Guild Wars 2

Could have been the slow on crit trait?

Edit: No, not that one.

mikelevins.4639:

Text commands were always issued in uppercase to make them more recognizable, and keyboard macros were used to make them very fast to issue. I don;t know whether OMFG will want to do that, given the prominence of voice chat in GW2,

So there’s a couple problems with typed commands in GW2.

The biggest problem is lack of macros. I could…finagle something….but I’d rather not. The other main issue is that there’s no effective way to talk just to your group with chat. Squad chat sorta works, but has a cap on the number of players in it. You can also do some pretty creative things with multiple teamspeak windows, allowing you to listen to multiple channels while only talking to one, or vice versa. It allows for nice segregation of command structure.

Generally, people balk at voip if they’re forced to talk. In this case, voip will only be necessary to listen, not talk. In my experience, I haven’t seen anyone have an objection with that implementation.

mikelevins.4639:

In addition, there would usually be a short list of commonly-used maneuvers. Examples would be things like:

Yeah, the specific commands/maneuvers are going to depend a decent amount on what the group comp actually ends up being.

Additionally, it’s looking like we may end up with a bit more than 20 people. Obviously this number will come down to some extent based on time availabilities, but the possibility exists that we’ll have significantly more than 20 people who would like to join for this. Depending on how many more want to join, I’ll try to implement a couple things.

If we only have ~10 extras, then they can be organized into an auxiliary roaming group that sticks nearby the main raid, but can pursue independent objectives as fights happen.

If we actually end up with enough for another full raid…I need to find another driver, and so I’ll bug Kylia more to get back here and drive it.

Zenith.7301:

StickerHappy.8052:

Zenith.7301:

StickerHappy.8052:

Zenith.7301:

I think wells are gonna end up being the new Churning Earth. People are gonna be excited until they realize that like Dragon Tooth from ele scepter it will never land on someone with a clue.

Uhmm we have immobs, stuns, slows, to do it?

Are you saying Chaos Storm is useless too, because you wont land it on people? :O

Chaos storm can pulse its daze from the getgo. The well’s powerful effect is lumped at the 3 second mark. You don’t have a 3 second stun. When you lay a well you already telegraphed your Swap.

It’s really not hard to dodge, it’s like saying dragon tooth is actually easy to land because an ele has access to 2 stuns via air and earth offhand dagger and an immobilize from earth signet if they choose to bring that.

And yet dragon tooth is not hitting anyone most of the time outside a zerg.

The difference is Dragon Tooth has a trivial cooldown. Wells have lengthy cooldown and come at the cost of a utility skill.

Signet of domination says hi, also whats cs daze have to do with landing it?

Ah, ok. So which one are you giving up for that signet virtually no one runs. Blink? Decoy?One of the wells in that final slot?

We’re not talking a 1v1 tournament here.

Remember that the wells also do good things to your allies too, they’re not purely offensive. Additionally, covering a point in wells or churning earth generally makes it empty pretty quickly.

Mattmatt.4962:

in wvw, you at least have 1 or 2 per guild in gvg,

Yeah, as a veilbot.

Mattmatt.4962:

you see quite some of them in pvp (“quite some” is subjective but i think you see what i mean).

If by ‘quite some’ you mean ‘2’…then sure.

Mattmatt.4962:

Now tell me where i am “exaggerating and close to whining”

Well, almost everything you’ve typed is either an exaggeration or a whine.

Mattmatt.4962:

True, but if i’m not mistaken, mesmer got more and stronger ones ^^

You are mistaken, nbd.

Mattmatt.4962:

MailMail.6534:

Continuum shift alone make chronomancer way stronger than Mesmer … who is already fine, who is in a solid spot with all incoming baseline trait …. So basically something stronger than something strong is balanced #legit

While I can always count on Mesmers crying about how unfair everything is, I can equally count on people crying about how OP Mesmer is/was/will-be. Your statement is wrought with a lack of knowledge of the Mesmer profession and also lack of facts to back up otherwise empty speculation.

Fact:
Shatter mesmer is currently more than fine

Which is why it’s used never in PvE, rarely in WvW, extremely sparingly in PvP, and is generally considered to be hardcountered by thief.

Mattmatt.4962:

Fact:
Trait line are enhanced. only mentionning IP baseline

Fact: Every class (sorry necros) got massive boosts to power in the trait rework. Mesmers are hardly alone in this.

Mattmatt.4962:

Fact:
continuum shift is a very strong mechanic

Please, tell me more about this mechanic that you’re armchair theorycrafted your way to a conclusion about without even ever seeing in used in a real situation.

Mattmatt.4962:

Fact:
Trait from Chronomancer are insanely strong

I appreciate your opinion. It might carry just a tad bit more weight if you bothered telling anyone why you felt like saying all these things though.

Mattmatt.4962:

Fact:
you can spec Chronomancer and still keep a strong shatter build (domination + dueling)

Uhm. I’m missing what point you’re trying to make with this.

Mattmatt.4962:

Enough fact ? Dare tell me one of them is false

Lets see your score:

3/5 blatant lies.

2/5 completely irrelevant.

Try harder next time.

For the well trait, perhaps:

All wells pulse their last pulse one extra time.

Something to note is that we’re also getting swiftness on signet of inspiration. This means that there will be two very viable ways of moving quick as a Mesmer.

