Guild Wars 2

I could imagine a thief with a scepter in the same way that I could imagine a warrior with a staff. They would not be magic based. A sap like weapon for the thief and a “monk” flavored melee staff weapon.

~4:30 “Grow and expand the core gameplay… new weapons along with taking weapons that already exist and add them to new professions.” Summarized from an interview of Colin. At 6:30, he reiterates that old weapons are more likely to be added to other professions than new weapons being added to the game. So duel pistol mesmer seems possible. I personally want another mele option like a dagger.

Random fact, polearms are programmed into the game but not available.
http://www.gw2db.com/items/weapons/polearms

Even when running a fully specced phantasm build, you can still squeeze out a bit more DPS if you do shatter. This relies on knowing exactly what will 1 hit KO a phantasm, how long before the phantasm attacks and paying attention to enemy health. It’s usually a nice bit of AOE finisher. Not easy to pull off though and most ppl will just advise to never shatter in dungeons. It’s not as bad as people think though.

Comparing 20/20/0/0/30 Zerker to 0/20/20/0/30 Rampagers:
2309 power, 52% crit chance, +102% bonus crit dmg, and 300 condition dmg.
1734 power, 70% crit chance, +20% bonus crit dmg, and 1118 condition dmg.
Base power wise, the rampagers build does 60% of what the power build does. That ignores the 20% increase to MW dmg, the 15% phantasm damage and of course the vulnerability spike for up to 25% more group dmg. Basically you will do around half the power damage of a zerker build. Last of all, % dmg increases from potions, sigils, runes don’t affect conditions (or phantasms). These can boost your stabs/shatters a lot (10-46%) and multiply better with high power damage.

Bleed wise, 57 per tick vs 98 per tick. At 25 stacks, that’s 1000 extra damage per second… assuming no one else in the group is messing with your bleed stacks or that you will actually maintain 25 stacks. Realistically closer to 100-300 extra dps. Confusion wise, it’s an extra 100 dmg per stack. Nice vs a select few mobs but not much to nothing vs the majority.

3000 hours or multiple sets of armor doesn’t change the fact that rampagers will usually do 1/2 the dmg that a zerker build does in dungeons. Then factor in that reflects are based off of the mesmers crit chance/dmg and the rampagers build falls behind even more; like 1/4 or less. Sure, things will die eventually but I would not consider it viable.

From an elementalist thread

Treborlavok.3504:

Treborlavok.3504:

just like the guardians 5 trait for vigor on crit… its ok for them to have a 10 second single condition cure at adept…?

The Guardian and Mesmer vigor traits are something that were on the table and will be on the table for change in the future. We don’t like those traits being that easily accessible. While they haven’t yet been changed as long as our thoughts don’t change internally they are part of the vigor rework we want to do.

=/

If I recall correctly, it was a dungeon specific question about being nothing more than a TW bot?

That kinda goes back to the Sword vs GS argument =/. The reason Guang created that previous thread is because mesmers do awesome damage and he wanted to get rid of the stereotype that mesmers cant do DPS. That thread and many others then blew up. We also have the highest reflect uptime as well which can add a significant amount of damage on top of our amazing dps. (Remember, reflect damage is based on enemy power but OUR crit dmg/chance.)

However, the only other group buff we have is signet of inspiration. Compared to banners, spirits, +150 to all ally traits, this isn’t as tangible. For ideal groups, it isn’t necessary. For sub-optimal groups, it is rarely noticed. % increases (besides traits) also don’t affect our phantasms. I don’t think we should get those straight bonuses as we are great at what we do but this does hinder us at the high end of optimization. This inevitably trickles down the perception of mesmers are low DPS in sub-optimal groups although it is the opposite. Furthermore, not having a 90k 100b combo doesn’t help since most ppl still think the last hit is actually doing 90k when it doesnt >_>.

As for what we can do to end the perception? Guang tried and most mesmers failed to embrace it. I want to reiterated that if you aren’t having fun, don’t run that build but it’s usually the optimized/top tier that give the general population their views. If the mesmer community cant even agree on hard facts/numbers, this is just makes it worst for us.

The aetherblades are giving me hope though. As more enemies get boons and “boss fights” become more than 1 boss, it’s feeling like I’m playing my gw1 mesmer more. Actually, just the living story dungeons in general are better designed although they can still be cheesed. If Anet adds heals that need to be interrupted/poisoned, regen/prot/stability on lots of mobs, and mobs with faster but weaker attacks, Mesmers, Necros (boon stripping), and in general, tankiness would be more welcome in dungeons. Until then, full zerker and stack is the way to go.

Sigil of battle and strength don’t stack so drop the strength.
I would recommend sigil of perception as a replacement for the first build since your crit chance is pretty low compared to your crit damage and the precision helps with both sides of the hybrid.

Since conditions are pretty big in the meta right now, you might want to try runes of hoelbrak and keep some back up poultry or lemongrass soup in your inventory. I’ve found the -56/60% condition duration outweighs a bit of extra power. Even if you don’t change the runes, still keep the food around. Otherwise you have zero condition defense.

Speed is also a problem but if you are willing to swap to focus out of combat or even keep it for the aoe interrupt, that should be ok.

So technical/generic wvw stuff aside, I think build 1 would be decent in small fights. Swapping to focus or gs with staff (more aoe interrupts) and using Chaotic interruption rather than PU would probably be better for big fights. Signet of inspiration rather than domination to share all those boons.

Veil does hardly anything for build 2 and I would use blink in it’s place. Same with signet of domination, you are better off using F3 with IP and you don’t have interrupt traits. Build 2 also doesn’t really look like it should be a condi build. The bonus confusion on shatters can be nice touch but I wouldn’t focus on it. Or in general, just because illusions gives 300 condi dmg, don’t consider it a condi line.

Jester.1236:

LordByron.8369:

Phantasmal haste reduce time between phantasm Attacks.
Doesn t reduce summoning skills CD.

Also its bugged.

It’s not supposed to reduce the cool down. So many people think it does, by not reading the tool tip.

But it still is bugged. Not all the phantasms attack at a higher rate.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste

Shatter builds will summon clones and phantasms and time the shatters to spike someone down quickly. You don’t want people killing your illusions.

Clone spam/death builds tend to spawn clones and only clones and leave them up. More clones cause previous clones to explode or the clones can be killed by enemies to also explode.

So while they both spam illusions, I would consider these very different builds/play-styles when it comes to traits. Of course, all those builds can use tactics from the other builds and there will be overlap/hybrids. However, shatter and phantasm builds have problems in zerg fights in wvw. Mainly, illusions die too fast. So why not embrace the fast death as a viable zerg aoe build? Current traits give a 33% chance of a weak bleed and 3 second of confusion in an aoe. That doesn’t cut it in a zerg. That’s why I think a new trait for power bombs on clone death would help Mesmers in zergs but having it do less damage than shatters or phantasms would prevent the build from being OP in other formats.

After thinking about this a bit more, I think it would have to be a new trait. The blackwater build is rather strong as is. The trade off should probably be pick this trait or pick PU. Since 20 dueling would be pretty mandatory for this build, maybe 30 domination? 30/25/0/0/15 or 30/20/10/X/X?

