Showing Posts For Chaos Archangel.5071:

MirrorBlink: A Secret Recipe for Mesmer Burst

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

He’s right. I am woefully terribad with GS.

Woefully.

The new confusion - just another dot ...

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Chaos Archangel.5071

+1 great idea

[GUIDE] Lyssa's Grimoire: The Mesmer Handbook

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Workin on it as we speak

MirrorBlink: A Secret Recipe for Mesmer Burst

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Chaos Archangel.5071

What’s this month’s flavor of the month? Feed your opponents some Mesmer love from the class that went from suffering months of underpoweredness, nerfs, and silly bugs to absolutely crushing the competition!


INGREDIENTS

  • Greatsword (Add one cup of style to match mesmer standards)
  • Dueling Line (Clones and Perma Fury ftw)
  • Fire/Air Runes (Because there is no such thing as overkill when it comes to delicious)
  • Blink or Decoy (Or both!)
  • Zerker Amulet (Marauder can work)

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS

  • Domination Line (Confounding Suggestions + Powerblock to ensure the opponent not just eats it, but eats it all.) & Mantra of Distraction
  • /laugh (Necessary for proper amounts of salt)

DIRECTIONS

1) Produce a clean, glamourous greatsword (sunrise is a common preference, maybe a bit too common.)

  • Note. Take the time out to admire how funny “glamourous” is spelled. Something about spelling ‘ou’ twice in one word is tickling.

2) Find a hungry opponent, preferably one unaware to your presence. ( Stealth helps. To add a slice of cheese with the salt, grab the Prismatic Understanding trait. )

3) Cast Mirror Blade (GS2) @ close range or teleport to opponent while casting. Cast Mind Spike (GS3) immediately after GS2.

  • Find some time to throw in a dodge clone in the mix. Jump-dodging takes longer and is not recommended.

4) F1 (Mind Wrack) Shatter for an explosion of flavor!

OPTIONAL STEPS

5) Cast Mantra of Distraction’s Power Lock to stun the opponent before hand, if you’re doing this correctly, the 1s stun should be just enough time for a 0-100 burst on most opponents.

6) If opponent isn’t dead, they’ll likely be on the defensive. Save an interrupt for when they try to heal and finish them.

7) Stir thoroughly in a clockwise motion with Phantasmal Berserker (GS4)


SAMPLE BUILD

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8flknhG1YZawGNwtGLnGE6Y6+3JDwCWeZGae4A-TZBFABCcFAEvMwCHEgW2fAgHAAA

DOMINATION: II, IV, VIII
DUELING: II, IV, IX
ILLUSIONS: I, IV, VII *

  • = Last tree is optional.

While I try to make light of the situation, this is actually a bit of a problem (depending on who you’re speaking with). Right now Mesmers are capable of near-to-instant death setups that are just massacring people and rapidly tearing down the “high-skill” quality of the class.

And yes, Anet specifically stated that they want Mesmer to be a high skill – high reward class.

As it is now, there is an army of FoTM (flavor of the month) Mesmer making us all look like scrubs, and the above-mentioned method is exactly how they’re doing it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy as anyone with the improvements that Mesmer has received, but there are a few key things here that do need to be addressed:

  • Blinding Dissipation completely unavoidable, even through blocks and dodges.
  • The combination of confounding’s instant stun and Mesmer’s massive damage spikes/stealth leaving next to no counterplay. (Just dodge/evade doesn’t count when you’re not facing a 1v1. Often the Mes will burst you out of stealth before you ever knew they were there and with more damage than a thief can put out.. and AOE at that!)

Now here’s the thing.. Mesmer as a whole is not OP. There are a few very specific things that are pushing our Shatter and Lockdown builds into OPness, but the class as a whole is in a very good place IMO. Chaos & Inspiration are fantastic trees, Illusions needs some improvement but isn’t terrible, and Mesmer is currently better than it has been in GW2 history (with the exception of the beta.. but that doesn’t count. =P)


VIDEOS

Vashury demonstrates this perfectly, however do not expect to go from day one Mesmer to .. this!

(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)

The greatest Mesme Expert

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

I am truly honored, though I’m just some dumb guy who likes big words. =P I actually am pretty adamant that I’m not the “greatest of” or “best of” anything. There are plenty of people who do just as much as I do if not more, I just happen to have a pretty snazzy way of writing and enjoy really helping educate others.

