Guild Wars 2

I know some of you think shattering isn’t very good, and in a lot of situations I agree with you. But some people like it, some people don’t know how to use it and some people just haven’t got around to using it yet.

For any of you interested in learning, understanding or just reading about Shatters. You should checkthis out.

For any other guides you can just go to my website. There’s a fair few up now with more always coming. Just use the top tabs to navigate easily.

EasymodeX.4062:

As a minor sidenote: based on the logic of the scaling to “multiple” illusions, the 100/135/175 seems counter-intuitive. A 100/145/175 would make more sense.

Generally, most of the tooltips are a bit off, so. Shrug?

The tooltips are only off in real terms, but not usually in mechanical terms. The numbers on tooltips need to be understood as relational figures rather than real ones. The 88 damage on Cry of Frustration doesn’t mean 88 damage. It’s a value which represents a more complicated set of math. Simply put 88 damage would be 88% of the value of 100 damage and this is why it’s important because on Mind Wrack the actual tooltip values are -wrong- in proportion.

As for counter-intuitive? Yes. But that’s the ratio they put so… shrug.

“Close enough” is not a particularly useful term when you’re looking at data that is demonstrating a possible diminishing returns. You say you’re not convinced and that’s fine. I haven’t provided remotely enough data to convince anyone yet including myself.

However the data is what it is. One importance is in 8 sets of data with 15 events in each I not once averaged below 152% for the 2 illusion shatter. That is statistically significant and strongly suggests the ratio is not 150% but higher, more likely around the 155% mark. Simple common sense says that if the true value was 150% I’d be getting both above and below that mark. But only above? That gets exponentially less likely as you do more tests and I did quite a few. Still possible? of course but really not very likely at this point.

The 200% mark again is true for higher data. In 4 sets of high end power with 15 events in each I never deviated more than 2% from 200%. However in 4 sets of low end power I deviated by a massive 7-9%. This again is statistically significant.

They’re not close enough. They’re clearly demonstrating different numbers. The question isn’t whether or not the data is correct. The question is whether or not there’s enough data for it to have been wildly skewed.

I’ve seen the thread you linked and it is part of why I started to do some actual testing. There is no real data that demonstrates any of the conclusions drawn there. Whether or not the data actually exists is not known to me, but it’s not public and when conclusions differ from my own data it is not very helpful in its current state. Not only that but the thread is relating on a set of variables that my data doesn’t cover, specifically in relation to Illusionary Persona and so it’s just not a very good comparison at all.

TL:DR? Their conclusions don’t appear to have any numbers behind them, and contradict my data in front of me. Doesn’t mean I’m right and their wrong. But it means it needs a closer look.

It’s about the fact that the tooltip inaccurately portrays the relative amounts of damage. If you read the post on my site you’ll note that I indicate the tooltips ratio at 100%/135%/175% when in reality the actual damage is 100%/155%/200+%(roughly)

Indeed. It’s why I’m hesitating to call any firm conclusions other than the fact that tooltip is wrong, and there’s something wiggy going on. Further higher power tests demonstrate a lock around 200% for the 3 illusions wheras I’m hitting 207-209% with less power.

Heya folks. In the process of writing up some builds guides I stumbled onto the fact that the Mind wrack tooltip is…actually…completely wrong. I did some theorycrafting and pulled out the real values as well as some interesting numbers pointing out either a diminishing returns or a cap that affects the ratio of damage on 3 illusion shatters.

The math is over on my site as usual but here’s the main thing.

The Mind Wrack tooltip being wrong isn’t too big a deal. There being a diminishing returns cap however could very much be a factor in shatter builds. WAY WAY more data is needed and a hell of a lot more maths needs to be done before any conclusions can be made about the nature of this, and there’s still a strong possibility that the data I have is simply skewed due to the random nature although I’m fairly confident in the statistical significance of the tests but I think it’s something people should think about. I imagine that this mechanic is a way to manage Mesmer burst via shatter in PvP. If that’s the case knowing precisely how the numbers work could allow us to optimise ourselves around a certain amount of power.

