Guild Wars 2

1. You have a lot of random links in your post that make it hard to find if you actually linked your build anywhere.

2. Do you have Vigorous Revelation? I assume you do since you mentioned perma-Vigor.

3. The boon duration from Signet of Midnight is pretty weaksauce. I recommend using an Ethereal or Light Field instead (Feedback/NullField or Veil). Remember, support is not just about heals. It’s not just about heals x boons. It’s about conditions, boons, heals, condition removal, boon strips, reflects, debuffs, stealth. Everything that is not damage. Null Field is almost always useful in general. Feedback is always good when you have stuff to reflect. Veil is underrated.

Stealth in particular is a nifty addition for the purposes of rezzing and such. I’m curious if Veil will stealth someone when it is placed on them without the target moving. If so, it can be used very effectively for rezzes (similar to Thief house).

4. The 6-point capabilities in runes shouldn’t be overlooked. The 15% boon duration is nice and all, but I would rather get the 6-point water rune for the AOE heal, or even the Rune of Dwayna, which provides 5s of Regen with a 10s ICD. With your boon duration stacking (sidenote: Dwayna set comes with 20% regen duration), you could get that proc to close to full uptime. This is mostly because Mesmers are flatly deficient at the Regen boon as a rule.

Edit: Not that Regen is the end-all or be-all of runes. Generally speaking it seems like it’s more effective to go for other support mechanisms, since lots of people already have their own Regen.

Note2: Speaking of which, Stability is one of the key boons that this build doesn’t do much about. Consider runes of lyssa so you can hit your ult and SigInsp to spread AOE stability when necessary.

5. You can get gear with %boon duration, although that will really erode your damage more than it is already.

Edit: Or maybe not:

“Giver’s” equipment adds 1% Boon Duration per piece of armor.
Snowflake trinkets and jewels add 1% boon duration per trinket/jewel.
Bug:
Neither Giver’s armor nor Snowflake trinkets/jewels apply boon duration in gameplay despite increasing the boon duration value shown in the hero panel.

^

This means ANet needed to increase the sensitivity of “wins” and points to boosting rankings (so Kaineg et all could hop up more quickly), not reset everyone to 1500. The last thing anyone wants is to play even a day of JQ versus Yak’s Bend or Ehmry Bay or some other random server.

Looks like the main coverage delta is the EU segment, with JQ holding a commanding PPT lead.

Hopefully ANet increases the sensitivity of the matchup score results without resetting the actual point totals. Because a JQ/SOS/SOR moving to tier 6 is going to be disaster for whatever servers get matched with them, but it would be nice if Kaineg or other similar servers bumped up a tier or two quickly (rather than taking 5 weeks).

Gisei.5749:

Culling is basically the game only rendering what is important to your character. This allows for computers that should not be able to handle a large battle, be it PvE or PvP, to be able to tolerate it. Anet has a certain performance bar that they will not cross, which means fixing culling will be hard, since it is there to make performance better. They have to remove the concept that keeps performance tolerable in large battles, without lessening performance.

But as great of an idea as it was. It just doesn’t work in WvW in it’s current state. We need to see everything, as soon as possible.

It’s actually a pretty horribad idea compared to the dozen MMORPGs that have come before where the player can set culling scalers on their client to adjust their own performance to whatever they deem acceptable.

I remember back in DAOC where I would get 1 frame every 2 seconds (0.5 FPS) with 500 players within view distance, but at least I could see everything.

I’m guessing this is more related to ANet’s network / bandwidth constraints.

They or they’re really sticking to their guns on really asinine client performance goals.

TheComet.6471:

Mantra of Pain: Increase damage, inflict 3 stacks of Vulnerability
Mantra of Concentration (stability): Reduce the cooldown, add 5 seconds of retaliation
Mantra of Recovery: Increase base healing (not scaling) slightly to make it more relevant to non-healing power builds

Lols.

That would be funny.

Rayya.2591:

2. 5k backstab vs 18k Hb is relative poor damage, so try not to be so sarcastic

What about 25k CND-Mug-BS versus 25k HB?

faztazkitten.7293:

Doesnt matter how much toughness and boons you got… You still wear MEDIUM armor,

This player is very well-informed about the game mechanics.

Oh they nerfed the ICD to 15s? Lmfao.

