Guild Wars 2

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

So why do roamers engage in pvp that heavily favors them, is low rewarded and has minimal impact to their server? Because they like to bully others.

As someone who enjoys roaming and small scale wvw play I strongly disagree with this and find it a bit insulting.

I wil firstly say how I prefer to roam. I always try to:
- react to rather than initiate combat with another player, unless its obvious they want to engage in a fight and I need to get the initial attack in.
- use objectives (camps/sentries) to set targets. I never roam aimlessly, I’ll always look out for the distribution of captured objectives on a map and decide where is the best place to flip camps, whether that means running around northcamp in enemy BL or flipping southern camps or whatever, there will always be a goal in mind if the situation arises that I happen to not run into any decent fights.
- on a similar note, I will join in with small or large groups trying to flip a tower or keep if I happen to be moving in that direction or there are no other good objectives on the map, but eventually I’ll get bored of it and move off in my own direction if it looks like a camp needs taking.
- not chase/hunt players who are obviously built/geared for zerg play or are upscaled, or at an obvious disadvantage – unless they have decided to attack me and initiate the combat or I am outnumbered and they are the squishiest target in a group of players attacking me. If an enemy is running past me not wanting to engage in combat I will let them go.
- on that note, when I am outnumbered, whether 1v2+, 2v3+, 3v4+ then as far as I’m concerned anything goes, I don’t care what build or gameplay the enemy is geared for in that situation, I will play to win/survive.
- but I will chase players who are geared for roaming even if we outnumber them 2v1 for example enemy condi mesmers.
- if I come across a good fight, whether solo or with one or two allies vs other players who are geared for small scale or roaming, I will abandon objectives to engage in it, even if it means juking back and forth for an extended period of time with no clear victory or failure in sight. Yes it might not be getting points, but in this situation I don’t care because the fun of the combat is more important.

Secondly although I can’t speak for other players, I will give reasons why I enjoy wvw roaming compared with large scale gameplay or even pvp:
1. Less lag – large scale wvw is not fun when the gameplay is not smooth due to lag.
2. Less screen clutter and unpredictable effects – I don’t find dying to aoes that deal thousands of damage any fun.
3. Ability to build gear exactly as I want, unlike in pvp where the amulet stat restrictions are stupid. For example I would run Viper in pvp but it’s either all glass or nothing. In wvw I can round it out with other stats to get the exact stat distribution I want for the playstyle I prefer.
4. No stupid capture points to play around – taking camps/sentries and having fights is far more fun than running around a tiny map trying to hold capture points.
5. On that note the freeform nature of wvw is more appealing than the rigid match structure of pvp. Maybe you’re in a 1v1 then 3 other enemies come along… what do you do? It’s stuff like that that I get a kick out of, you never know what is around the corner and need to be prepared for anything.
6. More individual control over skills – I don’t like the large scale blob or even medium scale gameplay in the same way as I don’t like high end instanced pve – I prefer to have control over all the skills I’m using rather than being a “skill” for a macroscopic entity consisting of multiple players.
7. Challenge – I enjoy the challenge of running solo or with one/two allies and especially running into outnumbered situations or with skilled opponents where what you do as an individual matters, either in securing a single stomp or surviving and escaping.

I know some might say roaming is dead for multiple reasons – supposedly “broken” HoT builds being one of them, however I don’t think it’s in as dire a state as it is made out to be. I build to be self sufficient when solo, in order to survive and harass, whether that involves objectives or players or both, and there is certainly a lot of fun and challenge to be had if you look for it and aim to challenge yourself.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Would be hilarious if evasive mirror also works on infinite horizon though, so much reflect.

That’s the first thing I want to test!

Interestingly sweet bean buns have now tanked in price to around 26s buy orders.

I can see the outgoing 15% condi duration being converted to expertise and nerfed, but I can’t see the defensive aspect of the food being nerfed as there’s no respective stat for minus condi duration.

Curious to see what tuesday’s balanace changes will bring and how it could affect this build.

The good news is hybrid is more resistant to nerfs than pure power/pure condi because whatever gets nerfed you’ll still have something to fall back on. I’m not anticipating the need to change gear at all, though I am curious to see if the rune/food/Time Marches On synergy remains intact.

It’s a good post and good points.

GS4 is weird given the animation. I preferred the “by the power of greyskull!” animation, which could have been retained and given some kind of cc effect.

Sword 5 is even more weird, no doubt. I have no idea what they were going for here.

Staff 3 is just boring and unimaginative. I hope it gets replaced by something more interesting in the future.

