Guild Wars 2

Heartpains.7312:

Sorry for late reply.

For me I play wall vs wall and mostly playing power.
I play inspiration, dueling and domination, even if I make changes, any other trait line I would pick it would be better than chrono.

The only trait line that I can’t tell for sure right now is chaos, other than that for me they all seem to outperform the chronomancer.

Insp, dueling, and domination.

If this is a power shatter build relying on deceptive evasion, chrono is far better than dueling for general utility and illusion generation.

If this is focused on interrupts and conditions with mistrust, chrono is far better than domination. If focused on interrupts and power, chrono is far better than dueling again.

It’s a condie phantasm, what exactly were you expecting?

Seriously though, for most of this game’s history the torch phantasm has been nothing more than a flaming pile of garbage widely regarded as worse than a clone. Nevertheless, torch has been a staple in builds purely because of how good a skill the prestige is. Think of skill 5 as an extra illusion for a shatter now and then or just ignore the fact that it’s on your bar.

Siabair.7612:

I don’t want her to be a chronotank because apparently it is quite difficult to start raids being a tank

This is reasonable.

Siabair.7612:

so I would like to DPS.

This is not. Mesmer dps only works well on 2 or 3 bosses and it’s a very specific condition damage setup. No other mesmer dps build is even remotely worthwhile, so don’t bother. Outside of those 2 or 3 specific bosses, mesmer condition damage dps isn’t even remotely worthwhile either. The build you need to be running is a buffing support chronomancer setup that you can find here: http://qtfy.eu/build/mesmer. Ideally you’ll want to run domi/insp.

SaltAndLight.4652:

Thanks for the replies!

I distinctly remember seeing two mind wracks for a little over 5K damage each, which hit nearly simultaneously. My mind wracks never hit for that much =)

They may have been using scholar runes to boost that burst as well. Keep in mind that dazing you with the mantra daze before the burst will also load up vuln stacks, further increasing the burst. Landing a point blank mirror blade will stack up 6 or so might, further increasing the burst. Additionally, using the mind wrack boost trait adds 30% damage if the target is not using skills, so executing the burst cleanly in the 1s duration of the daze is essential to achieving that maximum burst.

Basically there’s a ton of things that all have to be executed cleanly and precisely to pull of the massive burst that you see some Mesmers doing. You need to land mirror blade point blank, time the mind wrack perfectly after that, make sure that the daze lands just an instant prior to mirror blade hitting, and make sure that you’re over 90% HP for scholar bonus. A really good mesmer can pull off the whole thing in about a half second, but it’s extremely difficult to do.

Ok, so general caveat: leveling a mesmer sucks, don’t do it. Level with tomes of knowledge instead. Leveling a mesmer sucks because so much of what it can do is locked behind combinations of traits and utilities. Until you have most of the class unlocked, it feels awful.

Ok, disclaimer out of the way. You’ll want to avoid conditions at all cost because, surprise surprise, mesmer condition builds do not function at all without significant trait setup. The best way to level is going to be basically a slight hybrid of phantasm and shatter. You’ll want to use sword/focus+greatsword with signet of inspiration (for swiftness), blink (for mobility), and probably feedback or something for utility. You’ll want to get mostly through inspiration first, followed by domination and then dueling I guess.

The playstyle is basically summon phantasms -> yank mobs with focus -> blurred frenzy -> shatter. On veterans or other larger mobs, just leave out the shatter and let the phantasms chew on them. It’s pretty straightforward, but your damage will be fairly low compared to other classes. There’s nothing you can do about that, that’s just how mesmer is.

Edit: It’s also worth noting that QT builds are endgame builds primarily designed for challenging instanced content like high tier fractals and raids. While they will generally work to some extent in open world content, they’re not optimized for that and contain absolutely no consideration for leveling. Iirc a good leveling guide is Lazy Kai’s build, which is linked somewhere around here in the stickied guide list at the top.

For open world stuff, you’re pretty free in how you choose to play. As a general concept though, you’re free to build as glassy as you can get away with. Experienced players will be in full zerker for power or full viper’s/sinister for condie. You survive by avoiding damage through active defenses such as dodging, sword 2, shield 4, scepter 2, sword 4, or distortion from shatters or signets. Situationally you should use crowd control to avoid damage and control mobs as well.