Levetty.1279:

Doesn’t the wall dissapear when you catch it? I swear it did in the video.

No, it kept on going.

Menaka.5092:

It would also be interesting to see if other mesmers’ Wall affects your cooldown.

It shouldn’t. If it did, that would be hilariously broken.

I’ve been wondering this as well. I think probably the most reliable way to do it would be iLeap → ToT → swap.

Invites are up to date. Swarley, you already have 5 guilds.

mikelevins.4639:

For what it’s worth, I’ve spent a good bit of time in some team-focused PVP guilds in other games. It’s perfectly possible to train a group of players to coordinate their moves in a group effort.

For example, I played with Shadowclan in a couple of different games. If you don’t know who they are, see the Wikipedia page:

-snip-

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I very much agree with that sort of combat mentality; creating more complex possibilities from a basic set of simple maneuvers that can be executed smoothly. Once we actually get organized and start working on actual combat, I’d absolutely appreciate any feedback and input that you and any other folks have on ways to do this, or refinements on what we’re already doing.

Yeah, considering the amount of damage these traps are able to unload, and the amount of CC that the class has (ring of warding, gs5, bow 5, dragon hunter elite), I think it’s absurd how they’re considering removing the float from gravity well.

Not gonna lie, I’m pretty irritated at this point. I was (and still am) very excited about chronomancer. However, I forgot the cardinal rule of GW2:

Whatever Mesmer gets, Guardian and Warrior will get something 10 times better

Proof of that today. The guardian traps are hilariously strong, their skills on that weapon are fantastic, and many of their traits are just flat out broken.

A couple thoughts on some of the ideas here:

Having the heal signet apply to phantasms wouldn’t do much of anything. Phantasms don’t generally get gradually killed, they just straight up get one-shot by even normal elite mobs in dungeons. The healing would be helpful if phantasms had enough hp to survive a couple hits.

Phantasm hp is already drastically split between PvE and all PvP modes. I believe the PvE health is around 3.5x higher (ish). This means that they could quite reasonably increase phantasm hp drastically for PvE without unbalancing PvP modes.

I feel that phantasms should be changed so that they can actually do their job in PvE. I also feel that some sort of shatter-based boost to outgoing damage would be cool. The problem with that would be balancing it for PvP properly, since it could potentially combine in an explosive fashion with normal bursting shatter builds.

Curunen.8729:

Fay.2357:

Sebrent.3625:

Just saying … why even let them stack up stability when you can pop out of stealth fully loaded with boons and stunlock them with shields of death :-p

This is pretty much exactly what I have in mind, though more from a temporary stealth for engage perspective than a permastealthed mesmer zerg.

…that’s a scary thought.

Curunen.8729:

Did he/his guild quit gw2? Would have been the perfect guinea pigs for this kind of thing.

Yeah, he’s moved on to star citizen, and his guild has mostly scattered. That reminds me though, I should contact Selan, she’d be all over this idea.

Ah, now that you mention it I thought I recognised this org:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs/AVTR

That’s a shame – I’m kind of playing both gw2 and SC arena commander side by side (well… the latter is on hold until I upgrade my machine), and even when the PU (persistent universe, not prismatic understanding!) goes live I don’t think I’ll be dropping gw2.

I mayyyy have contacted him last night and told him to get his kitten back to gw2 for this raid.

Tealots.6095:

Fay.2357:

Tealots.6095:

I think that with the amount of chronomancers that we will have (and all that kittening alacrity), there will be a ton of “inactive” clustered enemies. Two team raid members running GS shatter can make excellent use of the Mirror Blade + Blink + Mindwrack combo (I can only imagine this with mental torment). From there, they can sword-swap to immobilize, torch4 out of the hotzone and wait a few seconds until they can do it all again.

Keep in mind that only mind wrack itself actually benefits from the lockdown in terms of damage though. I definitely agree that we should have a couple of people specced with mental torment for burst damage, but I’m not sure how much GS itself will actually add to that burst, since mirror blade is essentially a single target skill.

But it’s still quite the snipe. And probably also the safest option if whoever is our burst wants to hang behind the Chronomacer army looking for their opportunities.

Yeah, it’s certainly better damage, I just don’t know if a bit of single target damage is worth giving up staff. In any event, I definitely agree that we should running several glassier-geared people that are traited for shatter bursting.

Gav.1425:

I’m in. Let’s enjoy mes before our post HOT fun is nerfed back down.

Gotcha in, I’m looking forward to the fun as well. I’m banking on the fact that the devs appear to have been having fun making all the nifty stuff for chronomancer that they’ll be reluctant to turn around and nerf it into the ground.

Yakubyogami.7586:

No, what I am saying it that you are wrong. Period. I made that pretty clear, and you don’t need to be an English major to understand it.

Glad you were able to make that clear. Next time, try making the why clearer than the statement, and you might have more success.

Yakubyogami.7586:

Large ‘raid’ guilds share one theme: they treat games like jobs. It’s been that way forever. Room for error is minimal, gameplay is theorycrafted (something that you simply cannot apply support roles to) and most of the players have similar (or exact) builds.

This is very true. What is also true is that those builds and comps the guilds use are generally the very best possible to use. They’ve tried and tested everything, and settled on the best option.