Sorry my posts recently have been rushed/distracted – irl has been hectic. Working on updating all the old articles for the new system but it’s been taking much longer than I expected.

I’d give it to skcamow, Pyroathiest, guanglai kangyi, but most definitely frifox! I never need to math as long as I have a frifox.

(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)

[Vid] BoonShare Mesmer Post-Patch (WvW/PvP)

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Dope! Nice vid man, watched till about over 5 minutes in.

Recently I’ve been playing with Mercy Runes, got a vid here.

That greatsword man.. Deadly!

Offhand Sword is Better Than Ever

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

@Menaka Haven’t seen any problems so far.

@Xyonon Mixing GS with sw/sw offers the potential for the most damage out of any weaponset. What I like about staff -or more specifically chaotic dampening- is that running something like Null Field allows you to stack pretty hefty amount of protection on your sword set. Even running GS with dampening and without staff offers a good amount of protection from chaos armor.

@bhagwad I’ve been playing around with different options:

  • Dueling/Chaos/Illusions or Dom/Dueling/Illusions or Dom/Duel/Chaos or Dom/Dueling/Inspiration (phantasm boosts and shield phantasm) or your suggestion of Dom/Chaos/Illusions all have potential. I’ve yet to decide which I like the most.
  • Runes of Grenth/Mesmer/Lyssa/Pack/Hoelbrak/Vampirism have all caught my attention.
  • Sigils of Fire/Air/Rage(if furious interrupt)/Hydromancy/Doom/Intelligence/Energy/Speed have all caught my notice too. For swords I tend to run fire&energy but speed sigils are clutch and I’ve enjoyed rage before, though mostly for the auto attack and offhand skills (and makes iLeap less of a pain)

The way of the Samurai

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Uh..a ninja strikes from the shadows

Updated: Ele Bugs: as of 8/13/2015 patch

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Arcane Brilliance still centers the BLAST finisher on the opponent rather than the Ele. In order to get it to function correctly you have to have no target.

9k Mage Strike

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Mage strike has been video documented missing a slowly moving Dolyak.

Staff phantasms attack gains a 10% damage boost based on how many conditions are on the target. Chaos storm + winds of chaos + shatter would stack a pretty decent amount of condis (bleed, burn, blind, vuln, confusion, poison, chill)

A 9k mage strike is a rare, beautiful thing.

[Vid] Lockdown Impressions / Gameplay

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

In this video you will see…

  • The most “hypest” TimeWarp letdown.
  • Crazy bursts
  • Clutch Interrupts
  • Stupid rotation decisions
  • Why I love the Focus

Build link

(To be edited and expanded)
Lockdown right now is fantastic. Fun, effective, and easy to play… A little too easy, actually. You no longer need to rely on interrupts thanks to the 1s stun from Confounding Suggestions.

Don’t get me wrong; I like the change to confounding.

But the burst you can enact from the 1s stun has next to no counterplay, and saying “oh just use dodges, blocks, ect.” in a hectic teamfight isn’t enough of a counterargument when often you’ll rarely even see the Mesmer coming, much less have your skills off cooldown.

Lockdown right now doesn’t feel as rewarding as it used to be due to the ease of access, but at the same time it is still amazingly fun. Played properly, you feel like a psychic god-thing. Played improperly, you can still be effective to your team. It’s a great time to be a veteran lockdown Mesmer, but it’s never been a better time to explore this extremely fun and rage-inducing playstyle.

]]]]

(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)

Manipulation Build: Illusion of Life+Mimic

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Chaos Archangel.5071

While unpopular it’s nice to note that mirror gains 2s of extra reflection time now totalling 4s lovely for use on Rangers..

Anyway as much as I want mimic + iol to be amazing I can’t help but feel that if you need to provide this much of clutch support then something is very wrong with your team or your teams skill levels.

IoL used to see play in high level PvP way back when, but was deemed not as valuable as portal. I don’t know if running Mimic+Illusion of Lifemeans you have a bad team or a very unique comp but it does bother me that people aren’t experimenting more. Who knows what we could discover or how good this stuff could actually be?

