Guild Wars 2

It’s possible that he had Greatsword on swap during our duals but the only weapon I remember seeing during his rapid melee bursts was the 1H sword.

I saw him use a longbow ONLY once. It was right after a fast escape when he turned to re-engage after leaving combat. That means he could have just swapped it in from his inventory.

I really wish I’d noted the combat log during our duels so I had more information to present but unfortunately I didn’t think about it at the time. It’s possible he was some kind of Direct Damage / Bleed hybrid as he was pulling in very reasonable direct damage from all those sword slashes.

Greetings warriors. I’ll put two things on the table right off the bat:

1) I do not currently play a warrior and I know very little about the class

2) I’m not here to troll. I dueled a very talented warrior recently in WvW and am interested in backwards engineering his tactics to get a loose idea of what kind of build he’s running

Here’s my best assessment of my opponent based on several attempts at taking him 1v1 in WvW.

1) Heavy use of conditions (mostly bleeding but I don’t recall if there were others)

2) Weapons were Sword in mainhand (can’t remember what off-hand was but I’m leaning toward shield). Weapon swap was Longbow.

3) This guy was wicked fast. Tons of mobility, gap closers and it looked as though he had QUICKNESS up nearly 100% of the time during our battles. Note I said QUICKNESS, not SWIFTNESS although it could have been a combination of both. Bottom line is this guy was always right in my face, swinging his sword really rapidly and I wasn’t able to escape. Knockbacks worked but only for a split second before he stood up again with a nearly instantaneous gap closer.

4) Here’s the real kicker. When 2-3 allies showed up he was able to turn and run faster than any warrior I’ve ever seen. He had 2-3 leaps or utilities that he chained back to back to create massive distance between myself and a few allies.

If he’d done this once or twice I could chalk it up to luck but he managed to flee to safety on at least 4-5 different occasions using the same 2-3 skill combo.

My assessment of his skill usage (without looking at the combat log because I forgot to do so):

1) He used maybe 1-3 skills as his primary melee attacks.

2) He never switched weapons during any of our encounters. I only saw him with a long bow in passing later on in the afternoon.

3) He was very fast as I’ve said before and even with all my dodges, speed enhancers, knockback and interrupts I still couldn’t shake away from melee range for more than 1-2 seconds at a time.

4) He ALWAYS had an escape plan using at least 2-3 skills that were either on reserve strictly for escaping or were on very rapid cooldowns so he could use them in rotation on demand.

So yeah, dude was good, stomped me out on multiple occasions but I believe you learn the most from players who are better than you so I kept going back for more in hopes that I’d be able to improve my own skills and builds.

I’ve faced many warriors but I’ve never seen this kind of mobility, speed and condition damage from a Warrior before so it’s certainly got my curiosity.

Any help in nailing down what build you all think he may have been running would be a great help. As I said I know very little about the class so it would take me ages to sift through all the build options to come up with my own best guess.

I really don’t see the issue here. They fixed an obvious bug and achieved the following effects:

• Improved Chaos Armors “proc on hit” effect by adding Blind and Protection as originally intended
• Made staff #4 randomized

If Chaos Armor works properly now the blinds alone will probably save you more than the protection. Confusion and Cripple do nothing to mitigate direct damage.

Blind and Protection proc on hit now which gives us 2 random forms of damage mitigation that didn’t exist before. I can see this change being very effective against thieves using Basilisk Venom. They often strike so quickly that they won’t notice 33% of their strikes are missing due to blind AND/OR they are doing 33% less damage thanks to Protection. Obviously there’s a lot of RNG in there that I’m not accounting for but it’s a very realistic example.

MAYBE staff #4 could be improved with either a shorter cooldown or longer Chaos Armor duration. Even without those changes though there’s nothing to cry about here.

drongas.4189:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|c.1g.h4.c.1g.h3|1.0.h2|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.e13.2s.e13.3s.e17.2s.e13.3s.e17.2s.e13|a3.u42a.0.p45.5|2e.1|33.34.35.3m.0|e
Effective Power 4344.06
Effective Health (EHP) 22066
Damage Reduction 10.35%
Reference Armor 1836

btw. dueling X not so good for phantasms. i just copy/paste ur build with small change

@drongas – Just realized that you already mentioned dueling X (clone on evade) being less than ideal for Phantasm builds. Sorry for repeating that in my earlier post.