Yakubyogami.7586:

Not everyone likes to get off work, go home and return to another job. Just because you have numbers to say X is better than Y does not mean it is.

Actually…yes it does. It doesn’t mean it’ll be more fun to play, or that you personally will enjoy it more, but it does mean it’ll perform better.

Yakubyogami.7586:

I have seen SO MANY groups fail because no one bothers to use tactics, support or even think.

You’re sounding a bit silly here. You appear to be operating under the assumption that the top dungeon running guilds fail to take any of that into consideration, when really the opposite is the case. A standard dungeon running comp not only has maximize dps, but plentiful access to condition removals, mob control, boon strip, and reflects. The key is that those by themselves aren’t good enough, you need dps with them.

Yakubyogami.7586:

And if DPS is the only factor then please explain to me why Guardians are so desirable in fractals. No, really, go ahead because their DPS can’t regularly match that of a Zerker Warrior, even if the Guard is Zerker themselves.

Guardians have extremely comparable damage to that of a zerker warrior, which has extremely comparable damage to that of a zerker ele. Mesmer, on the other hand…doesn’t have even close to comparable damage unless maintaining 3 phants. Obviously, as I’ve stated multiple times, dungeons do require various bits of utility and support. The key, as I’ve stated again multiple times, is that unless that utility comes with a ton of dps, it’s not worth taking.

Yakubyogami.7586:

Oh, and one final thing before I log off for the night… saying that only DPS classes and meta builds for said classes are relevant to play is a major insult to the designers that added classes that can heal, support, etc.

I think you might be on the wrong game forums. See, here’s the interesting thing about GW2 that makes it substantially different from all other MMOs: every class can dps, every class can support (necros are special). You seem to be confused about this fact, going on about support classes and heal classes and dps classes. GW2 is not WoW. If you want to whinge about the holy trinity of heal, dps, and tank…go back to WoW. The GW2 Holy trinity is dps, dps, and dps. Everyone dpses, and between the 5 people in a party, you get all the utility and support you need.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Zoser.7245:

I edited my previous message. I made a mistake, for some reason I did not realize that the shield’s phantasm bounces, so 900 range, I think.

Now, what I understand is that if you block, the phantasm is summoed at your current target and allow you to use Déja Vu, if you block again it summons another phantasm. Be aware that the complete rotation of both skills, with successful blocks, could overwrite two of your damage phantasms. Perhaps alacrity can help them to attack twice before die… but its damage is really low. Although it’s assumed that you should be compensated with the reduced recharge rate of the skills.

You get two blocks but you don’t get two phantasms. The phant summons on the cuff of either the first block, or at the end of the first blocks channel if the block isnt triggered.

It sounds to me like you do get 2 phantasms. Deja vu is the exact same skill, you just don’t get to use it a third time if you land the block.

Yakubyogami.7586:

1) Fay: I have played MMOs for 16 years (no, that is not a typo) and can tell you for a FACT that you are wrong. I could list a slew of reasons but honestly, my time is better spent doing less boring things.

Really now? So you’ve played MMOs for 16 years, and you’re trying to apply the PvE metas that existed in those games to the MMO that explicitly has removed the normal holy trinity from their game? Don’t make me laugh. There’s a good reason why DnT and all the other dungeon running guilds run absolutely maximum dps builds on every person in their group.

Yakubyogami.7586:

There will always be 2 types of people: those who treat a game like a job (do it as quickly and efficiently as possible) and play to inflate some sort of online ego while thinking others care about their ‘achievements’ or ‘power’, and those that play games to have fun and like to explore different facets/possibilities within a game. While these two types can co-exist, they are much like oil & water: they may blend when shaken hard enough but they never truly combine well

So basically what you’re saying in this paragraph is ’You’re right, but I don’t like to play efficiently, and so I’m going to pretend that you’re wrong’.

I honestly don’t have a problem with people that play inefficient builds in PvE…as long as they recognize that they’re playing an inefficient build, but play it anyway because of (insert reason here). What I dislike are people who come around and tout their builds as the apex of PvE performance, when really they’re just bad builds that they enjoy using.

Morfedel.4165:

So we should go ahead and remove a bunch of condis then. For example, chill obviously is worthless, because it isn’t damage, right? And maybe we should get rid of all the boons that dont do damage: protection, regeneration, aegis, blah blah blah.

Obviously all those things are important. But you know what’s more important? Dps. Prot and aegis are supplied mainly by guardians doing high dps. Eles do a lot of chill and regen….while doing top dps in the game. Yeah, all those things are important…but they’re brought by classes that already do a ton of dps.

Morfedel.4165:

And it’s funny. I just used phantasmal mage, PU, and phantasmal warden in a dungeon and ended up fighting a boss that slaughtered the rest of the group. Good group, bad timing this time around, something went wrong. The boss was injured, but not dead, Kept running around resurrecting group members while firing out phantasms. And it worked just fine.

So here’s the thing that you’re forgetting. Using a normal, non-awful dungeon build…you could have done literally the same thing. You could have run around picking up your teammates if necessary. However…if you had used a normal, non-awful dungeon build, you probably wouldn’t have had the fight go so badly. Using PU, phantasmal mage, and warden now and then means you were contributing marginally more dps than someone afk at the start of the dungeon. Your team carried you through every fight, with you contributing nothing other than ressing people that died.