Bunda.2691:

But shouldn’t our three main builds be:
1) Phantasm (power and condition)
2) Shatter (power and condition)
3) Clone-Spam (power and condition)
This gives us six distinct options—two versions each of three build types. And then each can be tailored further to boon share, support, glam, control, interrupt, etc.

I agree with this assessment of the Mesmer. Mantas, signets, interrupts and all the other goodies are modifications of those 6 builds. People asking for builds that do damage without using illusions remind me a lot of the rangers that kept petitioning for pet-less rangers. Illusions should be integral to our builds and I don’t want that to change.

With that in mind, I think clone spam builds need help on the power side. Specifically, the dissipation traits (or a new trait) need to add power damage to our clone bombs. This would still give us decent AOE in zergs while eliminating the problem of “our clones die too fast.” In smaller fights, this would promote less mindless AOE spam. The damage should be about 30-60% of Mind Wrack per clone to keep the risk/reward balanced with shatters.

On the condi shatter side, Illusionary Retribution needs to change. Having uniform confusion on all of our shatters is boring and 3 seconds confusion is really weak. Give us torment on F3 and bleeds on F1. F2 can stay with 2 stacks of confusion.

Alissah.9281:

We won’t report you away, but others will, that’s for sure. The only question left is: how much are you willing to change to stay here?

colesy.8490:

If someone asks what is best for a situation, it’s not appropriate to say “play how you want”, the most you should stretch yourself is by saying “X is the best weapon for situation Y, but if uncomfortable using X, then use Z”. Saying someone can play how they want doesn’t add anything to a discussion besides feel-good, and if somebody wants to feel good about themselves … well I wouldn’t really think of going to the internet where people like me exist.

That definitely looks like improvement ^^
However, I don’t think he really needs to change that much and I also find it sad that he was reported. I’ve posted math/numbers while trying to remain as emotionally neutral as possible. My numbers happen to align with what Colesy is saying. I then get branded as an elitist and flammed… for doing math. He stated sword>gs and people hate him so much for that, that even I get crap for proving him right.

Sure, he is caustic but I don’t think he deserves nearly as much flack as he gets. He cant even make a joke without being yelled at. At this point, I think most people hate him for the sake of hating him. Out of curiosity Alissah, did you even think to report the people that you agreed with? I didn’t but I think there are a lot more people than Colesy that deserved a report with all the recent GS vs sword arguments.

Advice from the other side, what is your warrior build? and is this wvw or pvp? When I’m running hammer zerker warrior, I like to run the 0/10/30/0/30 build. Merciless hammer, dogged march and cleansing ire in the toughness line. Burst mastery to spam F1. With runes of melandru and lemongrass in wvw, you’re basically immune to conditions. So at that point, I just aoe hammer every clone to death. The cripple on clone death lasts 0.06 seconds and gives you regeneration. Each time you spam F1 (7 second cd), you remove the few conditions a mesmer can give you at this point while also having enough passive trait healing/signet/ regen to ignore any that make it through. If that still isn’t enough for whatever reason take berserker stance for even more F1 spam and condition immunity. Since PU mesmers have a lot of boons, destruction of the empowered for more dps. Sigil of impact for the combo burst.

Your goal is to stay on top of the mesmer and burn through their defenses with just hammer 1-3 and the occasional F1. Even if they go invis, keep spamming your auto attack where you think they are. If you see your auto attack cycle, you are still connecting. Save the F1/5/4 combo for when they don’t have staff 2/blink. PU gives the mesmer a random boon every second they are in stealth: 1/3 aegis and 1/3 protection. Chaos armor also has a 1/3 chance to blind. So there is some luck to bursting them down.

Mass invis and veil have pretty obvious tells. F1 the mass invis when the mesmer raises their hand in the air for 2 seconds. Auto attack the line on the ground that makes the mesmer invisible since they will usually try to run through it a second time. Unless the new patch changed it, the scepter block can be dodged. Just dodge as soon as you see the block proc.

Against a great mesmer, you still won’t win but they also won’t be able to kill you if you just walk away. Against the more offensive/unlucky ones, you should be able to burst them down fairly fast but you need to time it right.

Full zerker + ruby orbs since that’s what I have atm. Ascended main hand sword and exotic offhand sword. Sigil of perception/battle were nonfactors at the time. I tested the swordsman in 2 phantasm builds and 1 shatter build.
0/20/0/25/25 = Average hit of 2028.49
10/30/0/30/0 = Average hit of 2455.22
20/20/0/0/30 = Average hit of 1931.62
I did not trait for phantasm damage in the shatter build. If traited, it should be ~ 2221.36. This is all vs. dummies in LA so no crit damage factored in. Next, I looked at F1 and F2 damage in the 20/20/0/0/30 build but I did not take any of the traits to buff damage. F1 = 1216.84. F2 = 349.54 Since F1 has an 11.5 second cd and F2 has a 23 second cd, using F2 right after every 2nd F1 is a minor boost that should be added in there. All of that was IP with zero clones. Let’s assume the 20/20/0/0/30 mesmer does trait for 15% phantasm dmg, 20% MW dmg and compounding power. Sigil of force/slaying and potion of slaying. So F1 and F2 do 1.1 × 1.1 × 1.05 x 1.03 (x1.2) for 1.31 (1.57) more F2 (F1) dmg. I decided to not factor in spirit of frost/sigil of night/runes of scholar in since those are a bit more “random” and my current numbers were all with ruby orbs. That brings single/no clone F1 to 1910 and F2 to 457.89.
What happens when we go with two phantasms (duelist+swordsman)? What if we don’t grab DE and trait for the pistol instead? Rotation set up: summon duelist/swordsman every 12 seconds. The duelist gets 2 volleys off every 12 seconds. Swordsman gets 3 attacks per 12 seconds. Sword 3 also has a 9 second CD so it can be tossed in there. 2 phants+clone =~5324 base damage. So every 24 seconds: You get 2 full MWs and a bonus F2. A swordsman gets 6 attacks and a duelist gets 4. Shatter DPS = 482 DPS and it can hit up to 5 targets. Swordsman would be ~555 DPS vs 1 target. Keep in mind these are non-crit numbers. For comparison, the 10/30/0/30/0 build would be doing ~614 DPS per swordsman. Both duelists would be traited for 100% finishers but duelist in the phantasm build would get more attacks per minute because of how the attacks are staggered.
Stuff not calculated for: the differences in power are already factored into the raw dps numbers but the phantasm build will have 10% more crit and 4% more crit chance. I did not factor in shattered strength but I also didn’t look too much at sigils for the phantasm build. Frost spirit would be a 1.07 multiplier but only for shatters/autos. Sigil of night was not added. The shatter build would be able to summon more often do to IC. Mirror images + F3 would also be able to stack 24 vulnerability on a boss every 36 seconds for a nice spike in party damage. The shatter build would be doing more condition dmg/bonus confusion however the phantasms would not have fury.
So overall, the phantasm build can potentially have all 3 phantasms tearing 1 person apart. If the shatter build chose to do this, it could summon the 3 phantasms faster but it would do about 10-20% less phantasm damage while having up to 40% stronger auto attacks. Against 2+ targets, the shatter build wins by a lot. The shatter build will of course not have a traited focus or 20% shorter glamour CDs and confusion damage is sorta random. Depending on how often you have 3 phantasms up, the shatter build may out DPS the phantasm build even against single targets while also doing much better AOE.

