Guild Wars 2

the recent change to karma dr has made most zergs dry up.

even with that, even being concerned about this as i levelld up my mesmer – it’s become a non-issue. drop an izerker and blow it up – just tagged everything. throw mirror images adn blow it up – just tagged quite a bit. drop chaos storm. (roll asura) drop radiation field. tab+1, tab+1.

rolling a warrior isn’t going to get you t6 mats any faster right now, not until they start to tweak the dr. i took my ranger to my usual farming spots last night and in less than an hour was capped – nothing was dropping, not even grey stuff. i got one powerful blood. that was it.

your best bet is not to roll an alt and put money into it as you level it up. your best bet is to continue on, gathering everything in sight and selling what you don’t need. you will eventually be able to just buy the mats you need.

80 mesmer and 80 ranger here. both in exotics

pve is easier on the mesmer. more tools. better condition removal. risen don’t let bears tank them, they run after you always. feedback on a risen wizard is fun to watch. feedback on a champion preservist is even more fun. turning a champion risen giant into a moa bird is fun

both chars have equivalent gear. the mesmer kills faster. the ranger has superior aoe in barrage, which has the same cooldown as chaos storm. rangers use traps because…well..nothing else to put in those utility slots that’s worth a kitten right now. that class needs help. if it didn’t have a water field in healing spring they would really be the black sheep of this game.

but ranger is holy smokes easy mode pve up until orr. i don’t know if this tradeoff is by design or if the fact rangers had almost no utility at all until bwe3 means the class simply was not finished or tested properly.

i predict rangers being overhauled long before they touch mesmers.

asura have the best racial for this class in radiaion field

for looks, asura tier 3 cultural armor is Zojja’s armor which i adore

human tier 3 light armor is amazing on a female. not so great on males.

norn cultural did nothing for me.

so if looks – human female. if functionality – female asura

Arcalas.9368:

if i remember correctly the difficulty changes depending on how many ppl are doin the event and all of the skill point challenges are soloable.

really?

if so then all of the events in orr are broken, especially in malchor’s leap which rarely has any players anyway.

private servers in an mmorpg are never a good idea, and will never happen.

remember this is an mmorpg. league of legends/dota/smite/CoH are MOBA’s, not mmorpg’s (multiplayer online battle arena).

pretty good article here:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/804-what-guild-wars-2-needs-to-succeed-as-an-esport/

…while they establish a camp at the Eastern Colonnade.

this can not be done by a solo player.

not a problem yo say? get more players you say?

there is nobody in malchor’s leap. ever.

1) stop the rotmouth spawns. they are too fast and spawn dozens of mobs.

2) the two trebuchets should not be able to fire at their feet. at that range the projectile lands simultaneously with the red ground warning ie. you can’t dodge out in time.

3) lower the respawn rate on the veterans during this event. you can’t even get one of the npc’s up (event requires 4 engineers alive creating the camp) before they have respawned.

i’m level 80. this is a level 76 event. i’ve tried it with my 3 80’s and none of them can complete it solo. this also prevents an event chain from continuing.

these events NEED to scale to the solo player because since the DR added to DE’s, fewer and fewer people are doing them in Orr

the clone not spawning is not limited to gs2. it happens on other weapons.

Loafers.4126:

Phantasmal Fury - Your phantasms have fury.
10s fury every 10s – Duelist
10s fury applied once – all other phantasms

• Phantasmal Fury interferes with Vengeful Images causing the retaliation boon to not apply.

this has not been my experience. you can’t test it well in the mists because dummies die before the buff expires, but on events my izerker and iwarlock refresh their fury buff.

note im 20/30/0/0/20 and have no other phantasm buffing minor trait

i used gs 1-80 and still use it as my primary now. it’s not quite the issue being made out here. perhaps in spvp and tpvp, but taugrim doesn’t appear to have this problem either.

i’m actually glad phantasmal haste has been proven to work yet still not be all that great.

i can drop illusions down to 20 and get 100 more precision or power now.

it’s in the bug thread but yes, needs to be fixed

although honestly i have no idea how i would make room for it.

