Guild Wars 2

Feedback will by placed one of three ways, in priority order:

1. If you have an enemy targeted, in range, it will place the Feedback on that target.
2. If you have an enemy targeted, out of range, it will place the Feedback on the ground at [max/half?] range between you and your target.
3. If you have an ally or no target, it will place the feedback about at half range in front of you, on the ground.

Edit: those are the mechanics.

For tactical application, the challenging part is that it is a bubble. If you place the Feedback in the middle of the enemy, they can sidestep and be OK. Ideally in WvW you want to actually place the bubble on yourself, so that the 47 enemies shooting in your general direction will be affected.

As a result, you typically do not want to target a random range player and drop the Feedback on them (unless it’s a chokepoint). You want to target an enemy melee player who is in YOUR lines, and drop it on them. That way, you affect the most enemy range targets.

Slightly counter-intuitive.

Lol, 3 phantasms is not half a Mesmers DPS, partially because 3 phantasms never happens in a reasonable situation. Either your target is dead or your phantasms are dying before you ever reach 3.

That, or you’re zerging a vet/champ and nothing you do really matters.

Mesmer damage is just fine without phantasm army. Most people are too lazy.

I mean, afk phantasm DPS is pretty much the worst possible burst damage build anyways. Don’t know why people are complaining about killing slow when they use slow-killing builds.

Hello? A large portion of maps are water?

Mesmers have the fastest movement underwater?

So let’s nerf Mesmer underwater movement since we’re buffing Mesmer over-land movement because all the classes have to move at the same speed, or else players will have their entire gameplay experience ruined?

If you don’t want to be belittled, then start acting like you can think without me having to do it for you.

I like how everyone wants to re-design a class that’s working just fine as is, and is even a bit overpowered in many cases.

Basedgod.7328:

Change Echo into a short absorb for an entire duration, instead of one projectile.

I especially like comments like this, where the player clearly hasn’t used the ability (assuming you’re talking about Mimic, not “Echo”).

That said, ANet does need to make a serious pass on all its tooltips so players quit complaining about Mimic, among other inaccuracies.

Thieves actually have to use up a utility slot for that 25%.

I get around WvW just fine; as fast or faster than other classes. And that’s somewhere that movespeed actually matters.

That said, are you also advocating to nerf Mesmer water movement? kitten

In addition, the initial unlock is generally the least amount of time you’ll spend in any zone that matters, with the exception of 100% exploration clears.

Boo hoo.

Most do because it’s easy passive DPS.

^

The core error is that someone let the Mesmer stack 3 iDuelists on them. That situation, in general, is absurd.

Sharper Images: critical strikes by your illusions (they get your Precision and crit% stat) will inflict a 5 second bleed.

iWarden has a learning curve. There are basically three factors that make iWarden effective, and you need at least 2 of them for iWarden to be really worthwhile:

1. Into the Void to yank the target into the iWarden. Into the Void is very consistent in the way it pulls, and if you can master it, you can use it very reliably on a single target very quickly.

2. Sword3. Cripple + Immobilize will lock a target in the iWarden’s AOE for a good bit.

3. Warden’s Feedback. Abusing this trait doesn’t require the [projectile-using] target to be on top of the iWarden. You can just re-position yourself. Easy.

There are a couple other things that help as well — Blinding a target and letting the iWarden get aggro anyways (target get nailed by the full attack, but doesn’t kill the iWarden due to Blind), giving the iWarden Aegis with Chaos Storm, but those are all pretty fringe. You can get a ton of mileage out of the 3 things I listed above.

Probably, or it’s just a holdover to move a bad player out of the way of the next attack after the one that was blocked. Either way that’s basically the #1 reason I can’t stand using Scepter. Meh. I am QQQQQQQQQQQ.

It’s not super optimal for the Staff, but it’s fine. You would use the Staff as a secondary weapon for the CC, non-damage conditions, defense, clone generation, and iWarlock raw damage.

In many cases, weapons are not “power weapons” or “condition weapons”. Staff is essentially a defensive tanky weapon. How you use it is determined by whether you’re a power- or condition-heavy build.

Oh no, it’s going to take you another 20 seconds to activate that waypoint! Not that it matters, because you are typically fighting mobs on your way there, so your other abilities like Blink will cool down anyways.

Nothing but bads commiserating with bads.