Asuran. Every time.

You ask why?

Because….asurans are better, at anything. Everything.

Have you SEEN our city? It’s a floating cube powered by magic and SCIENCE.

zexion.5842:

It’s sad that the only good parts on your guide about the scepter are sugar coated.

Here are the damage numbers with 0 power and 0 condition damage for Attack 1 for each of our weapons. I did not take in other attacks like scepters death beam or swords flurry because those are different skills and different effects.

GS at 900 range (because scepters range is 900): 100 for the first hit, 200 for the second and 300 for the third totaling 600 damage for one auto attack (GS hits 3 times as fast as scepter hits one time).

Staff: 111 for the initial hit. 298 damage over 7 seconds for the bleed and 328 for 1 second for the burning. Making it total 439 if you get burning and 409 over 7 seconds if you get the bleed (stacks in intensity). This attacks faster then the scepter though and bounces.

Sword: 202 for the first 2 hits, 336 for the last hit and removes a boon. Attacks considerably fast requires melee though.

Scepter: 168 for the first 2 hits, 252 for the last hit summons a clone in melee that does 0 damage. Does the clone make up the damage? No not really, it might buy you an extra hit in PvE but that’s not the point, were talking about its damage. You can shatter it but it has no other clone generation, tbh its one of our slowest clone generating skills and if the clone dies (since its being spawned in melee) yea it took a hit for you but we lost the damage, it doesn’t make up the damage.

Yea sorry scepter is bad. The clone doesn’t make up for its damage and if you do something else in the middle of the chain you lost the clone. There really is no reason to use scepter as anything other then a support weapon.

That awkward moment when you somehow think that other weapons generate a clone faster than once every 4 seconds.

Also, you don’t AUTOMATICALLY lose the clone. You have a 2 second window to start casting the third hit, which is actually a prettykittenlong time.

Also, that is not how you do math. As it is pointed out the greatsword hits linearly, not compoundedly. It doesn’t suddenly do 100, then 200 and then 300. It does 100, then 100, oh and then 100.

Also that awkward moment when you don’t bother calculating Shatter damage into the equation since as I clearly state, that is part of the design process of the weapon.

That other awkward moment when you don’t consider the fact that weapon scaling is different for the stats and in actuality Scepter scales slightly stronger than any other weapon off power, for instance.

That further other awkward moment when you ignore the point I make about how it needs appropriate trait support.

I really don’t mind people disliking things. I really don’t. However please, if you’re going to argue use ACTUAL theory, ACTUAL math, ACTUAL data. Do that, come back to us, present your case and I’ll listen.

(Also note your damage calculations about the staff are laughable since there is absolutely no indicator of frequency of conditions, nor percentages of application and as such are no measure of damage in any relative way other than its potential.)

By your numbers, corrected for well…math. The GS would land 900 damage in the same time that the Scepter would land 588 damage + 1/3rd 3 clone shatter value which is approximately 300 damage in the circumstances you laid out, although very dependant on timings, although all of this is completely spurious and unscientific adhoc anecdotl testing and somewhat meaningless.

They stack, are intended to stack, at least.

A lot of them don’t work right though.

Phantasmal Haste doesn’t work right either, sometimes increasing the rate of attack on phantasms MASSIVELY, othertimes not at all.

A lot of people are disliking scepters right now, although there’s a fair amount of misinformation going about them as well as some somewhat over exagerrated claims.

Coincidentally I just finished my Scepter 101 guide introducing the weapon over on my site.

Ultimately I agree that it’s an underperforming weapon but I disagree that it’s an underperforming weapon for all the reasons people are throwing around. It’s underperforming because firstly it’s trait support just doesn’t -work-.

Malicious Sorcery only affects the third ability. As such both 1 and 2 are underperforming to Working as Intended. Similarly Illusionists Celerity doesn’t affect 1 properly at all.

Next up is the fact that people aren’t using Scepter in a shatter build that often. Shatter builds are it’s primary focus. The confusion build is definitely viable but it’s actually an off-shoot of the main focus which is a pure power based Shatter.

