Guild Wars 2

Did a bit more testing.

Maybe Shield of Avenger reflects projectiles? I see something called “Strike” in the combat log.

Bow does not proc burning at all, so I’ve got my answer there.

Would still love input on anyone who’s tried to use these versus players. Thx!

What does the protective dome on Shield of the Avenger actually do? The description doesn’t specify.

Does every hit from Bow of Truth proc burning if you have Eternal Armory traited?

Are the tells on these skills just too obvious to use them against other players?

Thx much!

Sorry for the slow response. Thx to those that replied back.

I haven’t seen really any other video posted.

I don’t feel horrible about not using the heal or the utilities in Mirage because I don’t use any of those wells in my Chrono build. But not using the weapon and really only getting a little bit of advantage from the traits makes Mirage feel a lot less rewarding (especially when giving up what you get from Chrono).

Anyway, thx for the feedback!

I only tested for a few hours. I put videos in another thread to show the build I was trying and how it turned out.

As a roamer in WvW, I would continue to play my current Chrono build over what I was able to test with Mirage. There are some neat ideas there, but the issues seem like:
- No easy access to passive run speed (and I assume mounts won’t be in WvW)
- Couldn’t find a condi defense that I was happy with
- Feels like overall survivability is too low (I end up in a lot of outnumbered fights)
- I think I can put out more damage (especially on multiple targets) with Chrono

I think over time, I could probably find a build and get to a point where I could be somewhat close to as effective as my current build, but I don’t see anything that would be materially better – so it’s hard to justify switching based on this.

Is anybody else recording any video?

It’s hard for me to kitten some of the feedback because I can’t see what people are actually trying. Would love to see if there are better ideas that I’m just missing.

It always helps me to see fights. So I’m recording some of my Mirage testing, and I would love to see video from others.

Intro (explain the build and the concept):
https://youtu.be/af7R-JFVOE0

Taking a camp:
https://youtu.be/lBDDMvDsZIA

Versus a holosmith (with adds on his side):
https://youtu.be/i68F9CVwLXQ

My observations so far:
- I’m so used to my chrono build that it’s hard for me to unlearn (my testing has lots of mistakes – these are the “good” fights)
- Condi clearing is tough. I could use the mantra, but then I wouldn’t be able to strip resistance. If phantasms could do ambush attacks, I would use disenchanter.
- Open world running is a pain. I miss the passive run speed. My suggestion is to buff Speed of Sand grand master minor

Very preliminary conclusion:
- While it’s fun to try something new, it’s hard to imagine choosing this over Chrono for wvw roaming. Right now, winning most fights against other players seems to come down to using Arcane Thievery really well (which is tough)

I think the idea is that the 0.75 seconds of superspeed basically allows you to change position (e.g. get out of a red ring) that the “traditional” dodge would have done for you.

Would it be possible to add 5 seconds of Swiftness as well?

It seems underwhelming as a Grandmaster Minor, and this would actually give an option for some open-world traveling. You’re running a risk by using your Endurance to get swiftness, but it gives players an option. Right now, open-world mobility seems like a pretty big thorn at least for roaming builds.

Stuck at work for several more hours. If anyone has time to test/answer these, I would appreciate it!

- Can Mirage Mirror be attacked and destroyed? (Seems like the logical thing to do if you saw it pop up on the battlefield)

- What happens with Ether Barrage if you double-dodge? Do you only get one ambush attack or does the second one queue?

- Does the shadowstep on Ether Barrage cause the opponent to lose target on you?

Thx much!

P.S. I’m mulling over another scepter-always mainhand build, so that’s the reason for the last questions.

Just watched guild chat, and I still can’t tell.

The word I heard was “clones”.

I tried to watch really closely during the demoing. The only time I actually saw a phantasm out was the berserker, and it didn’t look like it executed the ambush attack

But… I could actually tell for sure

It’s the only thing I wanted to learn from Guild Chat… Did anyone see/hear anything definitive?