of course bunnies should die. read Watership Down

it still applies

we do not reliably stack conditions outside of sharper images. no, staff is not reliable. you can solo attack a mob with elasticity using only staff auto attack and get a 10 stack of vulnerability before yo uget a 3rd bleed or a burn – gogo rng!! any other source of applying conditions from the player are on long cooldowns/require you to take damage.

unlike ranger and necro pets, our phantasms scale with our gear and stats. they all benefit more from power than condition damage. on the flip side you don’t want to have low crit

the above “formula” is still correct until something is done with condition damage coefficients, damage to objects and zone event mobs and bleed stacking.

you don’t HAVE to use iwarden. iberserker does just fine. in fact it will swing in place hitting multiple times.

underwater, use the mariner – although this is hit or miss. often he will spawn, do his attack then swim around the object back and forth and never hit it again.

well, i’m glad i didn’t lean on using the focus as hard as so many of you apparantly did. i do fine with aoe damage using iberzerker, chaos storm and radiation field. as the mesmer is my third 80, i have other options if i really feel the need to tag everything in sight.

wait..hold up

if the portal cant bypass walls it will be rendered nearly useless in all content. exit portal is used almost always out of line of sight of the entry.

3x warlock with time warp.

iberzerker in a pack makekitteniggle.

really? g i g g l e is kittened?

some of the advice i’m seeing must come from mesmers who rolled well before the gs change and never tried it out.

greatsword is all you need levelling up. your 2nd weapon should be for either purely defensive reasons or being able to get out a high damage, likely-to-survive-a-bit second phantasm immediately. this would pretty much be staff

do not gear for condition damage. condition gear has high crit and condition damage but low power. you can’t crit on objects, you cant bleed objects and you can’t crit on large zone-wide event mobs like claw of jormag or the behemoth in queensdale. of course in that last situation yoru bleeds will be constantly overwritten.

gear power/precision.

at levels up to orr or – depending on faction choice – when you first start dealing with risen thralls, the ranger is going to feel op compared to all others. this is because your pets will tank for you while you shoot in safety. pet about to die? swap in another.

rangers pay for this early game prowess at 80 or when they start to hit risen en masse, as well as in dungeons. they have almost zero utility to bring to a group outside of healing spring for it’s water field, MAYBE search and rescue, and maybe spirits if your group simply couldn’t care what you do and you are just there as a 5th body.

glass cannon rangers also do less damage than mesmers at 80. i have an 80 ranger. it’s in full level 80 berserker exotics (i also have a full level 80 rampager exotic set and a full level 80 exotic explorer set – jewelry too – for her) and does not touch the damage potential of my mesmer in group content who is only in level 78 exotic berserker set, 3 80 exotic berserker jewelry, 2 rampager exotic jewelry (for the extra crit) and less total crit, power and crit damage.

my mesmer also brings a lot of great utility in the form of all-important condition removal and boon stripping, reflection and the ability to drop aggro momentarily (albeit none of that all at the same time). chaos storm grants aegis!!! you can spec for only 15 points to have your phanstams grant regen. takes 30 for a ranger to make spirits grant regen. O_o

your mesmer is in its 40’s. buy level 40 gear. get a gs and a staff. don’t try to melee, kite everything. get into the habit. shatter when mob is under 20%. slot carnelian in your armor (ruby later), don’t screw with runes until 80. get perception sigil, it’s level 39. go to harathi highlands and do the heart up in the northwest near the centaurs – you can buy cheaply bersker-statted (3 stats) weaponry (all of it) for cheap with great graphics. keep your gear up to date every 5 or 10 levels (every 10 after 60, stick with berserker).

i hit 80 in 71 hours played on the mesmer, my third 80. no crafting cheese here, and sent to new areas i had not seen previously due to race and faction choice.

bottom line – i feel stronger in orr on my mesmer than my 80 ranger and 80 warrior, with inferior gear.

Sangi.5238:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Show-pics-of-your-ranger/page/2#post215935 Ravel, where the hell do you get a black dye from?

On a side note, is it just me or do asura armors look crap and humans look the best?

human female top is great. rest there are better options.

i’ve been crit shortbow since a few days after release.

