(edited by Calliope.8675)
We are at the end of the first week! Don’t forget to write. =)
If I remember correctly, Cavalier is Power/toughness/ferocity. Ferocity used to be +% crit damage. Essentially, they both do the same thing, but converted it to a number attribute rather than a percent. Kraljevo’s point about health pools is moot. It doesn’t stop any class from using Zerk or Assassin armors when they will only end up with about 10k HP at the end of the day. Not many people I know like Cavs just because of the Ferocity. You’re better off grabbing Knights, if you want the toughness, and keeping the precision.
As a mesmer and running a damage build you really, really want that precision. I carry four sets of armor on my first mesmer and two and a half on the second one (working on that third set). I can’t say my armor choices were really the best at the time that I made them, but I hate to get rid of the armor so I find ways to make them work. I have two sets that build specific: one zerker set for my CI lockdown build, one assassin set for my shatter build, one set for condition builds, and one for survival situations where I can skimp on my damage a wee bit. The last two sets I will not name because people will only wrinkle their noses. For survival situations I’d really just recommend getting a soldier set of armor. You’re going to cut your crit way down and cripple your damage, but you’ll be able to survive better. Alternately, my second mesmer, at the present, only runs condition builds and carries rabid, dire, and working on a zerker set.
All invites up to date!
Knowing Stickers, he’d rather help someone with their build. He’s already worked on a few builds himself. I don’t know what the final verdict was though! xD
I think my favorite bit is how you worked in the whistling of Rangers.
You really need to work on your word tenses though. (ie “dived” and “spinned”) It killed me to see those in the context of your sentences.
On a whole the story was pretty good. I think it could have used some more detail though, specifically referring to your character and “skills” you used.
I restarted my chapter and it worked fine after that.
Tossing this out to my lovely Mesmer community… I posted a writing competition of sorts in Fan-Gen, but thought I would make sure you all had the opportunity to see it. =)
Dec 1 – Dec 24th
1000 word minimum, 5000 word cap
Writing Prompt:
Wintersday is coming up! Write about the Wintersday traditions you are looking forward to enjoying. This can include, but is not limited to, in-game event traditions. (And yes, this is still to be a short story. I’m not asking for an essay! <3 )
Note
There will be a prize for this one.
First Place
1 Weapon Skin (worth 1 Black Lion Ticket)
250 Giant Wintersday Presents
Second Place
30 Gold
200 Large Wintersday Presents
Third Place
15 Gold
150 Medium Wintersday Presents
Honorable Mention
Princess Wand Skin (or any other of that set they like)
(edited by Calliope.8675)
Oops, forgot to get mine posted! Oh well, time enough to perfect it then hee hee. I will post the next prompt after my class tomorrow. =)
I enjoyed your story, Aaron, perhaps you’ll write on the next one too?
I run everything as a shatter mesmer. On occasion, if I am having a harder time than usual, I will swap out different things and see if it works better.
Standard shatter is 4/4/0/0/6 with zerker or assassin gear + weapons. I have four sets of armor and way too many weapons in my inventory.
Sometimes I’ll swap my traits to 4/4/6/0/0 or 0/4/6/4/0. Pick and choose what you like. Someone else asked a similar question earlier… I’ll find you the link.
Could be lagging or having a delay in damage show up.
I am unsure, we do have people who are in the EU servers. Undoubtedly, someone does speak German though. Let me pop you an invite.
Orrr not, because you have all guild slots full.
(edited by Calliope.8675)
Well, they have till my birthday, then I don’t care if they finish or not. I won’t wait beyond that. raises hand I am willing to negotiate prices.
Assassins are similar to thieves. Most skills occur in a 1-2 pattern, as in you can count 1…2… and dodge or use an evade type skill. Perhaps save your Blurred Frenzy for when they pop stealth, or you can dodge. If you have traited into Illusions and have the grandmaster Illusionary Persona, you can pop Distortion (F4) on yourself. I might suggest swapping out one of your weapon sets for something else (like staff, for defensive purposes). You don’t have to keep it for the whole chapter, but I often swap out my weapons as the situation requires it.
Two days left! No takers? A new prompt will be posted on the first of December.
I’m with Akio here lol. I’ve commissioned two pieces in the past and the artists haven’t gotten back in touch with me.
Invites up to date.
As a Shatter you should be running berserker or assassin statted armor/weapons (in pve/wvw). It is super glass, but you will get the most burst for it. In fact, someone did write a very long thread about how Assassin stats were better, crit-wise, for shatter.