That being said, not everyone is experienced enough to play that way and survive. If you want to tank up a power build, add knights and cavs stats. If you want to tank up a condie build, add trailblazer or dire. Once you’ve reached a point that you’re pretty comfortable at, start swapping your gear back to the glassy set as you gain more experience.

It’s also worth noting that the signet heal is hot garbage. Use ether feast for pure healing output or well of eternity for general best use.

kyrnik.7352:

Fey (or anyone else that may know), is there a beginner Chronomancer build that is recommended? I only need the final 25 hero points to get Gravity Well and them I’m done with elite spec. Was hoping to find something that fits in with my current gear (Berserkers with GS and sw/focus. I’ve been dabbling with some WvW while working on PvE stuff as well. But since I am close, I am starting to consider fractals.

Is there a reasonable universal build or should I just start taking whatever for PvE and then switching to the meta builds for WvW and Fractals?

With the chrono traitline unlocked, you’ll change your build slightly to take into account the new mechanics you gain access to.

Greatsword is primarily used for good AOE, but shield has that too. I usually run sw/sh+f because that provides a good mix of cleave, AOE, cc, and defense.

You’ll need to drop a traitline to fit chrono in; usually that’s dueling. Inspiration is needed for utility (and sustain), domination is both damage and utility, and then chrono provides all the chrono stuff. For the chrono line you’ll want the well trait in adept, the alacrity trait in master, and chronophantasma in grandmaster.

Now that you have access to wells, you can fill out your utility bar much more comfortably. My personal loadout is usually well of action, well of recall, and signet of inspiration. You can take blink or something if you want though. Gravity well is usually the best choice for an elite in open world stuff, but time warp is also competitive.

Your gear stats can remain the same with berserker. However, you’re going to want to start working towards a full set of leadership runes. It doesn’t really matter for open world, but boon duration is extremely important to fulfill the chrono role in instanced content. Along those lines, you’ll also want to look into getting a sigil of concentration, 20% boon duration food, and the magnanimous sharpening stones. Between the runes, consumables, and the swap sigil, you’ll hit 90ish boon duration. Pick up a couple commander’s stat trinkets and youll be all set for instanced content.

That’s a pretty solid universal build for all pve content. You’ll be workable in open world and set up to fill the buff support role in fractals or raids. For WvW…you’re looking at a whole different ball of wax. You’ll need different gear, a different playstyle (or two) and a group to play with.

Just to clarify, are you planning on playing in a comped group or are you planning on just pugging in a larger group?

apharma.3741:

Fay.2357:

Xstein.2187:

Me Games Ma pretty much summed it up. Your build seems like it is pretty much just a downgraded version of Minstrel tank.
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Cleric/Minstrel_Tank

The reason for minstrel and cleric pieces (besides obviously boon duration) is so you have as much healing power as possible for healing allies. Could you go into more detail about why you take issues with the current minstrel build? This might help us better understand the direction you are trying to take with your build. At the moment, I’m not really seeing any cracks in it for your criterial of healing, being self sufficient, 100% boon duration, and doesn’t cause redundancies in the meta.

They explained that actually. The full minstrel build will make it challenging for the druids to keep gotl stacked, actually lowering group DPS. You want to provide a bit of supplementary healing without keeping everyone permanently topped off.

So, I’ve been thinking about this, if the minstrel chrono could actually keep the raid sub group alive by themselves, you could replace that druid with CRanger for the spirits (can split them if multiple CRangers) and have the druid in the other subgroup without the minstrel chrono getting plenty of Astral keeping up GotL.

You might lose glyph of empowerment but the higher damage of the CRanger and that 1 druid can keep 4 GotL on the whole raid squad depending on boss. You would lose something like 7-9% damage on one sub group but you get the much higher damage of the CRanger. Anyone done some experimenting with this?