No other weapon can, just off abilities, generate 3 clones(and some change) for every Mind Wrack. Set up right you can roll 3 clones off every Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration. Nothin else comes close to the level of shatter that provides.

This brings us to the next point : Shatter just isn’t working very well right now. Our clones are so squishy and they spawn in melee that it’s only really viable against the simpler early game monsters and nigh on useless in any PvP scenario. The obvious conclusion? The scepter just isn’t designed with PvP in mind much. Can it be used? sure, but it’s not going to compare to the weapons that most definitely were built with structured pvp in mind.

When built appropriately, the scepter can actually out damage any other weapon, including the sword in short to mid-length fights. The progression is basically

Short = Sword
Middle = Scepter/GS
Long = Staff

Although of course, it is considerably more complicated than this.

So i’ll say this. Dislike the scepter? Good, it needs work.
Think it’s a horrible weapon because you can’t stack confusion until the cows come to someone elses home because they’re that confused? Bad, that’s not it’s intent. It’s a combination weapon that’s meant to simultaniously promote shatter and confusion builds. It’s not meant to be just one or the other. If the traits that support it actually worked it could be absolutely brutal. They just don’t right now.

There is a small but perceptable speed decrease upon illusions dying. Not the best test but I appear to have lost my stopwatch at the moment. :|

Let me test it and get back to you.

EasymodeX.4062:

You can stack it to 25, I just wasn’t at all clear on the fact that’s very hard to do and only doable with 3 clones and time warp. But you’re right 100% about the ambiguity there so I’ve clarified it a little bit. I’ll be going more into how conditions work a little bit in teh future.

Hum … 9 + 4 + 1 + ~6 + 3 + 1 + 1 = 23, so close to 25 stacks without Time Warp.

Lot of effort though!

Lots of effort for really not much benefit, unfortunately. Vulnerability is just not a very good Condition when you’re on your own. If you’re with others it stacks to 25 effortless anyways.

As it stands now, it is by definition an exploit. The fact you can get 100% of the abilities effects with a 4 second cooldown and not a 30 second cooldown is evidence of this. A big exploit? Not really but an exploit nonetheless.

That’s definitely a bug then. It’s widespread reported as working for people. I tested it myself. I would recommend going to the heart of the mists and refunding your talents and just spending 10 points and getting the talent and checking if it’s up. There’s a possibility your particular talent setup is creating a conflict somewhere, wiping it.

If it is that’s really valuable information for us to have to avoid replicating it until Anet fix it.

From the information you’ve given, I’ll start with some things to ensure.

You’re using sword/focus orpistol and greatsword.

All three of those weapons scale fantastically with power and you’re never going to make a bad choice by having more power with that setup -regardless- of playstyle.

Trait support would generally focus around traits for your weapons and then specific traits to boost your playstyle. If you don’t shatter. Don’t get shatter traits, etc.

Nretep.2564:

Well, after reading various guides, I also decided to try out the only melee weapon for Mesmers. Now I use Scepter/Torch and Sword/sword.

The blocking skill (sword offhand slot 4) it pretty much the same as scepters blocking skill (slot 2).

The main advantage of of swords is (imo) the attack speed. They are slot faster than the scepter or staff. The attack speed is important for my bleeding build. The trait “illusion crit causes bleeding” is awesome and the base of it.
Personally I don’t like phantasms much since you need to cast them and they usually burst + wait. During the waiting time, illusions would cause bleeding. So instead of “fury for phantasms I chose +50 precision with a sword”.

The only 2(~3) reasons for casting phantasms (for me) are:
1. Illusions grant regeneration (trait). Fits with the iSwordman because he’s in melee range of the target yet, 2m away to not die so soon.
2. 50% damage reduction from iDefender.

I really like the way Melee Mesmer works, I intend on doing a full blog post about it in the not too distant future as I think it’s really quite a fun way of playing.

Carighan.6758:

Nice, thank you.

There’s a small error in the #1 description, Vulnerability stacks in intensity, not duration.
In other words you can’t stack it to 25 on your own, as the first stack will expire after 6,5s, independent of the other stacks.

