Guild Wars 2

How many angry nerds will it take before I can have my guild upgrades back?

Ungh. No one WANTS the phantasm build. It just so much more damage than the shatter build it’s digusting. Clones being fragile are what’s killing shatter builds in areas with copious AoE
It does not function nearly as well as bolstering the phantasm damage so that when they ARE up they hit like a bus.
Shatter builds almost require a sword to run in a dungeon. Your second paragraph describes solo PvE. Solo PvE is not the issue and shatter builds are excellent for leveling/ grinding/DEs

The playstyle does not fuction in dungeons, as many times at least one clone will die to the AoE horror on his suicide trip.

The phantasm build works because you can place them in mostly safe spots and replace them as random AoE smashes them.

Using a greatsword I’ve found actually allows a shatter build to function in WvWvW however since we’re throwing the clones in melee range already.

We get why clones need to be squishy in PvP, we don’t understand why every boss encounter is designed to be so pet unfriendly or why it needs so much AoE that shatter windows where all 3 will make it are very slim.

snaplemouton.1294:

Mantras can be used while CCed, while channeling, while casting, while in global cooldown… Mantra of pain is an added DPS into a burst spec. You can remove 2 conditions at any time with another mantra. You can break stun and get stability multiple times. Healing mantra is good with the 3 mantra trait. And the trait that increase your damage while mantras are active is great. Mantra isn’t made for long fight. It’s better in short fights or in fight where you have to LoS for a couple seconds while the boss channel something (Give you the time to recharge a mantra or 2).

You want AoE? Your shatters are AoE there for it.. And you can even spec into having shatter also explode on yourself working great with the sword build.

There is 2 ways to reset your shatters skills too.
You should always have at least 2 shatters skills in CD if you are doing it right.
For thoses who say having 3 warlocks up all the time is the only good DPS, you are doing it extremely wrong then. Because staff is a support weapon with warlock being the only real DPS. You can summon a warlock or 2 for boss fight, but using your other weapons to throw in some shatters is how it work.
imo they should reduce warlock damage so people start learning how to use their weapons to deal damage themselves and not have passive NPC doing everything for them while theykittenaround complaining.
Because YES. Weapons do damage! From conditions or instant damage. Weapons hit hard.
Feels like every mesmer in here are more confused then the players they fight. jee…

Oh lord where to start.

Just going to ignore the mantras at this point not even worth addressing, you want to use em fine.

If I want AoE I should use my shatters? Have you read any of the arguments? Unless you’ve got a sword in your hand the mobs are most likely going to die before the clones attempt to shatter reach it in time. You need to be very close for a shatter to trigger or running a GS since those illusions spawn right on top of the targets and even there we run into the issue of ramp up time.

In a dungeon it is not uncommon to spawn a phantasmal berserk/warden for AoE have them do a bit of damage and then have 30 spiders turn and smash them before you’re done spawning your next clone. Zerker and mirror blade into Wrack is okay when it works

You will not beat a warlocks damage output with shatters for single target. Really the thing crits for like 6k constantly. You never want to shatter a warlock. Unless he’s about to die you’re throwing damage away. That’s with the phantasms actually reaching the target. Pretty good chance they’ll just disintegrate before they make it there in a dungeon.

Guild : Bladefall
Server: Stormbluff Isles
So after logging back onto my main Mesmer after leveling my Necromancer alt for a few days and what do you know I can’t represent my guild.

The guild is there, the represent button is there but clicking it does absolutely nothing. Oh yeah and our GM and officer are STILL UNABLE TO SEE THEIR GUILD so we’re a week behind on upgrades now, and no one can use the upgrades we did have.

Just gave that mantra build another try. Yeah it’s still god awful and infinitely worse than the phantasmal build while being easier to kill.
MoR has a slight delay between heals, by the time you actually pass Ether feasts healing ether feast is already 6 seconds into its CD and then we have to factor in the 2 second recharge time. It falls behind very quickly and in anything going past a 30 second fight ether feast is so much more healing for much less hassle.

Mantra of Pain really doesn’t hit very had at all. Really try running it structured it’s hilarious how little damage it does vs someone with equal gear. So you spend a lot of trait points to deal less damage, bring less utility, and be an easier kill than a phantasm build.

I tried running a glamour build in WvWvW with the Greatsword and the blind > confusion to blinded target+ condition gear was incredibly punishing for the other zerg.

Greatsword is now my go to weapon for DEs and WvWvW. The phantasm on 4 has his attack come out very quickly. It’s a nice AoE spike definitely, but I feel like we could stand to have the option to trait for more AoE power if it meant losing our God Tier 1v1 status for that build.

I’d like to experiment more with builds at the moment but unfortunately I can longer represent my guild due to some horrible bug. I can mash the represent button till I give myself carpal tunnel but nothing happens -.-

nidwin.6731:

Yeah.
We’re all noobs and badies and only Malakree knows it all.