Now, you can argue about how your ‘no dps but totally useful’ dungeon build is great until you’re blue in the face, but it’s not going to change the fact that you’re wrong. The dungeon meta is extremely locked into place right now. Many people have tried many things, and they’ve arrived at the best builds and comps. No matter how much you may not like it, dps is father, son, and holy ghost of this mmo trinity. If you don’t bring dps, you are a waste of a slot on a team.

Morfedel.4165:

maha.7902:

Morfedel.4165:

Thats funny. I do very well in pvp, wvw, and pve with my mesmer. yawn

that’s cool, how many times though have you seen death and taxes associated with wvw and pvp though?

yeah, that’s what I thought.

so how’s your wvw and pvp experience relevant to a thread discussing full phantasm uptime and the DPS it is capable of?

What you don’t get is that there are more to phantasms than just putting out damage.

And what you don’t get is that the only thing that matters in PvE is the damage.

Your zerker crippled mobs and put a couple stacks of no damage bleeds on it? Congratulations I guess…It’s not like the mobs are moving anyway, so cripple doesn’t do anything, and unless you’re specced into condie damage (hint: don’t do this), your bleeds do nothing.

If you’re using a PU phantasm build in PvE, you’re making an enormous mistake. There’s absolutely no content in this game that justifies traiting PU.

Lastly, I’ll just say this again: Nobody cares about what you’re doing if you can’t do damage. If you bring a ton of utility and no damage…too bad, you’re not worth a spot on a team. Mesmers have ‘just’ enough damage to scrape by and justify spots on a team because of the crazy things they can do with portal.

Morfedel.4165:

Honestly, I’m not the best memser around, but I do pretty darned good with it, so I’m tempted to say this is a l2p issue. Learn that the class is more than just pumping out dps.

The main mistake you’re making here is coming into a thread discussing mesmer damage in dungeons and thinking that your open world PvE, PvP, and WvW experience have more than zero bearing on it. Can mesmer do a lot more than purely pump out dps? Sure they can. Does anyone care in dungeons? Not really. If you can’t pump out the dps while doing other things, then you’re dead weight on the team. They could bring a guardian instead, since guardians do most of what mesmers do and have high dps at the same time.

Edit: It’s also amusing that you’re telling maha that he should l2p mesmer better. He’s been one of the best (if not always the most diplomatic) PvE mesmers for probably longer than you’ve played this game.

On-target placement allows you to ignore line of sight and place it through walls and behind and doors and stuff. Ground targeting would eliminate this.

garland.5193:

Sign me up! This’ll give me an excuse to level another Mesmer.

Gotcha, glad to have you on board.

rhapsody.3615:

Why not start now?! The most fun I’ve had in wvw, and quite possibly the entire game, was when my old wvw guild had a mesmer night. We had at least 20 mesmers, and I’m pretty sure we confused the heck out of the other servers.

I have an alt account that I would love to do this with, just have to delete my level one characters and transfer again, lol. (But I really think you should start doing this meow!)

Well, we really do lack an enormous amount of utility and abilities that we’ll be getting in the future that will really make the ideas here work, and work well. We’ll be getting tons more aoe, tons more lockdown abilities, lots of utility options that we don’t have now, and probably some others I don’t remember.

That being said, if there are enough crazy people willing to try right now, I’d be crazy enough to try and drive it.

Windwalker.7421:

Actually I believe they stated in the video that the F5 shatter specifically, and choosing Chronomancer in general too IIRC, will disable some existing abilities for balancing reasons.

I don’t recall them saying that at all, I’m fairly certain people have just been speculating on that. If you could find where they said that in the video, I’d be appreciative.

frifoxy.6014:

In ANet’s eyes, a class with excellent array of amazing utility (debatable) surpassing other classes dps even if only under ideal conditions, is a big no no…

This would make more sense if the full depth and breadth of mesmer utility was actually needed in dungeons.

Also, would be cool if they didn’t keep nerfing reflects. Seems like every time I enter a dungeon, something I used to be able to reflect just ignores it.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Coefficients didn’t change (except Ranger runes getting nerfed), but this thread looks like a worldwide revelation about mesmer in PvE. ><"

I was actually under the impression that with all 3 phantasms up mesmer had slightly higher dps than most classes. This shows that even with all 3 up (which is only possible on maybe 10% of encounters in the game) mesmer only just evens out.

frifoxy.6014:

Knowing ANet, they won’t simply buff the burn/poison stacking and confusion ticking without nerfind something else in return. My hopes they leave the dmg coefficients untouched but there is a pretty good chance they won’t…

They’d have to do a PvE/PvP split if they didn’t touch damage coefficients. Stacking current damage burns in PvP would be 12 types of broken.

Tealots.6095:

I think that with the amount of chronomancers that we will have (and all that kittening alacrity), there will be a ton of “inactive” clustered enemies. Two team raid members running GS shatter can make excellent use of the Mirror Blade + Blink + Mindwrack combo (I can only imagine this with mental torment). From there, they can sword-swap to immobilize, torch4 out of the hotzone and wait a few seconds until they can do it all again.