Yeah honestly the Scepter is perfectly fine from a power standpoint. The part that pisses me off is that the block will teleport you to a random spot next to you. I find the jarring effect super annoying.

Umm, from what I can tell, Necros and Engis are the only classes that have a notable skew towards condition damage, although I think Engis can go power pretty well, not sure. Not common from what I can tell though.

Mesmer is fine either way, but at low levels, particularly in PvE, condition damage is pretty meh.

Does Defender work for your group? Thought it was just you.

while still taking a lot longer to take down mobs in PvE, no matter how optimal skill and trait combinations get.

Uh, don’t be bad. Complaining about moving across the map is one thing — that’s an area Mesmers are actually a little underpar at, not that anyone really cares (hint: use a waypoint). Complaining that Mesmers take a long time to kill stuff is basically all on you.

Heh, perma Vigor, strong Might uptime, double AOE heals, Protection procs, Regen procs.

Only thing a Mesmer doesn’t really provide in a support build is Stability.

And then all the conditions …

Osefmarcher.1072:

Any good mesmer will cast it while stealth.

Prostyle here.

GS is fine for PvP.

Mesmer PvP is about knowing the enemy abilities and capabilities.

I apply 8 stacks with IP and the 15 minor trait followed by an immediate Diversion to get them panicky. Then I dodge, clone, and hit them with a 3x Mind Wrack, which applies 3 more stacks of Confusion. This adds up to 12 stacks along with 12 stacks of Might. I usually preface this with a GS MB, so that’s another 6 stacks of Might.

It rarely results in events quite as awesome as the Shortbow Ranger who hit quickness and rollfaced into my Feedback for 12k damage in 3 seconds, but it’s still funny.

Edit:

People need to realize that Shatters are not just the tooltip. A third of the Mesmer traits augment Shatters in one way or another.

Run a heavy daze build and tell me a Mesmer can’t lock down.

Or shut down any projectile spammer with Feedback and Warden’s Feedback.

The tools are there; people just aren’t willing to make tradeoffs.

Mantra of Diffusion: two charges of AOE stealth for 2.5 seconds.

Two birds, one stone!

This is the base build, 10 points left over. The first trait in Inspiration is random. The first trait in Domination can be switched, depending on other choices.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgEQNAR8dlwzKqXVTmGa9IxJFAY5oUg9sTShqTNA

brogarn.8723:

This is what I was shooting for:

Hehe Glamour build. Fun times.

Sword/Warhorn + GS

Best Mobility Warrior run away never die, unstoppable.

Prestige blind and burn should be reversed. Common suggestion.

The 1 sec snare on the leap clone is not enough to keep someone who wants to kite you from getting away.

Uh, the cripple + immob generally guarantees 3 of the 4 BF hits landing. Fourth strike no, and the third one is a little sketchy if you’re a little laggy / slow.

Like, why not give us a main hand torch that shoots purple fireballs?

Now that sounds cool. Except the purple fireballs should apply Chill.

iMage is easily the weakest Phantasm, although it’s not as horribad as people make it out to be. And it has a longass cooldown to boot, adding insult to injury. There is one thing I need to doublecheck about iMage though … I’ll have to hit up the mists someday. Too much ecto farm.

You can run away with GS in PvE too kittenmit!

Also #2 weapon set for getting from point A to point B, which is more important!

GS + Sword/Focus is the #1 chasedown build. It’s also the #1 build for WvW for other reasons, IMO, but that’s another discussion.

Note that pure chasedown is not the only reason to make a build. It’s just a notable consideration for WvW, since everyone loves to run away to teammates / a tower / keep / spawn.

I would say that in any WvW build where you want to chase anyone down, ever, you want either GS or Focus at least.

I use Torch for one PvP build that I have.

It’s a very special (and unfinished) build so I don’t like talking about it except for the fact that Torch can work, and it’s actually the best of the offhands for that particular build.

you’re right there but there is no need to whirl out of battle if you have a shield or knock foes down.

I dunno man, when I have 48 red invaders loading on my screen, I’m pretty sure that a shield daze or knock down isn’t going to do squat compared to GS abilities for GTFO.

If you’re not trying to exploit any very specific crit% synergy (e.g. bleed procs on crit), then the crit% from Fury and general precision (e.g. trait line) is sufficient for general DPS for most setups, although you may want to split some of your gear to Berserker’s. E.g. have your weapon and [armor | accessories] as Berserker’s, and then your [accessories | armor] as Valk. You can swap your [accessories | armor] to Berserker’s if you don’t feel like you need the HP.

