Guild Wars 2

Pre-searing Ascalon T_T

ANet put a lot of efforts try to dethrone zerker builds from the meta. Instead of Nerf PU, I would expect ANet to put up more viable alternatives to PU Mesmer to make zerker build less attractive.

1h sword solo is doable and Sandy’s video is always impressive.

Sanderinoa.8065:

Hey there,

Ive been postponing this video for quite a while, but it was surely enjoyable to do. Some parts have been sped up a bit much, but Im sure its better than releasing an hour long video.
The final bosses were mostly a pain, but as a mesmer the evasive mirror trait really comes in handy.

Here it is: https://youtu.be/Pf_iOpw1jS8

Hope you enjoy!

Season 1 contents were series of events for a few weeks. And then ANet remove the contents and put in another ones to proceed the stories. As each series required the whole map to work together, they were not intended to be replayable.

For staff, I use SoI w/ rune of Radiance. For GS, I use SoI w/ rune of Air.

I would suggest retaining the pull but borrow the “Pull” implementation from Binding Blade from Guardian GS #5.

OP seems missed GS as a source of AoE damage. To maximize GS #1 Spatial Surge damage in a crowd setting, I try to target the one in the back and then kite. The channel lighting will act as an extended GS and cut through multiple enemies and I can see the numbers popping up constantly.

This set up is not efficient. A water field with tons of blast finishers to generate AoE heal is much more efficient and obvious.

Mesmer should be a master in manipulating projectiles. The utility function of Mesmer in reflecting projectiles through Mirror, Mimic, Focus’ skills are obvious. While popping AoE Chaos Armor on allies have a lot of potential in countering the projectiles and exploiting AoE damage during Zerg, and providing CC during retreat/regroup. However, nowadays the application is limited because the only access of blast finisher for Mesmer is limited to Torch, which is very unpopular among Mesmer unless someone running PU. Thus, adding a blast finisher to one of Mesmer’s healing skills as in Elementalist, or one of the ground target AoE skills should help unleashing this kind of potentials.

GS works very well with Mantra build. The AoE is very effective for multiple targets on a flat surface.

I guess for ANet to add 25% boost to buff Mesmer, either one of the following need to be true.

1. Nerf other Mesmer skill(s) and need to give something back to the class
2. Like the new GM traits, ANet add something new to every class
3. Mesmer is an underdog with fewer and fewer players roll Mesmer

Obviously case 1 is not desirable. In case 2, while Mesmer gets 25% speed boost, for other classes who already got 25% boost will get something even nicer or more useful. If 25% speed boost is only for travelling long distance, this means a relatively nerf of Mesmer in combat. Finally given the hate of Mesmer from other classes, case 3 is very unlikely to happen.

If give and take go hand in hand, getting the 25% speed boost might not an absolute good idea for Mesmer.

In case you are not aware of, someone long time ago have post a video on how to use Phase Retreat to dash forward. Below are the command sequence I use.

Walk
About Face
Delay 0.43 sec
Phase Retreat
About Face
Walk

My key bind for Walk, About Face and Phase Retreat are L, W, and 2 respectively. Thus, the key sequence is

L
X
Delay 0.43 sec
2
X
L

The toggle of Walk help to maximize the dash distance no matter the PC is Auto Run or Stationary. The 0.43 sec delay is for the animation of 180 degree turn of the PC and camera. Less than that will result in an angle off from the straight line.

Instead of nerf PU, I would suggest ANet give us viable options so that we can not rely on our illusions’ AI. Guardian, Elementalist and Engineer work perfectly fine without pets. However, that is not an options for Ranger and Mesmer.

mambastik.8735:

I’ve always loved Balthazar runes. The quickness means a near-instant cast of Mass Invis on low hp, and with same cooldown to boot. So if you see your Mass Invis ready, you can be sure that quickness is ready behind it. When paired with Desperate Decoy and PU, that’s insta-10 seconds of invisibility which should slip you out of any situation.