I think what it comes down to is how smooth the support is. If it doesn’t interrupt your rotation or play in any way, then it’s worthwhile. Right now it seems you only need Dom/Dueling for a nice burst of power for the signature 1-shot bursts (and to flood the PvP forums with tears) and utilities feel a bit more flexible than before since we have more natural survivability. Will this ever become a thing? Idk. But there is potential here and it’s worth exploring.

Offhand Sword is Better Than Ever

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Chaos Archangel.5071

I’ve always been a fan of Sw/Sw on Mesmer, we’re the only class that can make a viable sw/sw power build and aesthetically it just looks so kitten cool. But in the past Offhand sword was one of the worst possible choices for PvP/WvW compared to it’s competition (PvE offhand sword is actually one of the best choices for Dungeons) and unfortunately this recent balance patch gave no blessings to this awkward offhand.

.. Or did it?

PHANTASMAL HASTE – SPEEDY STABBINGS

The above link is a video comparing the attack speeds of iDuelist vs iSwordsman. iSwordsman (among other phantasms) was always bugged with pHaste to not give the proper boost in attack rate. With this patch, swordsman now clearly outpaces iDuelist damage-wise and as always the damage comes in one heavy hit rather than an easily-mitigated stream of projectiles. Both phantasms can be cast at 1200r, and at this point the only advantages Duelist has over Swordsman is that it sits safely at range and can work in condition builds… once it eventually gets fixed.

IP BASELINE & BLINDING DISSIPATION

Remember that painful illusionary counter that often ended up counter-productive when used defensively against multiple opponents? Well now you can more reliably net the damage without leaving yourself wide open. iCounter hits as hard as any of Swordsman’s attacks, and leaves you a clone to shatter after blocking. A quick Distortion or Blinding F2 should be enough to cover your animations, and the extra clone that the counter leaves makes for a nice shatter burst right behind the counter hit.

RELIABLE STUN – CONFOUNDING SUGGESTIONS

Of all our offhands, Sword grants the most consistent daze on a very low cooldown. With confounding, it is extremely easy to predict when this daze would be a stun and capitalize on it. As it stands, offhand sword is the most reliable and consistent weapon interrupt we have at the moment and on a much lower cooldown than the others.

LEAP FINISHER – CHAOTIC DAMPENING

So we need Chaos Armor to make our staff cooldown quickly huh? No better weaponset to compliment staff than Sword/Sword for this purpose. Summoning the iSwordsman counts as a leap finisher for the Mesmer, granting Chaos Armor on summon. This gives us 3 ways to proc Chaos Armor and a 30% reduction on our skills without needing another Ethereal field such as Null Field.


I’ve been running Sword/Sword+Staff since the patch and have a hard time leaving it. I believe it’s current state outshines the pistol, especially when paired with the staff and offers the second most damage behind Greatsword. I’d still like to see Illusionary Counter buffed to grant kitten evade between the block and counterattack but it is good to see that even though the Offhand sword wasn’t buffed directly, it’s still seen some noticeable improvement.

why do people hate mesmers?

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

People have always hated Mesmers, our mechanics make us a rather difficult fight on any level. People hate us more now because some of our bad skills/traits/builds have been made good and some of our good skills/traits/builds have become great.

Some of the rage is justified (instant stealth oneshot bursts), but most of it really isn’t.

While some people have legitimate concerns, the majority of the rage comes from angry parrots who don’t really understand the class much at all.

Manipulation Build: Illusion of Life+Mimic

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Was putting together some build combinations when I came up with this odd support build:

http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8clsnhy0YfawONwtGL4GkZGCxIPLxLudZAW9vA-TpwRgAA7PIWGAA

In the vid, I’m using pack runes rather than Mercy

2:43
6:15
6:56

Now sure, that match was a stomping, and don’t ask what made me think “Hm.. Lets run full manipulations!” but I ended up playing around with traits and came up with the above.

One thing I find really cool about the new Mesmer specs is how easy it is to make a build that can work with whatever utilities you feel like running. In anything but the highest level PvP, Mesmers have nearly free reign on the kinds of builds we want to make (which is why it’s a bit of a shame to see so many people clinging to the same two builds)

So I do like Mimic + Illusion of Life, but Mimic really needs to be instant-cast. The cast time is so clunky and unnecessary with that obscene cooldown.

Elementalist Staff being used as a Weapon

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

+10000.
I realy feel bored when i play with staff, lack of animation, feeling like a big unamovible turret.
This could be realy nice if they do something like you said

Was that unavoidable or immobile?

