believe it or not.
Therefore, having an offhand sword in a power-condition build is worthless.
I switched to focus and iWarden for AoE 12crit+12bleeding and often reach my 25 bleeding cap on my targets.
Conclusion, mainhand sword is good; offhand sword is bad. Grab a pistol or a focus.
Bear in mind that it’s a line-AoE blind/daze vs a single target damage output if and only if you get hit.
Totally worth it against multiple opponents.
Let’s talk semantic for a second: Simplification is essentially the action of reducing the complexity of an action. For instance, 2ˆ3=8 may be simplified as 2*2*2=8. The operation is more detailled and can be performed by a larger number of less educated people AND the end result remains the same. Because none of the aforementioned proposed changes are affecting the complexity of the profession, none of them actually simplifies the mesmer profession.
What is truly affected through these changes is the depth of the profession. Depth may be defined as the number of valid choices a player may do in any given situation. The reduction of depth mamy be refered to as streamlining or reducing valid choices to a number approximating one. In so doing, balancing is a piece of cake since the optimal, dominant or sole strategy will produce a lower variance of result which can be matched with other professions variance of result. However, the result of excessive streamlining is that the game can be played by mashing one button, IE, the game becomes boring.
Depth is a necessary component of games, especially competitive games because this increases the number of possible outcome and a higher skill ceiling and more importantly the power output tangent must increase as the player skill input increases. In order to reward the player with a more aware, wiser and overall better playstyle, the player must gain more power output than the equivalent player skill intput. Since every profession in the game has a certain high level of depth, reducing the mesmer’s will further harm the game because the power output will vary too lightly compared to other professions. The outcome will be such as every player with a certain skill input will automatically defeat mesmer and every player with a lower skill input will automatically lose to a mesmer, notwitstanding the player skill input of the mesmer.
Futhermore, with a lower depth the gameplay between a skilled player and an unskilled player will vary ever so slightly. Because dominant strategies arise, unskilled players will use this dominant strategy with a certain power output, but the skilled player will do the exact same thing and generate an ever so slightly higher power output with intangible such as awareness, timing and a better judgement.
Well… that explanation kinda derailed… Hope this explains why you got negative responds to your suggestions.
This is my rating based on my dungeon running/PvE experience.
Arcane Thievery : (4/10)I use sword a lot and dispell most boons before I can steal them.
Blink : (6/10) A good life-saver in certain fights.
Decoy : (4/10) I do not PVP a lot.
Feedback : (8/10) iWarden + iDuelist=Lots of combo.
Illusion of Life: (0/10) I just never bothered. The signet of undeath(necro) seems way better.
Mantra of Concentration: (2/10) My mesmer do not care for your petty winds in jumping puzzles.
Mantra of Distraction:(1/10) The lovers weakness.
Mantra of Pain: (1/10) It’s just a slap in the face, more pride damage than any actual chance of lethality.
Mantra of Resolve : (1/10) Focus=Light combo field.
Mimic : (3/10) Prefers feedback but some fights encourages the abuse of reflect.
Mirror Images: (2/10) Decoy tends to serve this purpose better for stunbreak, but some fights tends to favour the abuse.
Null Field: (8/10) Mass adversative dispel + ethereal combo field. Lovely.
Phantasmal Defender: (7/10) It dies fast, but soakes quite a bit of damage including other damage-dealing phantasms.
Phantasmal Disenchanter: (6/10) Dies fast, limited use with the use of sword but low cooldown and decent shatter-fodder.
Portal: (3/10) Second chance for jumping puzzles.
Signet of Domination:(9/10) Extra condition damage/stun.
Signet of Illusions:(10/10) Better lasting illusions, essential for phantasm builds and increases the efficiency of the phantasmal defender bloodsponging.
Signet of Inspiration:(7/10) A bit of fun with 6/6 Superior rune of lyssa.
Signet of Midnight: (0/10) Just not worth it, then again, I hang out with a thief who blinds all the time.
Veil:(0/10) The cooldown annoys the sin out of me and it seems not to work if you cast it on yourself + you cant stack the invisibility duration like Shadow Refuge can, which has a 33% lower cooldown and heals and provides a dark combo field on a greater zone. It’s flat out disgraceful…
That’s my grain of salt.
Illusions have the same condition damage, precision and critical damage as the mesmer. If you have the trait that grants fury to your phantasm and over 80% critical strike chance, you may summon an illusionary protector or an illusionary duelist, and using sharper image, you’ll see that every hit will both crit and leave a bleeding on your target with repeatable results.