… buy low, sell high, exploit the market and price changes throughout the day and week, etc.

Lol.

If you’re farming that hardcore for gold, farm other players through the trading company rather than mobs, IMO.

Warden’s Feedback: Useless in sPvP. Kinda nice when you use a Focus in WvWvW. It’s still easy to just avoid the Warden altogether though. A better option is to just use Feedback in WvWvW.

1. Warden’s Feedback makes any 1v1 in sPvP against a class that uses ranged projectiles a joke. No one “stands behind the Warden”, but that doesn’t mean YOU can’t position yourself behind it.

2. Why not use Feedback + iWarden + Curtain reflect in WvW? Obscene reflect chaining for even more obscene awesomeness.

Phantasmal Healing: Too minimal to really care about since Mesmers don’t stack Healing Power.

Don’t need to stack healing power to get a solid return for this trait.

wouldn’t it be better to just go in the Dueling tree for awesome kitten like more Precision/Crit Damage, Sharper Images , Confusing Combatants; Phantasmal Fury, Duelists, Discipline, Dodge Clones (!), or even Desperate Decoy?

Last I checked, the FOTM Phantasm army build was, in fact, 10/20/0/25/5 + 10.

Build adapted to node-sitting would have 10/15/15/25/5 for the protection spam.

Daishi.6027:

do you have a more efficient gold/karma farm than events in your opinion?

I don’t really spend too much time farming gold/karma tbh. If I’m not farming something specific, then I’m in WvW pew pew pew.

That build is pretty bad at killing anyone who doesn’t want to die. It has almost 0 chasedown.

Don’t forget that Cry of Frustration has a direct damage component as well. I usually toss iBerserker, then blink to a random place and hit Wrack, then a Cry, while spamming GS1 at random targets in between since it has no projectile. Mind Stab is kind of my last resort for a random pack in another corner.

The biggest issue I find is the mobs actually drawing on my screen.

That aside: while other classes get more AOE faceroll (and actually not by that much tbh), the Mesmer is basically overpowered at everything in the game except for tagging mobs in a DE.

So it’s basically a non-issue for me.

Well, don’t bother. Just do direct test of damage (test a high damage hit like iWarlock and a low damage hit like Scepter 1) and interpolate the results. A light armor target will take the same condition damage but X% more direct damage.

In any case, that’s not even really necessary. The point is that the results above are skewed somewhat towards condition damage due to the nature of the test, and to inform players that a power build would logically perform better against light armor targets than the numbers above would indicate.

Awww man, let’s keep making more excuses rather than succeed!

It’s long enough to travel through a choke point or cross the back side of a room to faceroll enemy siege. Also to get a lot of free stomps.

Errr, Illusory Persona Shatters. No illusion, no problem.

Mind Stab, iBerserker, knockback, Shatter Shatter huehue.

Reaper of Grenth for special occasions.

I thought it was virtually impossible for iWarlock to do as little damage as 500.

Keep in mind that all power results would be improved on lighter armor targets.

So you don’t use iWarlock in a condition build with Staff?

Don’t see the purpose and would require additional work / re-balancing.

I’d like to randomly point out that, for the purposes of DEs, Mesmers are the #1 best class at tagging distant mobs since GS1 has an instant 1200 range attack. No projectiles, pure win. Not sure if Necros might have a 1200 range instant one though. I think Eles are shorter range … but I’m pretty ignorant, so maybe not.

LOL.

You’re going to have an uphill battle explaining how, say, Staff doesn’t have a major power scaling (iWarlock), or that half of iDuelist’s damage isn’t power-scaling …

Torch is about the only weapon that offers pure condition damage. Lulz.

Edit:

Also, Mesmers don’t need Vit or Toughness. Mesmer OP always live never die #1 huehue.

No reason you can’t have both with Carrion gear.

Don’t know why people are so “POWER VERSUS COND DAMAGE” as if they were exclusive.

Edit: Rampager is pretty broad on stat investment too and augments both well assuming you have SI.

Staff + Sword/Pistol works with Rampager stats spread (prec/condd/power) or Rabid.

That aside, player needs more practice in sPvP.

Half of sPvP is knowing exactly how the enemy builds / abilities all work so you can avoid getting trucked and to identify how the enemies are vulnerable.