The more I’m surrouned the more Chaos Armor and confusion pops for my allies on my ethereal fields. The more allies with Chaos Armor are hit the more conditions are put on foes. The more conditions on my foes the harder my phantasm hits.
And so on and so on.

The more foes and the more allies, the better as the bigger my impact is.

Anway,
have fun bro

You’re misunderstanding all of his points. In Dynamic Events with lots and lots of AoES, you spawn a phantasm, the target dies before it does anything. For a champion mob in open world you spawn 3 warlocks and stand there and auto because it hits for 999999999999999999999999 damage and nothing you can do is better. A phantasm build taking phantasmal haste phantasmal strength etc. crushes a shatter builds damage output if the warlocks get off a second attack.

Again, a shatter build is not limited by its clone factory, but its Mindwrack cooldown. And no shattering after 1 attack is huge mistake. Phantasms have cooldowns, keeping him around and casting a replacement when you want to shatter allows for much higher damage output. Now enter dungeons where the ridiculous AoE flying around virtually gurantees that those clones are dead before they reach melee range to shatter and we have a very passive playstyle.

Can’t use clone generators because they still kill our phantasms ( really bring out 3 locks and attack with a scepter if there is nothing to replace but a phantasm the clone still overwrites it.) Can’t really use shatters reliably either. So what we’re left with is letting Mr Illusionary Warlock deal all our damage because nothing comes close and spreading him out so we can replace him as AoE blows them up.

If you’re trying to play at range with a shatter build in a dungeon, you’re really in for a rude awakening.

DangerMonkey.3158:

Abarcine.7189:

DangerMonkey.3158:

mesmers are the king of 1v1’s at the moment, but they do need to be balanced so they are more viable in PvE.

The way I play my mesmer in WvW and sPvP is as follows:

If there is a group ahead of me I start off with my staff, drop my 5 skill on the mob, pop my number 4 and 3 for more conditions, use reaper of grenth then swap to sword/pistol.
I then blink and then use 3 sword skill (or 3 skill on its own depending on my range) to close the gap, 5 pistol skill, then duelist phantasm on a squishier target and then finish off with sword skill 2. after that either everybody is deadly low, or dead.

In a 1v1 i just blink on to them with sword/pistol and unload everything except reaper of grenth. they pretty much die after 10 seconds of trying to find which one is me.

Don’t use staff four that early. Use phase retreat inside of Chaos storm and you’ll get chaos armor.

I use all my staff cooldowns when im out of range, if I need another escape I use phase retreat. I use staff 4 right before I blink in, so only a minor amount is wasted

All my cool downs take like 2-3 seconds before I blink in

You may notice fights being far easier if you simply blink in 5 to get Aegis spawn Iwarlock with 3 and then 2 for chaos armor and then using the staff four after that. The boons that you get from Cstorm are incredible.

If you’ve got feedback you can use the sword 3 to get another chaos armor for a total of 3 as said above. With our burst from sword you can potentially spend an entire skirmish with Chaos armor up. We’ve got access to a lot of combo fields and leap finishers. Might as well use em.

Grave.4523:

Warlocks crit for a bajillion damage single target and chaos storm is great (and not for its condition damage, which is random and kind of blows, but free team blocks and speed is weeeeee). Greatsword stays on usually but staff and sword/pistol swap depending if I’m expecting a small scale fight or the epic zerg. (pistol is great in duels but falls way short in big fights)

Love the Iduelist hate the pistol. It spawns a phantasm then sits at your side till you need a stun. Couple this with it’s horrible AI and often spawning in a spot where it’s obstructed and being too stupid to move 2 steps backward to be useful is frustrating as hell.

I just wish our swiftness wasn’t tied to an offhand, going to be a huge pain to switch back and forth when crossing the map.

And yeah, staff is irreplaceable in my eyes. The lock benefits from power builds. The auto and CStorm from condition builds albeit those conditions are random ( applying 8 stacks of vuln without a single burning or bleed is sokittenannoying) the main draw to Chaos Storm is Aegis and the free chaos armor.

I may tweak the build and go 30 20 0 0 20 for Illusionary Elasticity for Mirror Blade and Winds while taking MoP instead of signet of domination since I don’t need condition damage when running these trait lines.

DangerMonkey.3158:

mesmers are the king of 1v1’s at the moment, but they do need to be balanced so they are more viable in PvE.

The way I play my mesmer in WvW and sPvP is as follows:

If there is a group ahead of me I start off with my staff, drop my 5 skill on the mob, pop my number 4 and 3 for more conditions, use reaper of grenth then swap to sword/pistol.
I then blink and then use 3 sword skill (or 3 skill on its own depending on my range) to close the gap, 5 pistol skill, then duelist phantasm on a squishier target and then finish off with sword skill 2. after that either everybody is deadly low, or dead.