Staff 4 similarly while at least having some additional component of initial Condi proc is still not worth a skill slot, certainly not a skill number 4 weapons slot. It needs a more interesting active mechanic.

But Pistol 4 is surely one of the worst and definitely needs some kind of buff (maybe we might see one on Tuesday).

I’m worried about mantra of recovery.

I mean if the new mantra charge regeneration mechanic exists and it retains its low cooldown, then with its interaction with restorative mantras and menders purity (which if power cleanse is being buffed to remove 3 conditions and they don’t change this trait) is going to be an insanely powerful heal… and it’s already an insanely powerful heal when taking things like alacrity into account.

I’m fearing a cooldown nerf for it, but I hope it survives and remains a great heal.

I agree the BL weapon skins should be unique and individual, or maybe in small collections rather than every single weapon in one themed set every time, especially when some just look like they’ve been made to complete the set.

OriOri.8724:

Was he banned or something?

No, just choosing to move on from gw2.

Would certainly be nice to have a function skill that retargets illusions to different enemies.

Adonisis.9736:

I always enjoyed the condi roamer but played against Osicat with full zerker before and could best him sometimes. But I always thought full zerker or full condi missed something, that’s why I think your build would be nice to try.

About your build: what do you think about the berzerker runes with +power and + condition damage instead of the antitoxin runes you have now? And do you think the Chronomancer traitline is a must or replaceable?

Berserker runes are definitely a solid choice, though as said I like the passive reduction against cripple/chill/immobilise so I don’t have to necessarily waste cleanses on them. If you feel confident of managing condis with the multiple sources of cleanse we have in skills, traits and sigils, then sure you can go for more damage oriented runes and damage food – which will probably be better in some fights. Depends whether for example you care about maybe letting a player run away from you on the odd occasion or maybe having the ability to run away yourself. I place more value on survival so prefer the passive soft cc reduction.

Chrono is definitely a must – because of 25% movement speed, alacrity, F5, superspeed shatters and chronophantasma (synergy with mental defence as well). It just means more skills available more often and more illusions available. The F5 also allows doubling up burst with Mirror Images to unload more damage, which allows you to put a lot of pressure on enemy glass cannons, often destroying most of their hp with the right F5 shatter sequence plus other skills. Chronophantasma synergises with this because you don’t have to regenerate more illusions when executing F5 into Mirror Images into another shatter – you automatically get the full shatter. Very useful to have in order to catch and burst squishies.

But if you prefer 25% from runes or want to run focus/SoI/certain sigils then sure you could experiment with core mesmer.

I have tried running Domination for Rending Shatter and the damage output with that and Mental Anguish is beautiful (all that vuln just boosts all your sources of damage and staff becomes pretty powerful) – but I’d rather drop Inspiration to do that – but then the biggest loss is actually Mender’s Purity. You will likely need to take Well heal for condi removal or take Mantra of Resolve in that case.

It’s the usual tradeoff between survivability and offence – but if you excel at the glassier playstyle (assuming so if you could best Osicat with full zerker) then maybe something like TyPin’s build with GS a couple of posts up might be more fun? For me I like to survive as much as possible, even if it means accepting I might not down an opponent or secure a kill – often the most fun fights are the ones where you spend half an hour juking with opponents with constant plays and counterplays but neither able to best the other. That’s not to say I like the full condi attrition playstyle – I am certainly fragile enough to be burst down if +1 by a thief or something, so there is definitely a big element of risk with this gear.

Having said that I do feel you need some sustain for hybrid to work – because the damage isn’t all instant compared with zerker where you can burst, kill, stomp and run.

Edit – I should add, if you run with another player who can share might (eg rev or ele), watch the damage output! Might is amazing for hybrid if you can roam with someone playing a might sharing class/build.

I can’t wait to see what other buffs there are! :p Prestige baseline condi removal already makes me happy.

Also can’t wait to see what stuff is moved around in the traitlines – I so sincerely hope Warden’s Feedback is moved to adept tier or even Restorative Illusions moved to GM tier so I can enjoy using Focus again with both those traits.

Just hope they don’t kill anything/nerf anything else too hard.

Kudos to you for going double ranged in the current state of the game – I’d be petrified of not having enough ways to avoid all the damage out there! I kind of feel naked whenever I try other weapons than Sword/Torch! xD

I see what you’re going for – looks fun, even more bursty/aggressive than I prefer, and tbh this looks like it would suit GS better because you can bring down the hammer with some nice burst. I mean it is kind of a sustained alternative to full zerker you’ve got going there. Glad to know it’s successful so far.