If immobile, why would you feel like that with staff? The only rooting skill is Meteor Shower and you don’t even have to wait the full duration. It seems to me that you need to be mobile with staff to survive.

[PVP] Help Improve My Staff Ele?

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

GAMEPLAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxNLAautmLY

LINK TO BUILD
gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJAWRlsnh+0YZaw­WNQtGL4GkZGCxIPLxLWRZAW9vA-TZxEwANeCA02f­AwhAQxFAIaZAA

Any info, advice, opinions would be much appreciated as I learn to git gud with my secondary class. Staff ele is tough, but I didn’t wanna go the bunker/support route since they gutted my favorite healing trait. So this time I decided to go ultra hardmode and run a DPS staff ele.

What could I be doing better? If you could point out specific timestamps in the video, I’ll add a notation in the vid with your bit of advice. Ty for your time!

Mantra daze during other skills

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Chaos Archangel.5071

im 1200% convinced that mesmer is only played by bad players that defend any of the proposed nerfs.

That is a lot of percents on a truly deep, well thought-out hypothesis.

@OP: The mantra daze is fine. Its always been like that since launch. The “100% stun on daze” is what you’re mad at.

Rampage needs looking at

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Rampage may be strong 1v1 but its an elite.. It should be.

Anndd it can be moa’d.

Besides, in its current form it is now actually worth caring about without being overbearing. Before it was laughable.

You know the problem is that other classes do not have access to such a powerful elite. Look at eles for example, Tornado is probably one of the worst transforms this game has. They either need to buff all of the elites or nerf Rampage to put them in line. But honestly all these zerkers warriors just count on Rampage to win fights, which is kinda dumb if you ask me.

I agree. But then look at lich. Who’d win, Rampage War or Lich Necro?

Ele’s elite just falls short compared to the other transformations, but I wouldn’t have them toned down to Tornado level and thus all made useless. Tornado should have a powerful presence on the battlefield like the others.

(Then again Eles really got shafted when it comes to useful elites in PvP)

Rampage needs looking at

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Rampage may be strong 1v1 but its an elite.. It should be.

Anndd it can be moa’d.

Besides, in its current form it is now actually worth caring about without being overbearing. Before it was laughable.

Mesmer never took skill to begin with

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Chaos Archangel.5071

The thing about this thread.. Is that it’s mostly talking about 1v1s, is filled with over exaggerations, and is only talking about one specific build.

…And it comes from a non-Mesmer.

/two-finger clap

If You Introduced a New Necro to PvP...

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Much appreciated!

Furious Interruption should remove boons

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Chaos Archangel.5071

I disagree with Pyro’s assessment of FI’s usefulness, especially regarding Quickness uptime, but I’ll address that later/tomorrow. I do agree, though, that Shattered Concentration still beats this trait out in usefulness.

If Furious stole a boon, however, it would be a better contender.

If You Introduced a New Necro to PvP...

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Chaos Archangel.5071

What kind of build would you recommend? What tips/tactics would you offer?

and please.. no “Best advice is to roll another class.” You’d be surprised at how effective that is at discouraging people from the class.

An attempt to be reasonable: Mesmers

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Chaos Archangel.5071

I have always said Confusing suggestions was too strong. Mesmers shouldn’t be running mantra of distraction in pvp. This was not the way it was before the patch. It just goes a little too far. However, Anet should be very careful how they change it.

.. Mesmers shouldn’t… be running.. Mantra of Distraction… Because it wasn’t that way before the patch?

For one, yes Mantra was used before the patch.

For another.. Confounding isn’t that bad. Slide it up to Master tier to make it compete with Shattered Condition/Furious Interruption and problem mostly solved.

Did Minionmancers Get a Buff?

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Out of curiosity, do minions attack your target if you summon them mid-battle? Or do they still randomly run off and check their instagram?

#Fleshgolemtrending

Confounding Suggestions & Power Block

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Chaos Archangel.5071

CS in its current form cannot compete with power block. Almost any lockdown build that would choose CS over a mixture of weakness/halting strike/15s cool down is hurting themselves.

I do agree that CS is strong, but DE as a comparison isn’t exactly correct. DE isn’t build-defining, despite that it used to be necessary in most builds. DE never defined any build that it was in except standard shatter, and even then the signature trait of shatter was iPersona.