Trait wise, the shatters have 20% more and also compounding power for 3/6/9% or more so (9+9+6+3)/4 for an average of 6.75%. With Runes/Potion/Night/Sigil/Frost spirit
1.2 × 1.0675 × 1.1 x 1.1 × 1.1 × 1.1 x 1.07 = 2.13
If it isn’t nighttime =2.04. That is a lot more than 1.3225. Also with ascended weapons not yet having an affect on phantasms… I’m going to crunch some numbers.

The topic of multiplicative multipliers got me thinking about 2 things.
1) Would a phantasm build rival a warriors damage if phantasms were affected by more than just the two traits and base stats?
2) Utility aside, how comparable is the damage for shatter and phantasm builds when the shatter build is capable of stacking multipliers?

Is it use an eternal potion and then press 6 to heal back into normal form? That was a “feature” that they removed then put back into the game awhile ago. This can be spammed after the 10 sec icd and doesn’t waste your heal.

I tested weapon strength/rarity and how it affects phantasms vs normal attacks.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AohSpGgKCVZ7dE5lUnVXOEVQNEZrQnRyUUt0VWk4ZFE&single=true&gid=0&output=html

Explanation of the test parameters/data:
I decided to keep power a constant throughout my tests while only having weapon strength/rarity as variables. First thing I did was test pvp steady vs normal weapons in PvP (Columns F-K). For Columns F-I, the power was all at 916 but the attack range was about 800. Regardless of difference in attack, the average swordsman hit did not make a difference. So my initial conclusions were that attack made no difference. I then decided to test stuff in PvE (LA Dummies; Colums L-V)

Columns L-Q are phantasmal swordsmans while columns R-V are the first auto attack. For the PvE testing I only used an offhand or main hand sword. Never both at the same time since the weapon strength/attack are averaged between the two weapons. I made sure to keep power always at 1015 with a bit of topless shenanigans/traiting.

Column B: the raw attack numbers and also the % of attack with ascended =100%
Column C: Average and % DMG of the swordsman
Column Average and % DMG of the sword 1.1 and 1.2

Phantasm damage between white, blue, green and yellow weapons seemed to have very little to no difference in damage. This is consistent with the idea that differences in attack (or more so weapon strength) have nothing to do with phantasm damage and only power affects phantasms. HOWEVER, exotics and ascended items do ~15% more damage than the lower tiers of weapons. The difference between exotics and ascended was minimal. Keep in mind that I only have an n=~35 for each swordsman condition so the difference between exotics/ascended in my tests may or may not be true. I’m pretty certain that there are at least two tiers of weapons that determine phantasm damage.

For comparison, I briefly looked at the auto attack damage. These increased at a sorta linear rate compared to attack but the numbers seem a bit off.

TLDR: Phantasm damage will be minimally affected by ascended weapons: Up to 18 power and it doesn’t look like weapon strength is different between exotics and ascended. (Basically 1% increase in damage) However, I recall the devs also talking about engineer kits/ele conjures and how they are based off of exotic weapon damage at lvl 80 at the moment. Once ascended is the norm, they may change all of these to ascended as the default and buff phantasm damage at that point.

For other attacks/shatters, duel wielding ascended weapons can increase damage by ~6% and may still be worth it depending on your level of optimization/need to max.

Chaos.3579:

Going full phantasm is not completely viable yet. At least until they increase the hit points that pets have like arena net said they would. But even then it’s not nearly as good as having some shatter damage instead of going all out phantasms

June update:

Split the hit point values of clones and phantasms by game type:
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 55% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
Decreased the clone base hit points by 25% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the clone base hit points by 28% in PvE.

That buff already happened to mesmers as a trial buff to minions. I believe it’s the rest of the minion classes that will see the buff in the next patch. I do dream of the day that phantasms are affected by % increases other than the 2 traits. This would probably put us at equal levels of damage to other classes in pve without breaking pvp. Would also help all other pet builds that cant stack damage multipliers the way warriors can. Anyhow…

I fail to see how full phantasm is not viable yet? At least at the level that you consider viable. Dropping 1 phantasm and 3 seconds of auto attack kills any normal NPC in open world. Vets and above are usually better off with full phantasms. I’m not saying don’t shatter your phantasms ever but I don’t think it’s worth it to trait hybrid. More so, I don’t think a phantasm build should trait hybrid as there are a lot of good phantasm/support traits. Furthermore, 20% MW dmg just seems weak when you don’t have IP. Like when I run full phantasm, shatters make up a minor portion of my damage or a bit of an aoe finisher right before the mob dies. When I run full shatter though, phantasms still make up a decent chunk of my damage and I could see traiting for them as viable.

Minor thing for the OP’s girlfriend. I prefer 20% shorter cool down on glamours rather than longer duration. Both rather than mender’s purity would be better. Ruby orbs are cheaper and better than runes of the scholar for a mesmer.

Just an off hand pistol for what Blood is talking about. The ranger offhand axe is what has both a pull and a reflect (It got that pull like 2 months ago?) yet so few rangers use it. =/

With the pug group that I ran with, I found that the mobs would have rarely been packed tight enough for a black powder to disable them all. From a mesmer’s perspective, reflecting the confusing bolts and the stunning shield boomerangs was basically what let me carry my team. Interrupting the back breakers and stripping boons was icing. I was the only full zerker melee while my team was mostly ranged. If I took a break between a fight and they charged in, they always wiped. If I ran in first, it was all good. I was also able to solo one ooze side (about 30% chance of success).

With all that said, I feel like most classes can contribute as much as I did on my mesmer. It’s just that most players don’t understand the full potential of their class: for example, the lack of offhand axe wielding rangers.

Nretep.2564:

@Byron
There was someone who claimed that the + 5% crtCh does affect the illusions now. Not the full 5% were added, but he got more crits with it. I assume Pyro hasn’t acknowledged it (yet). I’m also still curious about it, but there’re better sigils for me anyways.

I tested this awhile ago and my initial results were promising. However, after firing off about 1k shots per set up and looking at bleeds (I tested with 0/20/0/0/0 and duelist) I reported that the sigil does not seem to work. I think the sigil group actually had a 2% lower chance to crit. I never ran statistical analysis on it but I’m assuming that it’s basically no difference.

I do remember someone saying they tested it and it worked but they never showed any data.

For the weapon strength, what always annoyed me is that steady weapons don’t give steady phantasm dmg. I’ll try to do some testing on how ascended weapon strength factors in.