Yeah, I agree theorycrafting is pretty fun at this point

I started thinking about likely skill rotations and realized that I am planning to shatter very rarely (which I think is part of the concept of Mirage).

So even though I’m planning on a full condi build, I’m not planning on having Maim The Disillusioned.

Since I believe that all illusions (including phantasms) will perform Ambush attacks if you have the grandmaster trait, I’ve been considering having both Disenchanter and Defender slotted as utilities.

Lots to test out this weekend

I think Duck’s explanation is correct. The currently equipped weapon decides what kind of Ambush attack will be performed. It’s basically by coincidence that this is shown with the auto-attack information.

What isn’t yet clear is how the “ambush window” mechanism works. It looks like triggering Mirage Cloak creates a period of time when an ambush can happen, but it’s not yet clear what actually decides if the attack is triggered within that window (or why a window is needed). I’m guessing it gives a mechanism to allow tuning damage fairly easily.

Yeah… so many things to balance out – that’s what makes theorycrafting fun.

@Curunen My latest thinking is to pick the middle ground of your ideas (and usually middle-ground approaches are not optimal). But still, here’s the idea:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7PlsnhC1YjawMNUeNI0A8ljYuihXTA-TFyCQBPZ/BAcEAqoyPkdBAQpSwCq+DFeIA1T3QAAEAm5Mn5Mn5MLDAzeA-w

The Decoy trait is optional right now. My guess is that I would go with one of the Deception traits that gives another Mirage Cloak. Take the Mirage elite

The Mirage traits would still be the same:
- Renewing Oasis
- Shards of Glass
- Infinite Horizon

As far as condi defense goes, there’s one removal on Prestige and one on each charge of the elite (so pretty much just for those cases where I have a ton of burn stacks)

But, since I’m planning to shatter very, very rarely, the Phantasmal Disenchanter will be casting every 2.2 seconds (because of Phantasmal Haste – it will be amazing if that trait comes back). Since I use Disenchanter regularly now, I’m aware of all the fun ways it can fail.

So to back all that up, I have the constant 20% condi reduction food and 40% reduction on damaging condis when I have regen (which should be frequent).

Right now, I love the synergy between the Mirror heal and the Adventurer Runes to get an extra dodge every 13 – 15 seconds. So I’m trying to keep that.

Really the biggest problem is going to be mobility. I’ve done the focus swap for years, so I don’t mind that. But to make good overall speed, I’m going to have to use blink, phase retreat, the elite, and probably even dodging for .75 seconds of superspeed. Potentially, I will just swap in and out the Signet of Inspiration… and hate it if I get stuck with that in battle.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to trying this out next weekend.

The applying might to an illusionary swordsman on summon now has two traits that make that a real benefit. There was quite a bit of ridiculing of Anet when that was released.

I like how the staff and torch skills are now flat 20% reductions. That makes it a lot easier to understand the benefit.

Looking forward to trying out the changed mantras.

Thx. The five attack comment caused me to go back and play WP’s video over again in (with lots of pauses). Right around the 2:10:10

Looking closely, it seems like the skill 1 icon gets replaced by an ambush icon. And sometimes, there are 5 attacks from all the illusions and the character. But sometimes, it doesn’t look like that happens. I’m guessing those cases are where the cast time plus cooldown from ether barrage being cast previously extends beyond the ambush window.

Would be really nice to get an explanation of these mechanics from Anet. I know for HoT it was probably a lot of work to produce the videos on each new profession leading up to the launch, but just a few lines of text would be really cool.

I’m trying to understand why the ambush attacks seem to be so different in terms of output. The staff ambush attack seems tremendously better than scepter.

Scepter is a few hits of direct damage (so it could proc a lot of Sharper Images), but the output in conditions is less than a typical shatter.

