Guild Wars 2

I’ve been using this build pretty much since I started running dungeons. Its worked very well for me so far. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Now that you are dropping the points from Domination, have you given any thought to swapping GS for scepter/pistol? You could even take the pistol trait at Grandmaster to get 12 sec iDuelists instead of clone on dodge and keep 8 sec frenzy w/ sword trait.

I think that iDuelist > iZerker, but I haven’t figured out if there is a net loss in damage yet in the other skills. It looks close to me, but the attack speed of spatial surge vs ether bolt is hard to guesstimate.

Thats too bad. I had planned on doing this, as I had read somewhere that this did work. Maybe it was in a beta and got fixed. I might go with the Pack now instead. You will definitely get bigger crits with orbs, but you can get more stats from rune combos, up to you.

I will admit that once I unlocked all the weapons skill for torch pre lvl 10 I’ve never even considered it as a weapon in my arsenal. I’ve read some good ideas for how it could be used, but I’m still not sure I like the long cooldowns.

A blast finisher at the beginning would be ideal, because who knows if the combo field will still be there in 3 seconds and if it is where you would want to be out of stealth. I think a good argument for the change would be the Guardian’s Shield of Wrath . That has a finisher at the cast even though the damage blast would happen later.

Instead of the flame blast happening automatically at the end of stealth, maybe it could be put into your weapon slot to be used at will, like portal or mantras. They did get rid of the 3 sec channel, so that could go either way, but at least people could escape a melee in stealth heal up and then go back in with a fire burst queued up (you would have to have a 5-10 sec use it or lose it cooldown to balance).

For that matter I think that to really live up to the skill name The Prestige it should be more of a gtaoe blink. The skill effects could stay mostly the same, blind field and stealth on cast, maybe a short pre-cast time. Then you teleport and flame blast at second position. It could be easily balanced as Blink is already a 30 sec cd, but gives you stun break and is instant, where this has some cast time. Blink is 900 – 1200 range, so this could be 600 – 900 traited to mimic the range of sword leap and make the trait more useful than just reducing some god awful cooldowns. Thoughts?

EsLafiel.4517:

Warden then tc under it, to remove all conditions, also leap while on tc for 20 sec reta.

Thats a great tip. I never remember that its a combo field, unless I accidentally Sword 3 leap over it.

On topic… I think that if I liked scepter better I might use the pistol more. I do like the fact that iDuelist is ranged and not near the target when summoned and the fire rate is great compared to iWarden, but when I use sword MH it doesn’t seem to synergize(also when stacking the weapon trait with celerity i think warden cd is 1 sec less than duelist). In dungeons standing on a trash pile with iWarden and using blurred frenzy is a great AoE field, that I don’t get with pistol. Maybe if GS wasn’t so great, I’d have a swap set of focus / pistol instead.

MB is nice, but it doesn’t seem to be as useful as TC for the long cd, especially where thieves get an on-demand daze from offhand pistol. TC can give the party swiftness, cripple enemies or Pull with into the void (and traited it acts like a mini feedback wall). Maybe if the trait for pistol gave it some extra utility, like the focus does, it would be more attractive (maybe a swiftness stack for each bounce, solving the other major complaint about having to slot focus for speed! or it could just be random like winds of chaos).

Edit…
Well after reading a lot of the forums today and doing some testing in the mists I think I’m gonna take back a little of what I said. I am gonna try to have my cake and eat it too by dropping GS and using scepter / Pistol for my ranged swap. Without getting too far off topic, I think the GS has better damage, scepter has better utility. The iduelist is way better than izerker for single target damage and MB is better than wave on range and cooldowns (plus the stun is better control in all situations except on the edge of a cliff). If you are running at least 15 in Dueling (20 for IX Duelist’s Discipline) Sharper Images really makes the iduelist stand ahead of the pack with bleeds for every crit. With a 50% crit rate and Phantasmal fury you can easily get 4+ bleeds up to 8 from each salvo. This can be as good as another 2 crits from the duelist, which pushes it past iswordsman on damage(4 × 5 ticks x 45 dmg/ bleed = 900 extra damage)