So a minstrel chrono is basically the most useless type of healing. Because it pumps out continual sustain ticks from regen and (depending on build) mantra charging, it keeps a good group always topped off on hp. This makes it very difficult for druids to provide gotl. However, the chrono is absolutely incapable of burst healing in any form. Somebody eat a haduken? Too bad. Need to throw heals on someone that got ported at VG? Too bad. Need to keep eles alive during breakbar at gorseval? No can do.

It’s utterly unsuited to replace druid or even tempest as a main healer, but simultaneously provides constant healing that ruins gotl upkeep. It’s horrid.

kyrnik.7352:

I’ve swapped out some berserker for 3 pieces of knights. Changed out amulet and rings to berserker. Other 3 accessories are still soldiers for now as I look for adequate replacement. Any tips on rings, etc and good runes?

Pack runes are a good choice. Once you gear up as a chrono you may want boon duration runes (usually leadership, but I use durability because I’m lazy), but pack runes are great until then. Mesmer runes are utter garbage.

kyrnik.7352:

I’m sitting around 19k hp right now but still feel a little squishy.

19k hp is plenty. You want to be avoiding damage with cc/dodges/blurred frenzy/blocks instead of just facetanking it. Mesmer has a lot of active defense and control, so use that to avoid damage.

kyrnik.7352:

Dmg is okay, not spectacular

Welcome to mesmer.

Xstein.2187:

Me Games Ma pretty much summed it up. Your build seems like it is pretty much just a downgraded version of Minstrel tank.
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Cleric/Minstrel_Tank

The reason for minstrel and cleric pieces (besides obviously boon duration) is so you have as much healing power as possible for healing allies. Could you go into more detail about why you take issues with the current minstrel build? This might help us better understand the direction you are trying to take with your build. At the moment, I’m not really seeing any cracks in it for your criterial of healing, being self sufficient, 100% boon duration, and doesn’t cause redundancies in the meta.

They explained that actually. The full minstrel build will make it challenging for the druids to keep gotl stacked, actually lowering group DPS. You want to provide a bit of supplementary healing without keeping everyone permanently topped off.

Chrono runes are self-only quickness, completely worthless.

kyrnik.7352:

Spent some time today updating this build to better show the current setup and gear.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhUQNAR8dlsnhS1YBawMNQtGLqG0ZQee0Lnwx3GZAGRxB-TRCBwAq0BA4pAcU5nz9HCcBAUY+biSQcq/kSzAA-e

Pretty good, make sure you change those dueling traits around like I mentioned.

It’s worth noting that soldier’s gear (power/vitality/toughness) is pretty garbage in terms of getting a good balance of offense and defense. The standard setup for gear is full berserker of course, but that’s pretty glassy. The go-to gear stats for inserting a bit of survivability are knights and cavaliers. Those two allow you to retain your precision and ferocity while providing a lot of toughness to keep you alive better. Since mesmer has medium base health, you don’t really need the vitality from soldiers.

Lets see…

Traits
Illusions (middle, middle, middle)
Inspiration (middle, middle, top)
Chronomancer(?, bottom, bottom)

Stats
This is a little fuzzy. They have 127 extra vitality and 530 healing power. Past that it’s hard to say. They’re doing okish damage, but not particularly high, so I’d guess something along the lines of cavs + knights + a smattering of clerics maybe.

Chun.5827:

Its interesting how people on GW2 define what is “useless” and what is “good”. In Dark Souls, the best players are those that have low dps (fist only), rely on nothing except understanding game mechanics, and do not rely on stats (naked). High dps means you don’t not need to know how to reliably counter every boss mechanic 100% of the time, those players specialize in cheesing and bursting down encounters. Low dps, means the boss fight drags out for long enough that you will be forced to experience every attack multiple times and your forced to actually learn them.

Your analogy falls apart if you actually apply it properly. Building defensive stats in GW2 is like building full heavy armor with maximum hp and stamina and bunkering behind a shield to smack the boss every now and then without even needing to move your feet in dark souls. Unless there’s a hard enrage timer (some raid bosses), building defensive trivializes the difficulty of the fight at the cost of making it take forever.

Dadnir.5038:

You probably forgot the “i” and it became “b*d*ss”

He was trying to say “as b*d *s some are trying to say.”