Scepter Ambush: Ether Barrage (1.5s cast, 1s cd)
Ambush. Blink back a short distance and launch a barrage of chaos orbs at your foe, inflicting either confusion or torment each hit. Condition duration halved for clones.
• Dmg: (5x) 710
• Confusion: 1 stack 7.5s
• Torment: 1 stack 6s
• Shadowstep Distance: 200
• Range: 1200

The staff on the other hand is 4x the condi stacks, bouncing so it has the chance to inflict more on multiple targets, and applies boons to friendly targets.

Staff Ambush: Chaos Vortex (1s cast, 1s cd)
Ambush. Release a vortex of chaos energy that inflicts conditions on foes and grant
boons to allies.
• Dmg: 216
• Confusion( 2 stacks, 9.25s): 290 Dmg on Skill use, 1175 Dmg
• Torment (2 stacks, 7.5s): 1288 Dmg, 1288 if moving (Typo)
• Fury (3s)
• Might (3 stacks for 8s)

The direct damage is a little less, but it seems like staff is much better overall. Personally, I’m glad that staff is interesting. I’ve never been able to really use it in wvw roaming because it feels so slow and unrewarding. But this makes it a lot more appealing. On the other hand, scepter looks pretty weak.

Am I missing something?

Hey Pyro – where does the boon strip that you mentioned come from?

As primarily a roamer / small scale wvw player, I’m thinking a lot about the lack of the passive run speed from Chrono.

It still seems like Trailblazers will be great gear if you need a healthy amount of defense playing Mirage.

Thx Duck. My understanding of how this works is similar to what you’re saying.

So how do you see the ambush window working? If pressing dodge compels all illusions to instantly do the ambush attack (and the ambush attack has it’s own cooldown), what’s the function of the window? The only thing I can guess is that the window duration stacks. So if you can somehow trigger four Mirage Cloaks in rapid succession, the illusions will do 5 ambush attacks (because your 4 windows of 1.25 seconds each will stack up to 5 total seconds of window).

It’s not clear how soon we will get to try this all out. It would be really cool to have some short posts by the devs on how some of these new mechanics actually work.

I’m trying to understand the actual mechanic. I know in the WP video, he says that it’s tied to auto-attack and this is where the connection with clones seems to come up.

But when I read the actual description, I think it works differently. It seems like any currently equipped mainhand (or two-handed) weapon will have an ambush attack. And it seems like whenever you get Mirage Cloak, you get a 1.25 second window where Ambush attacks can occur. (And if you have the Infinite Horizon trait, your illusions also get Mirage Cloak and the same window of time.)

It’s not clear to me what actually causes the ambush attack to occur. Is it tied to your character’s auto-attack cycling or perhaps the next attack of each clone or phantasm becomes an ambush attack? There has to be a reason that there’s a 1.25 second duration where it CAN happen.

It’s also not clear if this window duration stacks (if you dodge twice in a row for example).

It does seem like this should affect phantasms. There’s nothing in the description of the skill or the Infinite Horizon trait that says only clones get this attack. I think something did say that the duration of the condi’s was half as long when applied by clones.

Was there any other video beyond Wooden Potatoes and Aurora Peachy where this got tested more deeply?

Yeah, I thought about a really high condi duration reduction idea. I haven’t really looked at what other professions got, but my assumption is that everyone is more dangerous.

It feels a little weird to make a build that doesn’t use the weapon of the elite spec, so probably I’m missing something here.

It’s also possible that the Mirage rune set really makes the Deception utilities more powerful.

One thing that seems pretty clear to me. If you don’t take the Infinite Horizon trait, every time you dodge, you’re basically going to pointing out your character pretty clearly because you’ll be the only one who’s doing the special Ambush attack (and at least for staff, that attack looks pretty obvious).