You can stack it to 25, I just wasn’t at all clear on the fact that’s very hard to do and only doable with 3 clones and time warp. But you’re right 100% about the ambiguity there so I’ve clarified it a little bit. I’ll be going more into how conditions work a little bit in teh future.

Hey folks. I’ve just finished up another weapon guide over here.

This one is about the sword both Main Hand and Offhand and means there’s just the scepter and the dreaded water weapons to go.

If you want a guide on a different weapon just hit the Mesmer 101 tab and enjoy.

And of course the fact that people just don’t tally the damage conditions do as real damage since it’s fairly difficult to corrolate and keep tabs on a lot of small ticking numbers compared to a big multi K swing from a greatsword on something else.

This is not a nerf. This is a buff.

It is a refreshing 10 second boon on the Phantasm. Every 10 seconds the boon gets refreshed. What this means is if it’s stolen it will be back within 10 seconds instead of say waiting 2 hours.

I repeat again. This is a buff. Test it for yourselves if you must.

Tested : Yes it is. This is thus in no way a nerf. This is in fact a buff since when it’s stolen it’s replaced within the next 10 seconds.

I was under the impression it was a refreshing boon every 10 seconds and up for 10 seconds?

StickAndMove.6419:

No one seems to be getting it right, so I’ll take a whack at it. The word “illusion” describes both clones and phantasms. Phantasms and clones alike are considered illusions.

Clones, according to arenanet, supposedly only replace other clones. Phantasms will replace either.

A clone will replace a phantasm if you have 3 phantasms out. This is tested and proven by many people in many different situations.

Diretemus.7235:

Itolis.8590:

Also keep in mind that some mesmers (myself included) actually use the scepter for its intended purpose… to spam clones for shattering and fodder. To change that would affect many condition mesmers such as I play in Spvp. I would suggest a different wep probably geatsword as it doesn’t naturally generate any clones and you get an additional phant out of it.

I’m confused though. How would making Scepter 1 not override a 3 Phantasm team affect the functionality of a Shatter/Fodder build? Removing this override does not change the fundamentals of the weapon.

Also, Greatsword 2 creates a clone on hit. I have not yet tested whether it would remove one of 3 live Phantasm Berserkers.

The issue with this is it would completely neuter any reactive clone generating abilities.
You couldn’t just stop the scepter from overwriting phantasms. It would either be no clones overwriting or all clones overwriting. If you stop clones from overwriting phantasms you can say goodbye to half the sPvP builds.

A) A 4th illusion will always replace an illusion.
B) A clone will always try to replace a clone, if it can.
C) A phantasm will always replace a clone, if it can.

Thus, the only situation in which a clone will replace a phantasm is if you have 3 phantasms out, unfortunately and I do believe that that is working as intended.

(although yes it has a long ramp up time due to the cooldown but when it’s a fight that lasts 10minutes + it’s not really a big deal)

it is not 20-25k over 8 seconds. It is 20-25k over 5 seconds, with a 1.6 second cooldown. This puts it at 3k-3.7k dps. It does NOT account for your own damage which can rotate into Chaos Storm or Blurred frenzy and sword spam.

I didn’t say you can spawn a warden every 7 seconds. I said they attack every 6.6 seconds.

I explicitly pointed out the situation which does arrive. I’m talking Legendary mobs. We’re talking dragons. We’re talking champion group events that take 10 minutes for 40 people to kill.

And yes, you can easily get 3 wardens up against dragons and keep them alive due to clever positioning if you so wanted too.

your right there Kelesti, I did misread you and I apologise for that. Although I don’t think weakness changes anything really.

I think if you took away the vulnerable time after cast, it would be a nice engagement tool, and occasionally useful against clumped up foes not looking at you. I’m not saying it would be a great skill at that point, but a passable one.

Hey there folks. Got another blog for you over at Mesmermesmerised, this time it’s a look at offhands and how to utilise them effectively.

Check it out.

You generate cripple via chaos armour. It’s a logical explanation if not necessarily the right one.