In a 1v1 i just blink on to them with sword/pistol and unload everything except reaper of grenth. they pretty much die after 10 seconds of trying to find which one is me.

Don’t use staff four that early. Use phase retreat inside of Chaos storm and you’ll get chaos armor.

It seems as if i edited the post you were responding to in the middle of your response XD.

I also find my self swapping frequently to other weapons ( more specifically focus) to either speed my group up or rip people off keep walls.

The 8% damage boost is likely all I’d ever see Null Field is great for saving that person burning to death next to you and removing Aegis protection or an entire stack of might.

After the mantra is burned however it needs to be recharged the spamminess of 3 MoPs come with the drawback of now being down to 4% more damage for a hefty trait investment and needing to stop all other actions in order to recharge. You said that you’d often fire all 3 to burn someone to half health. I feel this is inefficient. If running said build you can fire 2, keep the bonus damage until they’re low and use the last to take them down. Your fight would last even shorter than you already claim it does.

My question to you is the 8% more damage worth the heavy trait investment.

Is your secondary weapon a staff ?

Erm problems?
Why are opponents allowing you to recast Mantras 100% of the time? Needing to recast MoR after its initial burst healing is what cuts into its power vs Feast and the fact I don’t have to trait feast up to make it on par with another heal.

Where you finding the utility slot for Blink if you’re running 3 mantras and portal?

Zerker through walls is a nice trick but I already conceded that Greatsword might be amazing there.

Again how the hell are you running portal with 3 mantras and blink? My whole point is that other utility abilities are much more useful in teamfights.

Time Warp is not part of this mantra discussion.

I’m not having problems in WvWvW, I simply feel like a utility bot which is not my desired playstle. Greatsword actually looks like a good way to fix this.

Null Field is always going to win out in my eyes, group utility >>>>>> selfish utility in large scale battles.

You swap out a mantra for portal/blink you immediately lose 4% more damage until it’s off its CD that makes that trait seem much less attractive.

I can’t help but feel your experience with MoP is due largely to the fact you outgear 98% of the player base right now.

Dont take me the wrong way, i’m actually curious to how you’re making that build work because it may make me want to bring the Mesmer over my Necro for larger scale fights.

To clarify the self condition removal is never going to make it onto my bar, the power null field brings to your team isn’t worth the trade imo.

So to make MoP and MoR into useful powerful abilities ( 2 and done is not enough baseline) I’m sacrificing a lot of trait slots to do so for things that are 66% as effective as they should be. The self condition mantra is not strong enough and this makes me not want to spend points for less return. The Daze mantra might be workable but again we’re trading something like feedback for it. The selfish nature of the other mantras are what kills the build for me.

Okuza.5210:

It sounds like those having issues with playing Mesmer are trying to do damage directly. I’ve tried a great many mesmer builds to see if that can be done, and I always end up back in the main strength of the class: conditions. If you like powering down a target, whether it’s PVE or PVP, Mesmer is not the class for the job. The Mesmer is a joker that kites around laughing at the target while the target dies never knowing which is the clown and which the clone.

There are a LOT of builds that work well, but condition is the key. Start thinking about how to maximize your condition output and the rest falls into place.

This doesn’t mean you can’t get big hits. I’ve stacked enough condition to take off half a target’s HP in one skill (pve). Stack it up and then dodge the swing. The only downside is that you can’t dodge giblets.

—

BTW, I agree that it’s currently much MUCH too easy for a human to identify clones. They need to be total duplicates, complete with minor variations in movement and behavior. However, I did once witness a real player die trying to save my clone from certain pve-death. So, they can fool nice people.

I feel like you’re not really reading anything that’s been said. We’re already very aware that conditions are our strongest build right now but again solo leveling is being described here. Again solo leveling : NON ISSUE

There are no mobs to fool in DEs because everyone with AoE has already killed them there are no clones to fool with in dungeons because all the packs with AoE kill them as quickly as you pop them out. Your toolkit in a dungeon consists of your chosen weapons auto attack and combo fields. It sucks.

You cannot shatter during keep offensive/defense battles because of the needs for clones to limp after their target and them not having a path down or up. Our defining class mechanic should not be unusable or close to in so many aspects of the game right now.

You’re talking about PvP where shatters actually present opportunities to occur. For the thousandth time,the issues we have are in Dungeons and Dynamic Events and WvWvW though if Mirror Blade spawns a clone per bounce that might make things more enjoyable. The problems there do not translate over to small scale PvP.

I may consider a greatsword in WvWvW but it doesn’t do enough for dungeons vs the other weapons. Staff is too good to replace, pistol wins on single target and Sword/Focus sweeps AoE.