It’s ridiculously early, but I like theorycrafting, so here’s an idea.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7PlsnhC1YBawMNUeNIzVM8aiGgceEA-TFyCQBFU9nns/AKVCWPdDA4CAURlfT4gAQhnAQAAEAm5Mn5Mn5MLEwi1A-w

To go along with this, I think I would take:
- Renewing Oasis
- Shards of Glass
- Infinite Horizon

Some high-level concepts:
- No passive run speed is a real pain for a roamer. So the signet is taking care of that.
- Without the chrono traits, I would shatter less often. So trying Chaos instead of Inspiration.
- Without Inspiration condi removal, the condi duration reduction from regen matters (and so chaos trait line and the signet have some synergy)
- The deception utilities don’t look great to me. The elite is cool because it’s blink and condi removal (and presumably stunbreak)
- Axe 3 looks great. But the clone generation of axe 2 doesn’t seem as reliable as scepter or staff. It’s going to be tricky to get clones out quickly enough to use ambush. Plus, torch is the only great condi offhand. So no axe in this build.

Things I don’t know:
- Do phantasms get the ambush attack?
- What are all the deception abilities?

In concept, the goal is to get the clones (and maybe phantasms) out as early as possible and trigger mirage cloak as frequently as possible. Adventurer runes plus a short cooldown heal give an extra dodge/ambush.

Have fun

I saw bits of Wooden Potatoes walkthrough, but there were a few things I didn’t see.

If anyone knows the answers to these, it would be great.

- Is axe only mainhand or can you equip offhand also?

- Is there a passive speed boost in Mirage traits? I saw superspeed on cloak, but I’m wondering about open-world running (I’m assuming mounts won’t go into wvw)

- Are the utilities detailed anywhere?

Thx!

Hey Thomas

Definitely play whatever you like best. I know what you mean by your comment about burst sequences and feeling clumsy. I never played any kind of player versus player game before I started in WvW four years ago, and my reflexes are not great.

But no matter what kind of build you end up choosing, I think you want to practice having a “burst” or a sequence of moves that work well. Especially with the “free” casts you get when you use Continuum Shift, being able to use skills efficiently makes a world of difference in how much damage you do.

Over time, I remapped all my keys to fit my hands (my fingers are too short to reliably reach the Function keys on my keyboard). And I bought an 18-button mouse and trained my thumb to be able to hit the important skills quickly (most of the time… lol)

Good luck!

It may have already been suggested in the many pages here, but I wonder if it might help the pip acquisition pace to award pips for objective captures.

1 pip for a camp
2 pips for a tower
3 pips for a keep
4 pips for stonemist

It doesn’t seem like it would add too many pips for the people who already get a lot, and it would encourage people who are mostly pip-farming to keep taking objectives versus just killing an occasional guard or yak to maintain participation and then going back to spawn.

I’ve tried to make hybrid builds, but I can’t seem to survive in wvw with them.

The alternative I’ve tried is focusing on getting the condi damage to spike more than people expect by stacking burns quickly and extending their duration. This is a little video I made to try to show the concept. https://youtu.be/Fa1vwgpnZdU

I keep hoping there could be an interesting hybrid build with shattered strength, but it never seems to be worth losing Maim the Disillusioned.

Since I get into a fair number of outnumbered fights, I need pretty high survivability.

To get more burst in my condi attacks, I used balthazar runes to extend burn duration. Then the burst sequence is to do prestige and iMage twice using continuum split. That can get somewhere around 10 – 14 burn stacks. If I do that correctly, it takes about 20 seconds to kill all the camp guards (if they are grouped together).

This is a little video I made to illustrate. https://youtu.be/Fa1vwgpnZdU

It’s not the same burst you get from power attacks, but it might be a good tradeoff.

I like torch. It would be amazing if it applied the burns at range or did three stacks, but I think it would actually be overpowered. As it is, it creates an incentive to get in close. You can do some fun things like prestige, start casting iMage, and then blink right next to your target.

I also like disenchanter. Getting initial boon strip and condi removal in an aoe is really nice, and it fits the phantasm.

The mage is my favorite condi phantasm. It’s a little tricky to cast it right next to someone to get the extra two burn stacks, but it’s a really nice boost. If you use prestige plus casting image plus the image attack, it’s 7 burn stacks in a pretty small window. If you use continuum shift and have enough condi/burn duration, you can get up to 14 at once.