Given that, I took a stab at a pure phantasm build with your build as a starting point. I kept an equal distribution of Zerker + Soldiers gear, tweaked the traits a bit and swapped out the sigils:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|c.1g.h2.d.1g.h1|1.0.h2|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.e13.2s.e13.3s.e17.2s.e13.3s.e17.2s.e13|a3.p42.a0.p58.0|2e.1|33.34.35.3m.0|e

Effective Power – 4601.21 ( +257.15 )
Effective Health – 23144 ( +1078 )
Damage Reduction – 14.53% ( +4.18% )
Reference Armor – 1836 ( unchanged )

Here we show gains in effective power and critical chance with the added benefits of:

• increased damage reduction
• projectile reflection via focus skills
• maneuverability via swiftness (focus #4)
• condition cleansing via Arcane Thievery

I’ll be testing it out this evening as it seems to be a bit of an improvement on the toughness based phantasm build I’ve been running recently.

I agree that to TRULY max out effective power we need to go full zerker but as others have said, you can’t kill stuff when you’re dead =]

Sure. Not disputing its usefulness in both offensive and defensive shattering.

My phantasm build currently uses Decoy for escape which arguably doesn’t belong in a Phantasm build either. I only use it defensively when my heal or phantoms are on cooldown. I prefer it over Veil because Decoy has a much shorter cool down for roughly the same benefits in a 1vX situation.

Utilities aside though, the clone on evade trait alone is enough to destroy the damage potential of any Phantasm build. That’s really all I was getting at.

Wolfield.9812:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|c.1g.h4.c.1g.h3|1.0.h2|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|2s.e13.2s.e13.3s.e17.2s.e13.3s.e17.2s.e13|a3.u42a.0.p45.5|2e.1|33.34.35.3m.0|e
Effective Power 4344.06
Effective Health (EHP) 22066
Damage Reduction 10.35%
Reference Armor 1836

Ok can anyone get higher than this. Open to any build, to find the top stats possible on this site. Any other problems with trying to have an interesting thread of theory crafting, just let me know.

This is more of a shatter build than a phantasm build. With Decoy, Mirror Images and Clone on Evade you’ll be overwriting your phantasms VERY frequently, thus reducing their overall impact on the battle.

That said, it’s a good looking build … just not sure it meets the requirements set forth by the OP.

I play as both a thief and mesmer (they are my only two lvl 80’s and I love them both). That said, if you down a mesmer in a 1v1 with 3 phantasm up and you have less than 50% health you have 2 options in my opinion:

1) Stealth Stomp, ideally with Refuge or Powder Shot + Heartseeker combo. The key is that you need to remain in stealth for the entire duration of the stomp otherwise the phantasms will mow you down.

2) Run out of range long enough to heal up / re-stealth so you can withstand the barrage of damage coming in while channeling the stomp. If they manage to get up before you can stomp them out try to spike them back down quickly as they’ll be low on health.

As a D/D thief a third option is also viable … chain Cloak and Dagger alternating between the enemy and the phantasms. Most thieves can one shot a Phantasm with CnD. When timed properly you’ll reenter stealth immediately without taking any damage. By alternating between player and phantasms you continue to interrupt their healing capabilities in the downed state.

If all else fails, stealth to reset the battle and then stalk them until you are able to regain the element of surprise. You are a thief afterall =]

@Zumi – I love that you are running GS + Staff here. This is very similar to a build I solo roam with in WvW. It’s really fun to roam into a group of allies that are lightly outnumbered and then turn the tide of the entire battle with the boon sharing. Signet of Inspiration really shines in that regard.

One trick, although it’s a bit of a novelty, is stacking 6 Runes of Lyssa in my armor, popping Mass Invisibility + Signet of Inspiration. When my allies reappear they immediately have all boons for 5 or more seconds (depending on what boons I already had before the Lyssa runes triggered).

First of all I want to say you are welcome on these forums any time. Your grammar and manner are both excellent, a welcome departure from many of the trolls that come here to gripe about this fantastic game.

Like you, I’ve played my mesmer since launch and I’m sitting on no less than 3 sets of gear that I swap out frequently depending one what kind of role I feel like playing in WvW on a nightly basis. I’ve run all of the most popular builds on multiple occassions:

Shatter Cat
Flimp Conditions
Power Mantras
Phantasm Spam
Zerg Support
etc.

Up until the 50% confusion nerf my absolute favorite was Flimp Conditions because of it’s survivability (very high toughness, stealth and long range blinks). Before the confusion nerf it was very common for me to go 1v3 against small groups of enemies. There was enough AoE condition damage with shatter F2 to down people relatively quickly.

Since the nerf though I’ve found that it no longer shines as the solid WvW Roaming build that it once was because I’m not taking enemies down quickly enough to survive more than 1 or 2 enemies at a time. Many mesmers abandoned or seriously altered their condition builds as a result of that patch.