Mantras are horrible horrible horrible horrible. You use up utility slots in the hopes that by the time you need to recharge they won’t be left standing. MoR heals less than Ether Feast; the self removal of conditions is a bad version of Null Field that doesn’t give your team a combo field, doesn’t remove their conditions, and can’t be used offensively to strip boons. Mantra of Pain needs tons of traits to be poured into it to be useful . Unless they built glass cannon they’re still going to be standing and Signet of domination would have been far more useful to allow another shatter, interrupt a heal, prevent a stomp on that downed Warrior over there etc which is easily more useful than more damage. Blink more useful for chasing and kiting. Not worth the slot and definitely not worth the trait investment. The 0 animation casts also lose a lot of power if you find yourself recharging in an engagement where all of your opponents are not able to be 2 shot or up against any boss.

There is not a single situation where the mantras are a stronger choice

The big gripe I have about double daggers is the enormous CD on Fire Grab. Other classes can simply keep going but in the case of mesmer and elementalist we need to wait for things to refresh.

Let me just say that to everyone not running a staff currently, use one. The Illusionary Warlock really is that good and Chaos Storm is a necessity. Staff is the only weapon propping us up in Dungeons or Dynamic Events right now. I cannot for the life of me find a situation where Greatsword is superior to our other options.

Its damage feels low and its Phantasm feels like it’s trying to accomplish to many different things while being bad at all of them. Need an AoE phantasm (lol because it totally wont get targetted and popped immediately)? Go with Focus. Need a single target burst? Pistol is the obvious choice. Long drawn out fight on a single target? Iwarlock is your guy here.

Greatsword feels like it has too much overlap and while it’d be a nice choice for a secondary weapon, Staff is so powerful and benefits all of our builds you’d be foolish not to take one. That and we need to be able to access our offhands.

HykCraft.4610:

I think Ele and Mes have the most AOE skills, but all classes have some sort of AOE skill for dmg or buff.

Do not under any circumstance play a mesmer if you want AoE.

Necro AoE is the most fun and powerful by far. Take the wells use ground targeting trait in the curses line and the 20% recharge reduction for staff in the death line. Well of Suffering and Staff marks will level entire waves of mobs.

Beeb.7403:

THIS IS NOT A SUGGESTION.

Guild: Bladefall [BDF]
World: Stormbluff Isle
Members STILL unable to see guild: Arc Knight, Pinobee (at least these two)

It has been 4 days now of ticketing in game and posting on this thread with no response and no addressing the issue in the notifications and announcements. Our guild has not been able to progress AT ALL since the guild leader (Arc Knight) and officer, the only two that can invite, are still unable to see the guild. The guild cannot queue new upgrades, we cannot earn any influence for it, we cannot communicate with them in guild chat, and there is little point in participating with them in WvW. We cannot progress as a guild if we don’t have our guild, which makes this game very silly since we cannot earn anything for the guild in Guild Wars.
I realize also that the team is working on a lot of other issues as well, but as there has been no response to this issue whatsoever, I’m not even sure that you are working on this, or have been reading this giant thread full of others that just want to be able to play the game as intended.

Hi, still an issue here. We very much miss our GM and Officer and would like to, you know, be able to purchase upgrades and actually be able to chat with our friends.

We need to be toned down in structured and buffed in every other place. Not sure how to do this.

grodder.5964:

Big Red Arrow disappears when we cloak. I’ve several times beaten 1v2 scenarios. In sPVP only class I have a problem with is thieves thats it and even that is win some lose some. I pump out so much confusion on enemy player that he kills himselves. Mesmers aren’t the high big damage class we just outlast other people.

Are we OP no….I think it’s cloak and deceive class. And personally the Mesmer down state isn’t OP by far that goes to Thieves with Elementalist on the easy kill while down state

Last time I did WvWvW the Big Red Arrow was still there when the mesmer reappeared, need some confirmation on this.

Sir Samsonknight.5916:

Mesmer being down are the only time I think they are OP.

Oh but now we’re including my entire kit in this discussion and now the class not their downed state is OP. What exactly are you trying to argue here?

Fine, I’ll bite. Why on earth did you let me have 3 phantasms for that long? They’re the bulk of our damage everything else is pitiful if you’re have trouble with the build I think you’re describing. The problem you’re running into is you’re sticking around in one area too long. If you fight us in a small area phantasm damage will rip you shreds while you chase me. You’ll live longer if you blow the phantasms up, but I gain distance if you do that.

So here’s what you do, run. No really run, our phantasms have horribly stupid AI they’ll just stand there in between attacks. I cannot chase you but in a point defense game advantage me because you can’t let me have that point either. So your only winning option is to get a friend to come along and completely shutdown anything a mesmer can do to you. One person attacks the phantasms before they can wreak havoc the other tries to get some hits in on the mesmer. We’re forced to run or die in this situation and you can at least take the point from us. Is this fair or fun? Not really no. We’re remarkably powerful in structured right now and I’d gladly trade some of that strength for some better PvE mechanics.