Swordsman is a nice phantasm for power builds. Seems like it can be okay to have some offhand phantasms that are better for condi and some for power.

I think chrono really creates a lot of opportunity to have fun – especially if you’re not too worried about the outcome. Thx for sharing

My suggestion is to play for a while before you commit a ton of money to gear.

There are a lot of different ways to play (staying with a zerg, roaming in small groups), and you may find some more appealing than others.

In general, I think you’re best off playing defensively to start. So if you have a power build, consider something like soldiers and if you mostly do condi damage consider dire.

For sure, I see a lot of newer players who don’t seem to have enough condition cleansing compared to the amount of condis in world so I would try to make sure your build has enough choices (picking the inspiration line is very helpful)

All good points. For me, finding a build that fits me well comes down to trying tons of variations, recording a lot of video, and then playing it back to see why certain fights went certain ways. I’ve spent somewhere around 4000 hours roaming in wvw and have tried dozens of different builds – this one seems to fit how I like to play.

So in terms of staff, while phase retreat is really nice, I just don’t find it stacks up to scepter plus torch or shield. Scepter auto attack creates clones. The block is available about every 4.5 seconds, includes an evade, creates a clone, and puts 5 stacks of torment that last a long time. Confusing images hits pretty quickly with malicious sorcery slotted. I think chaos armor on staff is really weak for defense compared to shield block or stealth from prestige. The staff phantasm is nice because it does power damage, but I find the attack slow. The staff aoe is pretty good, but I’d rather have tides of time for stunning a thief.

In terms of balthazar runes, I agree it’s not really intuitive. With the runes, you have 3 burning sources that are all AoE. If you use the burn skills with continuum split, you can put 12+ burning stacks on a foe. Most people don’t expect it, and if you get a couple of 4000 – 5000 burn ticks, it can take someone down quickly. I did this little video to show some examples (first fight is the best burst)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa1vwgpnZdU

So slotting balthazar is mostly about testing and just finding them most effective. But here is the build theory question: what is the most valuable thing to add to a condi build that has many sources of torment and confusion and a base 50% condi duration?

When I looked at that question, I didn’t see the value of extending duration for either confusion or torment. Confusion is already over 80%, and most players will cleanse. So you want more different conditions to provide cover for your condis and you want damaging ones because that’s how the build kills. I don’t have a lot of great sources for poison damage (I actually did test the asura radiation field). The doom sigil is okay, but it’s only one stack. It could be fine to tradeoff with draining sigil, but it’s not going to do a lot of damage. In this build, I also don’t have a ton of bleed sources (just the geomancy runes). The geomancy bleed already lasts a long time, so it didn’t feel like extending bleed duration had a ton of payoff. I also experimented with undead and scavenger runes, and they both have their good sides.

The final cool thing about balthazar runes is the 5 seconds of quickness when you’re below 20% health. I try a lot of foolish fights (1v3, 1v4, in enemy camps, etc). There’s a nice example at the 30 second point in this video where that quickness saves me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbdnY_tV9uI&t=17s

Thx for the questions. I like getting new ideas to test out, and I’m confident this build is not for everyone. It is a lot of fun for me, so I just share it to see if others will have fun as well. Cheers!

There are a lot of threads about what should be changed from the update. In general, I think it’s best to give it some time before making big changes.

That said, I think it can be helpful for people to give their perspective when it includes enough data for devs to understand what the feedback is based. So maybe folks can take a moment to add more depth to their threads. Here’s my example.

Background:
I’ve got about 4000 hours of playing in the game starting in Jan 2012. The vast majority of that is solo roaming in WvW leading to an approx 2100 rank (Gold Colonel I think). I only played a few hours on EOTM. I started on Kaineng but transferred to NSP more than two years ago.