Cyninja.2954:

GrahamW.5397:

OriOri.8724:

Unless the next elite spec is as broken as chrono was at HoT launch or core mesmer is redesigned, we will never get a true DPS spec. Its just not possible without one of those two things happening, because of how base mesmer is designed.

And yes, a spec that fundamentally alters the shatter and/or illusion mechanic would be equivalent to core mesmer being redesigned, as it would prove that Anet found it impossible to create a DPS spec for mesmer with its current design.

That’s why I keep pushing for mesmer to be redesigned, at least partially. The class just needs it

If you REALLY, REALLY feel the need to do dps on mesmer, you can always play condi mes, it pulls respectable numbers. Yes i know its not “optimal” and that other condi classes can do more, but it does enough to be viable, and its not like raids are all that hard if you’re playing with a competent group, im sure you can play some “off meta” stuff for fun and still clear it easily.

While I second that idea, there is another problem to deal with here, the lack of mesmers in general.

Sure you could ask a pug raid group to run condi dps mesmer and hope they don’t instant kick you after demanding you switch to support or tank, but why take the risk?

Static groups might allow you to roll condi mesmer now and there for the luls, if they have to many mesmers available. Usually though it’ll end with them telling you to stop goofing around and either plau support or log to a propet dps.

You’re mostly right, but it’s worth noting that I’d rather a condie mesmer than any other dps class at matthias. While on the other bosses condie mesmer ranges from usable-ish to trash, condie mesmer becomes the apex predator at matthias.

Levetty.1279:

patch

Also in this update, we are implementing initial attacks on several phantasm skills, allowing the mesmer to deliver a primary attack in addition to the summon in order to provide a bit more constant pressure on your targets.

We know have them all and all attacks do less damage then the already abysmal auto attack damage of their respective weapons.

Amazing really

“We wanted more constant pressure on your targets, so we decided to make your greatsword phantasm attack do an extra 200 damage so that you’ll take more retaliation damage than you deal to them when you cast it”
—Anet probably

kyrnik.7352:

I appreciate your response!

Yes, I am not expecting massive DPS or huge criticals. I enjoy the support/utility gameplay which is what helped me decide on the Mesmer.

I am going with this build at the moment but trying different skills as needed. It definitely needs tweaked some so I would welcome any input. Again, this is just general solo PVE content to grind out mastery points and general zone events.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8dnsIClqhFoBGpBUrhFVD6MIDJ6lT44bjMAFAA-TJRBwAAOCAaeIAE3fgcZAA

Ok, not bad but I can make a few tweaks to make it better.

Firstly, you’re using the PvP version of the builder. This means you use 1 single amulet for stats instead of putting it on your various pieces of gear as actually happens in PvE and WvW. This is controlled with the large buttons at the very top right corner of the builder, so you’ll want to switch that to PvE and re-do the gear.

Pack runes are a fine cheap and effective choice, so that’s solid.

You’re only using 1 sigil on your greatsword, but 2handed weapons can accept 2 sigils, make sure you fill that up.

You’re using a force sigil on your mainhand sword. This is normally a good choice, but it’s extremely expensive and does not benefit mesmer phantasms at all. This makes it less impressive for mesmer, so I’d go with something like a sigil of battle, fire, or air.

You’re using an energy sigil on both weaponsets. This is completely excessive for PvE, not to mention expensive. Yank those, sell them, and get something cheaper like fire/battle/strength.

You don’t appear to have a grandmaster trait in domination selected. This should probably be mental anguish, but if you find yourself camping greatsword a lot you could make solid use out of imagined burden.

At master tier in domination you’ve selected shattered concentration. This is a great PvP trait, but it’s pretty useless in PvE. Between sword autoattacks and greatsword 3, you’ve got all the boon stripping you’ll ever need. Take blurred inscriptions instead to lower the cooldown on your heal and signet of inspiration.

In dueling adept, you should be taking phantasmal fury. Desperate decoy is a solid trait for PvP, but it simply doesn’t serve a purpose in PvE. Fury is a very strong boon, so providing that to your phantasms permanently is a powerful damage increase.