I think the problem with meleing bloomhunger is that most ppl have melee assist turned on. If you stand inside him, the only attack that can hit you is his agony attack and blurred frenzy is perfect for that. If you have melee assist turned on, you cant stand inside him. Ideally you have 1 or maybe 2 ppl at range to take out the spirits.

If you are worried about cripple for mossman, the focus 4 does that and speeds you up. As pyro stated, don’t try to block the double slice. The rest of the melee attacks can be blocked just fine.

That’s what I meant by draw aggro. Usually if a different pug gets aggro, they die and it eventually winds up on me. Why not kite with scepter/focus?

Pyroatheist.9031:

@DuckDuckBOOM: The thing about scepter at <600 range is you begin to question why you’re using scepter and not sword.

As far as gs5 is concerned, if you position yourself correctly, you can generally group up mobs with it. It’s obviously not as easy to do as with the focus, but it does work rather effectively.

Confusing images is really the one saving grace of the scepter. It does actually do a lot of damage, more than blurred frenzy in fact, so you get reliable damage out of that.

Overall though, they’re gonna be pretty similar, with the main difference being that gs is far more effective for aoe damage (which is where I usually use it, clearing trash), and allows you to get up to a full 1200 range while still maintaining damage (which is the other place I use it, when 1200 range damage is important). The scepter can’t do that.

I know GS5 can be good but I have never seen a pug mesmer use it well. They either don’t touch it (I’m ok with that) or they spam it and keep scattering enemies even though the party keeps telling them to stop. Those are the GS mesmers that give an especially bad rep to the noob stereotype.

I mainly bring up the scepter for people that need the extra defense that comes with falling back. I think everyone agrees that sword/focus is a very good default set to use. Since the OP is a fresh mesmer/gw2 player? recommending full melee would probably ruin his experience. Having the sc/sw weapon swap gives 2 blocks and some decent dmg while trying to practice staying in melee but has ranged utility.

The rest of my post was in response to skcamow asking about if the GS under 600 range (for boon synergy) would be better off than the scepter.

For fights like mossman I try to melee when I can but I always draw aggro in pugs. I never am able to fall back to 900+ range when he is constantly chasing me down so those 2 extra blocks are pretty awesome. Since the blocks spawn clones anyways and his axe bounces/random attacks kill off my illusions, I rarely find myself with 3 phantasms against him. If anything, I find the scepter auto a good way of spawning more distractions for him.

@ Bumbler, how often do you have 3 phantasms up vs mossman or archdiviner? If you have aggro, how often is your gs auto actually in the 900 range?

A few points regarding the kill time for scepter vs gs. Your testing was with both of them at 600 range. The scepter can increase its damage by getting closer if possible. So while your test sounds valid, the scepter auto can still come out ahead when used well. I’m assuming you mentioned 600 for the boon range.

If you use gs2 to buff your dps, then the gs and scepter can both have a max of 2 phantasm out at any given time. GS 5 is almost always bad to use in PvE. It’s the main reason I hate the stereotypical noob gs mes, longbow ranger, rifle-butting warrior: they usually do negative DPS for the group when they use the knock back. GS3 is great if used well but I rarely see GS mesmers use it. So you are basically stuck with GS1 and 4 for DPS maybe 3. Basically zero utility.

The scepter 2 is one more active defense skill that can spike 4x harder than the gs auto <600. The s3 will do double the power dps of the gs <600. Both of these also have bonus condition damage that can add up to a lot. It then comes with the versatility of the offhand (stuns/blocks/reflects).

This of course comes down to the problem of 2 phantasms vs 3. For a mesmer in melee training or hard fights, I suspect that most mesmers will not have 3 phantasms up so the scepter wins on the base dps and the extra defense/utility.

As for raw dps, under ideal conditions for both set ups, it’s hard to tell. The condition bonus can be really high or low depending on the fight. The zerker can hit 2-4 times. If you use gs3 perfectly… I don’t think any spread sheet will be able to determine which one is better on dps alone because there are too many variables. Basically I don’t think he is capable of giving you numbers. All I can say is more utility with the scepter and comparable dps. I still bring the gs for some fights but those are the 1200 range ones.

Restorative +Harmonious Mantras is not a good combo. The heal only happens on charge up. If you insist on celestial, 0/20/0/25/25 seems like a good mix. Phantasms crit often for decent bleeds. Still do great power dmg. Regeneration to everyone. I guess that is more of a 0/20/0/25/0 build. It could also maybe work in a hybrid shatter build. 0/20/0/0/30 for the base. Clones/phants for power/bleed pressure. Shatters for a power/confusion spike. 20 domination removing boons or 20 chaos for might on interrupts. Doesn’t look like anything changes from a normal build.

One thing about the harpy fractal. Traited focus is great for 90% of it. The mid point golem fight requires an untraited focus. I believe it is the only skill that can currently negate is spinning poison spread. The traited focus doesn’t seem to work.

One more thing for lupi, feedback doesn’t work if your party is spread out and ranging him. I’m pretty sure everyone needs to be inside the bubble and therefore in melee since the projectiles seem to be generated from above his waste.

I just stated that I solo melee with most pug dungeon groups and die a lot less than my party. Your response is that risk is only irrelevant when I’m carried. Great logic. Falling back to 1200 range is easy when crap hits the fan. Staying in melee and interrupting a knockdown chain to save your group while also doing more damage may be riskier if you cant see a hammer flying into your face but if you know what you are doing, it doesn’t matter what the rest of your team does. If anything I would go so far as to say that I’m the one carrying my group because I enable them to just sit there without any worry. This applies to the coe situations you mentioned earlier. This applies to the vast majority of the trash mob situations where aoe is important. Mesmers have decent disables that help them carry their group. No LOS required although it makes things easy.

I know my limit though and I would not be able to solo melee fotm 48. Although I would probably wield a scepter instead of the gs most of the time Want to know why? Because I care about

CC, Range, AoE dps, risk, Burst and things like that….

The off hands are betting at disabling specific targets/reflecting. As was stated earlier for example: Not all dredge are created equal in communist mole land. Some of them need to be purged/disabled first. The GS doesn’t enable that.

LordByron.8369:

Now what requires more skill?
Having 2 melee weaponsets and just spamming dps, or having a backup GS and being ready to Evade, cleanse, position, Kyte and survive reacting to situation IF something goes wrong?
How much time will you lose because of your GS backup choice?

Having two melee weapons when things go south requires more skill. What does the GS have that lets you evade, cleanse, or position better? This image your painting of noob speed clearing vs pro gs users is highly skewed.

Have you really not paid attention to anything I wrote? Do you think I’m pulling numbers out of thin air just because you don’t like them. If you want AOE damage, the sword auto attack, even in not super ideal situations, does about x5 more damage than the gs auto attack. It can get up to about 9x as much. Disabling a gonger that is decreasing your parties damage by 33% and increasing the enemies damage by ~25% is a serious change in the amount of time it would take to finish something. The GS @1200 range isn’t capable of that. If I went full melee in fotm 48 and accomplished my goal of disable gongers/bombers and did some serious melee damage then died, I would still be doing more for my team than you with a GS.