Edit: yeah there’s a lot of overpowered stuff floating around in wvw and tough for anyone to start off in this environment unless you have tons of money/gold to burn on maximised gear, nevermind some stuff being locked behind pve currency or timegates…

As a mesmer…

…Spellbreaker.

Though tbh I can’t really say until having tested a few of them this coming friday.

Adonisis.9736:

Curunen.8729:

Honestly I was surprised also at how good staff is with viper/cele. The auto attack is actually good unlike GS where it barely tickles unless using full power gear.

Sure I can understand if you prefer Shield. I’ve always been a Sword/Torch guy and loving the recent buffs to torch damage output. If taking Shield then I’d go for Persistence of Memory.

Yeah sadly Lunar New Year is a long way off, but if you know you’re going to want to roam in Chrono next year then good idea to plan and save for the drop in price of that food. In my opinion it’s the best roaming food for hybrid or condi chrono.

Of course with Mirage not having the innate -25% to cripple/chill/immobilise I’m likely going to make a second set of roaming gear with different runes/food if stacking passive condi duration reduction isn’t as effective as it is on chrono.

Thank you for your explanation. I just returned to this game after a long break and started doing the HoT living story and stuff. Is your build also good for that? I’ll try your build in WvW, I think I’ll like it after reading everything. Do you think this hybrid is more fun/better than a full power or full condi build?

I can only speak from my own experience of iterating over the last few years, and oscillating between power and condi – from glamour confusion, moving to power phantasm, then to power shatter, then to condi shatter, back to power shatter and so on… I finally feel over the last year or so since I made this build that I reached the peak of what I have been aiming for over the course of this game.

I don’t think I’ll ever play pure condi again because it’s so slow and boring, and most likely not play pure power again for mesmer, unless there’s an elite spec that provides a kitten good reason to play pure power such as sustained power damage.

I love supplementing the burst potential of direct damage with the sustained damage of condis – it makes up for not having enough sustained direct damage and similarly not having enough burst damage while playing pure condi. It’s fun to aim for reasonable mind wrack crits while watching condis tick away maintaining pressure on your opponent. It also fits my playstyle of light bruiser with a bit of burst, rather than full yolo shatter or full attrition.

As said previously, the main weakness of this build is not quite excelling at doing any one thing, whether tanking damage or dishing it out. You may run into the odd player (arbitrary statistic) who you’ll just have to walk away from (eg one or two druids I can recall), and equally you won’t be able to facetank damage as you might be able to in full trailblazer or dire so must be more evasive (you have the luxury of making mistakes and eating the odd bit of damage here and there) – but the good thing is any player who is tanky enough to mitigate most of your damage will also have a very difficult time killing you – you’ll have the luxury of deciding to walk away from an encounter whenever you feel overwhelmed, unless badly outnumbered or in unfavourable terrain.

But overall it’s difficult to describe how to play and also does kind of require maximising every stat to be efficient (ie getting those attunements/infusion slots from fractals and getting ascended everything – though I still haven’t bothered with ascended underwater weapons…) – the nature of hybrid does demand squeezing out as much stats as possible, hence my reason for mixing in cele trinkets and headgear. So it’s a difficult one for me to say craft exotic and test, because you won’t get the same experience from exotic and will feel noticably weaker – I can recall it wasn’t amazing at the time but I had an idea of what to aim for so worked through it. You can get a flavour of the playstyle from exotic, but you’ll be slightly squishier and deal less damage (food and utility will be crucial) which prevents the build from performing as well as it is able in maximised gear.

So yeah I’m a huge proponent of this build and find it far more fun and less gimmicky/one-trick than pure power or pure condi. The only gimmick I suppose is shatter spam, but that’s the nature of chrono in pvp/wvw anyway so can’t be avoided.

Don’t forget thief already has ambush. The unique mechanic if Mirage is more the mirrors and mirage cloak effect, rather than stealth triggering ambush.

I mean it would make sense if for example a future elite engi spec had some kind of gizmo that modified their auto attack, similar to ambush mechanics.

On that note, if any class should also have alacrity it should really be engi as thematically it would make sense if they had magic tech that could manipulate time in an elite spec.

Carighan.6758:

Curunen.8729:

You know the more I think of it, the more I’m going to miss normal dodge – more for the animations.