That bug fix that cut phantasm health by 250% really hurt us for PvE :/

Vertix.5693:

Yeah I was a little confused…

What about using mind wrack, but it send all your illusions next to the targets, then they explode.

is that the sort of thing you want?

That’s exactly what I’m craving, the little suicide bomber act leaves me wanting. When I first picked up this class and read shatter I expected it to be like a fingersnap. Someone running up the boxes in clocktower when they see a shatter coming and ruining my burst even when they’re out of dodges is just lame.

Since we have a lot of PvPers in here and my main focus is on dungeons, do you feel that it would push us over the edge into Warrior land if Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration was an on demand ranged ability.

Currently the most fun I have in structured is a sword/Pisol Staff build that usually sticks to melee range for a quick burst with Mirror Images and Shatter and then switches to staff for Chaos storm to force them to back away from me or deal with Aegis and Daze spam.

What would it take to allow Mind Wrack to be allowed to exist as an on demand ranged AoE, say in the form of a trait like a Necro can do with their well.

I really would like a playstyle for PvE that’s as active as my PvP build while still being viable.

Vertix.5693:

Abarcine.7189:

Anyone complaining about our dueling potential right now is just being silly. I’d consider shuffling points from illusion and chaos to pick up phantasmal strength. If you’re doing structured you may also want to consider null field for your team depending on whose bring what. I prefer the sigils of air and earth over the crit chance personally but that’s just me. Everything else looks like the standard cookie cutter phantasm build with a bit of personal touch.

I realised I had done a bit of traiting wrong in the build! Ah im such an idiot… LOL I didn’t realize I did it too fast.

I edited it a little bit. Forgot I had illusion damage on instead of phantasmal damage :P

Well done for mentioning it!

I don’t think anyone can consider you an idiot the builds you post are pretty much always useful, that one had more survivability than someone running phantasmal strength I simply prefer more output in structured.

Except you’re exaggerating and our only clone generator during a downstate is our 2. This makes a grand total of……. ONE CLONE 1 uno however you want to say it. We have the red marker over our head for downed player regardless of whether or not it’s out too. The stealth lets a nearby ally get a rez off if they’re paying attention and you’re not.

If you stand there and channel the finish animation on something without Giant Red Arrow that’s your bad. The phantasmal rogue that we can conjure does too much damage if we’re allowed to get it off is the only point I’ll concede. Do not stand there and try to kill us with abilities in our down state either. We want to you to try and power through confusion.

Look for Giant Red Arrow stomp and move on, it’s really not that hard.

Anyone complaining about our dueling potential right now is just being silly. I’d consider shuffling points from illusion and chaos to pick up phantasmal strength. If you’re doing structured you may also want to consider null field for your team depending on whose bring what. I prefer the sigils of air and earth over the crit chance personally but that’s just me. Everything else looks like the standard cookie cutter phantasm build with a bit of personal touch.

Not sure what you mean by biased. It was flat out necessary to allow them to endure long enough for a second use of their phantasmal attack in practically every pull trash included of a dungeon. Now they’re nothing but targets unless you have a necro running plague form around.

You’re right dayrinni. No pets in this game have any AoE damage reduction.

Killua.8041:

I’m a level 80 Asura Mesmer and I can tell you mesmer is a very strong class even end-game. I use Sword/Pistol + Focus. I’ll probably post my build here once they open the mesmer section, I posted it on the guru forums tho.

All your stats affect your phantasms, if you don’t have any toughness expect them to die in 1 hit, and pick the confusion when they die trait if you’re going that path.

Stacking toughness does nothing to allow them to live longer. Your solution is summed up as “stack toughness to deal damage.” I hope I don’t need to explain why this is a problem but I’ll go ahead and do it anyway. Not only do we need to stack power condition damage and precision, we need to stack toughness and vitality to allow our delivery system a snowball’s chance of seeing those stats actually benefit us.

Again the problem is not solo PvE. It’s our difficulty tagging mobs in DEs if we actually want to play like a caster instead of a butcher with imaginary friends and dungeons. Please do the illusionary spider boss in the Nightmare Court instance and tell me that toughness will let my phantasms survive. Or the burrow events in ACE etc. We simply do not work and things are even worse with 250% health lost on the phantasms. There is no way to allocate enough stats to allow them to survive let alone survive and still have enough stats left over to contribute in damage.

I was looking for a build that would allow me to level efficiently for PvE was thinking about making a Guardian and am new to melee type archetypes in MMOs.