Keep in mind that only mind wrack itself actually benefits from the lockdown in terms of damage though. I definitely agree that we should have a couple of people specced with mental torment for burst damage, but I’m not sure how much GS itself will actually add to that burst, since mirror blade is essentially a single target skill.

Curunen.8729:

Pyro – why don’t you create a regional list in the OP for those interested? Seems like there’s a fair few here interested in an EU initiative alongside an NA group.

I am thinking about server transfer, but trouble is playtime (I don’t usually go beyond 10pm gmt/bst during weekdays/working days, and weekends can be sporadic) and concerns with lag/ping.

I’ll definitely keep a list of folks who are looking to do it on the EU side. The main issue with EU is that I’m not going to be able to drive raids both on NA and EU, so the EU side will need another crazy person willing to drive this.

Korusef.3714:

Count me in
Btw. why are you worried about Chaos line cooldowns?
Zerg with Tides of Time will recharge the Chaos Storm instantly.

Catching a tides of time that you threw will reduce the cooldown of that skill by 10 seconds. It doesn’t have an effect on other skills.

fluxit.8247:

I was under the impression that the new PU 100% trait only affected the mesmer. I’m confused. I can’t wait for them to finish balancing everything and release the final traits for each class so we can get a better idea of what we’re working with.

Assuming it works the same way as now, only a mesmer with PU traited will gain boons. However, PU will affect all outgoing stealth durations, causing MI to apply increased duration stealth.

fluxit.8247:

So if everyone were to run sword/shield and the main focus of our strategy would be to cc the enemy to death we would really have to come together and train to sync and coordinate our CCs. This strategy won’t be as effective if everyone spams their cc’s whenever they feel like it or if we all just blow our cds at the same time.

Yeah, for sure. Since 20 people split nicely into 4 parties, a 4 party rotation of CC is probably the best way to accomplish it.

fluxit.8247:

If our coordination were really good, we could drop one portal at the beginning, charge and purposefully get caught in an initial static. Then the enemy commander calls “Yes! All damage here!” Necros drop their wells, eles drop their meteors and ice bows and just as the hammer train leaps in, we stun break and blink to their backline destroying all their squishy damage dealers, then portalling back to safety when the job is done. Perhaps this strategy might be too difficult to coordinate but wouldn’t it be grand.

You can easily adapt that in a slightly simpler way though. Just drop one portal every time you move to engage. If you do end up getting caught, you have a perfect escape route for everyone in the group, and then you can regroup and engage right after they’ve burnt a bunch of cooldowns.

fluxit.8247:

I think as a strategy, focusing too much on stealth is not good. The only effective use of stealth I think would be if we find ourselves too scattered or in need of a reset, 2 mass invisibilities would allow us breathing room to gather back onto the driver. Stealthing in for the element of surprise is sometimes useful but a group that has their whits about them will just back away until we unstealth. A group that blindly charges into the enemy without knowing where they are would be killed just as easily without stealth IMO.

Generally I agree with this, which is why my original plan calls for just 2 people running MI.

That being said, having the group literally be perma-stealthed until we pop out and engage on someone is quite appealing. It’s not that groups wouldn’t know exactly where we are, they wouldn’t even know that we’re on the map until they’re getting steamrolled. It might not work out quite as well in reality, but it sure sounds fun to try.

fluxit.8247:

But alas in group pvp it’s not always about individuals pumping out the best damage they can, but about coordinated damage spikes, focusing everyone’s damage in a single area so greatswords might not be needed. If we find our groups damage isn’t enough (although I doubt it) the previous paragraph might be something to think about.

Yeah, this is generally how I’ve been seeing it. At least for starting, everyone runs staff + sw/shield. As we go, it may turn out that we can drop a couple people into gs spiking builds because we don’t need quite that much CC, but that’s a decision that can be made later.

Kaamau.5341:

This might just be my reason to come back to the game!

I used to be a WvW raider till my guild died, and I have always been interested in an all Mesmer raiding team and I’m currently on FA. I’m most definitely interested.

Burakkurozu

Good to hear it, I’ll mark you down.

selan.8354:

serenke.4806:

If you are having problems in the silverwastes, maybe take a look at your build/playstyle and adjust accordingly. You don’t need staff-spamming or anything like that.

playstyle has nothing really to do with it. I dont use my mes in pve as mesmer in the current state is a 1v1 duelist. we lack aoe and many of our traits rely on the opponent to attack us or so like with confusion.confusion worked great in wvw but in pve was not viable at all. same with clone deat trais. most of the mobs are highly resistant to condis. our main dps comes from phantasma that die in aoe. thats why im much better off using my war to farm. easy mode u run in button mesh and u collect the loot. as mesmer u stay our u try to hit mobs but until your phantasm reached or the shatter happened they are allready all dead cause the warriors have killed the mobs .

Yo Selan: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Announcing-the-OMFG-WvW-Division/first#post5037415

Dabrixmgp.4758:

Is this one of those things that will be cool for a week or two then die out? I would be willing to buy a transfer but not if this is just a fad. I have been wanting to main my Mesmer for some time now and would love to learn from seeing a lot of them in battle.

I fully intend on driving this raid as long as there are still people that want to run.

Sebrent.3625:

Just saying … why even let them stack up stability when you can pop out of stealth fully loaded with boons and stunlock them with shields of death :-p

This is pretty much exactly what I have in mind, though more from a temporary stealth for engage perspective than a permastealthed mesmer zerg.