Luckily, they are just a respec away. And since all things point to us still playing boon share in PvE, you’ll get plenty time with the normal dodge

Well I don’t play raids or challenge mode high end fractals (because I don’t like being dictated to by a meta and being forced into a certain playstyle to enable other players to chip away at bullet sponge npcs with millions of hp and contrived but predictable mechanics /end rant!) so I usually use the same gear and similar build in open world pve as I do for wvw roaming, just with a couple of weapon/skill/trait changes if I wanted to play (casual) fractals, for the sake of variety so I don’t grow bored of the build. At least even in pvp you have some flexibility if wanting to play ranked as you don’t have to follow a rigid meta like in instanced endgame pve.

Tbh I like to and usually focus on creating a single preferred build in any kind of action rpg and my whole MO is iterating a single build until I get closer to something that provides me with the most enjoyment and that I feel is a best expression of my personality. It’s just how I like to play.

So what this means is I very likely will lean strongly towards a single elite spec as preference and outside of some fun/variety in casual open world pve won’t switch between them often.

Honestly I was surprised also at how good staff is with viper/cele. The auto attack is actually good unlike GS where it barely tickles unless using full power gear.

Sure I can understand if you prefer Shield. I’ve always been a Sword/Torch guy and loving the recent buffs to torch damage output. If taking Shield then I’d go for Persistence of Memory.

Yeah sadly Lunar New Year is a long way off, but if you know you’re going to want to roam in Chrono next year then good idea to plan and save for the drop in price of that food. In my opinion it’s the best roaming food for hybrid or condi chrono.

Of course with Mirage not having the innate -25% to cripple/chill/immobilise I’m likely going to make a second set of roaming gear with different runes/food if stacking passive condi duration reduction isn’t as effective as it is on chrono.

What, prestige removes one condition as standard? :o Oh that’s so sexy!

You know, I can’t help thinking that Seven would be an absolutely godlike Mirage as the playstyle of Mirage looks right up his street.

Shame he isn’t able to play anymore.

Personally Chrono doesn’t seem like a different breed though – it feels more like the bandaid fix/enhancement that it is to base mesmer.

The damage output from Viper is great, sure, and it provides nice burst on F1.

But it’s so kitten glassy while you’re still unable to burst players down like you can with Marauder/Zerker/Demolisher in a pure power setup. I find it lacks the sustain to capitalise on its damage output (wvw is a different story though as you can supplement Viper with other stats to round things out and not be a glass… flamethrower? :p ).

Carrion is great but I think Sage is better since the Restorative Illusion nerf – because that healing power is crucial to make those heals on shatter worth anything now. With Carrion you don’t get that anymore.

Also runes of Scavenging are great to use in addition to Sage amulet as you get the useful conversion of vitality into more condition damage, and the life leech is more damage output – though if you’re intent on using Signet of the Ether then it probably won’t be so useful as you don’t get to proc the leech effect on heal as often, so Tormenting runes would be better.

Regarding the rest of it, I personally wouldn’t touch Arcane Thievery – better off with Decoy. Persistence of Memory is better than Compounding Power if you want those shield 4 cooldowns to be faster. Improved Alacrity is better than Illusionary Reversion since the nerf, and you’ve got more than enough illusion output that you don’t need it. I personally wouldn’t bother with Signet of Domination either – better off with Signet of Illusions, Mirror Images, Decoy or Portal (well I suppose in a deathmatch situation you don’t need Portal but Signet of Illusions is better than Domination). Sigil of Compounding looks mediocre – I personally use sigils of Cleansing, but you can use anything else like Doom or whatever.

Better off with Sage amulet in pvp – at least that way you’ve got some healing power for restorative illusions and a bit more vitality, while maintaining the same power and condition damage.

With Viper you’ll just melt too fast in pvp.

You know the more I think of it, the more I’m going to miss normal dodge – more for the animations.

I love the asura aerial dodge animation and it’s going to be very weird to let that go.

Only trouble is the price of that food currently, and whether it may see a nerf next week with all the other foods. I stocked up on about 15 stacks of it during Lunar New Year when it was around 17s, so have enough for a couple of years of casual wvw!

Oh also, persisting images is kitten – take restorative mantras and mantra of recovery – far more heals and condi removal than ether feast, can be channeled under stealth or while phase retreating/blinking.

That’s the reason I run with Sweet Bean Buns – in total it is a 69% reduction to cripple/chill/immobilise which is amazing. Together with sigils of cleansing, mender’s purity (with mantra of recovery and restorative mantras), restorative illusions and the pledge, I have very little problem managing conditions in most situations. Can even facetank full transfers from condi necros and mop them all off you. Also have a very favourable matchup vs other condi mesmers in 1v1 because you have more cleanse than them, equal sustain (because your armour is irrelevant if they’re running dire/trailblazer) and more damage output via burst – you can pressure them more than they can pressure you. In fact power mesmers are more dangerous vs this build, although they are squishy and melt fast when you surprise burst them.