Leveling in Guild Wars 2:

DO WHATEVER YOU FIND INTERESTING.

Everything gives moderate-good XP: events, grinding, quests, story quests, crafting, WvW, exploring (vista/POI/SP).

So basically do whatever looks interesting. That’s it. Get going.

1.

Armor Runes: Rune of the Pack
Armor Upgrades: Knight’s specs (Emerald Orbs)

Wat.

2. Use good tradeoff slots for Berserker. I don’t recall 100%, but I think the accessory inlay gems were the best, followed by the helm item slot or something. Berserker weapons were average or something for priority between “% and not %” item mixes.

Check the gw2wiki equipment affix page for some numbers to assist.

Edit:

Actually helm’s bad. Priority for Berserker is Exquisites > Shoulder/Boot/Gaunt > Amulet/1H > Earring > 2H > Chest > Leg/Helm/Ring

E.g. avoid using Berserker on Leg/Helm/Ring where possible.

The low RNG is being applied to an aesthetic upgrade over exotic items.

Non-factor?

Well maybe you would prefer me comparing it to riposte. 4 stacks of bleed and a block on top of that, with an easy way to extend bleeds 50% longer and a 33% chance to cause bleeding on a crit.

Riposte. Right. A weapon skill that takes a half second to take effect then another half second to activate as a defensive counter. I thought we were talking about Mug, not Flanking Strike?

That makes tons of sense. Let’s compare it randomly to D/D 3, or Pistol Whip.

Or let’s bring in random Elite skills to compare it to for no apparent reason.

Got a better idea: let’s stick to damage that results from traits that is instant.

All this doesn’t even include the autoattack chain bleed damage which puts a single bleed on 2/3 hits for 8 seconds each.

Autoattack chain.

This is an excellent comparison to … Dagger1?

I thought we were talking about Mug? What?

I will state again 5 stacks of 5 second bleed in a traitline unrelated to condition damage, on a 45 second (39 ish if we keep with the assumption of 15 in trickery) would be severely underwhelming.

That’s nice. How about you read my post before responding next time. I suggested a 50% power damage nerf, leaving it at ~1.5-2k (3-4k crits) with the 5 stacks of bleed on top. E.g. 3k-5.5k for both power and condition builds.

All this for a 10 point trait. Seems a lot more sensible than the lulz trait it is now.

Edit:

Better yet, instead of the bleeds, have it apply 3 stacks of Confuse for 5 seconds.

swinsk.6410:

5.8k is enormous damage?

This thread is kitten hilarious.

The player in question has about 80% damage reduction, although my calculations could be slightly off since I don’t have in-game access atm.

So 5.8k / .2 = 29k base damage, or 22k damage against a glass cannon target is actually a rather good chunk of damage.

Edit: Said 22k damage is probably about 10k non-crit, 8k without %dmg buffs, 6k without power stacking sigils/food/Might.

Yeah for a “crusader” style, definitely supplement the banners with shouts. Crusaders shout, right? I mean, obviously crusading is mostly effective when the crusadees know they’re being crusaded on, which requires vocal affirmation of intent.

Monztor.9207:

Maguuma is home to the Maguuma Mesmer Mafia [TriM]. A guild specialized in WvW mesmer tactics and is 100+ on roster :P

Clearly you guys should come here to guest xD

No idea who they are or if the information is accurate, but 100+ seems a good number.

Edit: Actually the poster didn’t explicitly state whether the guild was Mesmer-only, but /shrug.

1. Generally speaking, no one cares about what server a random player wants to go to.

2. IIRC, there were already 1-2 Mesmer-only guilds referenced on this forum. I don’t recall where they were. One thread was pretty recent, citing some intent for a Mesmer meet. Check that thread to join one.

3. Creating a new Mesmer-only guild seems superfluous when there are already 1-2 floating around in a game with the guesting PvE system and such.

Good luck and butterfly speed.

Maugetarr.6823:

With 5 stacks, that’s about 237 DPS, which would be less than one double strike of the autoattack chain which also has a good likelihood to crit on a GC thief, rendering it fairly useless. Comparatively speaking, a warrior stacks 8 bleeds with its sword burst + immobilizes the target for anywhere between 2-4 seconds.

Bad comparison.