BTW, I have 8 characters with an average of 3 armor sets each because I like trying different wvw builds. I don’t speed clear for brainless monies. I do it for cheap armor and I usually do it with pugs/noob guildies. Stop trying to smear us with this elitist crap.

LordByron.8369:

Xyonon.3987:

LordByron to be honest – I sometimes use the GS if I need it, but the adepts part is definitly NONE of it: sw/focus + sw/sw -> focus 4 speed, 5 kills one by itself,

You can do it anyway, but WAY slower with more risks….
First being your phantasms being killed fast just breaking your burst, resulting in a huge loss of time.

As said if people only plays with LoS stacking everything with perfect guardians just repeating rotations like a scripted AI, they don t care for things like:

CC, Range, AoE dps, risk, Burst and things like that….

They only look at single target DPS and just wipe any time guardian mess something.
A game not even Worth playing….

Being able to play with anyone requires knowing wich weapon is best in each situation, also being able to evaluate risk to equip the proper one.

another example….
SE1 3 golems….
While you can kill them melee with the proper Group, you are completely helpless in melee and in the hands of guardians and warriors.

Now what requires more skill?
Having 2 melee weaponsets and just spamming dps, or having a backup GS and being ready to Evade, cleanse, position, Kyte and survive reacting to situation IF something goes wrong?
How much time will you lose because of your GS backup choice?
That can be applied to so mkany situations that in the end you just start understanding the concept of RISK/REWARD!
Also Versatility VS efficience.

Also to prove wrong people who thinks GS requires less skill than meleeing and LoSing everything that is actually negating any mechanic.

Risk should be irrelevant if you know what you are doing. I sw/f+sw the entire cofp1 path. In pug groups I often killed 2-4 of the acolytes per wave just fine.

I used to run with a somewhat dedicated team but with school and what not, I pug a lot as well now. I rarely have a guardian with me. A lot of the times I have 4 ranged people in my party and I’m the glass cannon melee that is the only one not dying.

We are not just considering single target dps. The sword auto is better aoe than the zerker when you factor in that you are stuck with the gs auto attack the rest of the time.

As I stated in my prior post for your coe stuff, the offhands provide more versatility than the gs: AOE stuns/dazes are much better than cripples or knockbacks. The sword 3/3 is also an aoe immoblizes so the cripple point is moot.

Being ready to evade? You think I survive pugs because I face tank?
Keep listing more situations ^^

As one of the people promoting full melee, I am promoting in it dungeons. If you only do open world PvE, the GS serves it’s purpose well.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The problem is the general elitist behaviour, like “if you use a GS you are bad”.
General statements like this are obviously a result of a group trying to set themselves above others by excluding variety, labeling them as the best. But instead of just staying in their own ivory tower, they feel the need to tell everyone how much better they are (false or true doesn’t even matter).
Elitism at it’s finest. Unfortunately ridiculously misplaced in a game like GW2.

So now you are resorting to personal attacks rather than countering any points I’ve made. Don’t confuse my arguments with cosley’s attitude.

At what point do any of my posts come across as elitist? I’ve shown math for why stacking with your group can increase the entire parties damage by 50-100%. Since the last thread was deleted, I’ve decided I’ll show the steady weapon numbers for the auto attack: (65+66+119)/2.5 second vs (37×3)/1.5 seconds. The sword does about 35% more base damage. When you compound these numbers, it turns into the sword doing upwards of 2.7 times as much damage as the GS at 1200 range. Then factor in the melee cleave for x3 damage and the GS aoe phantasm doesn’t outweigh the rest of the GS.

When I responded to Lord Byron, I explained why I thought the sw/x+y was better in both damage and utility in those situations he listed. I also listed when I use the GS. Is it really that elitist to inform other people of the potential of these weapons? Is this any more elitist than your blanket statement of sword/focus+GS is the best aoe combo?

Kaiyanwan.8521:

I am just working with the Kuebler-Ross model also known as the five stages of grief.

By showing dungeoneers that the GS is the optimal weapon in different situations (AoE, even if they have tons of excuses which is totally normal) we can pass denial.

We are now in the stage of anger, which we can see very well with cosley (even though the denial is strong with this one).

The anger will hold on longer, but when the dungeoneers will see, that there is more than just the caves they spend their time in, bargaining might start.

The last two steps I will think about if we ever get that far… ^^

This whole Mesmer gs vs non gs divide started with Guang stating that some class/build combos have bad reputations in dungeons and it’s time for them to learn to be better. You just labeled us “dungeoneers.” So why is your next step to say our advice outside of dungeons isn’t valid and therefore we are wrong. There is no bargaining in this. Our advice for sword/x/y is for dungeons. That is all. Your extra Keubler-Ross stuff is you just trying to grasp at something to be right about that has nothing to do with this discussion.

How about you look at my recent analysis and explain why you think I’m wrong and Lord is right. If you cant, don’t repeat the logical fallacies that you just tried to pull off.

PS: Sorry Frifox but you must have realized that comparing numbers of 1 skill of a weapon would inherently lead to comparison of weapons. Especially with the prior thread being deleted. =/

LordByron.8369:

Try again:
Dredge fotm in PUGS…..
CoE before 2nd Alpha (p2-3)
CoE after 2nd Alpha (p3)
CoF 1 adepts room
Cof 2 assassins room

First off I agree with you that different weapons are better for different situations but I’ll give some insight into how I do these fights because I’m still on the sword/xy side on those specific fights.

Dredge: My goal is to disable the gongers as fast as possible since they buff the dredge like crazy. Focus is a given with its reflects. The sword allows for consistent interrupt while not spreading random enemies = Sword/focus/sword. The swordsman is better at hunting 1 person down and I still have melee cleave going the whole time. Most people seem to underestimate the gongs. Protection/regen/might/swiftness for enemies is painful and single target spiking them is collectively better for your team than doing random aoe. Note on pugs: If I’m doing 30+ with pugs I tend to get a really quick feel of how good/bad they are. I leave before dredge ever happen because my luck is to always roll dredge right side on the last fractal. In 28 or below, I’m still using those weapons regardless of the group.

CoE: At the very start I go sword/focus/gs to pull enemies out of the hallway. The gs4 /3then immediatly to sword/focus kills them so fast that I don’t need to swap to gs again. The rest of the dungeon is sword/x/y/z. Before 2nd alpha is focus or pistol or sword for again, the aoe interrupts. The channeled aoe drain or the spin to win is painful and I keep my team safe while also not scattering them with gs. After 2nd alpha p3: every group I’ve been in skips the tough destroyers. We do kill the weak ones with mele cleave to stack up sigils if anyone was downed/easy loot.

Cof1: I’m assuming you mean the door breaking sequence? Focus/blurred frenzy and 1 auto attack takes them down. Sure you could toss in a gs phant before that but it doesn’t matter at that point. Rest of p1 is sw/sw/f. COf2: Melee cleave for 10 seconds vs gs1 for 9 and gs 4 for 1…. I would take the sword any day. More specifically, in good groups, phantasms don’t really matter as things die too fast. In bad groups, most phantasms don’t live too long. Thus in bad groups, I rely on blink/decoy and the “hunter” swordsman to make sure the assassins die even though the group is falling apart at the end. Focus being the other default phantasm cause why not.