I understand that going from a class that has a run speed utility or a way to keep swiftness up more often than not the mesmer feels like running in quicksand. I mained a thief until I spread out into guardian and now mesmer and the difference is quite noticeable. The problem with mesmer getting a run speed boost is that we already have so much range and phantasm based attacks that getting a permanent boost in run speed would make you inescapable. Instead of catching up to an enemy we need to cripple them and then use illusions to keep them in range. (like izerker > mirror blade > Diversion)

I agree that it does feel like you have to run with a focus in WvW if you don’t wanna loose a chase or fall behind the zerg. I would not be against a utility or some class mechanic based way of getting swiftness, but it shouldn’t be given to mesmer just because another class has a particular build with trade offs in damage or survival that gives them 100% swiftness uptime. I feel that, while not ideal, Signet of Inspiration is our run speed signet, since the mesmer is the profession of chaos and uncertainty with the way our attacks are randomized in what they give for boons and conditions.

I thought that he had in on CD, but I went back and looked again and you are right. I don’t think I’ve really used that shatter before, but I guess its cuz I’m not usually thinking about shattering my phantasms. Something to think of.

Olonnais, with all those clones out, do you use any traits to buff Mindwrack, or is it just something you use situationaly?

moms favorite.9614:

Do you mind sharing your build? I tried a condition spec and it didn’t work out so well.

:)

As best I can figure it out this is his build . I think I got the traits right, based on the cooldowns et al.

The calculator also crunches the numbers to give condition damage too, which lines up nicely. I couldn’t quite figure out weapon sigils, but I don’t think they are central to the build (Agony wouldn’t help for an extra bleed tick b/c you would need 20% on Sharper images[5s] or 15% Winds of Chaos[7s]).

Its very well thought out build. It definitely got to be a frustrating time for anyone that runs across you. Those confusion numbers get really big sometimes and I’m sure there are skill spammers that don’t know what happened until they get the stomp. The only thing I don’t like about it is that in order to test it out I’ll need to get a whole new Rabid set. At least I’ll be able to dungeon run really fast with my zerker gear.

Congrats to Olonnais for his creativity, nice Bifrost btw.

I just watched the first 2 mins of this and I’m definately gonna save this to watch later and analyze. Its totally opposite of how I’ve played mesmer so far, so I find it very interesting how quickly you down some of these people. I have one thing I can’t figure out so far. When you are going in for the stomp on those Guardians, how are you avoiding their knockback? On thief I usually put on a blind and hope I timed it right, but I can’t see any condition you applied that would make them miss. BTW great offensive use of blink to catch that downed thief in one stomp.

I’m willing to accept a minimalist combat log, as the chat window on a whole is very simplistic to other MMOs. My major gripe is the lack of even differentiating a crit from a regular strike other than a higher damage number. Since the damage number that pop up over my head have that style change to show crits, could the crit hits at least be bolded in the log?

Also, other wishes, could the incoming damage and outgoing damage be different colors. Like Stiv is saying, I’d like to be able to look at the log for less than 15 seconds and know what happened and, hopefully, where I went wrong.

Rayya is talking about the Karma armor equivalent to the Soldier’s prefix (Power, Toughness, Vitality) Dwayna and Melandru will have 4 of the 6 pieces. Use the table on this page to break down what piece comes from what temple.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats#Karma

There is no temple medium leg armor(Rayya was thinking about heavy armor for helm) that has those stats, so you can get it from WvW tokens or dungeons.

You will gain the survivability of higher hp pool and armor, but your crit rate will suffer with lower prec. I think you can trait around that with Hidden Killer to always crit on Backstabs, for a dagger build. If you want to balance survivability with more offense consider using Berserker’s armor in your glove, shoulder and boots slots, as they have the lowest stat point trade off per % crit dmg at 12 stat points. You won’t be able to buy them with karma though.