Steal is an instant ability and can deal damage simultaneous to your normal abilities.

Sword burst is a hilarious example, because it takes what, 1.5s or 2s or so to channel?

Perhaps you would like to refer to some instant traited damage proc from another class, such as the Mesmer damage-on-interrupt trait that deals up to 600 damage in a glass cannon build.

Edit:

Generally speaking, the power-based damage of Mug should be reduced by 50%, and Mug should apply 5 stacks of bleeding for 5s. This way the ability could be tuned to either build path with effective results (a power-based GC build would still net ~1400 damage from the bleeds, along with the benefit of a condition buffer).

snacktime.1082:

Actually, I was on Sor and in TS and there were people in leadership positions (commanders) that were saying let TC have X and Y, we don’t want to go to T1 this week. Happened repeatedly. The idea that you didn’t want to be T1 this week and to take it easy and use the time to coordinate with the newer guilds was something I heard no less then 2 guild leaders say in TS.

I don’t blame them a whole lot for that, but let’s be honest about what really happened.

Actually, I was on GOM and in TS and they were saying that the other servers were cheating and using exploits to take every keep, especially garrison. They even hacked and botted accounts on the other servers to win.

…

Oh wait, this thread is SORxTCxSBI.

Flanking Strike needs to interrupt Sword1 more precisely. The evasion should trigger sooner during the FS animation. Although, I think the first change would resolve evasion timing issues.

1. Your build link has a Rampager amulet / jewel.

2. The 10 points in Chaos is kind of meh, although it’s ‘ok’. It’s only buffing your Blink. I recommend considering moving the 10 points into Inspiration for Warden’s Feedback, Vigorous Revelation, or Medic’s Feedback.

xiv.7136:

Glass cannon or go home. Real men don’t need no toughness. We don’t need no vitality. Healing shouts, banners? Why not just wear a tutu.

Hammers are for carpenters. Drop your unicorn wand and pick up some axes and a sword. Warhorn because real men sound off.

This isn’t about being the best. It’s about being the manliest. This is the Mancleaver build.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s77F-0-RK-Q0e4ZL-60;9;499T-J4;02;027A;159-OoW46;95Bm

Look at my build. Look at yours. Now look at mine again. You could have my build. But you need to be a real man.

If you are female, none of my comments make any sense. Real men don’t have to make sense.

We just have to run fast, hit hard and make it back to our wives in time for dinner. Wham, bam, thank you maam.

Mancleaver.

http://youtu.be/z9lpQ-etUJs

For Men.

What kind of runes does a manly man’s man use?

FXLEACH.9436:

I think if some of the large guilds would just own up to the fact that their massive numbers in the zerg make them practically invisible, people would be happier.

Are you going to admit that when you have many players moving together, you are also practically invisible?

The conclusion that I’m reading here is that any 30 point trait that is actually useful tends to be too useful for the builds that find it useful.

That’s extremely circular.

Shatter-centric builds find iPersona hugely beneficial. What a shock.

Mantra DPS builds find EM/HM to make a difference like night and day. Surprising.

It’s seems like the point here is that all 30-point traits need to be evaluated to see if they’re really worth 30 points, and buff crappy ones as necessary.

This is nothing new.

In terms of baseline Shatter effectiveness, I’m not seeing it because it’s too easy to get 3x Mind Wracks off without IP. Mesmers have lots of ways to spam Illusions, period. As a practical matter, the skewed improvement of IP to “bad MW” damage is not very relevant.

In WvW, run at the 47 enemy players and hit Mimic followed by Mirror followed by F4 followed by Blurred Frenzy then Feedback for kittenol. Decoy, let cooldowns reset and do it again just because. Then read WvW forum for @<insert Mesmer is cheating in WvW>.

2Q 4Q F1 actually instakills a upleveled opponents in WvW. Pretty close to QRW.

Leo G.4501:

Oh, well you said burst combo so I figured you were talking about burst moves.

Yeah, poor word choice. I was referring to burst as “burst DPS”.

IMO, you can only effectively use maybe 1 physical utility at a time unless you’re aiming for the bola + bulls rush combo…but bola does practically no damage.