As for thoughness, they still get 1shoted even in full knight’s armor so… yeah… it may scale/ inherit your thoughness but this hardly matters.
Nota bene: The 3rd strike of sword clone removes boon which is also useful (sometimes alot).
I wouldn’t go as far as saying that every no1 attack should cause condition, but I agree on the idea that every one of them should have some utilities to make the clone somewhat more worthwhile.
Staff with sharper image is the best example of precision/condition damage build while not requiring any power. You want your clones to crit to inflict bleeding as much as possible everytime, but the crit damage and raw damage of your clone is irrelevant.
Edit: The other way around is also possible for, say a more tanky support build. Something along the lines of taking stat conversion trait could lead to a decent result, however, do not expect as much damage as you otherwise would have.
(edited by deltanium.7543)
Duelist’s Discipline is broken: in the sense that it is too good. It makes every single bullet from iDuelist a 100% projectile finisher, instead of 20%.
Seriously?
equips nullfield and feedback and enslaves a fire elementalist.
Edit: Tested. You are absolutely right, there is no way a 16 stack of confusion should occur with the help of 2 iDuelist shooting a single salvo each through a nullfield… 5 times in a row. That’s essentially one chance out of 5 to the power of 80 or a statistical impossibility.
Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.
As I though, however, the balance reason argument was yet unknown and seems to contradict the 15/11 patch’s effect.
If the delay is intended to counter the recently summoned illusion, does that mean the change on the illusion not summoning upon a blocking/aegis, dodging or invulnerable target or while being blind was unintentionnally place to fix the problem regarding the out of line-of-sight summoning issue and is meant to be fixed in the futur?
I care little for an immediate fix, should it be the case, but I would be very grateful for you to indulge my curiosity on the matter.
Thank you for your time and pleasant day to you.
Been there, said that:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mainhand-Pistol/first#post798932
Pistol all the way! Dagger… Meh, whenever you have the time. Choice is good, right?
Duelist’s Discipline is broken: in the sense that it is too good. It makes every single bullet from iDuelist a 100% projectile finisher, instead of 20%.
Seriously?
equips nullfield and feedback and enslaves a fire elementalist.
It has probably already been said, but dueling is definitely something I would like to see done, mostly for roleplay purposes.
Having to bring some dies tend to make the fighting process in roleplay somewhat lackluster.
Agreed with Mithran, although I could add something along the line of a permanent stealth on condition of not moving. This could give an edge in close quarter by allowing a certain level of retreat, support or defending(camping cuz that’s what snipers do).
Since sniper is of high caliber, piercing shot seems more appropriate than bouncing shots.
I would also like to see something along the lines of an aimed linear shot(though I could see issues with that regarding heights) as well as an unavoidable lock-on similar to Caythlin’s ulti in LoL. The latter would validate both blocking and reflecting mechanics while not being particularely unfair against those who chose not to use either since it could be intervened.
I’ll head on neutral grounds here and request formally a definition of design:
What is an illusion?
As I said earlier, I did a breakdown in which in conclude that an illusion is a special pet with special rules.
I’ve seen some allegations by which illusions are more like range attacks, which they kinda are nowaday and others pleading that they are special kinds of conditions since they inflict periodic damage to a single target.
Whatever is your take on what it should be, we can all agree that illusions, since this patch, had its nature changed since it can be blocked or dodge. When you break it down, illusions are defined as a weird mix of a ton of things to the point that each and every phantasms may be defined as something different from each others(iProtector is more of a AoE in nature and iDefender is more of a banner-ish nature).
To sum it up, this whole debate regarding illusions is actually a definition debate: What is an illusion? Was the change in their nature meant to be? Was it a mean to end the berserker exploit through walls in WvWvW?
@ Steepledhat: Your reasoning is based on anectodict evidence which is not a solid foundation for an argument since it requires specific conditions rather than general application. It portrays a specific scenario in order to attempt to generalize your point and validate your argument. Down to a point, one might see it as “trolling”. I can see what your point is, that is to say, counterplay is somewhat necessary and the update provides more viable options, but the delivery ruins this argument because the form is fallacious.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fallacy
Its rly hard to play tankish mesmer but it can be done you need full toughness gear with condition damage, toughness will make you agro most of mobs and condition will help you hold that agro. Now for traits/skills best build would proly be sceptar/sword – staff that way you would have 2 counter ability. If you still insist going melee this build can work: http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/mesmer#2|2|2681|12684|4361|4513|8987|0|0|0|0|20|2209|1815|0|30|2220|1818|2217|15|1783|0|0|5|0|0|0|5|0|0|0|0|49963|49963|49963|49963|49963|0|0|0|0|0|0|
Some things are still optional or situational and you can swap Signet of Inspiration if you need condition remover or boon remover like Phantasmal disenchanter or Mantra of resolve.