I think the easiest implementation of this would be to simply have a purple orb for phantasm and a pink orb for clone. I don’t need to know what phantasm is up, I should know that already, but it’s nice to not necesarily haave to keep track.

The only real problem I find with Mind stab is it’s post animation…animation. Which people are hitting escape to dodge out of anyways. If they fix that, problem solved.

I would put forward the idea that anyone intentionally doing that would be exploiting a bug in the coding. A small bug but a bug nonetheless.

The mesmer does a LOT of damage with their auto attack abilities, especially a condition damage based one. The longer your illusions stay alive the more desirable condition damage would be, in addition. You throw in some conditions on death and you get to a point where the enemy can’t afford to attack you and just has to run away.

As I said, it’s a really neat idea but I don’t think it could ever be balanced.

The biggest trick to handling Dynamic events and aoe is using a shatter build and focus targetting those shatters into clumps of enemies. Because your clones lock onto their target upon creation and will shatter on that target regardless of your current target you can send 3 clones in seperate areas to do some nice splash damage, and that 1.5-2k splash is usually enough to tag.

I’m not saying it’s easy, and it’s certainly not as easy as say warriors or elementalists. But it’s doable.

No, I am not talking about those things although they’re all pretty solid builds.

We’re talking full power precision Phantasmal haste triple warden that throw out 6-7k a piece(a lot more with some nice crit streaks). Now note I did mention a highly specific situation.

The dynamic events where you have a very strong central enemy. Centaur chieftains, Champion risen abominations, etc etc that don’t move about. (mostly due to the mass of melee players there). You drop 3 wardens and smile.

Phantasmal haste currently is…not working right for Wardens where instead of it reducing a 14 attack cooldown from activation to 11.2 seconds it reduces it to 6.6 seconds. As such you can have 3 phantasmal wardens out doing IMMENSE damage over a very short time. They can have a good 50%+ crit chance with Phantasmal Fury and when you’re rocking 2k power they just hit so incredibly hard, and they do it in an aoe.

Note : That will be sustained 20-25k on one target, as well as up to 20-25k on other targets depending on how close to the center they are but to be honest they’re never getting that close.

You want data and builds? There you go. Is it specific? yes. Does it happen? Definitely. Is it applicable in dungeons? Hell no but we weren’t talking about that.

Generally speaking it’s good manners to ask for the data before presuming people don’t have it.

Okay. I get what people are saying here but it’s important to get actual timings if we’re going to take these things seriously to Anet

Null field : 5 seconds (cooldown 45 seconds as intended)
Portal : 15 seconds from first placement. (cooldown 45 seconds instead of 60)

I think, thematically, the cripple fits the idea of the greatsword, although the jury is out on whether or not it fits the practice.

The point of the cripple is that it allows you to constantly keep distance from your foe thus maximising the damage from your Spatial Surge and ultimately the distance scaling on Spatial Surge is worth a hell of a lot more than vulnerability, AND hell you get to keep the enemy away from you too.

I think it would be far too imbalanced. You’d just act exactly how a clone would act, wait for them to attack, dodge. Doesn’t matter if they went for you or your clone, you dodge. Suddenly they’re down to half health and haven’t touched you.

Not even starting on how brutal it would be if you could keep your phantasms alive for an additional 2-3 seconds with dodge timings due to their attack timings.

Illusionists Celerity affects loads, if not everything, actually. But a lot of people mis-see the data because of the various weapon trait slots applying the same cooldown reduction, which in fact stacks. Bear in mind that the tooltips don’t update properly however the actual cooldown IS adjusted.

Good work MrPrometheus. An inspiration to us all.

If you add cripple to illusionary Wave you’ve just beaten every melee in sPvP ever. That would be absolutely broken. The reason why it’s on the berserker is it’s a balance play issue. It forces the other player to make decisions where they take out the berserker or try to focus you. It encourages smart choice and clever management of phantasms by both us and them. Putting vulnerability on the berserker and cripple on the wave would just mean whenever a melee gets to us we throw them away and have them on half health before they ever get back to us. Not balanced at all.