…that’s a scary thought.

Curunen.8729:

Did he/his guild quit gw2? Would have been the perfect guinea pigs for this kind of thing.

Yeah, he’s moved on to star citizen, and his guild has mostly scattered. That reminds me though, I should contact Selan, she’d be all over this idea.+

Edit: The more I roll the concept of permastealthed mesmer zerg around the more I like it. That might have to become a thing.

Quadox.7834:

Every mesmer

Citation needed.

Loboling.5293:

Like a lot of people, I still haven’t settled on a class for HoT.

However I want to make a suggestion on a funny strategy. Call it “Gopher Up”. Have everyone scatter and drop portals, the zerg then moves from portal to portal that are scattered everywhere. Looking like the old game of whack a mole. It would be funny to hear, and funny to watch. Good luck with your group, and I hope I get to see it. (I’m on FA too)

Sebrent.3625:

Apparently Team Legacy did that during WvW against a very organized guild group at one time as a counter to their deathball tactic as the deathball could never run over the Team Legacy zerg as it kept porting around … back when there wasn’t a limit.

I actually believe that the first group to do this was Kylia’s guild Avatar. I’m trying to remember the deathball zerg guild, but I can’t quite remember it. They were always rather suspected of using a botting program due to the compactness of the deathball.

Tealots.6095:

Now I understand. My main theory is that when you have a group of people all playing the same build on the same class, whatever the weakness is of that group will become VERY apparent. Diversity is usually the remedy (even if a little bit).

Normally I agree quite wholeheartedly with this statement. In this case though, I’ve been drawing a blank on what exactly the weakness is. The main weakness I’ve identified is if the group ends up getting steamrolled by a stability-laden hammertrain, and the solution to that would be more cc/boonstrip.

Tealots.6095:

Even if one or two, the AoE from Mental Torment, Master of Fragmentation and the fact that everyone has IP now could probably down some people very quickly.

You’re right about this though. When the majority of an enemy group is in the high-amped realm of the mental torment trait, shatter spike will be very potent. It may well be worth having a couple people running a more shatter focused traitset, even if they still bring staff for it.

Tealots.6095:

Can I ask why everyone should be running Chrono/Chaos? And those weapons specifically? Obviously the shield comes with the Chrono line, but you don’t think you may want two or three people to be dedication to spike damage? Downing outliers and the like?

Primarily because I’m not worried about outliers. If this group wipes, it’ll be due to getting smushed by a hammer train, not because of a couple stray people. To that effect, the more group cc and defense (both of which staff provides) we can pump out, the harder it’ll be for a hammer train to run us over. Every chaos storm provides more aegis and lockdown for everyone in the area, and that’s a massive defensive (and offensive) bonus.

It may end up being the case that we can afford to have a couple people running some spike builds for a bit of focused damage, but it’s not a necessity for a group.

Dondagora.9645:

How about Temporal Glamours? Feedback is pretty strong against zergs, and the cross-map mobility can be useful. Plus, combine it with Veil and we’ll be able to close gaps and blitz easily. Of course, not all the time, but more so an option to switch to for certain situations

Temporal glamours could be a good choice for the people running null field. I’m actually not a huge fan of feedback though. I’ve used it a lot in big groups, and it’s just incredibly unreliable in terms of what you get out of it. I feel that tides of time will be plenty of projectile mitigation.

lujate.5432:

OMG! I guess i need to get my second account moved to FA and get a new Mesmer leveled.

How would a Mesmer zerg deal with CC? Stability is not our strong suit.

Dondagora.9645:

I feel like we’ll just be trying to avoid it. We’ll all probably have a stun break, the rest we’ll try to avoid fields with our stealth and blinks. Though, if nothing else, we can break through CC fields with Distortion and easily bait CC out of the opponents with Continuum.

Yeah, so basically I’ve got a couple thoughts on that.

Firstly, whenever we engage, we’ll leave a portal behind us. If we really get smashed on, we can open up that portal and pull an instant and complete disengage.

We’ll have a least 1 person with the stab mantra in each party, and this will provide a pretty solid buffer of stability. Enough of a buffer for us to initiate a lockdown, at which point further stability shouldn’t be too necessary.

Most of the time, I’m anticipating an engage from stealth, potentially even using blink to gap close while in stealth. If executed properly, we should be able to get the jump on groups a lot of the time, avoiding the whole issue in the first place.

skcamow.3527:

1. Cleave/Rez protection. We could have part of our contingent save tides of time specifically for this, otherwise without large stability access I can see us having a really tough time. Mantra of concentration, Bountiful Disillusionment and/or Illusionary Inspiration is going to be important.

Yeah, probably having 2 or 3 people saving the majority of their CC just in the event of people needing resses will be a good idea. Generally though I’m not too worried about it. If we’re CCing the rest of their group effectively, ressing shouldn’t be all that dangerous.

skcamow.3527:

1. Damage. We’re going to need to really think this one through because with so much utility we’ll need to sustain ourselves, I’m thinking damage may suffer a bit. Between our shatters and hard cc I’m hoping enemy stability won’t be too much of an issue so we should be able to wreck with interrupts/Power Block. I’m really loving the idea of Imbued Diversion and the other merged traits in master of fragmentation as well. Should be decent in this group.