30/30/5/0/5

sb/lb (barrage is insane), piercing arrows/eagle eye (sometimes swap for sigil active), 30% pet crit, bow cd’s and trap durations. pretty much our glass cannon build.

i’ve stopped using melee pets in pve altogether. with gear, devourers auto attack extremely hard and often. they also stack might faster while under rampage as one.

sigil of perception is key for sharper image builds imo. in pve that is.

use berserker gear. you give up a bit going full rampager, but give up nothing when going berserker on this class.

this is for pve. for spvp it’s all about conditions.

@Zocura

I understand your point. And take it in stride.

However, underwater, I use the 3* skill on the trident for the retaliation buff and nothing more. I don’t want/need a clone in this instance, and would much rather have the illusionary mariners. The rapid attack spikes for up to 3k, why would I want a 0 damage dealing clone over that?

not sure this is an issue, either. in what situation is your fight so long that you have 3 mariners out? i go trident clone, trident phantasm, spear mariner. mob usually dead before i swap back to trident. for vets, or ANYTHING in orr that is goign to follow me i never leave trident because the mariner is useless against moving mobs.

i guess an underwater event you would have 3 mariners out, but in such a event why would you need the self retaliation from trident 3?

TheOOB.7428:

You’re pretty much dead wrong. The majority of a staffs damage comes from conditions. The auto attack can put vulnerability, bleed, or burns on the foe, which means is more likely that not to put a damage dealing condition on, and staff 5 is likely to put at least 1 stack of poison on the foe. Considering the clones of the staff also add conditions(and may add extra bleed in a sharper images build), no weapon gains more from condition damage than a staff.

It is true greatsword clones can stack bleeds very vast, but sword clones are not too far behind(their attacks are a little slower, but they also stack vulnerability, and hit multiple targets which makes up for it), and iduelist is better than iBeserker for bleeds on a single target, and iwarden is the best bleed phantasm if you are good at using focus4.

Greatsword is great, but I think it gets a lot more out of a power build than a condition build.

sword clones stack nothing when they are busying chasing that trio of risen abominations you are kiting. my first 80 was a ranger, i know full well how bad melee npc ai is in this game against a moving target. greatsword clones are ranged, and do not use projectiles (can’t be reflected by npc’s)

the initial hit from the staff auto attack hits extremely hard with a full power build, about 60% of the full greatsword auto attack. if you have the bouncy trait it can do more than greatsword auto, making any conditions it applies icing.

i’ve had the staff with elasticity stack 10 vulnerability before i saw a bleed or burn. it’s not that reliable.

er what heal do we have on a 10s cooldown? i hope you don’t mean the regen at 75% health trait

as for dodging – um, guardians get the exact same 1s of vigor on crit trait, and rangers get a passive 50% increase in endurance regen trait. both are only 5 point starting traits

my mesmer is 74 with 63 hours played. admittedly my third 80, but as i’m also doing the third school it sent me to zones i did not do on the other two. i use gs+staff and manually flip out the focus for travelling purposes.

fastest traveller next to the thief is guardian staff. it’s like 10s of swiftness with a 15s cooldown, and they are far better at ignoring and running past content than a mesmer.

problem you will have taugrim is the same problem i have with my ranger using melee pets in pvp -

- they have a kitten hard time hitting a moving target.

with the oh sword phantasm it has to get in range then leap. that split second is enough time for someone to stay perpetually out of range and your sword phantasm to just run around after them.

honestly condition damage does not help for a staff build, either. we do not directly put conditions on ourself. even with the bouncy trait, you may get 1-2 bleeds out of your staff and if you are lucky, MAYBE a burn.

gear for power/precision/crit damage. 3 greatsword clones will stack bleeds faster than all but 2+ iduelist (each one hits 3 times, shares your crit percentage and condition damage)

greatsword doesn’t need a second weapon honestly to synergize with it, therefore you can useanything. i do recommend the staff because of chaos storm, chaos armor, the little teleport clone thing breaks you out of roots and iWarlock gets a LOT from your power/precision/crit damage that at 60 mine are critting for up to 5k each on event targets with a lot of conditions. allows me to flip back to greatsword and spam 1200 (crit total) spatial surges and 1200-1400 damage mind stabs while they are doing their work.

i prefer to always be at range when possible and have yet to find a need for sword even when dealing with end game risen. if only the scpeter auto attack wasn’t as bad (read: slow moving) as the guardians.

sigil of earth has a 45s icd. this was added during the first stress test after bwe3 and has not been reverted.