Big time. Not an intended nerf but signet of illusions was bugged. It was giving 300% more life instead of 50% more. At 300% boss AoE effects would still 1 shot our phantasms. You are correct that condition damage the 20% staff cooldown reduction and Illusionary Elasticity is the way to go for dungeons. You’re utility slots consist of Feedback and Null Field and 1 optional. We’re incredibly pigeon holed for dungeons right now.

You’re correct about how we can reliably deliver damage right now, the problem is so much of our output is tied into our phantasms and (should be anyway ) shatters. We’re probably operating at 50% or less damage than they intend for us to do right now in any scenario ( all dungeons) with a lot of AoE friendly or unfriendly. I mean to say that if the occasion calls for AoEing down numerous low health enemies the target will die before the clones arrive to deliver the shatter most of the time. Boss AoE is self explanatory. This leaves us with Chaos Storm ( great ability ) and Blurred Frenzy. If you’re running sword you’re going to want either decoy or blink to get out of the way after your invulnerability is gone. You now have no choice on utilities.
The best that we can do is provide support with our combo fields and, even there, others have us beat while bringing usable damage to the table.

You’re not really doing anything wrong, but we have another thread on the front page that already covers this. I’d give that a look so several of us can try to avoid being broken records.

See the: Mesmers does it get any better; thread

Lol mantras. Oh god I could go on and on about how useless they are.

Illusions are may be designed with shattering in mind however there is never an opportunity where doing so is rewarding outside of melee range in PvP. My favorite part was where you described using multiple cooldowns, all long ones to kill one creature. Needing to push more buttons doesn’t make us more complex, it just makes each push weaker than that ranger over there.

Okay, so I’m in a dungeon and switch signet of illusions ( it’s a waste of a slot now anyway) for Mirror Image so I can actually get enough clones out to press shatter before they’re instantly wiped from the map. I’ve done it ! My clones are now happily on their way to the … oh wait there was an AoE effect that went off while they jogged up to it and they died before they could do anything. Guess I’ll just have to try again in 45 seconds. So 45seconds down the line I staff 2 and quickly mirror image and shatter, and then my target died before they could arrive.

Shatters are bad for DEs, WvWvW and dungeons. So very very bad. Phantasms will outpace a shatter build after 2 of their attacks are able to go off per phantasm. They are so much better for single target it’s moronic. If you space them out properly you can usually get them to live for at least 2 volleys, at least before the “fix” to our signet. Illusionary defender and Illusion of Life now take up the slot where that signet used to be. Sig of dom makes a guest star appearance if I expect damage output to be low.

We have no good to decision to make when it comes on whether or not to shatter our phantasms as each hit is a one shot, before you could notice it was low on health and count how much time it had before it’s next attack, order a shatter and hope it made it in time for a little extra damage while you replaced them. Now they just die, poof and they do too much damage to shatter after one volley, the tradeoff is not there. Compound this with the fact that shatter build damage is not limited by how many clones you can churn out but Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration cooldowns and we have a very big problem.

I cannot dungeon and have even an iota of fun at this point.

either works, actually have to change my push to to talk key for PvP (left ctrl) as I mark EVERYTHING when i’m trying to talk

We can’t throw our illusions, nor control them and we can’t stealth every quarter second like OP would have you believe. We’re an outstanding 1v1 or small teamfight class and god awful at everything else atm.

Our weapon skills spawn 1 clone per cooldown usually and need to be paired with a stealth utility like decoy to actually confuse anyone. Marking us (control left click) will ruin our ability to hide in our illusions after we exhaust decoy veil and the like.

As for the player inside the castle, our scepter spawns a clone every 3 attacks, the clone is placed in melee range instead of near the mesmer like our other clone producing abilities. Seriously just sneeze on it and it’ll go poof.

Fixed a bug with Signet of Illusions. It now give phantasms 50% more health instead of 300% more.

Great….

I’m just unsure as to why our shatters are not as on demand as scepter clones on everything other than creatures with PBAoE. The problem I have with scepter is you need to auto attack 9 times to get the clones out to shatter it, 3 if you running mirror image. but I’d rather bring null field and feedback and signet of illusion eats up my last slot. In the time it takes you to do that a duelist or a warlock will have easily outpaced the shatter damage on anything but a situation that calls for a lot of AoE.

Now in a situation that requires that much AoE the target will probably be dead before the 2 clones spawned from Mirror Images reaches the target and it’s probably time to loot if you sit there for 9 auto attacks. You can reduce the time needed by running the clone on dodge trait but even then you’re putting a bandage on the gaping wound that is mesmer AoE right now.

BUT YOU HAVE CLONE GENERATING ABILITIES ON YOUR WEAPONS. No I have phantasms, with cast times, I could auto 3 times spawn a duelist and weapon swap and staff 2 and only waste 1 phantasm if I really needed AoE here but again to the bandage analogy, and I’ve traded one of my best single target abilities for horrible AoE damage. Oh and the target probably died before they got there anyway. Warlock is always too valuable to shatter on a boss fight. The damage he puts out really is insane even compared to a duelist if enough conditions have been applied. There is never really a good time to make use of scepter clones other than giving packs more targets to attack.