In dueling master, you should be taking fencer’s finesse. Blinding dissipation is a fantastic PvP trait for aoe blinds, but in PvE you don’t want to be shattering unless you’ll be killing your target. Taking fencer’s finesse instead will give you a pretty substantial damage boost while in sword, not to mention lowering the cooldown of a very powerful skill: blurred frenzy.

In dueling grandmaster you should consider not taking deceptive evasion. While it’s very strong in PvP, you really don’t need that much clone generation in PvE. Additionally, you run the risk of destroying phantasms if you have stacked up 3 phantasms on a target. If you take a mantra, bring harmonious mantras, otherwise take mistrust (even if it doesn’t really add to your build).

In inspiration grandmaster, both mental defense and illusionary inspiration are solid choices. Once you move to chronomancer, illusionary inspiration will be by far the more powerful trait, but at this point they’re pretty even. I’d encourage you to swap between them to see which one you like more.

You’re using both null field and mantra of resolve. Mantra of resolve is more than enough condition removal for any and all PvE content, and you have boon removal both on greatsword 3 and the sword autoattack (your sword clones remove boons too!). This makes null field totally pointless, so you can take something better. Blink is your best option for mobility, feedback if you really need more reflects (with focus you shouldn’t), and portal if you’re doing a jumping puzzle.

Ryou.2398:

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Celestial gear doesn’t allow you to switch roles, it allows you to play all roles poorly. If you want to be able to switch roles, get legendary gear.

Uhhh celestial is all stats is it not? And I did not say it allows you to switch roles, but rev class can switch roles to an extent therefor I am asking about celestial gear.

It functions exactly like he said. If you get celestial you’ll just be bad at any role you try and play. Yeah, you’ll be able to “role switch”, but you’ll be switching from “being bad” to “also being bad”.

Mochizuki.7385:

Isn’t the reason PvP? So you can’t tell it’s a clone just because it doesn’t have might stacks?

No, that’s not the reason. The skill puts might on phantasms, not clones.

Stand The Wall.6987:

the mesmer group does plenty of damage if you are caught in front of them.

So does the grub, but I don’t see many people dying to that.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

The question is, can this joke of “balance” get any worse ?

In GW2, the answer to that question is always yes.

Haleydawn.3764:

Direct copy and paste “Phantasmal Swordsman: This skill now performs a sword strike in front of the player when summoning the phantasm. If the sword strike hits you and all Swordsmen currently summoned, (<comma=Pause) gain 8 might for 10 seconds.”

I honestly still think you’re reading it wrong, unless you’ve tested to show yourself and all swordsman gain might (although adding the might to swordsman might be a way to show that might was applied during the instance for better readability/usability idk)

Idk why people are talking about that comma, it’s just comma gore from our esteemed dev team. It doesn’t change the meaning, it’s just poor english…

Obtena.7952:

Frankly, I think the number of stacks is not really relevant; it’s the amount of damage it does.

I’m sorry, did you forget that condition damage is a linear relationship based off of stack size?

Xyonon.3987:

Xstein.2187:

Maybe the skill change was meant to work this way and they just said your swordsman gained might to make it more understandable to others? Idk

They literally gain might. It just makes no sense…

Makes perfect sense from the perspective of an uninformed layperson. Give might to thing, thing hits harder. Unfortunately, it means that our balanced devs are uninformed laypeople.

GLaDOS.5897:

Well, it has uses in solo plays, as you struggle with might stacks. Although you don’t get the stacks if you cast your iSwordman while running to the mob.
Meh.

The issue isn’t the mechanic of getting the might. The issue is that the fact that Anet coded this skill to give might to phantasms means that whoever made this change (presumably a balance dev) simply does not understand basic mechanics in their game.

It’s a troubling but extremely unambiguous confirmation of a fact that most people have suspected for a long time: the balance team simply is not qualified to make changes to this game.

Hot Boy.7138:

I think mesmer is the best solo class.

wat

For PvE: No quickness generation, very low alacrity generation, and just enough healing to make it difficult for druids to keep GOTL up. Please never ever use this.

For PvP: I can’t see this performing well at all. You can’t provide boon support, the only thing you bring is some unimpressive healing that requires you to stand around charging mantras. You’ll be the first target to get killed because you have zero defense while doing this, and you don’t really have any offensive utility to speak of either. Not good.