For pvp, I am not sure if Assassin has been released or made available for us to use yet. Anet has been rather slow getting all of the new stat combinations to us for pvp. You will want to use berserker for shatter. Shatter is not a strong condition build, you will get some conditions stacked with it, but they will not be supplying much pressure on your target. You will need an entirely different build for that.
So, final verdict: It is your build that sucks and without watching you play your mesmer in combat, you may need additional practice on your mesmer. No doubt Fay or someone else will pop along and tell you that Celestial is straight up BUTT for mesmer to use and why would you even think of that. Moreover, mesmer is not meant for might stacking.
If you want a condition build you might want to try PU or CI Lockdown. PU is super tanky, has high condition pressure, but is not at all bursty and will not apply damage pressure like shatter will. CI runs with the same stat set up as PU, but is more bursty. It can supply good damage pressure and moderate condition pressure.
All classes take time to learn.
How would you plan to negotiate prices?
Very nice, I like it.
^^; I see we have a few reads and no replies yet. I don’t bite (much). I will be working a bit on my short story today.
Ease up on the caps key…
Two Steps from Hell, Thomas Bergersen, Hans Zimmer, Clint Mansell, Bear McCreary, or a favorite mix of soundtracks from various animes. Depending on mood I will play Hollywood Undead, Breaking Benjamin, or Three Days Grace.
Sounds exciting, though I could see a further nerf to “clone death” traits/builds if the boonstrip clone generation did get put into effect. That or they would put a proc time on it.
To be honest, lights are not wanted in high level fractals unless you are a bursty, zerky build. (By high levels, I mean 31-50.) So, to truly answer your question:
In fractals, you will spend almost all of your time at range. There are very few instances where you will be stacked. Stacking is the surest way to wipe your party. So, in that case ele or mesmer is good. Granted, for mesmer, you will more than likely be using greatsword. Staff is slow with not a lot of damage output, though your phantom might be awesome with the right squad, and people will just laugh at you for using scepter. I prefer playing with sw/focus or pistol on my mesmer with GS, but it is often counterproductive to be in melee range of anything by about L30 in fractals (especially as a light).
That said, ele is starting to look like a better option. However, this will rely primarily on the build you want to use and how good you become at the class. To be good at either ele or mes you will need to be versatile – knowing multiple builds, carrying different sets of armor, and variations of weapons. Most often I run a healing build on my ele. It’s tanky and offers pretty decent support, as those who are trying to facetank will need extra healing. In other situations I swap my build to support only me and deal damage. I never run d/d on ele in higher fractals. I usually have staff or scepter/focus or dagger equipped.
Invites up to date.
Pinz, you have the maximum amount of guilds. You’ll need to cut one loose to join OMFG.
~ Invites up to date!
Still just a for fun thing until more people get interested.
Same as before: 500 word minimum and 1500 word cap. Edit Ends Dec 1st at midnight (after 23:59 on Nov. 30).
Prompt
You have just been recruited to your Order. It is your first time entering the main base (Vigil Keep, Chantry of Secrets, Durmand Priory) and you have accidentally messed up something important that the Order had been working on for weeks, if not months, severely setting it back. What happens next? How do you remedy the situation?
(edited by Calliope.8675)
Oh! =) I’ll try to get a new one posted this weekend then.
bumping ~ I will check to be sure all invites are up to date tomorrow.
Aaaaand closed!
Thanks. I had hoped that maybe more people would write. Should we do it again?
The wisp began to move away. Karayan waited a moment then followed. It led him to a winding stair case hidden by a partially collapsed wall. It halted. He inspected the dark passage, calling his torch from the ether. The ghost shrank back from him.
Your prize is ahead of you, but there is one more challenge awaiting you. Good luck… Karayan.
The Sylvari turned quickly at his name, but the ghost was already gone. How could it have possibly known? He stared at the spot where it had been. It was not coming back. Taking a deep breath he followed the stairs into an even darker chamber. A single candle, lit by a small blue flame flickered near a wall. Not even Karayan’s torch could pierce this darkness.
The ghost came screaming into the room. “You can’t have it! It belongs to me! Mine!” It raved, robes flailing through the air.
“What is it?”
The ghost howled. Fingers twisted the long white hair on his head, his face finally becoming clear. “I found it! You can’t take it from me!”
Karayan gazed impassively at the ghost. “This is pointless.”