Controlling aggro
Drawing enemy attacks, or tanking, can be potentially useful tactic for controlling both damage received by allies and enemy positioning. However, no profession or role is particularly durable against constant damage, and lack of potent direct heals makes drawing enemy aggression a dangerous effort.
To successfully control enemy aggression while staying alive, one must always remain on the move and continue to avoid enemy attacks as much as possible, while ensuring that other allies are able to continue dealing damage unhindered or leading enemies into range of allies and their pets, into traps or other area effects.
Taken from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tank#Controlling_aggro
Back to the topic, all you really need to maintain a high survivability rate(by opposition to the death rate) is a sword, sword training, illusionary defense, illusionary membrane and phantasmal healing. A torch, a pistol, a sword or a focus in the offhand provides you with circumstancial benefits be it longer living illusions like those staying at a distance or additionnal defense against projectile or incoming attacks.
The key part of the usual strat is as follows: Keep if possible at all times 3 phantasms.(You may wish to consider illusionary disenchanter and signet of illusion) and benefit from the continuous application of regeneration boon which also gives protection. With illusionary defense 9% of your damage taken is reduce so you take about 90% of your otherwise taken damage. Add to that the reduction of a constant protection boon, 33% of the 90% and you take 60% of the damage you would otherwise take, or total 40% damage reduction.
The rabid set tends to favor a balance playstyle so you might want to consider sharper image as well, especially with the torch, but cleric is the best option should you want to go with double sword/focus and full on defensive.
You may also wish to consider mimic against range opponent since only the first projectile deals you damage after which you are essentially invulnerable(block+reflect) for the rest of the duration.
(edited by deltanium.7543)
the good thing about burn is it’s usually low duration, so you don’t really have to worry about it overwritten by someone else’s
It’s true in a lot of cases but that doesn’t change the fact there is a pretty fatal design flaw there, elementalists can keep it up all be it not many go for pure + condition so there is little risk with them, engis can keep it up traited for burns on crits so can other mesmers and rarely if ever have it drop depending on condition duration+burning duration you can stack runes to get quite a lot not mention Rare Veggie Pizza is 40% extra duration by itself.
You will get your burning off a lot of the time but it blows when you run into the above.
Sad this does not applies to staff clones:
Illusions derive the following attributes directly from the mesmer: precision, power, condition damage, critical damage, armor, and healing. Illusions do not gain any benefit from the mesmer’s vitality, condition duration or boon duration. Additionally they are neither affected by the damage of the mesmer’s equipped weapon nor by any of the various non-stat effects of weapon sigils or armor runes.
Taken from the official wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusion
My questions is why our phantoms dont even use up the block on our target? The phantom fails to summon goes on full cool down but the aegis/block is not burned. Do other classes have this issue? Or did they not even think this nerf through all the way?
Also, why is the Iduelist and the Warden not considered a channel attack? Shouldnt they hit the target with the block up and keep attacking? If they are not changed back, then all channel attacks should be interrupted if they attack a target that has block up.(or is this already the case for some classes?) Why should mesmer be the only class that has channeled attacks follow different rules?
Does ele dragon tooth fail to appear and hit target if target has block up? (just curious as i dont know for sure).
To answer your first question: Because creating a phantasm deals no damage and should be considered as a summoning ability, yet isn’t.
To answer your second question: If you are referring to the phantasm’s attack, they are.
To answer your third and last question: No, the impending AoE appears and the block is dispelled upon contact with it resulting in null damage and righteously so.
Illusions are pets.
Here’s my full rundown as to why: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Point-blank-illusion-spawning-Proposal/first#post873678
(In retrospect, putting it under suggestion was not that great a plan)
Basically, and I believe that this is the big issue regarding illusion summoning, the failure state of summoning illusion is not having a summoned illusion. As a pet, summoning it under a failing scenario should result in a summoned illusion whose attack fails.
For instance, illusionary leap failure would result in not summoning the clone because it is treated as range attack. Treating it as a pet would result in the following: The clone would be summoned regadless and ITS attack, the leaping-crippling attack, would miss.