Would we really enter warrior territory if when I press my Mind Wrack button, it’s affect just triggered? Hell make it a trait for 30 points in the domination tree and give us a good power build.
I love our play in structured but in WvWvW I feel the same dungeon woes, same thing in Dynamic events. Although this has more to do with everything dying before we can get clones out unless we’re fighting a world event boss and then it’s dungeon woes all over again if they have any AoE. Looking at you Asuran Fire elemental.

Chaos storm and Winds are good for supporting, but I’d like to branch out to something other than mediocre support when feedback null field and Chaos storm are on cooldown.

Im with you on mesmers needing adjustments but necromancers are a very powerful addition to a team right now. WvWvW dungeon and structured you bring a ton of utility. Wells are probably my favorite ability set in the game when traited up. Well of Suffering on a keep wall will keep everyone away, follow it with Well of Darkness , Reapers Mark etc. you can really punish people trying to use anything other than siege weapons for defending.
In a dungeon you can grab the plague form elite and use the blind on it to effectively remove some of the most frustrating trash packs from the game and the AoE you bring to DEs with the staff is very good as well . I’d suggest Necro, they’re a lot more useful in anything other than structured where mesmers almost definitely have an edge. Even still structured is enjoyable for a necro as well.

Vexor’s advice is largely helpful. However, we are incredibly weak in dungeon PvE and in DEs we’re pretty bad outside chaos storm unless you want to run a sword. Ranged shatters would go such a long way to making dungeon play more fun.

For dungeons the best you can do is trait all your phantasms up (15% more damge from 10 in dom 15% more damage for 25 in inspiration bleed on crit from dueling 20% recharge reduction on phantasm attacks) and start with scepter pistol. Spawn the duelist and 3. Switch to staff Chaos storm and spawn an Iwarlock, spawn 2 more overwriting the duelist. Congratulations your 3 pets now crit for upwards of 5k at 80 but this is also unspeakably boring. If the boss has a lot of AoE you can’t even afk through the snorefest that is our DPS in PvE. Cooldown on weapon swaps and the scepter auto overwriting our warlocks prevents you from going back to scepter to apply more confusion. Not to mention unless the boss has some way to attempt to deal damage at ranged you won’t see confusion tick at all, and if it does probably only once. No one wants to eat a swing from a boss ever so confusion doesn’t help contribute to our output enough in an instance.

Boss AoE is usually a 1 shot even with signet of illusions on our clones. This ruins shatter builds. They’ll die before they reach the boss so really the only shatter worth mentioning half the time is distortion. Using phantasms to soak initial abilities is a neat idea, until you realize that blind is just as effective. Necro plague form and well of darkness provides a group with much stronger damage shut down so we’re not really suitable for that role either. Other classes can bring safer ways to apply immobilize so we’re not a prime candidate for melee shut down either. And thanks to all of our damage being lumped into phantasms who often die rapidly during mob pulls our DPS output is low as well.

We’re outclassed in most categories here capable of only really shining on already easy fights and even then, the best way to deal damage is soooooo boring and passive.

We’re really good at allowing bad groups to do fights that they’d die continually on however. Our clones are enough of a distraction that we’ll live more than long enough for our group to run back from the closest waypoint. This can be moderately useful on a boss like the one that Scorpion Wires and then Garen spins on everyone in ACE.

Threads will probably be redirected when more of the forums open up, right now there is no place better for his thread and healthy discussion about how to deal with a class isn’t a problem. If it’s an issue the mods will lock the thread and they’re very active about keeping this forum clean. Not really any need for you to police it.

Back on point, while I think amradio was a little abrasive I think I have to agree with him. While people are always going to be a bit hurt about losing a 1v1 you have to realize that a thief and a mesmer are very much built for those engagements. However this game is not about 1v1, teamwork and synergy are what’s important in the long run. A thief while an excellent duelist has very low presence after their initiative is exhausted. Blinds from a guardian or a necromancer can effectively shut their burst down for a good while. They’re far from overpowered and I really don’t want to see a class nerfed for being good at 1v1, a very small fraction of PvP right now.

Guardians or Ranger easily. Much stronger team condition removal, AoE control. Excellent boon removal from other team. We make a lot of fights so much easier if you’re willing to play around with traits. Plague form elite is amazing for some of the worst packs in dungeons. You also didn’t say what you felt needed buffed or why those classes were in the best shape right now. Although warriors don’t really need an explanation.