That’s your opinion based on certain build assumptions, much like “shatters are terrible and phantasm army is the only way a Mesmer can be effective” (as of two months ago). A physical utility build is pretty brutal, although it gets hard countered by stability. I mean, it’s really good, but it is not a universal build, or one that fits the current meta of sPvP (note: it can do rather well in WvW too). Try it out if you haven’t. It’s really fun as hell.

Edit: Specifically, that’s a limitation of the strategy and build approach, not of the Trait itself, which is rather game-changing for physical utility, much like EM for Mantras.

The other stuff (20% cooldown redux on burst skills and increased adrenaline traits) aren’t really much help either considering the various traits that improve performance with adrenaline levels plus the lack of effectiveness on some burst skills (longbow is really the only one worth using all the time and the others are situationally useful) means those traits you’ve mentioned (except maybe Last Chance) don’t come even close to Ipersona.

That’s an odd opinion. A 25-33% stunlock with Hammer Burst skills is nothing to scoff at. 50% uptime on Immobilize.

The Quickness trait is absolutely brutal for builds that are aimed to kill fast — it has no penalty, unlike Quickness utilities, and it activates exactly when you need Quickness the most.

The most ironic part is that you are rationalizing why those traits are not as potent, when I could simply ask why everyone assumes the Mesmer is actually in melee range all the time for iPersona?

No, I’m talking about +100% damage on the “physical attack” category of utilities or w/e it was called (Kick, Stomp, Bull’s Rush). Most Warrs don’t realize, but those attacks do rather solid damage. There are a few rare builds floating around that actually stack those abilities and use that trait.

A target without Stability basically gets steamrolled almost 100->0 (can actually do 100->0 pretty easily, except Warrs typically can’t go full Berserker). It’s a really fun and underrated build against non-sPvP bunkers (or just turtle yourself with Shield OH until the Stability expires).

Last I checked, no other profession has a skill that does such a drastic change as even the Mind Wrack portion, let alone everything else. Unless I missed the trait that lets Warriors use their Adrenaline skills without anything built up, gives them the third tier effect at the first tier, and increases every tier beyond that significantly. They shouldn’t have such a trait because it would make their base mechanic drastically weak in comparison.

Warriors have a 30-point trait where they double their DPS for ~3-4 seconds when they have a target 3/4s dead. It’s basically free stomps, not to mention nearly guaranteeing kills.

Warriors have a 30-point trait where they can use their class mechanic 25% more often.

Warriors have another 30-point trait where they can increase their adrenaline buildup by 25-75%.

Warriors have another one where they deal double damage on half their burst combo.

Last I checked, this entire thread was about you finding one statistical comparison which opened your eyes.

IP is a band-aid trait. It’s the trait we run when we want to Shatter that makes ANET say “Oh look, the mechanic is effective”. There shouldn’t be such a large gap between traited and untraited when only a single trait is involved.

Per my 30/30 Mantra example: there isn’t.

There is a large gap between IP and non-IP for shatters. Shatters are a significant aspect of the Mesmer class, but not the only aspect. They are also a very significant aspect of Shatter builds. However, IP does not revolutionize the entire class. HM/EM do no less for Mantras. PU isn’t quite as strong, but it also significanty alters the defensive capabilities of stealth. AOE Daze can be obscene for group fighting.

Dastion.3106:

Err, mind explaining that math? A single Illusion shatter is approximately 49%x2 = 98% of base damage. That’s 2% less.

Actually yeah, I misread that and thought you were comparing a 3x to a 3x+IP. 1x+ IP still remains substantially weaker than a 3x+IP. In this respect, IP simply mitigates sloppy shatters.

Do you even understand how math works? Assume a low crit rate of 10% were you are drastically most likely to not crit. The chance to crit twice is 1%, the chance to crit 3x is .001%.

And? The chance to crit 0 times is 81% in the first case and 73% in the second case. The chance to crit at all is 19% in the first and 27% in the second case.

When the damage is split into 3 attempts, it simply averages out to a more normal crit rate. E.g. it is less “spikey”. When the damage is split into 2 attempts, it’s more “feast or famine”.

This is common knowledge for MMO analysis for the past decade.

Furthermore, you’re using a kittenty example with a 10% crit rate. No one who gives a kitten about crits will have a 10% crit rate. For real examples, you are looking in the 35%-60% range, where it’s much more clear: 1x+IP is much more spikey (both good AND bad) than 3×.