I would say the idea of spawning iZerker and iWarden on groundtarget would increase the skill-ceiling of the GS/focus mesmer class while making it unable to spawn it out of line of sight altough the first attack could land out of line of sight of their owner.
As a side note on Krathalos’ stealth as not being a core thief mechanic, I have this to say: You are wrong. No other profession benefits and capitalizes from stealth the same way as thief. They have stealth-exclusive “surprise attacks”, can be built around stealth mechanic with shadow arts tree and can gain stealth far more easily than any other profession. Just because you choose not to use it, which is a legitimate strategy(poison spec, trap spec, accrobatic, stealing spec, bleeding spec etc) but even so, you can still capitalize from it independantly from your spec. Most mesmers use illusions while not using shatter, yet shatter is not any less of a profession mechanic even if, say, necromancer can summon bone horror just to blow them up later in the same way a mesmer would shatter his illusion.
Here’s my solution: Make phantasm spawn like pet that sticks to a single target instead of a living condition or range attack.
Here are the details:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Point-blank-illusion-spawning-Proposal/first#post873678
iZerkers, iSwordsman, iDefender and iWarden are melee phantasms. Sure, you can cast them within a certain range exceeding the melee reach, but that’s just the nature of pets. Treating them as range attacks means their summoning can be block, blind and dodge, which is currently possible and hardly makes any sense.
As I stated earlier, illusions are pets. They act on their own set of behavior and the mesmer only retains a small amount of control over them(shatter). They have an ability and a cooldown on this ability. They have an health pool and can be killed. They cannot be dispelled. Their attacks can be dodges. They can be controlled, booned or afflicted by conditions. They can be slowed, outrunned, immobilized and be countered. They have a line of sight and a range by which they are effective.
Range attacks does not fit any of these characteristics.
Furthermore, pets like jagged horrors may die in one hit and they aren’t any less a pet because of their short life span.
Pets can attack people out of line of sight of their owner. Illusions may still attack out of line of sight of their owners, but may not spawn[obstructed]. No other pets behave like this. For instance, if a necromancer attacks a player that runs out of his line of sight, his undead army will track him.
The obvious problem that the recent patch up attempted to fix was to summon them in places inaccessible to their owners like through walls and on higher ground like castle walls . Having them summoned at the mesmer’s location would negate this issue without shifting their nature to something more akin to a living range attack or a living condition.
As for the class specific resource argument, wouldn’t you agree that a ranger’s pet would be their class specific resource?
As for the summoning of illusions while remaining under hiding in sPvP, it is still easily feasible using decoy.
The main issue related to illusions behavior upon summoning is regarding their failure state that both engages cooldown, applies no effect and places no illusion on the field which is highly frustrating and unreliable, bugs aside.
You can’t deal with stuff you don’t recognize.
I’m afraid ANet may be unaware, and that these kinds of threads never reach them.@Deltanium
A few major points you seem to have missed:
- Poison and Burning only stack in duration, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s 1 or 10 people throwing Burning at you, you can use a condition removal 5 seconds later and all the combined effort goes to waste.
- Combo Finisher: Projectile is either mostly used with weapons that focus on Power builds OR only has 20% chance, wich means you aren’t going to be doing crazy condition damage because of a 5-second Combo Field: Fire/Poison.
- Currently, 5 players applying 2 seconds of Burn each result in 10 seconds of Burn
With my idea, 5 players applying 2 seconds of Burn each result in 5 stacks of 2 seconds each. Both the damage and the durations stack individually.
With my idea, if a player applies 2x 2 seconds of Burn, the duration stacks to 4, but the damage remains the same.It is not fair for players to be penalized for using the same type of condition damage, whether it’s Bleed, Poison, Burn or Confusion.
1. Yes, I know. The aforementioned scenario of stacking intensity relatively to bleeding was meant to illustrate the application of your theory and how it goes out of hand pretty rapidly given a focus and a combo field. 5 being the nominal group size in dungeon.
2. Combo finisher projectile and whirl may inflict burning and poison. The same projectile/whirl on water in regards to regeneration. If it’s attainable through a combo field, stacking its intensity will result in a far stronger damage/healing output to be reasonably countered. Furthermore, stacking poison duration is intentionally to prevent someone from receiving full healing for a longer period of time. The damage is rather irrelevant.