“Pointless!” He yowled back. “I’ll show you! I’ll kill you! The king will reward me then, yes!”
The ghost pulled a scepter and focus from within his robes. Karayan changed his grip on his staff. A gust of air shoved him into the ground. He grunted as he pulled himself to his feet again. He placed a chaos storm under the ghost. His rage hissed between his teeth as he backed away from the mesmer. He changed his elemental attunement. Karayan retreated, leaving a clone behind as he backed into a wall.
Every opponent has a weakness. Caithe said as she showed him how to defeat a devourer. That is what you must exploit.
What was there to exploit about a ghost? They were dead already. He blocked another attack from the furious ghost and then dodged to avoid a burning dragon tooth. A spark beyond the ghost distracted Karayan. Something near the candle had glimmered. What was that? Karayan brought his attention back to the ghost. He was murmuring a spell, something the Sylvari’s ears could not quite catch.
Karayan summoned a pair of clones and a phantasm to confuse the ghost. He screeched in outrage, now ignoring the real Karayan. What was it? There! It sparkled again. Karayan reached for it.
“Don’t you dare touch that!”
His fingers slid around cool, faceted stone. The wail of the ghost was drowned out by the roaring of power filling the young mesmer. What was this? The power contained within the stone was too much for someone so inexperienced. The ghost dissipated into a white haze as Karayan fell to the floor, his world swimming before his eyes. A new sound gently overwhelmed the power screaming in his ears, a song he had once heard in his Dream.
“Vinesta,” he called into the darkness before succumbing to it.
~~~~
1187 words
A special thanks to my friends: Largo, skcamow, and Takka for helping me proof this before posting.
Aeol, do you see how you have scarred poor Kar, even in his early days?
(edited by Calliope.8675)
Karayan stared flatly at the spikes in front of him. They had just missed impaling him. Sap ran down his arm and dripped onto the floor. He twisted his arm to see a gash running from his wrist to his elbow. A light sigh escaped his lips.
“That was not nice.” He spoke into the gloom of the catacombs.
A drop of water echoed off the walls. He rubbed the sap from his arm. It hurt, but he would be able to focus on healing it later. With traps in front of him he would have to keep exploring. He leaned around the corner to peer down the next corridor. Nothing.
The tall Sylvari glanced down to check for his preferred weapons. The others floated in the ether, awaiting his call. He was ready for whatever might lay ahead of him. His friends would never let him live it down if they had to come rescue him. Except her. He paused. She never held anything over his head.
You get distracted when you think of her, Sprout. Karayan ground his teeth, recalling Aeoldyn’s mocking words. You need to focus.
“I am focused.” He muttered as he edged along the corridor.
A soft hiss halted him. Only one creature in the catacombs made that sound. Karayan pulled his staff free from his back. Gravelings were fiercely territorial and often accompanied by several other gravelings. A glance behind him assured him that nothing had crept up. Surely his team would be arriving soon. He would get the job done without them if they took too much longer.
Karayan took a breath to focus his mind. Six gravelings, two of which were very large. He rolled his shoulders. He could do this. They were just gravelings.
Never underestimate an opponent. He smiled at the memory of his first lessons with Vinesta.
Maybe he would just play it safe then. No sense getting into a fight he could just as easily avoid. There was no telling what lay ahead. He may need his strength for a more difficult fight. The air around him shimmered briefly and then he was invisible, the light refracting around his body. Karayan was careful not to trip any traps as he passed the gravelings.
Ahead, the tunnel dipped and curved. The drake heads along the wall surprised him by spitting flame. Dreams and Nightmares! Who were these people to need so many traps? He wondered as he passed the now quiet fire spouts. He shook his head. He was here to retrieve an artifact.
Without realizing it, Karayan stepped into a large, open room. He paused only a few paces in. An eerie ghostly light illuminated the room with a soft blue luminescence. He looked around. No gravelings. No ghosts either. He took a step forward. A ghost popped up from the floor in front of him.
“A Charr invader? Here? Brothers! Sisters! To arms!” The ghost cried and pointed at him.
Three more ghosts popped up from the floor. They were not the only things coming out of the ground. Nearby a half crumbled wall shifted, shuddered, and then exploded outwards. A large graveling peered around the room, sniffing noisily. It shrieked and charged at the ghosts. The ghosts turned from Karayan to the new threat.