DE was required for the ability to shatter properly because without it Mesmer is woefully lacking in clone production. It didn’t define lockdown, shatter, condition, or phantasm the way Chaotic Interruption, iPersona, Prismatic Understanding ECT. did.

And CS, outside of a couple specific Dom/Duel/Chaos or Illusions setups isn’t that strong. Can it be build definining..? Somewhat, I’d say it deserves Master tier. Let it compete with Furious Interrupt and Shattered Concentration.

An attempt to be reasonable: Mesmers

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Chaos Archangel.5071

I’m starting to agree with the sentiment that threads like these are going to get us nerfed into oblivion…

Double nerfing confounding is overdoing it. Making it proc on-interrupt with the 5s ICD is fine (but also conflicts with Chaotic Interruption.) Increasing the ICD to 10s would also be reasonable, though I feel the ICD should be per-target like Ineptitude.

Nerf Harmonious Mantras because.. it’s becoming meta?

Nerf the dueling line granting near permanent fury despite the fact that.. other classes can do the same?

… You’re suggestion the Inspiration line, a line you admit to not have even tested or know much about, be nerfed.

Actually.. 3 of your points are advocating changes to things you’ve never tried or tested yourself. This is guaranteed to do more harm than good, and will have a much worse effect the potential of new builds and strategies rather than standard shatter. -_-

(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)

Confounding Suggestions & Power Block

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Uh.. What is it that makes CS & Power Block combined too much?

The more I play the less I see with CS being a problem. In fact, if Mesmer couldn’t 0-100 burst then there wouldn’t be a problem at all.

The bigger issue here is how effective Mesmer can be versus a stunned opponent. The 1s stun out of power block isn’t nearly enough to be worth grandmaster, even with the daze/stun duration increases. Moving it to grandmaster would be the equivalent of nerfing it, no lockdown Mesmer would take it over power block, and shatter Mesmer would still have their crazy wombo bursts.

I’m really starting to get the feeling confounding isn’t as bad as people think. The stun isn’t so bad, the burst in that 1 second is. I’d rather an ICD increase to 10s (and would really rather see Pyro’s suggestion).

[Vids] Testing Boonshare - Chaos Maestro v2

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Also, it seems like you allways pick Prismatic Understanding instead of Bountifull Dillusioment in your builc calculator!

What the eff!

/fix’d

[Vids] Testing Boonshare - Chaos Maestro v2

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Chaos Archangel.5071

So it turns out the build has been tweaked yet again!

This is a rather unfortunate chance, but the previous version of the build struggled in pvp due to distortion so losing the cap. While I haven’t given up on it(and see no reason why it wouldn’t work in WvW anyways) Warlord and I worked on a more tournament-viable variant that is actually very similar to the pre-patch version of pvp Chaos Maestro. (Dueling/Chaos/Inspiration)

Anyone who used the pre-patch build should feel right at home with this version.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-RZ-FF;0kUV11S7-W-71;9;4UVT;0258247038;4d3X4U;1pLQhpLQh5m

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lqNR788GGxA

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a03nEVqXEOE

…I always seem to have a lousy start. -_-

(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)

[OMFG] 5 Mes Team Comp, Vids

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Argh I accidentally deleted my video of our match against Lynch. >_<

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IU24GTM5iko

But I did manage to snag this one!

Patch Didn't Fix Duelist's Discipline Bleeds

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Chaos Archangel.5071

But on the bright side, Inspiration got a random buff. o_O


Mesmer

  • Healing Prism: Increased the base healing by 200%. Added a 10-second internal cooldown.

I’m sure anyone using Restorative Mantras will appreciate this.

Edit: Orrr not

(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)

[Vids] Testing Boonshare - Chaos Maestro v2

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Chaos Archangel.5071

(I tried mantras before, they work, but not my style. The mantra heal is nice with the distorts though) Actually, the link was incorrect. I am using Manipulations atm. Fixed. Also made the video public.

… This is what happens when you think you’re cool enough to do everything on your cellphone.


Anyways, I’m happy to say that so far I’ve been pleasantly surprised by this build’s effectiveness. It seems to be nearing completion, I just need to answer a few more questions.