As a result, you’re not really benefiting from either method based on crit rates, unless you are making an argument that the RNG spike is valuable (which is a different topic). And thus, you should remove that line of argument since that’s trolling / mis-informing newbies more than anything.

Again, I suspect you don’t understand math. It’s a 100%/50%/33% damage increase depending on how many Illusions you have. Quite a bit better than Mental Torment’s 20%. It’s 30 points, yea, but this is just a portion of the benefits it offers.

I suspect you don’t understand actual Mesmer gameplay. It’s a 33% damage increase when you’re not playing poorly. It’s a 50/100% damage increase on ~20-15% of your damage output when you screw up. E.g. the trait saves you from being grossly inefficient, and just be inefficient.

Uhm, that’s nice? However, this has little to do with my statement.

The point is there are multiple ways to get big Shatters. A 1x+IP shatter can hit 7k. A 30/30 1x Shatter can hit 7k. A 30/30 build augments other damage as well. IP provides other utility augmentations as well.

Hence, the similar value of two 30 point traits, contrasted to the notable difference between a 10 and 30 point trait.

You really don’t grasp what I’m saying at all, do you? I’m talking about how IP makes Shatter builds viable by drastically increasing the base damage of Mind Wrack.

Sure. Except the base damage of Mind Wrack is more of an interesting factoid rather than a significant factor in gameplay. Not only do you assume melee range with every example, but the premise and context of your argument is that the player is launching 1x or 2x Mind Wracks. In other words, the player is already playing poorly and suboptimally.

As a result, your true argument is that “IP is very strong for mitigating errors” and alternatively giving a modest damage boost when the player is not being bad, with bonus utility on the side.

IP makes shatter builds more viable because you can use the utility shatters without illusions. The damage boost for 1x/2x MWs not only assumes melee range, but serves primarily as a QOL bonus when the Mesmer is playing suboptimally.

[snip: first time I’ve run into the char limit]

However, Illusionary Persona is coded so that the effect you produce mimics the per-illusion effect of your Shatters. That means that with IP and a single Illusion out you’ll do nearly as much damage as a 3 Illusion Shatter would deal without it.

By “nearly as much”, you mean 25% less. 25% is a lot. Do you realize how many traits or how much gear people pay for 25% more damage?

In fact, once you take into account crit chance the average damage is higher (you’re more likely to double crit than triple crit).

Bad logic. You’re also more likely to crit 0 times twice, rather than 3 times in a row. You should delete this sentence.

So on top of all of the other benefits, you drastically increase the scaling of Mind Wrack from approximately 49%/74%/100% to 49%/98%/111%/133%. Don’t believe me? Go try it out.

That’s like a 10-point trait that increases MW by 20%! But it’s at 30 points! Cool!

Here’s an interesting tidbit: I deal about as much damage with a 3x MW using a 30/30 Mantra build as an IP Shatter build does with a 4x MW.

IP is very good. That’s why it’s a 30 point trait. Nothing new here?

Edit: Most importantly, it only augments Shatters. Shatters are 1/3rd (plus or minus) of a Mesmer’s damage output. The other 2/3s being Phantasms and direct damage. A 33% damage increase on 33% of damage is a 10% damage increase. Pretty sure most 30-point major traits are [theoretically intended to be] balanced to do more than grant a raw 10% damage increase, and IP is no different.

Wise.8025:

Lol… you make it sound so simple. Then you realise it’s a GS spin-2-win guardian that kitten all your clones as soon as they’re out. You’re taking damage, have no clones to remove boons, and the 3.5s you get from null field on a 45s CD is complete kitten. Plus you can’t shatter because you have no clones to shatter with. GG Guardian wins and all they have to do is spin.

VS Ele at least you have a chance to catch them in their cycle and trip them up.

This is why I said it’s tedious. The more problematic bunker Guardians I’ve fought have been GS and Sword, so they can block range projectiles with the Sword skill, which also has rapid-fire range attacks, and they can AOE clone swarms with GS. On top of that, they can drop fire AOEs if they pack that utility. Typically the builds will be able to re-apply regen / prot / aegis / stability / whateverthehellelse they have pretty often. So getting 1 single strip won’t do a ton.