Negatives:
- Didn’t like the LFG/party dialog automatically popping open on map load
- Map queue in evening mid-week was surprising, but I was able to get in and I’m guessing this will settle down

Positives:
- I’m getting more stuff than I got previously for what I would do anyway (got two wooden chests last night)
- There’s some other goal to work towards (gear, backpiece, just getting to a better tick rate)

Funniest moment:
- In a normal night, I’ll attempt to take several towers by building a cata by myself and then putting a message in map chat when the wall is 50% down so other people can come help/share in the result. Last night, I started building a cata and threw a message in chat that I had a cata started. By the time I got back with my second load of supply, there were two catas built, two commander tags, and 20 people there

Lol – I had my reply open and missed your response.

I think if it’s 13 – 20 specified roles that are coordinated, you can create more specialized builds. I see this in some servers who seem to have “spike damage” focused mesmers that have the damage and stun mantras (but who are pretty glassy if you catch them by themselves).

In groups up to 20, I feel like I can still contribute, but I have to stay more toward the edges. If I try summoning illusions in the middle of the aoe spam that happens when groups of that size collide, the clones and phantasms just melt.

Hey Acium,

I’ve seen you commanding as I roam around (Elbrin – little purple Asura mesmer). Thx for commanding!

Like Fay says, I think the question comes down to what you’re trying to do in what kind of group. I think the wvw metabattle builds are fine, so if one of them fits, I’d say start with that.

In big wvw fights, I find it difficult to keep any illusions alive, so I mostly roam solo or in smaller groups or fight on the edges of zerg fights.

If you’re thinking about small, ad hoc groups, then I think you’re basically best off using a solo roaming build. It’s hard to know what you’ll get paired up with. The link below is the build I use for roaming. I find it quite survivable, and I can help with group fights with some of the AoE healing and condi removal (along with the CC). Feel free to ask me anything in game if you want.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhQQRAre7fn0nBFqhNqBmpBEgiFnjCtx2nE4MAGgEruQT0GF-TFyCQBVU50EeIAF8EAq/kIlgZRJzJ2foe6HAwRAIAACwMLzysMDO6RP6RP6RbmzcmzcmzsQALWDA-w

@HotBoy that’s a cool video and some impressive fighting. I was dead meat for thieves when I played power.

@Xaylin – yup, Malicious Sorcery speeds up everything. I made a really short video comparing recharge time with and without. It’s only about a half second different, but I really notice it. https://youtu.be/CmDWGgaa-jo

The wiki says you only have to “wearing” a scepter, so maybe this works even if scepter is not in your mainhand as long as you have one equipped? I have never actually tested it because I like mainhand scepter all the time.

Yup – this is a condi build. I know a lot of people love staff, but I really prefer this setup.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhQQRAre7fn0nBFqhNqBmpBEgiFnjCtx2nE4MAGgEruQT0GF-TFyCQBVU50EeIAF8EAq/kIlgZRJzJ2foe6HAwRAIAACwMLzysMDO6RP6RP6RbmzcmzcmzsQALWDA-w

Having scepter mainhand always means 20% faster casts for everything (including recharging the mantra). The block on the shield is great for surviving and generating phantasms (and combined with chronophantasma and persistence of memory, that means faster recharge on iMage who’s actually one of the most damaging parts of the build). I also find Tides of Time very handy when fighting thieves.

I played with sword offhand in pvp back when merc amulet existed.

I have an idea that I’ve been considering with sword offhand based on my guesses about Mirage.

But for the moment, I think I’d get downed even faster in those outnumbered fights if I lost either sword or torch offhand.

A few fights where I get some much-needed help from other players and even the npc’s

Have fun!

https://youtu.be/pa2otN8NLFY

Thx for the feedback. I used to open fights with The Prestige and then casting iMage from stealth. But I realized that people will often cleanse that first burning stacks quickly. So now I try to always start with shield first. Then, I can go through the continuum shift sequence where hopefully I can cast prestige and image twice. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it can work pretty well.