Basically if mobs die super fast (10 seconds or less) and then I go out of combat, the gs is a viable option for me. In fights like balth and melandru in arah, I use ranged because melee is not worth it. PvP/wvw has obvious uses for ranged although sometimes I’m still going sword/focus/x. Open world pve kind of fits into the 10 second rule. Otherwise, I find the melee cleave all the time to be better than the gs4. I think all of the sword/x/y proponents know to swap weapons, we’re just saying you rarely need to swap anything besides your offhands.

Disclaimer: I am working on duel Bolts and focus is usually too good to let go. This may cloud my judgement Or maybe I loved swords so much to begin with because they are awesome.

Guardian mace auto attack will heal for 700 per auto attack chain if you max out healing power.
Mace 2 traited will give [257(symbol) + 380(regen)] = 637 /sec

Battle Presence+ Absolute resolution = Virtue of Resolve healing for ~200 per second in an aoe.

So a 0/0/20/30/20 guardian could heal for ~1k per second in an aoe with just mace 1 and 2 and the passive.

Then there are the 2k aoe heals when the guard dodges and the 1.1k heals when aegis is removed. Shield 5 for 1.7k aoe and healing breeze for 4k.

3k heals every 4.75 seconds with mantra of pain or 631 h/s per target. AOE regen for 380. You can occasionally stagger other mantras but that still comes down to 1500 per second spike every ~15 seconds. and 1k the rests of the time. So basically guardian passives = mesmers mantra spam + regen. The guardian also comes with perma protection to your entire party for 33% dmg reduction. I really think you underestimate guardian healing.

Is it worth it? Maybe at the new teq since ppl seem to die off like flies. Otherwise no. Actually, probably not worth it at teq either. To the OP: Dodging is your friend and what Anet wants you to do. To be able to heal through 1 hit KOs would turn this game into too much of a wow clone.

My engineer runs those runes and its not as hard for them to interrupt as you think. It’s pretty common to run pistol/shield and toolkit with grenades. Magnet to prybar was a pretty common combo before these runes buffed it twice. Just that combo alone will spike 13 stacks of confusion and puts an enemy in perfect position for a grenade barrage/shield interrupt.

The shield has plenty of interrupts on it. Of course the chance of confusion on attack is also great for grenades since you are tossing 3 at a time. I lose about 100 condition dmg or 10% condition duration but that’s ok when the minimum I have is 70% duration.

Or an opening move of Freeze grenades: Burning, chill, and vulnerability with a triple chance of bleeds n confusion on 1 skill. Fear the engineer with these runes.

Deathcon.5903:

Yeah I run Menders Purity and iDisenchanter with IE so conditions are nothing to me as well. I love spawning two iDisenchaters in a fight with a necro and just laughing, with those Perplexity Warriors and Engineers it is the same thing, they can’t do anything worth while because they are so focused on 1 single mechanic.

The thing with 5 weapon swaps is that most engineers aren’t 1 trick ponies. I honestly don’t know how an engineer would let you keep two of those guys up when grenades will wreck them.

I won’t boycott these runes but I will use them till they get nerfed and they probably deserve a nerf on the engineer. All other classes seem balanced with it.

If you like easy big numbers, roll a GS warrior. A bit tougher is engineers dropping bombs for 8k dmg auto attacks (this requires serious group optimization to hit 8k). Lightning hammer eles are great but hard to play. Just about every class (I have 1 of each) has the ability to pull off big numbers with zerker gear/proper traiting.

The only problems are that necro power damage is mostly single target and mesmer phantasms aren’t affected by the sigils/potions that start to make damage multipliers explode. Since so much of our dps depends on phantasms, this sorta puts mesmers at a handicap in really high levels of group optimization. I would say in general though, if you can have 2 decent phantasms out, your damage will be comparable to most other classes. 3 and you will be out-dpsing 99% of the pug party members out there.

IFF stands for If and only if. I know that not everyone has it traited.

I understand that it doesn’t work out that way all the time. Ethereal are pretty common from pretty common mesmer skills though. I didn’t assume everyone has the others available. I included all possible combo fields that can do dmg and usually at least 1 shows up in a group of 5.

Unlike Colsey I have never stated that GS users are bad and you should never use it. However, the pistol has the potential to be a lot better than the raw numbers from above and I agree with colsey that it is our best dps phantasm. The only other phantasm like that is the warlock. The rest are basically as is. That shouldn’t stop you from playing the way you enjoy but it should be some facts to think about when and IF you ever decide to try and max your damage.

Just wanted to follow up on the pistol vs gs.
8 bleeds does add up.
Running around with 6 might (sigil) and 25 illusions gets bonus bleeding to 524 per volley. Having a group with banner of strength/25 might gets that to 859 more bleed dmg.

IFF traited the pistol can also do
burning: 5.2k
poison: 1.7k
life steal: 1.6k dmg
confusion: 2.6k dmg per tick
The other combo fields aren’t dmg oriented.
So around 900 to 3k to 10k (confusion vs alpha) bonus damage.

That’s some significant damage. Of course it is single target but that was part of cosleys argument? Most dungeons are skip trash kill single target. Of course the pzerker is aoe but the gs 1 and 2 are basically singlet target vs the sword cleave. Personally, I like to melee but I understand why ppl would want to use the GS at times. The pistol is significantly better at single target than the power numbers would show.

TooBz.3065:

This was suppose to be a non-judgmental discussion of what people actually use. I assume Colesy has a reason for wanted to know. Can we stay on topic? Make a new thread to argue efficiency / optimal whatever.

But the judgement thread mysteriously disappeared =/. It’s left a vacuum of internet awesomeness that some ppl need to fill. It also deleted my numbers and tests =(

On topic. I basically run sword/sword/focus the vast majority of the time. I actually have 5 swords that I would use depending on the situation but bolt/zap has made me lazy. I also have 1-2 of each other weapon that I will use for specific occasions. (I am tempted to make a human mesmers just to use bonetti’s rapier) Pistol and focus are sorta interchangeable.

Scepter for example with Sc/Sw/Sw for pug mossman groups where somehow the glass mesmer always gets aggro. It’s really not as bad kitten many ppl make it out to be.

20/20/0/0/30 or 0/20/0/25/25 depending on what I feel like.

I would hardly call bull’s rush instant.

I love my sylvari mesmer but I rarely use the racials. Random cool thing though:
Take root for the elite summons 5 seed turrets while making you IMMUNE to dmg for 3 seconds. Turrets proc a bleed for some bonus dmg can stack up to 14 bleeds. This is affected by your condition dmg. The power dmg of 300 that doesn’t crit is not based on your power.

That is 3 more seconds of letting your now 8 minions tear someone apart.

Avatar of grenth seems like it could also be useful for condi builds or maybe even power builds. Pulsing poison and chill (not easily accessible for mesmers) could be useful. I’ve also heard good things about snow leopard for the Norn.