This is really the one thing that I’m most concerned about. Chaos storm certainly does good damage, I think tides of time will do solid damage, and we’ll be able to do a lot of shatter comboing for solid damage. Well of calamity is a bit of an unknown as of yet. We know it does some damage, but it’s hard to say really how much. I think that once you put everything together with damage on interrupts and such it’ll be enough, but this is definitely what I’m least confident about.

@fluxit: Let me lay out the specifics of what I’ve been thinking.

The reason for 20 people is that it’s a really nice number. It’s big enough to reasonably take on the larger zergs that roll around, but small enough to fit through a portal. Since there’s still upwards 3.5 months before this raid will actually roll into action, I’m fairly confident that we can gather up 20 mesmers for the cause.

Weapons

Every Mesmer uses sword+shield/staff. There’s a couple reasons for this, so I’ll take it by weapon.

Staff provides a number of big things. First, the staff trait causes chaos armor to apply protection. This means permanent protection for everyone in the group, along with the massive damage reduction that chaos armor causes due to blinds. Chaos storm is an incredible aoe that does interrupts, nasty conditions, and strong damage. The damage from a chaos storm is almost the same as the damage from an iZerker spin. Additionally, chaos storm provides a bunch of aegis, which is another important defensive boon. Lastly, with the staff trait and chaos armor, chaos storm will be on a ~15 second cooldown; comparable to that of iZerker.

To summarize, chaos storm and staff contain literally everything that the group needs. Interrupts, control conditions, strong defensive boons, and good damage.

It might end up being worthwhile to have a couple people run greatsword, but it’s going to be hard to beat what staff provides.

Now for the shield, this is pretty straightforward. Tired of time is an infinite target stun. The importance of this can’t be over stressed. From what we’ve seen in the videos, it also appears to do some rather decent damage. On top of all that, it’s also a projectile barrier and provides quickness. I really can’t think of any solid reasons to take focus over shield in this type of group composition. The fact that the phantasm is 2 blocks and provides the slow condition is just icing on the cake.

Elites

My thought is that 18/20 people will take gravity well, and the last 2 will trait PU and take MI. Since MI has a 10 target limit, 2 mesmers can stealth 2 people. With the PU stealth duration boost and the potential to double up with F5, that should be all the stealth we need.

Gravity well is an obviously strong choice, but so is time warp. In this case though, since Tides of Time will be providing a bunch of quickness, I think time warp might end up being superfluous, and more cc+damage will be better.

Utilities

My thought is that everyone runs blink and well of calamity. The choice of blink is pretty clear. The well of calamity is going to be our main aoe sustained damage. It also pulses cripple and weakness, which are fantastic control and defense conditions. Additionally, it’s an ethereal field, which means more chaos armor.

The last utility will vary. I was thinking something along these lines per party (4 parties):

1 stab mantra
1 condie cleanse mantra and heal mantra with mender’s purity
1 well (probably alacrity well, but perhaps not)
1 glamour (2 portals, 2 null fields)

This spread provides pretty much everything we need: stab, cleanse, boon strip, portals, and whatever utility we need from more wells.

Traits
I was thinking 3 main trait sets: frontline, backline, and support. These all take chrono and chaos, and then the last line would vary.

The backline would be taking domination. They’d grab all the interrupt traits, so power block, CI, and maybe even FI and CS. When they unload their interrupts, it should stop the group in its tracks.

The frontline would be going tanky shatter dps.i was thinking possibly inspiration for these folks, picking up shattered conditions, restorative illusions, and mender’s purity. This keeps them alive and kicking, and should be tanky enough for a frontline.

The supports will sorta have to vary depending on what they’re doing. This is the part I’ve sorta thought the least about.

All of this is open to discussion for sure, this is just my original vision and thoughts on how this composition can work effectively.

trado.2571:

This sounds really fun, too bad it’s only for NA (i might transfer my other account to get into this :p). Definetly make sure to record it when you do the raid ^^

Remember that we won’t start raiding for several months yet, plenty of time to get some transfer money or figure out what you want to do.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Anyway, I wish I could join, but I’m in NSP. Good thing is we don’t face super size zergs, generally roaming squads. Maybe its good for raiding?

Feel free to transfer over to FA when the time comes

Ross Biddle.2367:

With a 20 man guild raid it might be most effective to play in tandom to a regular force in a sort of hammer/anvil motif. That way a standard friendly force could push their melee train, and you could drop a guild sized CC effort to disrupt and hold the enemy in place. That’d also allow the mes team to use the melee as an object to kite around (would suck to get one pushed by a superior sized force).

I’ve considered this. I’m fairly certain that from a numbers perspective, we shouldn’t need another group to lockdown even a fairly large opposing force, given that we use our mobility and stealth for a proper opening attack. It certainly would be handy to do though. The main reason for picking 20 people is because 20 people fit through a portal, and that’s a large component of rapid mobility for an engage on a bigger group.

Ponyboy.6145:

Holy amaze-OMFG-balls… this is the most exciting things ever! Will you be driving on OMFG or FA ts? I’m envisioning choreographed portal bombing, multiple parties blasting unsuspecting guilds with Tides of Time from every direction, and then reigning Chaos.

Count me in!

My character name is Orywwn and I’ll join and help out however I can.