That’s the way I like playing it – aggressive and in your face. Eg, F5 into F3, Mirror Images, F1/F2, exit F5 and repeat for almost instant unpredictable burst. Can change shatters depending on necessity (ie Mirror Images into F3 for more daze). Of course in outnumbered situations if there are no obvious squishies then I’ll play more conservative/patient.

I should add I use Tuning Icicles to buff the condi damage if it looks a little low on the build link – and with wvw bonuses it pushes it up a little more.

Regarding GS – I used to experiment with GS + Sw/T with the same stats but found it very lacking vs enemy power mesmers – they have better burst and almost equal sustain and good enough condi removal… The trouble is GS lacks any kind of sustained damage pressure which is necessary. Once you’ve unloaded your GS burst it’s a dead weapon – sure Mirror Blade can proc some nice might/vuln which helps hybrid stats, but it’s too limited and weak in outnumbered because you can’t 100-0 squishies unlike if you had marauder/zerker gear.

Staff is far superior both for defence (can’t count the number of times phase retreat has saved me from being pulled into traps for example) and also offence with hybrid stats, weird as that might seem – the auto does good damage, iWarlock can hit surprisingly hard and the fast shatter fodder together with mobility allows you to move around to unload your burst. The might/fury/vuln/bleeding/burning on the auto are all great because everything boosts/is boosted by your stats.

Torch is also in my opinion far superior to Shield in wvw – the burn on 4 and 5 is now non-negligable and can be synchronised into shatter burst for even more damage. Nevermind the stealth being great for juking enemies. It’s also nice when you proc the Fury from iMage (obviously not relying on it) to boost F1 crit chance to around 80% with MoF.

That’s the thing – there’s no one single big source of damage – but there are a lot of good sources of damage, both direct and condi from many skills such that you can maintain a solid output.

Biggest challenges are probably certain druid builds and certain warriors, because of their sustain ability. Power thieves are annoying when they gank, condi thieves can be managed with the many sources of cleanse/passive resistance unless in an outnumbered situation.

Oh my kitten god I typed up a HUGE detailed response, took me nearly half an hour and the forum killed it/ate it up!!! >:(

Sorry I’m too kitten irate right now to retype that so I’ll just say for now build link in sig. Runes = Antitoxin, Food = Sweet Bean Buns.

Edit: going to post full build here in case I change anything that affects the GW2E link…

Inspiration – Restorative Mantras, Restorative Illusions, Mental Defence
Illusions – The Pledge, Maim the Dissilusioned, Master of Fragmentation
Chrono – Time Catches Up, Improved Alacrity, Chronophantasma

Land: Mantra of Recovery, Blink, Mirror Images, Signet of Midnight, Mass Invis
Underwater: Swap Blink for Decoy

Staff – Viper, Sigil of Energy & Sigil of Cleansing, wvw Resilient Infusions
Sword – Viper, Sigil of Energy, wvw Resilient Infusion
Torch – Viper, Sigil of Cleansing, wvw Resilient Infusion

Head – Celestial, Rune of Antitoxin, wvw Resilient Infusion
Shoulders/Chest/Gloves/Legs/Boots – Viper, Runes of Antitoxin, wvw Resilient Infusions
Amulet – Celestial, whatever enrichment
Rings/Accessories/Backpiece – Celestial, wvw Resilient Infusions (attuned/infused rings and infused backpiece for extra slots)

Utility – Toxic Focusing Crystal
Food – Sweet Bean Bun

I’d have rather replaced shatter skills with skills to control your clones/phantasms, similar to ranger F2 pet mechanics.

Could still have synergy with core shatter traits through the attacks of your clones/phantasms, proccing aoe around your target, or giving you buffs directly (ie bountiful disillusionment).

Then give more ways for illusions to survive and allow each F skill to be able to change their designated target (like axe 3 does).

That might have allowed it to be a balls deep phantasm /illusion spec in total contrast to the shatterspam of chrono.

Ithilwen.1529:

Ambush is probably already in the crosshairs to be given to one or more other classes. We’ll probably see turret engis with an ambush burst before long.

So, I don’t see it as a big factor in this discussion.

The wiki says that Ambush is exclusive to Mirage.. It also said that about Alacrity.