For WvW: If you try to roam on this it’s going to be rather unimpressive due to the lack of offense. If you’re just a random chrono in a zerg…sure, run what you want. If you’re trying to get a comped group to accept this build…good luck.

There’s like 3 guilds left in the game that do GvG seriously, and they all have Mesmers already. It’s a noble offer, but the customer base simply doesn’t exist.

Not sure what you guys are on about, but the change to SoI a few months back explicitly made boon duration affect the boons it provides.

Prior to the change, SoI was only a copy: it copied the durations without regard to your stats. Now, SoI functions as a boon generation skill with a conditional of what boons it provides. SoI scales off of boon duration just like anything else.

Nash.2681:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.
[…]

This makes me cry. I’m pugging through T4 fractals regulary without issues even when 3/5 of them are performing… not so well, yet getting a single raid kill seems out of reach for me.
Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

Depends on the class/role you play. As a random DPS in the group…yeah, your influence on success is fairly low. But if you’re tanking as a chronomancer, almost every single fight has a number of ways that allow you to substantially impact the success of your group.

draxynnic.3719:

The game does, however, display a single damage number for skills rather than a range. I think what it does is show the damage from the middle of the range.

When you’re looking at skills from the hero screen, though, I think it assumes that each weapon will have the same damage range as the weapon you currently have equipped. Or, possibly more likely, it uses a common value rather than the value of any specific weapon (I’ve noticed, for instance, that the values from the hero screen tend to be less than from the skillbar).

The takeaway, though, is that it does seem to be a straight case of multiplying by power (as opposed to healing skills, which typically have a base value which is added to a multiple of healing power). At least for the skills I looked at. I think the damage from phantasm skills might have different rules, though.

Phantasms use the exact same equation, just different weapons sometimes.

Vitali.5039:

OriOri.8724:

Warden would be good for dumb mobs that stay in the AoE, but since it can’t move while its attacking, anything that moves has the potential to dodge all or almost all of its damage. I find that especially in HoT maps where the enemies are smarter its not that great at providing damage unfortunately

This is why having a pull on focus is a great thing

Drop TC, start Warden cast, pull mid-cast, iLeap, swap to Shield, Shield 5, blurred frenzy, shatter. That takes care of most generic mob packs, even in HoT.

Ardid.7203:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.

As of now, I’ve killed every boss except Xera. I got wiped more than 50 times at Vale Guardian until I got the first raid boss kill.

I do not believe raiding needs EASY MODE. It is designed to be hard, thereby more rewarding. My only issues were accessibility. I found it very difficult spotting training groups.

There are indeed a lot of players willing to learn. However, there are only a few commanders willing to teach at the sacrifice of their own time and resources. They don’t get anything in return. I hope Anet can find a way to encourage more train runs by rewarding those friendly commanders. They are truly worthy of the raiding community.

What do you guys think about implementing in-game squad voice chat? This can be a huge change to WvW, Raids, World Bosses, etc.

How much uninterrupted time do you need for each attempt? How did you finally got into a group?

Many established groups will spend roughly 2 hours at a time completing the raids, so that’s a good baseline to aim for. If you’re able to spend 2 solid hours raiding, you’ll be baseline compatible with most groups. Less than that is doable too, but below 1 solid hour would be a tough sell for a lot of people.

The swordsman attacks much faster than any other phantasm, so the direct power damage it does is by far the highest out of any phantasm we have. That’s basically it. If you need the utility of pulls, take focus. If you want…shield things…take shield. If you’re running a single target condie setup, take pistol. If you have no clue what you’re doing, take torch.

Edit: take a look at this wiki page for the specific numbers on attack rates: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste

The main reason I rarely take Moa is that it’s only going to save you from a breakbar once every 70ish seconds at best. How about samarog where the breakbar is every 10%? How about Matthias with a significant breakbar every 45 (seconds)? Even sloth will put up a bar more frequently than you can moa if your team is burning him hard.

If your team is usually solid with breaks and sometimes falters if say one particular person gets sacrificed, moa is a good choice. However, moa can’t pick up the slack of an entire team habitually failing to break.