Since then I’ve jumped around between different Shatter Cat variants (still very much refining my own strategy and mechanics). The “twitch” play style is far more aggressive than the conditions builds I’m used to but I can say without hesitation that when played well a good Shatter Mesmer is one of the most formidable opponents you will face on any battlefield. If you do manage to survive their initial burst you are immediately faced with the daunting task of catching them within 20 seconds or so before they are back in your face with another burst.

Better players than myself may have different opinions / experiences in dealing with Shatter Cats but I always tread lightly around them and try to keep an escape strategy hotkeyed =]

BOOMERANG /trolled

On a serious note though, the SB nerf sucks but honestly it doesn’t feel like a game changer. Yes, it sucks to be the only class in the game without a 1200 range weapon and I’ll be shocked if we get one mainly because of all the gap closers we have.

Both Steal and Scorpion Wire were improved with reduced CD. Shadow Trap was improved with some additional mobility / utility. They didn’t remove any of our existing closers either.

Seems to me ANET is telling us that thieves are meant to be played up close and personal with a sprinkling of 900 range and ton’s of mobility. I’m OK with that.

I agree it would be great to get a new 1200 range weapon so I don’t have to roll a Warrior to play as a sniper but in the end I still get a lot of variety out of my thief as she is now so I’m not holding my breath for the rifle / longbow update.

Oh, nice. I was looking for some additional “preview” coverage but I hadn’t seen this video before. Thanks so much for sharing!

I can say I’m equally exited about both back skins now. Loving the most of the skins in this new content.

Absolutely. I didn’t mean to imply that I wouldn’t strive to obtain both. It’s just that my main is already rocking a very complimentary color scheme on her armor which makes the ones featured in the video more desirable.

That said I’m hopeful they will both be animated with the “flapping” motion but since I’ve only seen the “rare” ones in motion I don’t want to get my hopes up on the shattered version just yet.

Good to know. Being able to buy the rare one with candies is a nice option although it’ll still be a grind for candy …. just a more predictable grind than RNG =]

Thanks for your answers.

I was afraid of that. I’m guessing the rarer of the two items will have higher quality art and animations associated with it as well. The color alone makes a huge difference for me as I much prefer the look of the wings featured in the video. Yay grinding =/

Maybe I’m reading into this too much but I wanted to post the question here in case anyone knew for sure. Are “Holographic Dragon Wings” and “Holographic Shattered Dragon Wings” different items?

Based on the descriptions below it sounds like they are 2 separate items which can be obtained in different ways. One sounds like a rare drop and the other sounds like a Meta Achievement reward. I hope I’m wrong since RNG items are such a pain to obtain. I’ve quoted the descriptions below for convenience.

From the Dragon Bash info site :

Holographic Dragon Wings
This dragon wing back item is only available as a very rare drop in the Dragon Ball Arena and throughout Tyria during the celebration. Ambitious adventurers who collect a large amount of Dragon Bash candy can obtain these exclusive holographic festival wings.

Holographic Shattered Dragon Wings
Dedicated festival goers who earn the Dragon Bash Meta Achievement will receive this imposing back item – a set of holographic Shattered dragon wings!

Many thanks for any insight you all have.

BobbyT.7192:

Try the moonshank, it pretty big for a dagger, looks really nice and fairly cheap. On my norn it looks like it could be an asura’s greatsword.

I second this recommendation. Moonshanks look amazing on Asura thieves. Their color goes really well with a lot of different dye combinations too. Black, red, orange, yellow and grey all contrast well with the Moonshank skin.

Very entertaining video. I have an idea of the build you are using but as many would probably agree, having a link to the “official” build would be greatly appreciated.

It looks like a lot of fun so I’ll certainly be giving it a spin.

This may have been suggested already and if so, I apologize for the duplicate post.

I would like to see an item in the Gem Store that allows you to REMOVE bindings from eligible items. This would be very useful to players who have either accidentally equipped an item or for those who wear a nice item until they find something better.

If priced right in the gem store it would allow players to sell valuable items instead of being forced to salvage them after use AND it would also prevent spammed usage on lower quality items.

Obviously there would be limitations. Karma Gear, Legendary Weapons, Ascended Gear and other items that can’t currently be sold on the AH can’t be unbound.

Unique, Exotic and Rare drops are the most obvious targets here.

Thanks for all the great content FLIMP. Like many others I’ve learned some really fantastic WvW tactics from these videos. I’m getting to the point where I want to start recording and studying some of my own battles to help improve my game even more.

Do you use Fraps like many others or can you recommend something better for recording in-game footage.

Keep up the great content.