Also works great for those kamikaze “death from above” situations, which is extremely fun to do. Works especially well with Chaotic+Bountiful Interruption:

1. Start mantra healing charge while in Torch#4
2. Jump off, landing for Chaos Storm, by that time Prestige and Balthazar goes off
3. Blurred Frenzy, trigger Torment Sigil
4. Swap with Geomancy to Staff#5 for a second Chaos Storm, pop shatters

8 area attacks. Burn, chill, poison, weakness, bleed, torment, confusion, (and on interrupt from 2x Chaos Storms) also apply cripple, blind (+more confusion if traited), immobilize, and most possibly 25 stacks of might. The actually time they see you is 1/2 cast time for Blurred Frenzy, the weapon swap to staff, then 1/4 cast time for Chaos Storm. You’re in and out at literally about less than 1 second, maybe 1.5.

And if that kamikaze almost kills you, you get quickness+Mass Invis for the getaway. Mid-channel you can pop off your healing mantras, so I guess it’s not really a kamikaze hah.

Sounds like a D/D Elementalist. Can’t wait to try this out.

calavel.6249:

theblankcalendar.1792:

No centaur runes + mantra of recovery = guaranteed 24/7 permanent swiftness not near because remember it also increases boon duration making heal skills give you more than 10 seconds of swiftness. So not only can you get perma-swiftness but you can also stack swiftness for you AND people near you so it’s also good in Zergs.

I really really like the new centaur runes, but the reason I’m not using the mantra/centaur trick is that I think it fails you when you need it the most. When all your healing charges are blown, you are trying to get away and are in a bad position to charge the mantra heal, you really need that extra movement speed but you can’t get it.
Speed runes, on the other hand, will ensure that you almost always have swiftness when you are in a bad spot (you are being hit often so the swiftness will trigger), and if don’t have swiftness at least you have +25%. With Centaur runes, you have either swiftness or nothing which can sometimes be a problem.

You see Centaur runes with Mantra Recovery as a disadvantage, I see the opposite. When I need heal in combat, usually it also means I need to avoid damage. Otherwise I just let my health bar eat it. In this case, the extra swiftness from Centaur runes increase my chance to successfully avoid the damage. With the same logic I keep the Air runes on my glassy Elementalist, which is invaluable.

Tested a build against the Jotun in HotM and it seems fit the description. Using Berserker Amulet with Infiltration Rune.

6: V:X:XI,
0:
6: V:X:XII
0:
2: III

Open with Staff using Chaos Storm, iWarlock, Phase Retreat. Swap to GS unload iBerserker, Mirror Blade. Then switch to Staff again in similar rotation. Even without DE, selecting traits for both Staff and GS seems to allow adequate clone generation. To make this build works, I need to intentionally not heal and let the health bar drop to 20% to trigger cloak from the Infiltration Rune. Surprisingly this cloak also proc PU. With the less than 50% health. damage boss from the rune, the Jotun down fairly quick. For the Mesmer in question who practice a lot with this build, he surely can do it even quicker.

Xaylin.1860:

Doug Whisper.2465:

Lately I am experimenting putting Chaos Armor on illusions as a way to unload conditions, which comes with blindness, confusion, and cripple. Having an extra pet through Privater seems to be a synergy with this approach. However, I haven’t really figure out the proper timing in skill rotation at the moment and this approach is kinda expensive as it need a burst finisher from Prestige and a skill to provide Etheral field.

It feels like you are jumping through too many loops when using Prestige for providing Chaos Armor. However, the iSwordsman gets Chaos Armor on its own because it uses a Leap finisher. If you want to go down this road the OH Sword is your best bet. Of course, this means that the parrot would be pointless.

Yes. It is how I put Chaos Amor on clones and phantasm in Staff and S/S setup. However, OP is GS + S/F or S/Torch for fun.

Furthermore, according to wiki, there is a 1s cooldown to trigger condition through Chaos Armor and Chaos Armor created through blast finisher only last for 3s Vs 5s as in leap finisher. Thus, the more entities with Chaos Armor, the higher the chance to fully unload the conditions.

For OP Phantasm build, the situation for this to make sense would be a lot of range attackers in WvW and keep stacking up blameless on them.

Difficult to target the real Mesmer. This remind me the pain to level up my Mesmer while many have power leveled and went to Orr for farming. Among the desert zones I frequently encountered veterans with several range and melee mobs. From there I learned how to read the battle and to decide which I should avoid and which I should focus to nuke first.