Azukas.1426:

The only issue remaining is you can dodge the shatter and due to the changes Anet made still get hit.

Iirc that’s only Daredevil with the increased dodge range. Everyone else can still do it fine.

Fwiw, the seemingly hilariously unbalanced t1 matchup is actually by far the most even matchup in na this week. Server relinks do in fact change things up, which is why the volatility is drastically boosted with them. DB is doing just fine in t1. They’re in third place clearly, but both their total score and victory points are by far the most reasonable of any matchup.

You’re not supposed to outrun the shatter. You’re supposed to dodge through it to pop the illusions. That has been the correct way to counter shatters since the day the game launched. Please try learning how to play properly before begging for nerfs.

Malice.8439:

Perhaps it may seem convoluted at first, but a rather simple way to design hybrid weapons would be for them to be incredibly weak baseline, but scale very well with condition damage/expertise and power/ferocity.

That’s an admirable concept, but it’s simply not possible in GW2. There’s no such thing as “baseline strength” of a given skill. There’s no such thing as “base damage”. You can’t make any skill “scale better” with condition damage and expertise. If it applies conditions those conditions do their thing. If it deals damage, the skill coefficient does its thing. There’s no way to make it “baseline weak but scales well.” That’s simply not a concept that exists in GW2.

Honestly I couldn’t ever imagine running boonshare mesmer in an unorganized pug blob. Boonshare mesmer is so heavily reliant on the input from other classes to really shine. It can do ok on it’s own, but if you’re trying to solo pump out boons you’re just not going to be efficient compared to getting seeded by an ele, guard, and rev.

I’ve been running with an organized group for close to a year now. In that time the way we comp has evolved from me being the one mesmer with veil and some other gimmicky stuff to having a boonshare distortion mesmer in every single subsquad as an integral part of the way we organize and play. The thing is that making this work requires group coordination, otherwise you just end up as a single mesmer pumping some boons that don’t ever end up being used. I couldn’t imagine trying to play this in a pug blob, it would just be awful.

Edit: @expandas: Just noticed that in your other thread you noted that you mesmer for BorP. That sorta needs to be a wee bit of a disclaimer here: What works for BorP isn’t going to work for the vast majority of other groups in the game. Most groups don’t have the organization and imagination to fiddle with new comps and make them work, and boonshare mesmer very much requires a comp built at least partially around it. I’m lucky that DIE was able to do that for the builds I came up with, and BorP has always been pushing the edges of the meta, but most groups can’t or won’t do the same.

Malice.8439:

Thanks for all your replies.

My take-away from this is to use Time Warp when pugging fractals, Gravity Well for co-ordinated fractals and raids, and Moa signet when I’m tanking raids.

Moa signet is really only for when your team can’t break a bar to save their life. It doesn’t provide anything other than massive breaking capability.

shrug. I’m sure they’ll implement things that make mirage interesting and/or desirable. Obviously it won’t be the same as chrono, but that doesn’t mean there is no way to make a desirable non-chrono spec.

That being said, I won’t be buying the expansion until all aspects of the content it has have been confirmed, and even then I might wait until a sale. Anet lost the benefit of the doubt with HoT. I won’t be suckered into buying another half of an expansion packaged with a long list of broken promises again.

Gambino.2109:

Definitely have to do something about his greens not appearing.. I ran with 8 people that needed that achievement.. and he messed everyone over twice because of that.

Iirc that bug can be avoided with enough DPS. He does that buggy attack if he stays in one health region ( maybe 50-25? Don’t remember) too long. DPS him hard enough and you won’t get that bug. Obviously that’s not a reasonable solution, but it’s good to know the workaround.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I could buy an entire commander’s set to ease up on the strictness of the skill usage, but there’s no way I’m spending 700+ gold on another armor set for a build that I fundamentally hate playing.

Utility food: 10%
Leadership runes: 30%
Concentration sigil: 33%
Boon food: 20%
Platinum doubloon in backpiece and 1 accessory: 8%

Congratulations, you’ve hit 98% duration while wearing full zerker gear.