I usually run sword/sword/focus for my shatter build and trait the sword.
Sigil of nullification is not worth it for a mesmer. If you go 20 in domination, you can aoe strip boons like mad. This is only useful for dredge fractals and 2 bosses though. Those two bosses can also have disenchanter on them. Otherwise, never bring that trait/disenchater. Null field/sword auto attack (strips boons so no need for nullfication) for the occasional undead trash that stacks boons.

When I feel like shattering, I go with 20/20/0/0/30. If you want to go inspiration, just go 0/20/0/20/30 or run a phantasm build instead. With IP, don’t always feel the need to F1 w/ 3 illusions, having 2 or even 1 is still decent damage. F2 also does about 800 power dmg per clone and potentially 2-10k confusion vs some bosses (alpha attacks 5x per attack). If you don’t want to waste your clones on F2, just tap it right after F1 or as your perfect time a dodge for some bonus selfplosion. If you are timing dodges correctly, the clone would probably die anyways so why not add some more confusion bonus.

Since you have 15 in dueling and confusion on every shatter, run sigil of battle for the boost to power/condi dmg. Or just for the power dmg, it’s still that good. 5 & 15 points in domination means that sword 4/4 and F3 can do a wave of 8 vulerability or 25 stacks on a defiant boss. Dazing mobs in PvE is basically a stun while also increasing your parties damage by 8 or 25%. In pugs, that is great, especially if timed with your TW. In organized groups, 10/30/0/0/30 may serve you better.

Lastly, pay attention to your phantasms. If you have 20 domination, trait for 15% more of their damage if the dungeon doesn’t need boon removal. Shatter them right after they attack/summon them right after a MW. On some bosses it will still be better for you to leave up 3 phantasms if you can. Realistically, kill them before a boss kills them.

Xyonon.3987:

Arewn.2368:

Someone in a recent thread suggested that mantras build charges over time instead of requiring casting, I thought that was a really cool idea to make mantras more viable.
For example, every 10 seconds gain 1 charge, up to a maximum of X charges.

This is what “Karma” (a character) in League of Legends used to be o.O How familiar :o

I was thinking Akali from LoL, never played the old version of Karma. I really like this idea.

AOE mantras would also be really nice. Only thing I would like to add is make mantras viable for power and condition set ups: Mantra of pain could do both power and torment. Mantra of distraction… halting strike and bountiful/chaotic interruptions. None of these really benefit condition damage. Maybe bleeds or posion on the mantra.

As for changes that would happen to traits.
Decrease passive recharge time. Maybe make it so that it is 5% damage for each equipped mantra that IS NOT charged so it could sort of be like an anti-signet. 400 toughness when all of your mantras are “reloading.”

I would like to second the Might stacking idea. 25 in chaos will give you 109 condition dmg to both weapons instead of 200 to one. It’s also 25% longer boon duration and a lot of might stacking. That will more than make up for the 91 less condition damage on the scepter.

Only thing I would change is using ruby orbs instead of runes of ogre. 25 stacks of blood lust will also increase your damage. I don’t think there is any hard cap on % damage increases.

It was clear to me that he wanted to be a hybrid but I still agree with others that precision is much more important to this build since it affects both power and condition dmg. With the power of Excel, let’s take a look at some numbers. Let’s assume that his choice of carrion is 100% dmg and all other pvp jewel choices are an increase or decrease in power/condition dmg. Since most bleeds come from 2 sources (sigil and SI & pfury) I’m going to calculate 3 different condition comparisons.

Rampagers: 9% power dmg; +99% (258% clones) SI dmg; -12% Sigil dmg;
Celestial: -4% power dmg; 10% (57% clones) SI dmg; -25% sigil dmg;
Rabid: -26% power dmg; 93% (223% clones) SI dmg; +3% sigil dmg;

Basically, the loss/gain in power dmg is minimal compared to the 2-3.5 x more dmg SI can do when you use rampagers or rabid instead of carrion. Carrion of course also comes with 644 vit. Rampagers is a loss of 315 vit while rabid turns the 644 vit into toughness (better for mesmers IMO since it also affects illusions.) Celestial is not as clear cut since weapon swapping style determines where most of your dmg comes from. I suspect the 285 to 3 defensive stats and more consistent bleeds still make it better than carrion.

So I would pick any other jewel set besides carrion for a hybrid mesmer damage. Sigil of minor accuracy will probably be better for your build. The only thing holding carrion even close to viable is the sigil of geomancy. If you swap to sigil of battle (will give you about ~300 power/condition dmg and doesn’t require you to be in melee range), this will give you about 25% more power/condi dmg and then you should definitely drop carrion.

The necro scepter auto attack: 5 sec bleed x 2 then 4 sec poison or basically 10 bleed ticks and 5 poison ticks. So lets see what happens when a mesmer gets something similar:

2x 1 sec bleeds then 1x 1 sec poison. Same attack speed as necros.
Results: 8 bleed ticks and 4 poison ticks. Very close to necro scepter. However, just using anti condi food/runes turns our 1 second bleeds into no damage. However, they are still stacking up very quickly (8 per auto attack volley). All this will accomplish is nerfing our damage hard because those 8 stacks that are doing no damage are still rapidly removing our bleeds from sharper images/allies. GG condi weapon idea #1.

So we need to have at least 2 second bleeds so melandru runes don’t obliterate the build. Half the attack speed to compensate. Furthermore, 50% bleed duration now significantly boosts this build since it will actually give us 3 seconds total without sacrificing much condition damage. Melandru alone becomes a weaker counter at this point (0-33% dmg reduction instead of 100%). Sounds fair. Let’s look at the base numbers.

4 x auto attacks at half the necro attack speed and 2 sec duration. Mesmers gets 16 ticks of bleeds and 8 ticks of poison. Necro gets two auto attacks rounds so 20 ticks of bleeds and 10 ticks of pison. Remember, that each attack is going to be 1 second for the mesmer. Boring =/. It’s also the minimum duration that would not suck immensely vs melandru runes. Overall it’s comparable… but wait:

Necros have only ~40% (66% chance on crits with 60% to crit) to bleed for 2 seconds on attacks. We have a 3x 60% chance to bleed for 5 seconds. Even when we attack every 1 second instead of 1/2 a second, we are better off than the “master of conditions.”

So how do you propose this fix? Your pistol idea is basically the idea I just hashed over. It’s bad. Like I said before, I don’t think mesmers can ever have a true condition weapon auto attack that is balanced. The conditions are going to have to come from other sources like shatters or phantasms.

As a shatter mesmers I can easily proc 12 stacks of confusion in 1-2 seconds with just F1 and F2. So you want to be able to proc 12 seconds of burning AND 24 seconds of poison AND 12 stacks of confusion in an AOE? and call that totally balanced? Then toss in a p.duelist through ethereals or scepter 3.

There are many problems with the 1 second of something per confusion:
1) confusion is really easy to apply for us.
2) Having 12-20 procs of 1 second burning or poison in rapid and sustained succession is OP. It just keeps happening and happening in an AOE. No counter play because no one can remove 3 conditions every second.
3) We are balanced without those conditions in mind. If we get so much of it, something has to give/get nerfed.