In terms of Balthazar runes, I agree that there are other options. I’ve experimented with other rune sets, but I keep coming back to Balthazar. Here’s a few of things that factor into my decision:
- Because you get a base 33% increase to Confusion from Illusions line, there’s a limit to how high you want base condi duration. The 72% in the linked build is a really good spot, but it means you end up giving up some condition damage (trailblazer is below dire)
- A lot of my gameplay now revolves around the heal mantra. If you can reliably recharge it, nothing comes close in terms of total healing per second. So I’m used to using the heal skill frequently. The 1 stack of AoE burning may not seem like a lot, but it can really help with fights with thieves for example. If they can’t cleanse it, that’s 2400+ damage.
- The five seconds of quickness when you get below 20% health can really turn a fight. Especially for things like getting the mantra recharged. It’s nothing you can count on, but it’s fun when it happens.

The ghost/burn build definitely looks interesting – thx for sharing.

A little overview of how the build is oriented around longer burn duration. A few short fights with different levels of burning landed plus a longer one where I really never put on a ton of burn stacks.

Have fun!

https://youtu.be/Fa1vwgpnZdU

It’s funny. After several years, we pretty much always have to give analysis with a sarcasm flavor.

It’s totally possible that giving the might stacks to the phantasm is just a mistake.

It’s also possible that this is a change that will have an actual real benefit for people playing the Mirage spec after the expansion is released. The F keys have to do something if they don’t shatter. One possibility is that an F key (or maybe even a grandmaster trait) lets boons (or at least might) actually affect phantasm damage (and maybe even grants some might to the phantasm when you use it). Another possibility is that one of the F keys does a copy of boons between phantasms and mesmer.

If they were giving might to the phantasm for any of these expansion-related reasons, it’s unclear what Anet would say at this point to explain it.

There does seem to be a bit of a trend toward rewarding casting phantasms in close range (iMage was already like this), and I do find I take more risks in trying to finish my cast near my opponent to get the benefit. So this change seems to match that concept.

@xenon I think roaming might be really different on different servers. On NSP, I have a ton of fun. Today I saw an enemy working on hills (owned by our mutual enemy) with a cata. I let him take out outer, put a quick call in map chat, let him take out inner, took him down and slipped into the keep to take hills with the help of one other roamer who saw my map chat.

And later, I had just taken parched outpost when four opponents slipped in. They decided to rush me while the lord still had RI, so I managed to down all of them (with the help of the tower lord)

I get tons of interesting fights that are 1v1 but in a contested camp or tower, 1v2 and 1v3. I suspect it’s different for different people, but I find myself playing at least an hour every day.

For me, the first question is what’s viable roaming in WvW where I’ll often be fighting 1v2 or 1v3. So condi chrono has been great because it’s both survivable and capable of dealing enough damage to take out other players.

If Mirage biases toward power damage, the biggest question for me will be whether I can find a gear set that is survivable enough given my skills. With condition damage, there’s Dire and Trailblazer stats that give a lot of toughness and vitality in conjunction with condition damage and expertise. So most likely, if I switch to Mirage, I won’t switch back because that’s a lot of gear to make/modify the stats on.

As I think about it more, if there’s something that allows better open field movement speed that applies in WvW (whether it’s part of Mirage or just part of the base mechanics of the new game), then I can imagine dropping Chronomancer. The “shatter” mechanics and weapon skills of Mirage could be viable replacements for what I get from the Chrono elite.

Since I phrased the opening statement as being about buying the expansion, I saw some people reacted to that. I just want to say that I feel like GW2 is a tremendous value for me, and I’ll gladly pay for the expansion purely to support all the work and cost that goes into a game like this. I paid $20 for a movie ticket last weekend. I’ve played thousands of hours of GW2 for the cost of the initial game, the HoT expansion, and a couple gem store purchases. I totally understand that not everyone has $50 to pay for an expansion. I’ve had times where I didn’t have a spare $50. But if you’re in that situation, you should really be encouraging people to buy the expansion because a company cannot keep making content without getting some kind of income.

Anyway, my main point was that I was shortsighted in not seeing the potential for Mirage to replace Chronomancer.

I have a hard time imagining that I’ll use the new elite mesmer spec.