IF your build has sharper images, and you are using full berserkers, the precise sigil will add a nice chunk of crit. sure you aren’t spec’d for condition damage, but the bleeds are just more consistent damage added to your DD setup.

the stickied thread is for bugs and is quite accurate for the most part

i already bugged the phantasmal haste issue, along with the signet of illusions not consistently applying the health bonuses to phanstams or clones. have not tested the trait

as for levelling, my experience recently is 1-40…honestly whatever floats your boat. 5 in illusions at least then the rest wherever. the class’s better traits are at 40 points. i levelled entirely with greatsword and staff. i tried 1h+offhand (this will be my third 80) and found not only did i not miss the speed buff from offhand focus, i also found that both iduelist and iwarlock – although useable at 900 and 1200 – run in to less than 900 range (looks to be about 600) to actually cast/fire. lets just say that on Kol in harathi, all phantasms were 100% useless. he stomps faster than any of them cooldown.

you will see a spike in your damage output IF you are properly focusing on power/precision at 40 and can get 20 into the crit line. this power peters off between 55 and 60, then picks up again at 60. at 60 i tried rampagers and berserkers gear – full sets of each. although rampagers gives you higher crit and condition damage, and 3 greatsword clones will nearly instantly stack 10+ bleeds (mirror blade+mirror images = you don’t need a phantasm for a normal mob), on objects or events that you can’t crit on (yellow named event mobs you can’t crit on, making sharper images useless) and the unreliability of staff conditions i found bersekers sets to be the fastest, most efficient way to get through the 60’s and 70’s, using greatsword and staff. staff is only there for when you get jumped and need chaos storm/chaos armor, or on event mobs with a lot of players where they aren’t going to be aoe stomped every 2 seconds warlock just is amazing (as is dropping chaos storm on the melee, keeps ’em going a bit longer).

i only shatter to kill, and never before. im actually having an easier time with risen than my ranger did, especially multiple packs, and tend to kill about as fast as my warrior did while being far, far more mobile. this of course is subject to rng.

so 20 in the crit line (dueling?), 5 in illusions at a minimum. after that i would suggest 20 in dom and then you have a choice if you continue to like gs+staff – put another 15 into illusions for bouncy-bounce (nice for staff and trident), or only 10 in illusion and pick up staff cooldown trait that’s 20 in the…toughness/boon duration line. sorry too lazy to go look it up.

pve once you get to the volcano zone is highly, highly mobile. the warden loses it’s effectiveness almost entirely EXCEPT in events, but in events i have 11s cd berserkers which like to cut a nice swath in a line – tagging enough for credit and loot rights and i’ll pop him with a shatter if he starts to take damage.

i also rolled asura, and will use radiation field on large events.

staff gets a lot from a berserker set. yes,the staff CAN apply bleed or burning, but try just using your staff with elasticity and no clones/phantasms and no sharper images and count how often you reliably get either and how many stacks of bleed you get? (hint: not much)

combine this with the bleed stack cap and how burning/poison applications work you are still better off using a power/prec/crit dmg build.

ekn.6572:

Dixa-Please do more research before being so hostile.
Phantasmal Haste doesn’t work on two relatively useless phantasms (Mage and DE), one that’s not used for a
condition build (Swordsman), and underwater phantasm (Mariner), and a phantasm not used for its attack
(Defender).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste
It gives a 15% attack speed increase to everything else, and a 50% attack speed increase to Warden. With Phantasmal Haste and Sharper Images, one Warden can stack up to 12 bleeds every 6.6 seconds, plus considerable direct damage to all nearby enemies PLUS absorb or reflect projectiles if traited. The Warden has its own drawbacks, such as its almost non-existent mobility.

To the OP-
I found that I wasn’t able to efficiently level using a condition damage build until I was around 65. Around then I had access to a large amount of AoE conditions by using clone generation traits with staff + phantasm bleeds, taking advantage of clone overwriting counting as death for the AoE “Clones apply a condition on death”, and the “All shatters cause confusion” trait comes in handy when your main target is close to dead and you still have more to go. Having so many different ways to apply conditions makes you quite versatile.