It comes down to skill because the Mesmer has to time specific things like Blurred Frenzy on their Sword channel (wth was it called again?) — theirs blocks range attacks only, so it’s a good tradeoff. It may also cause them to cancel the channel and back off, making them vulnerable to iWarlock shots or staff clone pew pew.

The Guardian has to time AOEs to kill clones. Mesmer has to get in deep to strip boons to break the Guard’s sustain. Guard has to identify these events and punish.

Shrug, lots of back-and-forth and counterplay, and no auto-wins. Unless the Mesmer is packing the trait to strip boons on shatter kitten.

Edit: Non-GS/Sw ones seem simpler — they are more tanky, but they don’t really do much of anything except not-die. There’s basically 0 threat of them doing anything to you, so they are more “Sword clone leg hump kitten wish I were in WvW so I could use Reaper of Grenth for unremovable Poison to cut healing, where are my Orrian runes”, etc.

Clone death traits are ok, but be selective in a shatter build.

The more tedious opponents will have AOEs / pulsing AOEs and will do a reasonably good job of smashing clones.

Edit:

For Shatter timing practice I recommend PvE against champion and/or veteran mobs without special clone-generation capabilities. E.g. no DE, probably no Decoy/MI. Practice maintaining 3 illusions 24×7 while shattering on cooldown. Then add in Decoy. Then MI. Then eventually DE. Preferably while the mob is attacking someone else. Old snow troll farming was great for this tbh.

They key is to get weapon swapping intuitive, and learning the rhythm of summoning illusions, letting them sit, then shatter+resummon. Sustained fights are not summon+Shatter. They are Shatter+resummon.

They should simply make haste time1 = time0 / 1.5 rather than time1 = 0.5*time.

Or just make it 0.75* and tweak up the durations on all Quickness abilities by a small amount (say, 25%).

covenn.7165:

Also regarding gear….

Please don’t run around in all zerker gear. You die way too fast, ultimately do less damage in the long run, cause rallies, and are a draw on your team mates. If you do go high damage, make sure you have a decent level of survivability mixed in.

Full Berserker, 30/30 in offensive trait lines, 10 in utility, 0 in vit/tough/boon/heal trait lines.

Runes of the Scholar.

Against a bunker guardian, it’s going to be a long, drawn-out fight unless you have the Dom trait to strip boons.

The fight should end though. If it doesn’t end, you’re not trying hard enough or you’re spec’d too defensively. I would say 50/50 chance of winning depending on who makes more mistakes.

Clone HP scaling from Mesmer Vitality was changed during beta from 0.1x to 0.2x around open beta 3 or so (e.g. doubled), just prior to release. Unless ANet later removed Vitality from Clone HP scaling and I missed it (which I may have), or they did it ninja, then Illusions still scale off Vit and the wiki information is incorrect.

FlyingK.9720:

The major reason for Rabid armor or Carrion armor is that vitality doesn’t transfer over to illusions,

When did ANet change this?

Because:

1. Sharper Images is not the whole build. It is an augmentation to the build. Investing your primary stat allocation into an augmentation to a build is ~_~.

2a. Both Rabid and Carrion offer a defensive stat.
2b. Berserker is not a good supporting argument for Rampager: Berserker gear enables very fast kills, which reduce the relevance of defense. Rampager gear does not enable very fast kills, because it is augmenting several “damage over time” components (Sharper Images and conditions in general).

Rampager is theoretically usable if you maintain high Might stacks intentionally because the Might will minimize the loss of raw power/cdmg. However, these builds tend to not maintain lots of clones for Sharper Images because they tend to rely on rapid Shatter cycles. Proficient maintenance of 3 Illusion uptime along with Shatters on cooldown could make the build efficient, but I don’t see many people trying to build that (with other Might stacking). A quick review of the concept would indicate that Boon duration food and Might on swap would be critical to heavy Might maintenance.

In WvW, a competently geared / prepared Thief using the backstab build will not allow you time to react. The burst will be executed within a total of 2.0 seconds, with 0.8 seconds of actual contact time (where you take damage), and will be executed from 900/1200 range. This is basically a guaranteed death unless you dodge their opener at range, or have prot/aegis up from a prior event.

That aside, Dazes troll Thieves hard if the above situation does not occur.