3. Yes. I understand your idea. You want everyone to get 1 stack of condition that stacks in duration so that their damage output does not suffer as a result of the stronger always being the only one contributing since the effect of the others will only occur later in the one and only condition duration. I understand all that. I play a condition-based spec and fundamentally dislike having rivalry because of that. However, I still disagree with you because of the combo field exploit mentioned earlier. It’s still somewhat manageable in small group, but consider the impact in WvWvW where every field may be used by about 50 people at a time.
Also, confusion is fine.
In term of comparison, burning is 8 to 6 times as powerful as a stack of bleed as condition damage increases and poison is twice as strong as bleeding for equal duration. Both can be produced through combo fields. Therefore, per combo fields in a group of 5 person, one could produce the effect of potentially 40 to 30 stacks of bleeding should burning stack. Again, other than confusion with combo field: Ether, no condition damage or healing over time was meant to stack in a manner that you propose.
In addition to that, you have to bear in mind that not only condition damage stacking characters would deal combo based conditions, making the power-based characters even more valuable than before.
Furthermore, about half of the auto-attack projectile finishers have a condition component, meaning a projectile built may be condition-damage based.
I agree that the current method of inflicting conditions is not lending itself to a great synergy, but having more stacking would go to the other extreme.
GS is a ranged weapon- having iZerker spawn next to you then start spinning would be a complete waste of damage as it has to reach the target first. This would be ok if we didn’t have LoS to the target, cos at least we would have something to use instead of the ‘You fail’ with an ‘obstructed’.
Illusionary wave’s range is limited to close quarter yet belongs to the GS skill-set. It is justified as a kiting tool, hence the pushback.
The same can be said for iBerserker since he has a slowing effect which would also be a justification for the kiting functionality. Limiting its range for the first spin wouldnt be that much of a stretch.
From personal experience, a power based melee will deal more damage than a condition based melee/range, a condition-based melee/range may deal more damage than a power-based range and having two condition based character is of little to no synergical advantage.
In addition to that, I feel that most combofields are rendered useless if they cause a condition to the target, ether being the only exception because the odds of having 15 confusion stacks is very unlikely.
I am not entirely sure regarding your solution, especially since some conditions, burning especially, could be devastating should you put a combo field fire that everyone may interact with. Furthermore, the illusionary warlock could be exponentially more powerful should his damage scales with other peoples condition stacking.
Nice effort but I will disagree on that one.
Well, for a brief comparison, mesmer pets dies after the target dies.
Between casting your pet before every enemies and casting them only once they die, it is pretty obvious that you have the large end of the stick.
Plus, the flesh golem does regenerate health while out of combat.
Compared to the engineer’s turret and the immobile ranger’s spirit, you are still ahead.
If you have a decent crit chance and maximize your initiative regen, you can make a spec that allows you to use unload ad nauseam. 8 20% projectile finishers tends to be of use with skills like smokescreen and shadow refuge. I like it greatly in PvE since it provides support and synergy with combo fields from a safe distance. However, you sacrfice burst for consistency meaning it might not be as useful as a quick burst out of the shadows in PvP.
This is my proposal:
Make illusions spawn near the mesmer.
Reason: Illusions are pets. They act on their own set of behaviour and the mesmer only retains a small amount of control over them(shatter). They have an ability and a cooldown on this ability. They have an health pool and can be killed. They cannot be dispelled. Their attacks can be dodges. They can be controlled, booned or afflicted by conditions. They can be slowed, outrunned, immobilized and be countered. They have a line of sight and a range by which they are effective.
Illusions are not conditions, HOWEVER, using them out of line of sight, blind or dodged will result in a failure. They deal damage regularely. Some of them spawns on the target. They end their effects upon the target’s death.
While I fully agree and understand that iBerserker was broken because it could spawn in inaccessible areas(behind walls), the recent patch made them more akin to conditions than pets. Yet, they are not conditions. So, to elaborate on my proposal and hopefully fix the whole line of sight/range issue make:
1. Illusionary leap create a clone that jumps 600 toward the ennemy. If the ennemy is not inbound, the first crippling attack fails and the clone behaves like any other afterward.
2. Illusionary bersereker create a phantasm at the mesmer’s location and using whirlwind toward the target. If the target is not reachable by the berserker when he spawns, he misses. If the target is obstructed by a wall, he will not cross it.
3. Illusionary desenchanter create a phantasm that launches an attack who will miss if the ennemy is not within the 900 unit distance.
4. Illusionary warden create a phantasm that will close in on the ennemy and use his attack when at the right distance and then remain immobile for the duration of the attack.
I believe this would fix any problems regarding illusion spawning problems.
Objections? Comments? Support?
(edited by deltanium.7543)
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