And yes, I believe Sharper Images is crucial to a condition build for mesmers, and as Anxiety stated it is very useful for any farming build. It’s also only 15 points in the Precision + Crit Dmg line, which is a very nice stat combo either way you go.

again incorrect. just read the stickied bug thread

i did further testing using the stopwatch feature on my watch. it’s not decreasing the time between attacks on any of the phantasms right now. tested with iduelist/iwarlock/iswordsman/iberserker

but since this was already outlined in the bug thread i’m not entirely sure why i wasted my time. no, the OP does not list all of the phantasms effected because the OP can’t edit that post anymore. however in later posts it’s pointed out.

relying on clone death to apply anything becomes problematic in orr, when the mobs are mostly chasing you around and ignoring your clones entirely. once i got to orr, i dropped both traits.

i may have gotten how the trait actually works wrong, but i’m not wrong about it not working.

if either of you had read the bugged sticky you would have seen…..

Not sure if anyone wrote that already but Phantasmal Haste does not work also on the Berserker and the Duelist.

and

Illusions:

“Phantasmal Haste” does not effect some phantasms. Current List: Mage, Swordsman, Disenchanter.

you still suggested a non-working trait.

new mesmers – read the stickied bug thread before anything else.

Durzlla.6295:

iCryptik.1496:

What if I told you mesmers were a utility class?

You’re mind would finally be able to comprehend why we have certain abilities.

Our job is support dps, and to Buff/Debuff and CC.

Moa, while powerfull, is not OP, is not uber leet, and is not used by all mesmers.

The fact is, moa is a powerful elite skill. You should not be able to break out of it, because of the fact it’s an elite skill with a long cooldown, and is personally only used when the other team only has a really good guardian that we need to lock down.

Otherwise, Time Warp is generally more used in PVP, and if you get moa’d and possibly killed, sorry, but too bad. My warrior friend gets angered easily by mesmers but the fact is, he thinks he can just charge in and bash their brains in without any issues because he’s a mighty warrior, and this guy has been playing mmo’s for years.

TL;DR: Mesmers are not op, we provide utility to a group. Most of our abilities have a long CD, so get over it.

Yeah… it doesn’t matter what “role” you’re supposed to be in, with 1400+ condition damage you wreck everyone trying to jump your nutts, especially when you throw 20 stacks of confusion on them! THEN! then you can laugh madly as they fall to the floor as they attempt to kill you! but of course it’s to no avail! throws head back and cackles

oh wow

how can i get reliably and consistently 20 stacks of confusion on someone by myself with no outside help every fight i ever have in pvp?

would love to know how.

anet can touch moa after they tone down thief burst. not before.

nerf mesmers? prepare for 8v8 all thief action.

watching 3x iwarlock do insane crits on event bosses makes me snicker a little.

with the sheer number of botters i’m running into in every zone at all levels i welcome the anti farming code.

this isnt like other mmorpg’s where these thieves had to have credit card information. they could just take some cash to a local store, buy another key and make endless bot accounts without ever having to enter valid cc information or even valid contact information

i’m assuming you aren’t all young kids or new to the genre. have you ever tried any OTHER f2p mmorpg? the botting is rampant and has completely destroyed any attempt at an economy in those games – even EQ1 and EQ2

the fact that peole want 100+ gold for some exotics tells you there is already starting to be far too much gold in the economy due to the rampant botting and not just some clever individuals.

Zid.4196:

LOL

If you only knew.

i do know, kid. try reading the stickied bugs thread and then testing yourself in the mists before you post again

the trait does not work on any of our phantasm recharges. it’s not a matter of stacking – it simply does not work at all right now.

i spent a good hour today trying out different builds. when i tried a weapon cooldown/phantasmal haste build and noticed that the cooldown did not change from just having weapon cooldown/5 in illusion i tried every iteration and variation with all of the weapons. my conclusion – 5 in illusion and weapon skills both stack and work independently. phantasmal haste does not work at all, either independently or stacked with the above.

you’re welcome, son.

Xfraze.1704:

So if I’m understanding you correctly Nretep, I need to stick to one weapon until I achieve the full 25 stacks. Then when I switch to another weapon, I can build up another 25 stacks.

It was my experience that even after getting 25 stacks with my staff, when I switched to my GS which had an increaser as well, the buff indicator did not switch out to match with what I had on my GS.