  • It’s obvious the build is more powerful in a teamfight, and despite its impressive boon generation, truly excels when soaking up boons from other classes; how good is the build alone. How well can it work in SoloQ?
    So far so good, I don’t have any concerns over the build’s 1v1 capabilities nor how useful it is in a team fight, my question now is if it’s unique capabilities make it worth taking over it’s competition. It’s time to check other builds in other classes to answer that age-olde question: “Is it statistically and functionally worth taking over [x]?”

One thing is for sure, this build has a playstyle unlike anything I’ve played before, even from the previous version. Like with most of the builds I tend to make, it isn’t easy to pick up at first but, once you adjust to all the tools at your disposal you’ll find a build that’s powerful, supportive, durable, and very versatile with a lot of layers of complexity.

Again, I can’t thank enough everyone who’s helped put this together.

[Vids] Testing Boonshare - Chaos Maestro v2

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Chaos Archangel.5071

Ross: Melandru + Humility is a good mix, actually.. Will try it out. I’ve got Signet of Midnight for stunbreak though.

Pepsi: That is an interesting and entirely different take on boonshare than what I’m working on! I’m curious to see your results but one thing stuck out as curious to me.. Why signet of Domination? Without blurred inscriptions you’re free to put anything you want in your utilities, why not grab Decoy?

I’ll give your spec a shot this weekend and let ya know what I think!

[Forum Specialist] Specialization Update

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Chaos Archangel.5071

I can’t stress enough how much of a bad move it was to nerf Chaotic Dampening to 2%. They took one of the most interesting traits and made it much less lucrative out of fear of it being too strong. This wasn’t a “small adjustment” it was a 60% slash without much thought or math done behind it. Combined with the knee-jerk 50% overnerf of Maimed and the devs are quickly losing the trust they only recently regained from us. How long it takes to adjust this will speak a lot about the balance team.

On the bright side, the pistol trait is awesome! … Except its bugged. (and while other classes got bug fixes, we got continual nerfs since the patch) However it does promote skilled play as was intended… Just not in PvE.

Mimic rocks and was a great and extremely “mesmery” change. I was running it before and I can see its potential. I think it will see use.

Every Mesmer I’ve fought runs the same two builds. And most are decent, but “skillful?” not in general. There is still a very profound difference between skillful Mesmer and spammy Mesmer… And I’m somewhere in the middle, depending on my opponent. X.x

[Forum Specialist] Specialization Update

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Chaos Archangel.5071

I’ll try to answer everything in a neat little rant:

I think Mesmer is easier to play moreso for people who have played Mesmer in the past. The core changes alone had a huge impact on the class with the biggest factor being iPersona (Shatter effect on Mesmer) allowing for us to take traits that were previously inaccessible or impractical without Deceptive Evasion( clone on dodge). The feeling of not being forced into taking DE to be anywhere close to competitive is extremely liberating and has helped encourage so much exploring.

Speaking of exploring, these new traits are fantastic. For once nearly every grandmaster is build-defining and has a direct impact on your playstyle. A lot of trash traits were scrapped in favor of new and innovative ways to build your Mesmer. Right now the most interesting GMs are in Inspiration, which is the only traitline to gain three entirely new grandmasters. My personal favorites are Illusionary Inspiration, which may revive bponshare Mesmer and Power Block because it makes me grin with sinister anticipation every time I glance at that trait. Honestly though, I can’t think of a single Grandmaster that doesn’t impress at the moment.

However.. Prismatic Shatter is indeed a problem in my opinion. We’re talking about a build that can literally one-shot faster than a thief can while roaming around completely invisible until they decide to kill you. This will either promote tankier builds or need to be adjusted. Honestly, this wouldn’t be a problem if stealth was reworked to reveal the player on a missed/evaded attack. The fact that you can attack indefinitely from stealth and not worry about being revealed until you’re hit is absurd.

I’m loving the changes to the Chaos line, it was previously a mostly selfish tree, now it has more ally-related abilities such as the minor that increases your outgoing boon duration based on the number of boons you have. With the changes to Chaotic Dampening (that got nerfed so hard. Please change to 3% at least) there WAS a very tempting reason for many Mesmer to invest in the chaos line. Right now the grandmasters are the biggest reason.