But those bleeds won’t add a little extra punch. Like 2 clones and a traited p.duelist through an ethereal field would actually lower your bleed damage by replacing the high duration bleeds with 1 second bleeds. So I would not approve of this.

However, it’s given me an idea. Recently some mesmers have been really pushing condition build buffs for mesmers with really bad/unbalanced ideas. I think this comes down to a condition weapon auto attack always has to have that x4 factor and sharper images x3 in mind for balance. Also, confusion is our thing but it kinda sucks right now but anet still has to balance with it in mind. So I don’t think mesmers can ever have a true condition weapon set/auto attack that is balanced.

Your trait idea actually got me thinking about Illusionary Retribution (confusion per illusion shattered). I always see this as minor bonus damage on my zerker shatter mesmer but what if it was changed? F1 could do 2-4 stacks of bleed per illusion shattered. F2 would still be double confusion. F3 could poison for a few seconds per illusion? F4 for an aoe chill, weakness, or torment? May or may not stack with IP.

This would replace a crappy “mesmer condition” on our class mechanic and give all mesmers, regardless of weapon set, a way to apply conditions. This would also put us more in control of when our conditions were spiked and would be easier to balance. The exact #s and conditions can be debated but do people like this idea? The trait might need to become a major trait.

Thoughts?

All sigils with a CD share 1 internal CD. Sigil of might needs to go. A sigil of battle on each set is better if you swap weapons often.

You would be better with zerker 1-handed weapons and knights chests/leggings.

Even though you have gone almost full zerker, you can get about 12-15 stacks of might with that build or 420-525 bonus power/condition damage along with the 150 from illusions. It’s some nice bonus damage but I wouldn’t try to rely too much on your conditions or trait for confusion.

You have phantasm traits and clone death traits and shatter traits. None of these have synergy. Almost full zerker but you trait confusion. I’m not really seeing how this build plays out though. How do you see this playing out? The answer to this would help a lot with both gear and build advice.

Anyone know if using mimic decaps a point? Maybe a 0/20/30/20/0 for a traited mimic. Will give you potentially a lot of retaliation and some awesome defense if it works. Will work well with the staff bounces too.

Since blurred decaps a point, maybe scepter/sword or scepter/focus instead for an extra block that doesn’t decap. Staff 2 isn’t for bunkering and you don’t have DE so clone spawning is problematic with your build and that could help.

If you want to stay 0/10/30/30/0, If you want to shatter, then vigor/condition cleanse on shatter will help more with defense. 9% crit isn’t going to proc vigor that often.

I’ve never really tried to bunker though so I have no idea if my advice means anything.

colesy.8490:

Yeah iCounter is a bit iffy, but once you learn WHEN to use it it can be very strong as It is like its like 1,800 damage plus another 1,800 if they stay moving with only 393Condition damage

Or you could be autoattacking, and judging from the tooltip, get 4 attacks done within the 2 seconds you have iCounter up. Even if you got hit in say, a second that’s still two hits you could get in with sword auto.

When you dodge, do you dodge away from the AOE circles like a noob or do you perfect time your dodges? The riposte skills reward those perfect dodges.

I normally run sword/focus/sword. Instead of dodging, I can tap sword 4 right before an attack to counter for around 5-7k dmg in 1/2 a second. That’s a lot more DPS than sword auto, blurred frenzy or dodging. Riposte should never last more than 3/4 a second before you go back to auto attacking.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

full melee uptime means nothing if you are using 2 weapons that share a cool down and changing the sword to a Scepter doesnt mean you have to change range you can still melee using the Scepter and have access to other skills as well.

I advocate melee zerker scepter vs some bosses and only some bosses (or PvP) but full true melee uptime is a big deal. Even if the sword auto does a bit less burst than a zerker scepter2/3, the sword is still doing more than triple damage vs groups since it hits 3 targets and buffs your whole teams damage.

skcamow.3527:

Something I’ve thought about for awhile is, confusion or burning? If you had the choice between the two, which would you want the iMage to inflict? For comparison, say burning would be the same as the prestige base and confusion 5 seconds base.

I don’t want confusion as the main attack. I don’t know if I want burning though.

If we want a lower CD, Anet inherently has to balance the skill with having 1 or 2 of these guys out. If you get to 3, your challenger is a noob anyways and deserves to lose… but 3 burning phantasms for perma burning isn’t really a guaranteed loss. What other conditions would we be tossing out there? a max of 3 bleeds on crits. That is pathetic.

What about 2 p.mages causing perma burning and 1 gs/staff clone? 1 p.mage causing perma burning and 2 gs/staff clones? 3 staff clones? 4 sec burning every 5 or 6 seconds from 1 p.mage might sound OP but I don’t think this will actually increase our condition damage and our enemies can always attack the dangerous phantasms. Keep in mind that 1 p.duelist is doing more damage just on bleeds/power than perma burning with bonus 8 confusion in a ethreal field.

Maybe that is ok though? If p.mage doesn’t stack that well then Anet can lower the CD a lot. 20 seconds (16/12 if traited) because tossing a second p.mage out is a LOSS of dmg and done ONLY for the condition removal. Balanced perma burn with a meaningful choice of summoning a second p.mage? Maybe o_O

Random idea: the p.mage bounce is a 100% projectile or leap finisher. Projectile would help it match the duelist a bit and also be a way of active confusion application or give chaos armor to allies.

The only other way I see it being buffed is the p.mage applying burning 3 sec, bleed 10 sec, or poison 5 sec with a 33% chance of each. However, you would want 2-3 of these guys out for damage and then the condition removal is too OP with the amount of damage it does for a condi bunker and we go back to a huge CD and it’s weak in the end.

MacLeod.4208:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

MacLeod.4208:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

MacLeod.4208:

Great topic Pyro!

Since it is the torch phantasm, it seems like it should burn foes. Since it can stealth the player, perhaps when it bounces to an ally it should stealth them for 1 second…just long enough to break target. Thoughts?

Something tells me, as much as it would rock it would just be to powerful

I was wondering about that. But it does only attack every 6 seconds.

But it would also bounce to any of your other phantasms or allies. If it hits a thief ally mid backstab combo, that would really screw things up for him. If it hit’s a phantasm, suddenly you got constant invisible zerkers that you cant see coming. That’s too OP.

I can see how it would make a thief mad, that’s a good point. That pretty much breaks the idea right there. It would be fun to see it though. =)

But I don’t think that the 1 sec stealth would make anything a “constant invisible” anything. They would at most be stealthed for 1 second out of every 6. Even that might be OP, I don’t know. Thanks for your thoughts! It is fun to think about how to change things.

Constant invisible was probably the wrong words to choose. Constant reapplication. Mesmers can be confusing to dodge/fight because they have up to 4 sources that you need to look out for. Phantasms will tend to run up to someone a bit before attacking or start whirlwinding around. Combos have specific tells to look out for. Having all those tells disappear every 6 seconds, even if it’s for only 1 second, will bring the QQ to a whole new level.