Well tbh thief already has it from stealth, but I hear you and agree that everything will be shared to at least one other class come expansion 3.

Yeah has been suggested many times before and yes I’m still in favour of it.

PvE Tyria has some beautiful maps, far more interesting to play in than the limits pvp arenas and monotonous wvw alpine/desert borderlands and ebg (not going to mention eotm because most players actively avoid fights there unless it’s going for an objective..).

Trouble is despite the beautiful zones in Tyria, the gameplay is soooo boring because enemy mobs are so dumb and predictable. Not only this but stomping as a mechanic also adds a lot of flavour to combat, and sadly the only pve enemies that had this were those elite toxic alliance folks – which can still be found in areas like south of Kessex Hills.

If pve mobs were somewhat unpredictable and veterans/elites had downed state, it would be more fun to play rather than smacking your face against bullet sponges with millions of hp trying to do as much “dps” as possible…

I mean even if they just copy pasted some core tyria zones into wvw/the mists as a “free for all” skirmish only map, it would be fun to play (could still have pve dynamic events running but almost like an alternate reality of the map in the mists so everything is weird with players fighting each other). That would be awesome.

Definitely copper fed SOM, then wait for anniversary sales and keep an eye out for new harvesting tools (maybe wait for pof to see if new map currency or tools that are better than the unbound magic gathering tools).

Otherwise save the rest and you could wait for the spike in gem-gold price which usually occurs at the anniversary sale and get a good rate of converting to gold, or simply wait for that mount/glider/outfit skin you want when it comes along.

Crinn.7864:

I don’t understand how you are associating necromancy with spiders. If necromancers are associated with any animal it would be rats.

Yeah if anything, linking necromancy with spiders is further stereotyping and prejudice towards spiders – necromancers link to things like (modern day commercialised) Halloween, or GW2 style Halloween which some link with creepy crawly things such as spiders… because both are evil/invoke fear?

Nothing to do with dead things/raising the dead – and tbh then it’s a bit silly to complain that people should “get over” their phobias when this whole image and fear regarding spiders is being perpetuated by necromancy being associated with them.

For the record I don’t particularly like large spiders and shudder at the thought of coming into contact with things like tarantulas (I love jumping and harvester spiders though) but I’m happy to let them live wherever (I’ve got a resident right now living in the corner of the ceiling in my room, good to get rid of any flies etc).

Marsares.2053:

Curunen.8729:

Marsares.2053:

I was really hoping for a power-based lockdown spec, but alas. Mirage looks still intriguing, although I’ve never been a fan of condi-spam.

Make a Spellbreaker.

Actually that’s what I’m doing – going to make a Warrior alt for it. Always been a one character only mind of player, never had any serious alts, but I really want to play Spellbreaker.

I know I know, I thought about it. But leaving the Mesmer behind just makes me feel dirty. It’s the only class I’ve really played and I just can’t see myself playing anything else.

I know what you mean – I can’t believe that I want to make a Warrior when I’ve only had one character aside from throwaway pvp alts for the purpose of testing and learning. It’s weird to want to play another “serious” character than mesmer, but Spellbreaker looks too good to restrict oneself to mesmer for.

Solori.6025:

phokus.8934:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

phokus.8934:

It’s going to be strange having zombie speed clones and no 25% movement speed (speculation).

Mounts…

Pvp…
Wvw…

gliding…

Isn’t that going to be limited to defending territories only? So no “Hawkmen, Dive!” tactics to assault enemy keeps?

kitten that’s a shame.

Hell yes, he’s the best second best character in the game.

(Taimi)

Marsares.2053:

I was really hoping for a power-based lockdown spec, but alas. Mirage looks still intriguing, although I’ve never been a fan of condi-spam.

Make a Spellbreaker.

Actually that’s what I’m doing – going to make a Warrior alt for it. Always been a one character only mind of player, never had any serious alts, but I really want to play Spellbreaker.

Levetty.1279:

I forgot about the pledge. Mantra of resolve could help but 24 seconds to build up a charge isn’t exactly appealing. Cleanse on dodge traits is definitly getting a fairly hefty ICD unless it loses the stun break and picking it removes a lot of our condi preasure. All those condi cleanses could add up to be enough I guess but PvP looks like its heading to even more condi spam so I’m not convinced.

You are right about Mirage not being able to shatter as much though so I’m no longer convinced Inspirations will be enough, You do get the condi removal on heal trait though.