The main interrupt spec Dom/Dueling/Chaos (that everyone and their momma has made a thread showing off like they’re trying to plant their flag on a new planet) is fantastic. Right now it is the only Mesmer build that can clearly compete with shatter for tournament viability. I know I’ve always advocated lockdown, but with the specialization change lockdown is stronger than ever, the biggest thing that kept shatter above lockdown was IP, but that is gone now. (However if you Nerf PU you’ll see many more interrupt Mesmer)

(to be continued)

Why I Refuse to Shatter

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Which traits have ya been runnin?

People dislike Lock Down

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Ya gotta block out the names to avoid infractions. And that message brings a smile to my heart.

Ah, remember the days when lockdown was obscure and relatively unknown? Now we get misinformed hatred and judgment!

The Robert Gee Appreciation Thread

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

While it is rather easy to step onto this hypetrain for a guy I hadn’t heard of before this post (not a really active player and TERRIBLE at remembering names), I am sure that random acts of appreciation like this can truly make someone’s day.

So, Robert, for shaping and maintaining the sole reason I keep playing GW2 (my Mesmer):

Thank you

Edit: Oh, and Chaos, you leave that Unicorn alone! There’s no such thing as too much fabulousness in the toolkit of a Mesmer

Until I read that book, Ima be squirmy about that kitten unicorn.

And if you check the ready up stream where they unveiled the balance patch, he’s the guy who explained all the Mesmer changes

Why I Refuse to Shatter

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

I’d like to input my thoughts but would you mind linking your build bhagwad?

I’m curious to see what exactly you’re running that wouldn’t benefit from shattering.

Why are we the self defeating community?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

But I feel that you’re generalizing things and making it seem like it’s more than what it is.

Sorry if I came off that way, forgive me though if I fear we will be nerfed prematurely and have little to no room in the new meta. We have always been overshadowed by other classes to the point where portal is our only real niche, and if someone gets a specialization with glamours and a portal that niche for us will then be gone.
I would much rather see the meta evolve with us still in it, than for us to be overshadowed by other classes for another year or three.

Right now shatter bursts are instant. 0-100 out-of-stealth kills. THAT is the main complaint. I’ve seen and done it myself, and I can agree that in it’s current state it IS too strong.

Based on the fact that everyone now is glass?

Yes you can now 0-100 someone.
But so can everyone else.
this is one of the main things I and others have been telling people.

EVERYONE is glass, and EVERYONE is doing insane damage.
not just mesmers

I think Anet needs to shave power off of every amulet and reduce power from gear.
We have a power creep from multiple sources. But it effects everyone.

I see your point, and we should definitely wait for the meta to settle. But people shouldn’t blame others for seeing some obviously overly strong faults in their class just because the other class forums are afraid or unwilling to admit the same.

One thing is for certain, as a community we shouldn’t be turning on eachother instead of respecting different opinions. There’s way too much “Your opinion is WRONG and you should be ashamed! You disgust me!” going on right now.

The Robert Gee Appreciation Thread

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

I’ve played Mesmer since GW1, and this update is the best thing to happen to Mesmers since the GW1 update on May 21, 2010, which finally, after five years, made Mesmer a viable profession in all game modes. Here we are again, it having only been three years this time. Mesmer feels great now. Versatile and strong, but certainly not overpowered when taking into account the buffs other professions received. This is how Mesmer should always have been, and unsurprisingly, the same man was behind both changes. Thank you for everything, Robert. You did good, both times.

Mr Robert Gee,

I don’t know if you realize what you’ve done for our class, and I can’t know how often you play Mesmer, but the changes you’ve helped usher in have revitalized the class in a way that most Mesmer had hoped for but never actually expected to happen.

I don’t know who you suplexed in order to get Illusionary Persona (Shatter counts for the Mesmer. Previously a grandmaster trait and the best trait a Mesmer could take) made into baseline, but that change alone has caused such a positive shift for the class. You’ve opened up traits that were locked behind shatters (and thus required investing into Dueling for Deceptive Evasion) that most people didn’t even consider. You’ve taken the lackluster Inspiration traitline and made it something innovative and interesting, gave us a reason to be excited to try out the Weapon-traits, hell.. you even made boonsharing into a possible thing.

I don’t know what you were drinking/smoking when you said to yourself “Hey.. lets make power block good.” but I sure as hell want some of that stuff. The Domination line in general actually feels like a tree with traits to DOMINATE the opponent. The dueling line is filled with interesting abilities for small-scale combat… Hell, I’ll even forgive you for the frickin’ unicorn in Inspiration. I don’t know if that was your decision, but I’ll blame you anyway.

