Guild Wars 2

Thanks for posting these videos. This made my transition from playing a Engineer to a Mesmer much easier.

Just rerolled from an 80 Engineer (pvp on him was just too straight forward), and chose mesmer after reading a lot of the threads on here. I’ve watched some videos, both sPvP, and PvE videos (including the great comprehensive videos that were made introducing the class).

What I’m having trouble is working out viable builds, but more importantly understanding WHY they are viable.

Why do people choose to stack certain stats like power, or crit, or condition on certain builds.

If you guys could explain this to me by submitting the build and explaining why it works that would be a great help.

Thanks for your time.

Definitely need an official response to clear this issue up. Inconsistencies with the wiki, the tool tip, and how the game mechanics currently work merit some clarification if we want to set this issue straight.

Again, it would be greatly appreciated.

Yes exactly, the tooltip says both (reduced defenses and increases damage taken) by a flat %. As for the wiki, the last update was on September 4th, so unless something was changed by a person outside of the Guild Wars team, it would be pretty inconsistent if we are to consider this information with what the tool tip states an increase in damage.

Like Armstrong said, it does feel like this may be intended since this is a large mechanic to overlook, but currently there seems to be no official or definite response on the issue.

Is there any possible way that one of the forum developers could spend some time clarifying on the issue at hand? It would be largely appreciated.

Not to be a nit pick sir, and I’m not doubting your words, I’m just really big on citation. Do you perhaps have a link supporting that claim?

If that is the case, then the tool tip needs to be updated and the wiki needs to be changed because as it reads it appears to be in direct contradiction of the fact. As posted previously, the wiki states it word for word “Vulnerability condition increases all damage taken (both direct and condition-based) by a flat percentage.”

I’ve been doing a little experimenting today with a condition build as an engineer which implements vulnerability into it. To test this directly, I used utility goggles (which adds 10 stacks of vulnerability to the target on use) and the elixir gun for fumigate (adds 5 stacks of vulnerability to the target), and then switched to a bleed/burning/poison ability, like the tranquilizer dart which adds a bleed to the target, poisoned darts from the pistol, or just using the standard attack on the flame thrower.

After testing with 15 stacks of vulnerability versus none, none of the applied conditions are doing increased damage whatsoever from vulnerability.

The tool tip describes vulnerability as “Lowering the targets defense” and “x% incoming damage”. To make sure this wasn’t an outdated tool tip, I checked the wiki on the damage section which states that “Vulnerability condition increases all damage taken (both direct and condition-based) by a flat percentage.”

Link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

Now I’m not sure if this is bug, but this seems more intentional that conditions are not benefiting from vulnerability stacks since the issue is a big one considering the large difference in DPS this would have on DoT conditions.

Could anyone clear this up for me? Perhaps there has been a post on this that I missed or something similar to that.

Edit TLDR: For statistical purposes, with current sPvP gear attacking the heavy golem, the bleed from tranquilizing dart hits for 104 damage per stack with no stacks of vulnerability. It also hits for 104 per stack with 15+ stacks of vulnerability. Now if I understand that vulnerability increases damage by 1% per stack, that should be 15% extra damage which means each tick should be doing 119.6 points of damage per tick.