It really doesn’t matter what they put in the new spec, it’s about what will be lost by giving up the chrono elite. In particular,
- amazing synergy with shattering via chronophantasma and illusionary reversion traits
- excellent burst ability with f5 continuum shift (I can imagine that the new elite will have a burst capability – continuum shift is just really cool)
- amazing offhand weapon with shield (both the block and the stun wall)
- passive 25% runspeed (as a roamer in wvw, this makes a big difference)
- faster clones on shatter (time catches up)

It’s possible that all of these things will be replaced with equally good solutions in the new elite, but chronomancer elite is just amazing.

Just a couple of 1v2 fights in camps in wvw

Have fun!

https://youtu.be/lk6UgyGZLQc

Part of it for me is that I just never got good at sword mainhand. There are lots of people who prefer that. Here are the reasons that I like scepter-mainhand always:
- You always get the Malicious Sorcery benefit (20% faster cast time). Since I’m using the mantra heal, disenchanter, and gravity well – I have a few skills with long casts. The 20% difference is really important for me.
- The auto-attack is much better. You get torment on every shot, and you get a clone generated from the auto-attack.
- I like having some range. I close in pretty often, but there are times when I want or need the distance.
- The cooldown is not really an issue on the block skill. The base cooldown with Malicious Sorcery is 4.75 seconds I think. With alacrity, it’s even less. Confusing images is about 10 seconds, but that’s not really a problem in a lot of rotations for me.
- Confusing images does some actual power damage, and can actually be multi-target. There are cases where I can’t get resistance down and I just need a little more damage to finish a target. CI has a really nice power damage scaling, so it does an okay amount of damage even with no power. And you can sometimes line up multiple foes and hit all of them (gravity well is nice for this because it pulls everyone together)

Two fairly long fights against another condi chrono build who is defending a camp I’m trying to take. Have fun!

https://youtu.be/jbdnY_tV9uI

In general, it feels like condi chrono can beat pretty much any build 1v1. I have lost to really good berserkers (where I don’t manage stripping the resistance well and I get caught in a burst) and I have had really long fights with thieves where neither of us can down the other.

In terms of specifics versus professions these are the things that stand out to me:
- Warrior/berserker – need to strip the resistance with disenchanter, have to be a bit patient and then apply condis heavily
- Guardian/dragonhunter – always feels like the beginning of the fight is chewing through their big defenses, but then you just need to keep pressure on when they have exhausted the key defenses
- Thief/Daredevil – it feels like landing a stun with tides of time or gravity well is what usually wins the battle
- Ranger/druid – the ones that fight at range and kite can be annoying and some can be really good at using occasional stealth to break targeting, but they typically don’t have a ton of stun break and run out of condi clear
- Necro/reaper – biggest thing seems to be not to stay engaged when it’s not to your advantage, ideally apply condis and avoid any condi-return skill – later in the fight, they typically won’t have stunbreaks left
- Ele/Tempest – try to have shield ready for the lightning attack, try to have blink available when they disengage
- Revenant/herald – mostly seems to be about living through the first big skills (offensive and defensive), dodge the big attacks with obvious tells, don’t pour on damage when they use the damage to healing skill
- Engi/Scrapper – mostly seems to be about engaging when you want, don’t fight in the middle of fields/turrets, don’t count on stealth and feel free to cast bounce attack skills against gyros

I actually don’t know the specifics of most other classes very well because I’ve played mesmer for 95% of my time. There’s probably a ton of other stuff I should know, but generally condi chrono feels like it should win a 1v1 in wvw versus another player with equal skill.

Thx. The videos are just because I have fun playing, and I like to share. There are tons of mistakes in my play, and I share some of the failed fights too.

I think I answered all the questions on YouTube, but if you want to know anything else, just ask.

Have fun

I think you’re doing the right thing by experimenting and using what’s comfortable for you. I play scepter/shield scepter/torch. The Malicious Sorcery trait means that all casts are 20% faster.