Actually, it’s exactly like what he’s describing. You just don’t like it.

Mister Mustard.7203:

GW2 might be the only MMO where you can kill 6 players, period. I won’t claim to be an expert on it, but I feel that more often than not, players in other games that try to fight 1 on 6 don’t fare so well.

No.

GW2 is the only MMO where a player of surpassing skill can kill 6 scrubs and they will overwhelm the player with chain easy-rezzing.

In other games, 1v6 is just as possible. But players stay dead when they die (or rezzing can be countered more readily).

While the downed state is a valid game mechanic, it is currently over-tuned to benefit raw numbers.

I miss the days where 8 v 120 was a legit concept. Overpowered? No, because that 8 could die to another 8 of equal skill. That 8 would still lose to 120 if the 120 weren’t terrible. But if they were, they would die.

In a game like GW2, 8v120 is impossible due to game mechanics. Pure AFK would be required to pull that off.

Best I’ve seen in recent MMOs is 1v4 odds (e.g. 6 v 24, 24 v 100). In GW2, I’ve seen about 1:4 as well — the downed state mechanic is just so kittening annoying, though.

Among game mechanics it may be “fair” in a sense, but it is pure “un-fun”, to borrow game design terminology from Riot games.

Unless you’re heavily bursting with Backstab + Heartseeker, I think Sword MH is a better choice in general. The condition removal, integrated cripple, and especially Immobilize are excellent. Weakness is also strong.

PW’s evade is very thin. I don’t consider it a significant factor. Combined with the very small stun and full-cost-for-starting-the-channel, PW is pretty meh. PW also doesn’t do notably more DPS than Sword1, so the real consideration here becomes Pistol5 versus CND from Dagger offhand and boon strips from Flanking Strike.

Pistol5 tends to be stronger for facetanking and melee dueling. Dagger OH is better to crack boons and to escape from fights with stealth.

Edit: Only other real consideration is that between Sword and Dagger MH, Heartseeker is great for getting around WvW. Inf Strike is ok in that regard, but less abusable. For in-combat mobility, Inf Strike > HS.

GummiBear.2756:

Another thing to consider on toughness vs vitality, is that out clones and phantasm uses our toughness but does NOT gain anything from our vitality (source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusion)

This is probably not correct, since ANet actually changed the Vitality scaling for clones in late beta, documented in patch notes. Unless ANet removed the player’s Vit from the illusion HP formula after release, it still scales. I don’t recall seeing that in any patch notes post-release, so I assume it’s an error unless ANet ninja’d it (or I missed the patch notes).

arutayro.9764:

MLieBennett.9031:

Only a Mesmer knows what Schrödinger’s cat must feel like. Each time we dodge, we both evade the attack and get hit by it.

isnt that a hellsing fan?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

It existed long before the reference in the anime.

Lol.

I actually TRY to burst quite a bit, but it feels like there’s a second or so delay on the skill’s activation which makes it a complete kitten to land in WvW and sPvP

Personally, in a large-scale fight, the fact that you Immobilize is more important than any number of hits or bleeds. Immob is a death sentence in WvW battles. As a result, in many situations I will F1 with Sword and simply break the channel and go do something else, so the condition damage contribution is pretty low overall.

When you say “Note that there is no CDMG/tough/vit stat spread (sigh).”, are you commenting on armor stats? I’m a bit confused asto what you mean there xD

There is no stat spread that provides those 3 stats on an item.

Carrion is CDMG / vit / pow. Rabid is CDMG / prec / tough.

There is no CDMG / vit / tough. It may be overpowered if it existed. There’s also no CDMG / heal / tough, would may be just as bad, or worse. Ohwell.

In any case, the boon build referenced may also be good to borrow from because an “Iron General” type playstyle will likely be engaged for sustained periods of time, so heavy boons may be effective.

So you get 35% + Pizza and invest the trait points into other lines that are more beneficial.

Unless you were investing into that line already for key reasons.

So I like the voice and I couldn’t imagine a “girly” one.

Two polar opposites are not the only possibilities in the spectrum.

The voice does not have to be girly.

It just has to be 5-10% less “this voice is only suitable for an old-ish max-build warrior archetype”. Justsayin.

Not really. If they were, there’d be a lot more skin.

Make sure you wait the 10s ICD.