See, the problem all your complaints is that you’re factually wrong about every single one. You’re trying to make a point with false data, so you’re just ending up off the mark from the very start. I could go through and point out all the bits that are wrong, but I’ll just leave it at this one because I doubt you’ll listen anyway.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is the same problem I’m having. Back before I left, quickness sharing was easy and fun, and I could do it while still having some semblance of personal damage.

Before I had a “chrono burst” where I could summon a bunch of phantasms, drop a few wells, maybe illusion spam and shatter for AoE damage. The sustained DPS was low, but in the short term I could explode. Short term was all I needed.

Well that’s some serious revisionist history. The changes to how the chrono rotation work haven’t affected our damage in the slightest. Back then it was awful just like now. We didn’t have some fantastic burst damage like you’re erroneously claiming, it’s always been awful both in burst and sustained.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

In groups, it was still pretty bad. The reason is simple: I don’t have a premade set of friends who are good at the game to adventure with. I get random pugs most of the time, and even if I dedicate myself to spreading alacrity and quickness, all I get is more point-blank shot spam. If even that, since they’re somehow extremely frail yet extremely feeble, I’ll be rezzing and dealing with players out of range.

Maybe you’re just playing it wrong? A well played chrono is one of the best classes to carry with, both in fractals and raids. In raids you can do an excellent job of tanking, provide the boon/buff support to your party to make everything more effective, and completely nullify many mechanics with skilled use of invulnerability sharing. In fractals you perform many of the same functions and can carry in the same ways. If you’re unable to do that, the problem is likely you, not your groups.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The rotation is a complicated mess where I have to keep track of several hidden cooldowns to maximize boon duration and signet usage, and if I mess up once performance drops off a cliff. The build is not fun to play and is generally terrible.

Not really. The new rotation is substantially easier to perform effectively than the old rotation, being far more forgiving to screwups. In the old rotation, you stacked up quickness to high durations and then shared it all with a couple uses of the signet. If you missed the signet cast or used it out of turn, you’d completely ruin the sharing. With the new rotation, quickness buffing is fairly evenly spread between all the different skills that provide it. No single skill is the linchpin of the technique, so messing up has a much more mild effect. It sounds to me like you just don’t want to learn the new rotation and so are complaining about it.

So existing bountiful utility consumables provide 10% boon duration. In a heavily defensive spec build the new consumables will provide 20% boon duration. In most balanced builds the new consumables will provide around 15%. So the net change here is between 5% and 10% additional free boon duration.

This has an impact of course, but it’s not enormous. The primary difference is that people don’t have to splurge on platinum doubloons every time they want to get boon duration from their utility consumable. The actual difference it’ll have on builds is really minimal.

The new sigil is in the same boat; it provides a static boost up to 15%, but you have to stack up charges for it. It’s far weaker than concentration, but much cheaper and is a passive boost instead of requiring active play. Imo it’s quite balanced.

Grimjack.8130:

duxogns.8047:

heya… I’m the one who was recorded in that video. where is my portrait rights… just kidding.

We developed that build about 1 years ago and occasionally practised, despite we know this would be meaningless.
You think raid team can use this? This build doesn’t show enough high dps to meet the time limit that all raid bosses have.

It’s exploitable on 3 bosses in theory. Put in action though I would say two, being Vale Guardian and Samarog, the other boss being Slothasor. All three of these fights have no mechanic that is undistortable, if you would tell me the parameters of the build I would have a better understanding of what is able to be done with it.

Enrage has no effect, your invulnerable.

It’s just 5 (6 would work too) mesmers popping an invuln every 5 seconds using traited signets. It gets shared with inspiring distortion in inspiration and stacks up duration. As long as they keep using an invuln every time the inspiring distortion icd finishers, they’ll stay permanently invuln. It’s not particularly tricky to do, but it does require most of a build dedicated to it.

You could certainly kill VG/Samarog/Sloth with this….but why?

Sparone.6475:

Ahh, I forgot that you can put doubloon in your weapons as well. Thanks for your detailed reply. Is the Sigil of concentration just a l2p issue or does it make the rotation worse?

It’s l2p, you can do a rotation perfectly fine using the sigil, but it means you have to pay more attention to when you’re swapping weapons and such.