Yeah definitely Mender’s Purity is the biggest loss from Inspiration. Currently I play with Mantra of Recovery using Mender’s Purity and Restorative Mantras and the condition removal/healing this provides is huge. I’m going to miss both these traits if dropping Inspiration.

Does the new Mirage heal also cleanse conditions as standard or am I mistaken?

Levetty.1279:

Mirage condi clear and sustain is non existant so Inspiration is still going to be manditory, its illusions generation is crap as well and Dueling has good synergy with vigor and bleeds so I find it hard to see a build that isn’t Dueling/Inspiration/Mirage.

New mantra of Resolve together with cleanse on dodge could be enough (then also things like The Pledge and Cleansing sigils). RI won’t be as good for Mirage as for Chrono due to no alacrity and no chronophantasma/IR so gameplay will be much less shatter spam – wasting shatters to clear condi might not be optimal. In Chrono you can do it because you’ve always got more illusions immediately and shatter skills cool down so fast.

Illusions is going to be crucial, not only for condi traits but also for things like -20% on all illusion summoning skills.

Personally I’m going to be going Duelling/Illusions/Mirage and building in energy sigils (and endurance regen food for wvw) together with suitable runes (will have to wait and see what new runes get released with PoF first) and aim for maximising evades. Also things like DE and Evasive Mirror are going to be very fun to play with.

You know what’s going to be hard – things like Blurred Frenzy on 12s cooldown (I really wish they’d unnerf this back to 10s) or even Chaos Storm on 35s.

Alacrity is such a huge bonus to all cooldowns that I personally am going to find it strange to use untraited weapons with normal cooldowns.

Torch is certainly my preferred choice of offhand – will probably be going Axe/Torch + Staff as I currently run Sword/Torch + Staff for Chrono in pvp, wvw and open world pve.

Now, if in the balance update next week they finally move Warden’s Feedback to a separate tier from Restorative Illusions, I will definitely pick up Focus again. It’s the stupidest thing those two traits being mutually exclusive, especially given how weak Focus is in pvp currently – using it untraited is so kitten, and there’s absolutely no point taking Inspiration and not taking RI, unless you’re doing instanced pve where RI isn’t necessary. Sorry for the digression, had to rant and get that off my chest – love Focus but the trait placement is so stupid to make it playable in any form of pvp beyond trolling and pulling people off walls in wvw…

I would LOVE to use Axe/Focus. But if Duelling is preferred over Inspiration then I’ll probably be forced to use Torch.

Never really been a fan of Pistol or offhand Sword, but depending on trait reshuffling I might try Axe/Pistol for fun. Torch would be more effective though as you’d have two detargeting skills on that set (Axe 3 and Prestige). If I’m going to play it I want to really force the opponent to struggle to maintain target – hence definitely using the other target break utility and maybe even Decoy to be annoying.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Going to have to step in and disagree heavily with this because I want Mirage to be viable in all game modes and you don’t know what you’re asking for.

GM Trait: Dune Cloak: Use Sand shards when you gain mirage cloak. Conditions applied to bleeding foes have increased duration (20%).
Sand shards: AOE bleeds 2 stacks, 6 seconds, 5 target aoe, 180 radius.

If infinite horizon becomes a minor, all illusions get both an ambush attack AND sand shards every time the mirage gains a mirage cloak. That’s going to break balance for a few reasons.

1) The damage is currently balanced around one or the other of these GMs. Having both means that one, or more likely both, get nerfed heavily.

2) Infinite horizon looks easy to counter in PvP. All the illusions attack at the same time so 1 dodge will counter it all. The scepter, staff and axe ambushes (don’t know about the sword/gs yet) are projectiles and likely to be reflectable. Sand shards is instant AOE. Not OP if it’s just the Mirage. 4 procs of an instant cast aoe damage.. is a problem for Sand shard balance.

3) Mesmers have been asking for damage to be tied less to illusions regardless of PvE illusion issues in certain fights or WvW “My illusions blow up instantly and are useless” reasons. I see sand shards as a illusionless DPS GM while infinite horizon is the illusion DPS GM. They should remain mutually exclusive so that both can be balanced to be strong in their respective areas.

Especially for the WvW zerg players that want to DPS as a mesmer, infinite horizon can’t be a minor because they need something like Sand shards to work. Instead we should be asking for a buff to Sand shards. That 180 radius is pitiful. Also think it needs more damage.

What if they separated the dodge blur from the mirage cloak effect for clones?

So for example all illusions would blur as standard (minor trait) whenever you dodge but with no ambush attacks, however you have the separate major GM trait to give them the effect of “Mirage Cloak” so they get the ambush attacks only with this major trait.