Time flies and I now have characters as Engineer, Guardian, Ranger and Elementalist. I found that playing other professions is very forgiving. Engineer, Guardian and Elementalist have various ways to get healing, health regeneration and conditions cleansing. Guardian and Elementalist have access to different forms of protection. And all of them can have pet or pets and don’t need to worry about losing dps across flights when their targets die. Furthermore, even now I have well equipped my Mesmer, his dps is not particularly spectacular as my less equipped Guardian and Elementalist.

During the Escape from Lion Arch episode, I notice that a lot of players got caught by a veterans Krait which can summon two Ettins. However, its manchanic basically was a Mesmer summoning Phantasms under a different cloth. With this realization, as long as I could interrupt his long summon cast it was no threat at all. If other players had triggered the Ettins, I would avoid them and focus on the Krait while used Spatial Surge to melt the Ettins down.

As a Ranger I use trap to slow down my opponents. Now I adopt a similar strategy in my Mesmer with help of sigil. I tried skills combo on my Mesmer before Karka event and was not impressed. However, skills combo is very essential on my Elementalist and Guardian. Now I tried to revisit this aspect in Mesmer. Play other professions help me get a better grip of GW2 game mechanic and become a better Mesmer. Mesmer is my main and I enjoy its style.

Lately I am experimenting putting Chaos Armor on illusions as a way to unload conditions, which comes with blindness, confusion, and cripple. Having an extra pet through Privater seems to be a synergy with this approach. However, I haven’t really figure out the proper timing in skill rotation at the moment and this approach is kinda expensive as it need a burst finisher from Prestige and a skill to provide Etheral field.

An interesting thread. I haven’t read through all the post, however, it seems to me that no one talk about point on the similarity between Steam Creatures and Clockwork Knights. Furthermore, the visual effect of teleporation used by Scarlet to transport her allies seems to be very similar to the spawn and disappear animation of Steam Creatures and their portals. If my memory is correct Steam Creatures are something back from the future. Could the entity who influence Scarlet is someone back from the future too? That could explain how Scarlet get the knowledge to create Clockwork Knights. What if the entity hate the outcomes on who defeats all elder dragons and would like to change the history to his favor?

As a Mesmer I feel rather lonely in a large flight. It is not the same when I roll my characters in other professions. My Engineer and Elementalist can layout all kind of combo fields. My ranger have Healing Spring, Search and Rescue and Spirits. My Guardian can provide shelter, healing and boons. None of my character is geared toward any support build. But when situation rise, I can switch things quick to provide some level of utility for my allies.

I think the issues with my Mesmer is he not only rely on Phantasms to do damage, but also use them as utilities through their bounce attack. However, Phantasm cannot survive on the front line long enough in large flight and we cannot summon Phantasm on back line neither because this requires an enemy target. As the game mechanic Phantasm always tie in with the life span of their targeted enemy, because of this a large truck of utilities through Phantasm is not accessible in a big flight.

To rectify this situation, I would suggest adding ability to Mesmer so that we could summon illusions on target allies when they are either less than 100% health or in down state. Illusion dies when the targeted allies reach 100% health or rally. In this case even without a build geared particularly toward support, we can use our illusions as usual to provide boons and remove conditions among our allies.

Both professions can do good PBAoE burst damage depending on the gears and traits you choose. As light armor classes, however, elementalists and mesmers attack with PBAoE burst damage inherits a lot of risk. If you watch videos of top players from either classes to do burst damage, high mobility is essential to pull it off.

For AoE ground target damage, my Glyphs Conjure staff elementalist can easily sends wave after wave of damages while in group setting. As a staff elementalist, I can pull off a lot of AoE heal too. In contrast, this kind of play style doesn’t seem to be easily accessible in mesmer, even he is my main.

I used to ignore rare gears, major sigils and runes while leveling. With the new restriction on unlocking traits, those seems to become a necessity for mesmer.

calavel.6249:

Dhampyr.2104:

I guess it’s a good thing that I like GW2 more than anything else out right now – I’m still spending some cash in the gem store, but when something as fun as GW2 comes out from a developer who actually appears to care about their customer base………………….

Actually Anet cares very much about their customers. It’s just that all their customers live in China now.
But hey, thanks for betatesting for 2 years. Have some more transmutation charges.

Was that too negative?