I’m willing to concede that I might be doing it wrong. Do you think you can provide step by step instructions as I’m having trouble understanding what it is you mean.

he’s lying because it does not work this way. just tried this in game

precision on mh, condition on oh = only precision stacks

Zid.4196:

The fastest build vs regular mobs is sword+pistol+focus, going max power/crit in everything but 20 points of traits for phantasmal haste.

if you actually played a mesmer you would not have recommended this, because phantasmal haste does not work on any phantasm right now.

OP needs to be updated.

just did some testing in the mists. phantasmal haste does not affect ANY phantasms. at all.

don’t bother with this trait for now

Clamlapper.5461:

just 1v1 a mesmer in wvw and got completely rofl stomped to dust 24k hp gone in 3 seconds wtf damage is rediculous
how are you supposed to counter that unless building extremely tanky
playing as a conditionmancer

only 24k? did you forget to death shroud or something?

Rebel.6419:

What are dissapation skills please?

i believe refers to traits that give clones on-death abilities – cripple or apply conditions

note: these do not work if shattered, but work if the clone is replaced by another clone.

botting is an issue with all persistent online games. mmorpg’s, moba’s, action rpg’s like D3, even online fps games – all are suffering from botting/hacking/cheating

the problem is that we – the end user – continue to make it profitable for these people by buying their gold and services.

until the end user starts to play legit, this problem will never actually go away.

if the signet that increased illusion health actually worked on phantasms at all, and clones reliably perhaps phantasms would not die immediately

also noticed that neither iduelist or iwarlock will work at 1200. sure, you can create them, but then they walk up to just short of 900 to attack. lets just say i was extremely KITTEN playing with stomp-spamming Kol yesterday.

yet the clones generated by staff stay at max range.

i prefer condition style gameplay to direct damage as well. i also had a shadow priest through nearly all expansions in WoW or – when they went through periods of utter uselessness – an affliction lock.

if arenanet both removed the stack limit and improved scaling greatly, this would make condition damage builds de-facto for all pve content. i’m not sure this is something they are willing to do

buffing conditions also will not do anything to change how nearly unkillable meditation spec’d bunker guardians are in sPVP or WvWvW.

i do however think that 15-25k backstabs, 15-20k hundred blades and ANY OTHER ability that can hit this hard does not belong in a pvp scenario regardless of what it takes to set it up, but could work in pve provided an obscenely long cooldown. having a super short ttk in mmorpg pvp is always a bad thing and is why blizzard added resilience and removed a lot of dps stats from pvp gear, making it not only reduce the possibility of insta-gibbing but removing it’s usefulness in pve entirely. i think all pvp runes should be toughness/vitality/a dps stat only, but that is another conversation entirely.

then again i dont know how removing the stack limit would effect pve. take warriors who can get what – 16s bleeds? – and self stack to 25 alone? now imagine there is no stack limit. now imagine 10-12 warriors doing a fight like Kol in harathi.

so i see only two real viable options – increase the coefficients but make it so the higher damage bleeds take priority in the stack, and give poison/burning a stacking like mechanic with a limit (harder to stack them in comparison to bleeds and they don’t tick as often), or leave coefficients as they are and remove all stacking limits on bleeds and allow burning/poisons to stack as well.

doing both would make condition damage builds de-facto in..well not just pve, and make everyone and their mother roll guardians for spvp, tpvp and WvWvW

glad it’s not just me. the bug is with phantasms though and not clones. phantasms never have the extra health for me.

TheBob.9863:

I would like to add that no other class has any cooldown on their “take 50% less fall damage” trait which I think is proof that what they intended to nerf was our stealth from it not the fall damage reduction.

because those traits are fluff. the thief one gave a decidedly tactical advantage

NOBODY takes their similiar traits in the other classes.

i’m seeing 22k damage

unless you are a warrior or necromancer you aren’t hitting that amount of health unless you stack so much vit you have no way to actually kill your attacker in kind.

ticket 120825-008791

it was closed and was told not to re-open because a system would be in place to reimburse

still need reimbursement

all of the op points would be valid if mesmers didn’t give up so much in pve for this pvp prowess

any nerfs to their pvp ability will make them even worse in pve