That way at least visually it would maintain some of the playability of pretending to be a clone, even if it won’t fool most good players for long in pvp, but if you want clones to get the ambush effect then you have to trait for it separately.

Only downside of course is as soon as you use a personal ambush attack it would distinguish you immediately anyway, but this can’t be avoided whatever trait combination is used.

I agree that should be a minor trait as it kind of makes/breaks the theme of the spec – otherwise it’s going to be really easy to identify the real mesmer whenever they dodge.

I mean if they’re going to go to the whole trouble of removing normal dodge to make us blend in, then all clones should have the identical dodge effect whenever we dodge.

lol I’d buy that.

I was wondering about synergy between regen condi reduction trait and stacking regen and boon duration from chaos. Or maybe even trying Illusionary Inspiration for regen from phantasms. With Sweet Bean Buns and Antitoxin runes that would be a -64% duration on damaging conditions while under regen which isn’t too bad.

Only problem is how bad the boon hate from Spellbreakers and Scourges will be…

Watching the WP video again, I didn’t initially notice that Axe 2 has the charge mechanic of what should be the new Mantras – seems to have 2 charges that recharge over time which is nice.

I’m interested to see what the GS ambush looks like – it may be quite fun, who knows.

Exciton.8942:

Zintrothen.1056:

“2. Elusive Mind
Dodging breaks stun and removes conditions.
• Conditions removed: 1
• Breaks Stun”

Holy kitten that’s OP. That’s honestly more powerful than Daredevil’s Bounding Dodger.

Incoming Inspiration, Illusion, Mirages. High regen uptime, constant stunbreaks, incredible mobility, powerful against conditions, applies massive amounts confusion and torment on top of plenty of bleeding and other conditions. GG anet. You manage to make the next elite spec more powerful than the current specs.

In a vacuum, the trait looks OP.

However, you compare to chronomancer. You lose out chronophantasm and illusionary reversion. Mesmer shatter, especially shatter for conditions rely heavily on illusion generation rather than shatter CD. You will lose out a lot of condition pressure by not picking chronomancer.

Also not being able to shatter as often will make shatter on cleanse, shatter for phantasm recharge(also the loss of double phantasm by shield) less powerful as well.

Just by looking at everything mirage offers. I don’t see inspiration/illusion/mirage stronger than inspiration/illusion/chrono.

However, I do see potential in dueling/illusion/mirage as it will offer crazy damage potential. Dueling offers dodge for clones which has great synergy with mirage which heavily emphasizes on dodging. That way, you will lose the crazy good condition cleansing from inspiration. So it remains to be seen if the trade off is worth it.

Yeah I agree with all of this.

Restorative Illusions won’t be as crazy with Mirage because of losing alacrity (so longer shatter cooldowns) as well as losing fast illusion generation (again supplemented by alacrity plus chronophantasma) so you really won’t want to be spamming shatters like you do on Chrono, or even wasting them for heals and cleanse, but rather timing them appropriately after initiating an ambush for burst condi application and damage.

Duelling/Illusions/Mirage definitely looks like the way to go due to DE synergy among other things

Maybe the stunbreak on dodge will be nerfed as I can see it being annoying. But the condi cleanse on dodge should be perfectly fine as there won’t be much access to cleanse outside of Inspiration.

I’m definitely going to be using Energy/Cleansing sigils for Mirage.

I think it’s fantastic – maybe mesmer will be able to take something else other than portal in pvp if another class can use it instead.

Movement speed is looking like rune/skill options again sadly, certainly doesn’t look like anything as effective as Time Marches On.

Thank you for typing all this.

Difficult choice of GM majors – stun break plus condi clear on dodge or give all illusions mirage cloak… ? Obviously the former will be more useful in pvp but the latter would be more fun for mind games.

Ithilwen.1529:

According to WP, the dodge untargets you. It’s implied that that the “Mirage Cloak” is ALSO given to your clones.

Thus, you look identical to your clones while dodging if you do not move. It seems like an attempt by ANET to make Mesmer actually confusing to other players.

I must have missed the info about the mirage cloak breaking target. Will have to go back and watch again.

If this is true then I dunno – it would be equally annoying to fight against. Just imagine how many times you’d have to retarget. I mean I like the idea for myself playing, but not sure if I’d want to fight against such a mechanic that can be used so often with dodge.

OOOH Evasive Mirror! lightbulb

Oh HELL yes, I’m going to run that kitten all the time!