That’s more or less what I’ve been thinking of myself. Good to count you in.

If everyone that would like to join could post general weekly availabilities, that would help me enormously, thanks.

Dondagora.9645:

And, on that note, how do you plan we deal with the “pirate ship” meta people are always crying about? We have Distortion, so that’s something, but we might want something more to be able to break through CC wards. Maybe use Signet trait in Domination for more Distortion, or perhaps stun-break mantra[which’ll help the whole squad].

It’s difficult to get a full raid through a choke that’s being sieged up. It’s easy for one stealthed mesmer carrying a portal to get through. This isn’t usually done because there’s not usually a mesmer able to do that, but it’s quite easy with PU and blink. Once one person is through, everyone is through.

@fluxit:

Sounds good, I’ll mark you down. What times during the week will you be available? Keep in mind that this raid won’t launch until HoT, which likely is coming in late august.

What is the OMFG WvW Division?

The OMFG WvW division will be an organized, 20 person WvW raiding group composed entirely of mesmers. We will be running designated build compositions designed to fit into the idea and theme behind the function of the group.

What is the goal of the OMFG WvW Division?

The ultimate goal is to have fun. That being said, I’ve generally observed that having fun as a direct correlation with winning. Therefore, the direct goal of this group is to win.

Who will be the driver?

The driver will be myself.

What qualifications does this driver have?

I have no idea what I’m doing. Additionally, I’m certifiably insane.

When will the OMFG WvW Division raid?

Raid times will be determined based on general availability of those that would like to join. We’ll initially try to start with 2-3 raids per week, increasing based on interest and availability. Due to limitations on current Mesmer capabilities, raids won’t begin until after the release of HoT.

What server will the OMFG WvW Division raid on?

I’m currently located on the Fort Aspenwood server. A decent number of other OMFG mesmers are on this server with me, but I’m open to the possibility of a transfer if a convincing argument can be made.

What is the idea and theme behind the function of the group?

The general principle is that of being able to unload enough cc (with judicious boon stripping) onto an enemy zerg that they can be interrupted, locked down, and killed even through stability. In order to do this, we’ll need utility and options that unfortunately won’t be available until the HoT release. My purpose in announcing the raid this early is to allow for plentiful theorycrafting and organization so that we can begin raiding soon after the release of HoT.

How will you accomplish this lockdown of a zerg?

There are several main elements to the amount of control necessary to do this, but it comes in 3 main packages.

The first is shield 5: Tides of Time. This skill is an infinite target attack that stuns all enemies it passes through. If 20 mesmers use this through a group at the same time, this skill alone will chew through more than the amount of stability stacks that most groups have. Additionally, it hits twice per cast; once out and once in.

The second is a tool that we all know well: Chaos storm. Normally chaos storm is limited to being a nice aoe to toss out now and then. However, this changes with the upcoming trait revamp. The staff trait allows us to potentially lower the cooldown of chaos storm (assuming the 5% cd per pulse remains) to 12.72 seconds with permanent upkeep of chaos armor. In a full group of mesmers, permanent chaos armor upkeep won’t be much of a problem. This means that every Mesmer in the group will be able to drop a chaos storm roughly once every 15 seconds. Combined with stun walls moving through an enemy zerg, 20 chaos storms dropped on every single movement is devastating.

The last is tool is Gravity Well. This is the elite well that we’ve seen teased in the Chronomancer information. It is a 5 target aoe skill that pulses a pull towards the center of the well 3 times in a row before delivering some sort of a stronger cc (noted that the current effect may change) with the last pulse. Each gravity well is 4 separate hits of hard cc. Assuming an opposing group of 50 people, each enemy will be hit by 2 wells at any given time, for a total of 8 hits of cc to each person over the duration of the well.

Lastly, since every Mesmer in this group will be specced into chronomancy, take everything and double it, just for fun.

Will somebody still be a veilbot?

No. Nobody in the group will need to be running veil. Every person will be contributing in a meaningful way to the damage and lockdown of the raid.

How will this group accomplish defense and survive being hit?

The entire group will have close to 100% uptime on chaos armor. With that much chaos armor, roughly 50% flat damage mitigation is achieved purely from blinds. Additionally, mesmers using condition removal mantras, mender’s purity, and stability mantras will be dispersed through the group to give us a bit of resistance in the face of an attack.

If you have any questions about this initiative, or would like to join/help out, either toss me a PM on the forums, reply to this thread, or PM me in game.

Edit: If you’re on EU and are unwilling/unable to transfer to NA for this but still want to participate, speak up in this thread. I’ll keep track of people in this situation and if there’s enough interest, do my best to organize a similar raid in the EU region.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

I’m surprised no one mentioned chronomancer’s signature shield, too dark for people’s taste?

http://i.imgur.com/3IfAbMz.jpg

Not nearly enough purple.

luna.1308:

So for sure there isn’t in pvp? Thats what i was telling him.

There is no ICD in any game mode whatsoever. Honestly, this is really easy to test out yourself with a willing partner.

Alasteir.7031:

Ultimately, all I can hope for is that HoT changes the Mesmer enough to be more of a presence in WvW, besides being a portal/veil bot.

Oh, it will. Stay tuned…

There is no ICD on any interrupt trait other than Furious Interruption.