The mesmer renewed the cloaking spell and moved past the ghosts. Something important was here. He could feel it. It was a tiny vibration that made his body tingle and his ears ring with a soft hum. He stopped. No, he had gone too far. He turned around and looked at the ghosts. No, it wasn’t over there either. He took a few more steps in a different direction then stopped again, bewildered.
A whisper of sound made Karayan whirl around. A pale haze of ghost essence coalesced before him. It did not take shape, the ghost too weak to hold a form.
You are here seeking something lost?
He hesitated and the ghost faded. “I find that which cannot be found.” He answered.
The ghost brightened. Welcome, agent, to the greatest city of Tyria! You have indeed found a wondrous treasure.
I don’t think they want to use that weapon. I like sw/sw too. I play around with every combination.
I will post my own story a little later. ^^; I am having a couple of friends give me feedback on it before I release it to you.
As a reminder… today is the last day to post a story!
You will want to practice interrupting Phantasm skills and Heals (especially heals). Smart ones use a stealth skill while healing.
I had this problem when updating the client on my tablet. It used to drop the speed to 0, so I had to close everything that was open and reopen the client and just let it sit to update. If that is not wholly your problem, perhaps just wait a little while before trying again? ^^;
There is nothing wrong with that set up. I like to use pistol because the phantom is ranged, so there is less chance of it being cleaved down without being drawn in by LoS. Its attack is slightly harder to evade, just because it is at range and they will be forced to dodge or block to avoid the damage. Magic Bullet also has a quicker reaction time. I find I cannot always pull as quickly as I would like with Temporal Curtain.
What are you using for your other weapon set? I like to use Staff + Sword/Pistol in pvp and Focus in wvw. I like the mobility and defense of staff, which means I am sacrificing greatsword, which has the knockback. I bring this up primarily because of thieves and shadow refuge. In pvp I worry about that less, but in wvw it seems every thief in every group has SR and they will drop it. It’s situational.
I prefer pistol myself, I leveled up using this weapon and it has the potential to be more useful. The warden has to track the target and then roots when it uses its attack, which you can easily step out of. However, you could also use the warden as a shield. The bubble does eat projectiles, if you’re worried about those.
My guild did a 5v5 once. We had two guardians, a thief, a mesmer (me!) and an ele. There again though, it is a lot of trust in the team. My driver trusted me to know what I was doing on my mesmer. I trusted him to keep me alive (he was one of our guardians). No one in our group dropped below half HP.
Be able to run multiple builds and not confine yourself to one option. Whenever I’m in doubt I usually run a very tanky PU or a Lockdown build. The real issues are: 1. Having a good driver, 2. having a good team, and 3. being good at your own class. You have to trust your team to take care of you, no matter what build you’re running.
Well, if you like the shades of gold with white, there ARE white weapons. The WupWup claymore is pretty nice (the purple one). I made it specifically for fractaling, but, well, skinned my legendary over it. I am not certain of the names of the white ones, but the wiki does have them listed.
I say either Guard or Ele, because both seem to represent life or the preservation of it, where the Necro represents death.
Very nice! Are those the adventurer’s goggles and mask in that Ghostie picture?
Oh! Challenging me to write on my own prompt! Very well then. QQ! You killed your character!
This is purely for fun and there is no reward at the moment. However, if I am particularly impressed I may give that person a bonus.
This will run until midnight of Nov. 20th Eastern Time (meaning, after 23:59 of the 19th, this ends). The word minimum is 500 and the cap is 1500.
Prompt:
You are the first of your team to enter the Ascalon Catacombs and decide to explore. You hear voices ahead of you, but they are indistinct. Deciding to turn back and wait for your team you attempt to leave, but trigger a trap on the floor. What happens next?
Guild invites are up to date. =)
I like your version. Feels more apt to the personal story chapters as well as that big… airship they have permanently docked at Ft. Trinity.
You can do everything with suboptimal builds, not suboptimal players.
In other words: you’re being carried. As a mesmer, there is no forgiveness for failure. You are not allowed to be “suboptimal,” as oxtred put it.
You must be willing to bend and use other weapons/armors, even after level 80. It took me a long time to learn that I would need more than one set of armor. I couldn’t get by with just sw/focus+gs, not well. I grabbed a second sword, a pistol, a staff, a scepter, everything I would need for every weapon combination.
And despite what others have said, the players who are willing to except a hobbled build into a dungeon are very few and very far between. Most players who know anything about other classes and see you with those weapons will curl a lip at you. They will see you as subpar, but essentially as deadweight.