Can’t really agree with taking too much damage. We’re a little frail without a lot of our utilities but we’re hard to catch.
I had the opposite problem in that the mobs would not chase me and would instead go straight for my phantasms, you know the only way we can deal somewhat respectable damage.
Try either sword or scepter main-hand and pistol offhand use a staff as the secondary it’s far too good not to use at the moment. The duelist and Iwarlock are actually pretty great.
Everything else is spot on. Feeling like I have to spawn a phantasm at the target with full health instead of the target with 25% remaining is horrible. So is the target at full health dying at the time as the one I’m autoing down with my staff because our auto attacks are really bad. Couple this with the fact that we need to get caught for confusion to deal damage and you have a very obnoxious leveling experience. The illusions have a 3 total limit on all targets while being single target makes no sense either. They seem terrified to give us respectable long range AoE.

Chaos storm really is the only ability I enjoy using and feel that its cooldown is appropriate for its power.

Dabrixmgp.4758:

they will get the most buffs in the first balancing patch. Minions will get a lot of love b/c now they are useless.

I really do not think necros need any attention outside of seeing their mediocre pets receiving some love. Can you explain what you feel needs to buffed because I honestly agree with the top 3 sentiment and probably the most balanced all around in my eyes.

I really wish shatters were more useful outside of sword builds :/

Dante Blake.3601:

So necro’s are not terrible in pvp or pve. I know we are top 3 in both single or aoe dps in pve. In PvP Ikittenpretty hard.

However, this is an mmo, where opinions outrank facts. So I have to reroll. Reason being wvw requires you to get good gear from PVE. PVE requires you to find groups. No groups currently invite necros.

So what do the ignorant masses think the most powerful class is for inviting to PVE explorable dungeon farms?

You don’t want to dungeon with people this stupid. Trust me. Necros are far from weak right now. The only thing I think the class may struggle on is the burrow event in ACE option 3 and that has more to do with the hitboxes on said burrows to be buggy
as hell and staff marks not triggering on hostile objects ( seriously wth ). My group got around that by using blinds and circle kiting most of the adds with chills and cripples. Seriously the well that blinds + the trait that lets you place wells at range + the trait that chills targets you blind… so good.

No worries. The above is pretty much all you need to know about us. Our clones are stationary and very, very stupid. Everything we have has a tell, once people encounter us a few times I don’t think they’ll struggle at all with our abilities.

Vertix.5693:

I play a number of classes, Thief and Mesmer are by far my favorite.

The trick to beating a Mesmer, is too play as one. The big thing about finding out which is the real deal, is to watch what each ‘Illusion’ is doing, for example the Duelist Illusion will stand their idly doing nothing until it is ready to unload it’s clips. The Sorcerer illusion will stand there using an auto attack making no effort too dodge. The bezerker will stand still and occasionally use it’s spin attack, etc. You will know the real deal because they will dodge, use multiple spells, switch weapons. It really isn’t as hard as some people think

Hope this helped

You’re describing phantasms here. Phantasms do not look like us nor do they have our name. I really hope no one is confusing Illusionary Duelist for me.

Neglected.1260:

Syn.3459:

noblue.8640:

Warriors are really good when you’re playing against inexperienced people. New players won’t dodge eviscerate, and don’t realize that sitting in 100 blades = death.

you’re saying that if you don’t dodge you deserve to die?

Yes, that’s exactly what should happen. If a player doesn’t dodge a lethal ability, they SHOULD die. Part of the skill element of this game is knowing how and when to dodge.

For a game with no dedicated healer people sure seem to be craving a lot of burst damage. The fact that the warrior doesn’t lose adrenaline for a miss ( pretty sure but I may be wrong) has a signet that generate adrenaline out of combat and has multiple CC abilities ( Bolas, Bull’s Rush to name a few) I think it’s unfair to expect every to play perfectly against that ONE CLASS and be allowed to make mistakes vs the others. Especially since there are not duels in this game. If you’re on a point fighting say an elementalist down him and go for a stomp, is it fair that the warrior can roll up to you with your back turned Bull’s Rush > Frenzy > 100B and kill you immediately? A good one watching for stun breakers and dodges can immediately floor someone at 100%.

I would very much love to have more damage on my abilities instead of on my phantasms. I would love it even more if shatters where instant on demand abilities and had our traits reworked to support this. To me Mind Wrack and Shatter made me think the ability should occur in a finger-snap instead of converting them to into suicide bombers with an IQ that rivals my cat. Is my target on a ramp ? HOW WILL WE EVER GET TO IT ?!!!??!!?!!? The IWarlock hits waaaaaaay too hard in DEs and is boring as hell.
1. Press 1
2 . Press 5
3. Press 2 inside 5
4. Press 3 repeat 2 more times
5. Dance and press 5 when it’s back up
You get gold medals for spawning 3 pets and going AFK. This Profession is in desperate need of some more compelling game play.