I don’t think that ANet is just focusing customers in China at the moment. Instead, I see the feature pack is a step to reconcile the differences in the code base of production system in China and the rest of the world. For some unknown reasons the traits system in China version is difference from what we have. Currently ANet need to bug fix and balance three game modes. After China launch, ANet will need to bug fix and balance three game modes in both versions of games.. Given that ANet is not a big studio, this separation in versions probably means double in their work load among their limited number of staff. Furthermore, the average income of people in China is much lower than those in EU and US, ignore us as their cash cow will be a very foolish move.

In ReadyUp EP10 Colin mentioned ANet will do ICD one at a time in the future so that they can more focus on issues and responses to the community. With current Living Story and Feature Pack launch, ANet started up too many fire all at once without enough men to put them off. In NCsoft annual sharer holders meeting they mentioned that there will be no intention of expansion for GW2. I guess the reasoning behind this decision is partially true as what drives the direction for future ICD; their manpower won’t be spread to thin to address our community feedbacks. Small delta launches of contents and features probably will be the way to go in the future.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Maybe they could make it so that Interrupts remove say 5 Initiative?

The longest cooldown on mesmer untraited weapon skill is 35 sec whereas the most costly weapon skill on theft is 7 initiatives. If this is an apple to apple comparison, a successful interrupt on thefts from mesmers with Power Lock traited should cost them 2 initiatives.

I haven’t play theft but from my understanding theft does not have cooldown for individual skill. Instead, the cooldown is collectively for all theft’s skills known as Initiative. For Power Lock to work properly according to the game mechanic of theft, it should accelerate the dry up of initiative pool or slow down its regeneration.

This change kills my hybrid on-kill mantra build. Probably will switch to pure power mantra build soon.

If Mesmer is the weakest one, we probably got buffs from the dev several times in a row. Instead, the main selling point for Mesmer in 4/15 feature pack announcement are the bug fixes. What a joke.

My main is Mesmer and recently I put a lot of time in my Elementalist. I also put points along the Water line to get health regen and heal while use trinkets to gain Power and Precision. However, in my Mesmer I have nothing on Inspiration. Instead, I have points in Chaos to get Metaphysical Rejuvenation and use trinkets to gain vitality and healing power. I prefer Mantra of Recovery and use stealth to cover the channeling.

There are few thing I learned to survive in the PVE over world while leveling up my Mesmer, and other characters, which might also relevance to you.

1. Managing phantasm’s up time:

I try to target the mob with highest health before launching the phantasm. I use Tab key to cycle through the mobs to do a quick check. Otherwise, if I launch a phantasm which the mobs would dead a moment later, my phantasm summon skill will be in cool down and lost a large chuck of DPS to continue the battle.

2. Managing mobs’ aggro:

Use Phantasm to aggro and distract the mob while I am keeping a distance from them. One of my set up is GS and Sword/Sword. Within the 1200 unit distance, I open flight with Sword #5 and run behind the the phantasm. Within the 600 unit distance, I fire up a clone using Sword #3 and dodge backward. Swap to GS and launch a clone using GS #2. Thus, all my illusions engage in melee distance while I am at range. If I use staff, there is not need to roll back. Just swap to staff and #2 Phase Retreat.

3. Managing my position

GS #1 can damage at most three mobs along the channeling light. I try to move my Mesmer around to align as many mobs as possible while I use the GS #1 auto attack. Because of this, sometime just keep the Mesmer running in circle could clear out a lot of trash mobs using GS.

In melee engagement, I try to walk behind the mob to mitigate the damage.

4. Managing the distance

I do not put a lot of toughness and health to my Mesmer. To me, avoiding melee damage is a key to survival. To do this, I use Sigil of Hydromancy to chili the closing in mobs and use rune to gain swiftness. I also keep Blink in my utility slot for the emergency.

5. Reset flight

I do not run PU build. But I find stealth is very powerful to reset flight, to drop the aggro, to reposition, and to retreat. I also use Mantras and stealth give me the cover up while channeling.

I am not a great player and not good in reflex. I learned a lot from reading this forum to improve the up time of my Mesmer.

I switched to GS after the Karka event because Staff doesn’t have enough dps to register kill counts in group events which lead to less loot drop.

@cinemapaula

You might want to take a look at MrPrometheus’ The Comprehensive Mesmer Guide

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Comprehensive-Mesmer-Guide-all-Parts

Part 2 particularly focuses in levelling.

You might consider switch to Sword/Sword, Staff as GS only have max dps at max range.