All in all, the Mesmer is in better shape than it has been in years. You’ve increased build diversity, added interesting traits that allow for so much creativity, and in this Mesmer’s opinion, helped make the game feel fresh again. I heard you did the same for us back in GW1, so obviously you are a herald of Lyssa, and I can’t thank you enough for reinvigorating our love in the class.

(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)

Why are we the self defeating community?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

But I feel that you’re generalizing things and making it seem like it’s more than what it is.

Right now shatter bursts are instant. 0-100 out-of-stealth kills. THAT is the main complaint. I’ve seen and done it myself, and I can agree that in it’s current state it IS too strong.

There is no “well maybe you can do this differently” in that situation. You don’t see the Mesmer, anndd you’re dead. Right now that, (and the fact that Blinding Shatters is completely unmitigated).

All I’m saying is that right now we’re in a great place and no one wants to see that changed, but some people just don’t want to be overpowered.

Patch Seems to have Halved Build Variety

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

I think this is more of a perspective thing.

Before the patch nearly every Mesmer was shoehorned into certain builds/traits with nearly as many lousy useless traits as good ones (and plenty questionable traits inbetween). Even phantasm builds struggled outside of PvE.

Now that things have been switched up, it may feel like there is less diversity,but that is mostly because people are trying to recreate their old builds in this new system. I took the opposite approach and looked at what new sort of builds could be made with the revamped system and so far I’ve seen:

  • Shatter (at least 3 variations)
  • Lockdown (3 variations)
  • Signets (2 variations)
  • Support (4 variations)
  • Phantasm
  • Condition (2 variations)
  • Mantra

From what I’ve seen so far, nearly every build has gotten buffed in some way and new builds have become viable. I don’t really see any loss here besides clone death.

Why are we the self defeating community?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

O.K. This is getting silly.

There is a lot of over dramatics and generalizing all over the place.

Why do people like to blame the entire forum for the actions of a few? And if you really look at those threads, they’re only pointing at a few specific traits that need tweaking.

All these diagnosis and claiming Mesmers want themselves nerfed makes the situation seem way worse than it really is. Its just a few non-Mesmers complaining and some Mesmer mains with obvious concerns over some extremely powerful specs that they don’t want Anet to overnerf like Chaotic Dampening and Maimed.

… And can we please stop with the underdog thing? People are blowing that way out of proportion.

[Vids] Testing Boonshare - Chaos Maestro v2

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Been a busy day at work, so haven’t been able to post as much as I’d like, but I’ve got a clip of a match from last night I wanna share. Lord knows I wish I recorded the match BEFORE this one. Was epic and a fantastic demo of the build.. Ah well, this’ll do.

Notes on the build are throughout the video

[Vids] Testing Boonshare - Chaos Maestro v2

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Whoops, good catch! Dampening is still preferred, moreso for the on-demand Protection than the cool down reduction.

Also, running with offhand sword offers me another leap finisher for chaos armor

[Vids] Testing Boonshare - Chaos Maestro v2

in Mesmer

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

@ Ross & Pepsi I will have replies for y’all shortly, but I wanted to throw this up while I had the chance.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fintothemists.com%2Fcalc%2F%3Fbuild%3D-RZ-FF%3B0kUk61S7kW-71%3B9%3B4UVS%3B0257247048%3B4d3X4U%3B1F-03F-035J

That is the current version of he build after tests from Warlord and I yesterday. Much smoother, better sustain, more synergies and damage. There are new video links up of some of our duels/tests with the updated build. So far it is shaping up to be quite strong. Many thanks to Warlord of Chaos, icyicyicy, Jace al Thor , skcamow, stickerhappy and Xela for helping with the tests yesterday!

(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)

So how do you deal with Mesmers now? o.o

in PvP

Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

PU Boring and cheesy to play against, similar to shadow arts thief. Stealth and oneshot with little to no counterplay. Will probably need to be nerfed to at least 50% or something. Personally i would replace it with a more fun trait.

And just how does a PU mesmer one-shot somebody?? With what?

PU is now a viable trait for shatter Mesmer since we no longer need to spec into Illusions and stats aren’t affected by traitlines. Combined with a new shatter trait that increases the burst damage by 15-30% stealth shatterbursts are brutal