In response to your post.

The clones only overwrite phantasms if you have 3 phantasms up. Otherwise they will always prioritise clones. In this regard to be honest I don’t see it as an issue. Essentially if you’ve got 3 phantasmal berserkers up and they’re not doing, you’re probably against a what am I saying. You can’t get and keep 3 phantasmal berserkers up and keep them alive.

As for mind stab? You just have to pick your moment. It has a -slightly- larger to hit radius than you see, but generally speaking I wait until the foe is beating on my clone to throw it out.

On the attack speed, yeah…This is a definite issue. There is an Escape key cancel function that allows you to attack faster and that’s just wrong. You shouldn’t have to be hitting escape on every primary attack.

Thanks for this list. I was actually in the middle of compiling my own when this comes about.

You should add on the fact that Phantasmal Haste is just WEIRD.
Take the Warden for example. 14 second base cooldown from activation of attack. With Phantasmal haste it’s I believe 6.6 seconds. That’s just. Odd.

That’s actually a pretty neat idea. I’m not sure whether it would be particularly balanced or not, but the idea is sweet.

It would bring more skill into keeping illusions alive which I can only approve of. In terms of balance I think it would make Mesmers in PvP a little too ridiculous. The purpose of illusions in sPvP isn’t necessarily to fool the enemy so much as to punish them for not doing anything about it. An enemy can chase you and ignore your illusions all day long but if you have phantasms going to town on them they won’t last long. And if you’re constantly producing clones they can’t know for sure.

The skill there is actually the reverse of what you say. It’s on the Mesmer to know if the enemy knows which one you are, and if it doesn’t, then YOU have to act like a clone. It’s a really interesting and complex meta game involved in dueling. Especially since a lot of peoples solution to this is just to smash all the clones they can find, and every swing on a clone is a swing not on you and as such pressure relieved.

Muji.7034:

Agreed, we got no real AoE.

If specced for it, in the right situation, the mesmer brings more Aoe than any other profession in the game.

No other profession can bring 20-25k damage every 6 seconds in an aoe format.

The issue is that our -situations- are more specific, so they’re harder to cover.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the Greatsword recently and my verdict is actually it’s a LOT better than it looks, but it needs a lot of support.

I’ve got a full 2k words on the Greatsword over on my blog, actually but the short form of it is Stack Power, get Illusionary Elasticity(Illusion:VII), get some precision. With that in mind your Mirror Blade will do HUGE damage. With illusionary Elasticity you can maintain 6-15 stacks of Might which is a STUPID STUPID STUPID amount of might along with 9-15 stacks of vulnerability, also a stupid amount and suddenly you’re doing thousands upon thousands of damage each Mirror Blade. The phantasm does a ridiculous amount of damage especially against small groups of enemies. The trick to it is maintaining enough distance.

Important note although I am just repeating my guide here : Mirror Blade bounce distance to you is about 600 range, which is half it’s max range. If you’re not getting those bounces it loses so much power.

I think it’s important to note that the way the Mesmer plays is very dependant on the weapons they have chosen. I would really hesitate to say to someone you need to use this weapon or that weapon because sometimes it just doesn’t fit with their playstyle.

Unfortunately though the facts are somewhat clear. The best MASS aoe weapons would be Staff and Focus.

It is true that elementalists have aoe on a lot of their spells, yet when you hear them you’ll hear about how frustrating it can be to lack proper targetted spells for single targets, about mobs constantly running out of their stuff and how long it can take to kill stuff because of it.

Mesmers have an absolutely immense toolkit, but we’re not great at anything until we specialise and that can leave us weak in other areas. Odds are if you’re weak in aoe you’re incredible in single target.

Do consider changing weapons and getting familiar with the focus, I’ve got some guids about weapons on my site that you can see in my signiature. Ultimately though do what you find fun.

Glad to help, and yeah. Quickness is an incredible Boon when applied, Just imagine what would happen if you put 21 mesmers together…

More posts will be coming soon, of course although I’ll be informed somewhat on people want. So if there’s a particular guide you’re after. Jot it down in the comments.