Guild Wars 2

Here’s the build: http://goo.gl/pBgg0.

Exclusively for small group or solo roaming in WvW, this build suffers pretty bad in sPvP – no condition duration food bonus – and does very little damage in PvE – still has strong support, so it’s far from the worst choice, but you should probably bring something else.

Quick run-down for those too lazy, busy, or what-have-you to look through the link…

Staff (Battle) and Scepter (Battle)/Torch (Smoldering).
Apothecary armor and trinkets, 2x Mad King/2x Water/2x Lyssa for runes.
0/0/20/30/20 with IV/X in Chaos, IV/X/XII in Inspiration, and V/VII in Illusions.
Rare Veggie Pizza and Master Tuning Crystal for buffs.

Utilities change based on what you’re doing. Mantra of Recovery is always your heal spell, MI nearly always your Elite, and I hardly – if ever – take Mantra of Pain off my bar.

Good Overall Utilities: Mantra of Pain, Blink, Decoy, Mirror Images, Feedback.
Good Solo Roaming Utilities: Signet of Domination, Phantasmal Defender, Mantra of Resolve, Arcane Thievery.
Good Group Roaming Utilities: Veil, Portal, Null Field, Phantasmal Disenchanter.

If roaming by myself I’m usually taking MoP, Phantasmal Defender, and Signet of Domination. Group stuff is more complicated and depends a lot on the group, but again I usually have MoP.

Pros of this build…
1) Very difficult to kill. 1800 toughness, 18,000 health, 1300 healing power. Reduced overall damage. Permanent regeneration. Constant large heals from charging Mantras and shattering.
2) Lots and lots of DoT. High condition duration with several steady methods of applying conditions. High up-time on retaliation and chaos armor. Even confusion is good here because your opponent simply cannot afford to give you a lengthy time to heal back up.
3) Excellent small group support. Constant AoE regeneration and healing. Lots of boons with staff clones, Chaos Storm, and boon duration. And, of course, general Mesmer utility with Veil/Portal/reflection.

Cons of the build…
1) Incapable of chasing. You may not lose any fights, but plenty of people will just run away from you.
2) No burst. You can spike confusion but only bad players will proc it needlessly with lots of stacks on them, so the point is kind of moot.
3) No direct damage. Your power and precision are pitiful and you’re running Staff/Scepter. Don’t expect to see big numbers on your auto-attacks.
4) Not amazing at cleansing. You shouldn’t go down to condition builds because you have a fairly consistent cleanse on MoR and a huge array of healing methods, but it is still worth mentioning.

Anyways. Discuss if you wish, hopefully this can become even more refined in the future.

My advice?

Stick with Berserker gear. Trait Focus and grab Feedback in a utility slot. Snipe people from range while reflecting all the projectiles. You’ll do fine and be more useful than just the ranged damage you bring.

20 points in Inspiration also gives you regen/retal on Phantasms, which is very nice both for supporting and tagging with retal.

Reflecting projectiles and retal will get you the bags you want.

Not sure what to do with the other 50 trait points. I personally don’t do a ton of Zerg stuff with my Mesmer, so all I can give you is the basics on that. I would expect 20 points in Domination is pretty standard, but I’m not positive if it’s really worth it to go deep into Illusions for shattering if you never get a chance to do so properly in large groups.

Similar to something I’ve started using in PvP lately. My build goes for 10/0/15/30/15, and the only thing I really miss from Trickery is Bountiful Theft – which you really should take if you’re going that deep in Trickery.

My only real question, then, is why you wouldn’t go for a different off-set and for 15 points in Shadow Arts over the last 15 in Trickery. I’ve found my Initiative management to be a lot better with 15 in Shadow Arts, and I thoroughly enjoy the ability to swap to SB or D/P for either some burst or some range partway through fights.

Eh. Charging duration isn’t really a huge problem with Mantras.

I do like the charging time being below three seconds so you can charge entirely within the base duration of most of our stealth skills, but if you make it too low it will fail to fix any of the biggest problems with Mantras, remove what makes them unique as a skill, and push the potential AOE healing over the top.

If you ask me they should just add three seconds of Swiftness on beginning to charge a Mantra, either straight up as part of how Mantras work, as a replacement for a low level trait, or as an addition to Restorative or Protected Mantras.

Would prefer (2) to be generic condition duration, (4) to be confusion duration, and (6) to be your four with a much lower CD, but adding only a single stack for three seconds.

Considering Nightmare are the only runes as of the moment that add condition damage and condition duration, these would both fill a niche and be very solid for helping out the Mesmer in particular. Possible it would shut down some bursty mult-hit builds a tad hard, i.e. 100B Warrior, but that only really requires a change to the (6) to fix.

Staff and Sword/Focus isn’t bad, either, it just requires a very different setup.

I know that’s what I usually run when I’m doing PvE, but my PvE setup is quite strange.

Regardless, I’d say the most well-rounded Mesmer weapons are Staff, GS, and Sword/Focus, particularly in PvE and when traited for – Focus and Staff, particularly. Any combination of those will probably do well.

Staff is great defense and utility, so you certainly wouldn’t have any trouble with running both.

Sword scales much better with Power, though, and allows you to run either Focus or Pistol while having nearly as much defensive strength with Blurred Frenzy.

Also, Focus is amazing in PvE, so if that’s what you’re going for you’ll probably be happier just abusing the fact that iWarden will often get all of its hits on several mobs if used properly. Traiting makes it much better, as well, but even without traiting it is probably the highest DPS weapon skill we have for PvE.

Mesmer is not overpowered.

Is it possible that it’s the best class in the game, particularly at dueling? Yeah, sure.

Does it permeate and dominate the game at any level of play? No, it does not.

As to Blurred Frenzy, which is really the only skill you’ve been able to make a solid argument about for being too strong, you really need to look at what else MH Sword does. It can…

1) Perform a lackluster auto-attack.

2) Generate melee clones that die instantly to enemy auto-attacks.

3) Close a gap and immobilize its target. If it doesn’t bug out, which is another topic.

Of those, the only particularly useful thing is Illusionary Leap. Let’s compare to, say, Thief Sword in a Pistol Whip build…

1) More damage. By quite a lot.

2) Gets you in and out again, without having to swap weapons.

3) Shorter invulnerability.

4) Less reliable cripple.

5) Innate condition removal.

Assuming you’re playing against anyone who knows what they’re doing, there are very few cases where you’re going to be being focused for the entire duration of Blurred Frenzy. Opponents will, instead, simply wait until it drops and try to immediately nuke you afterwards, particularly if they know your Distortion is on CD.

Sure, it’ll help you take AOE in big fights without worrying, and silly people will blow CDs on you, but really you can count on it to negate maybe one second of actual damage.

Sword in a Thief build gives you a shorter duration invulnerability. Obviously not as good in most situations, but for the reasons above is still pretty close overall, and it has way more damage attached to it, more mobility, and a built-in condition removal.

So what’s this about Blurred Frenzy being broken again? Sure, if you tacked the skill onto another weapon it might be very silly, but MH Sword itself is pretty much only useful for closing gaps and using Blurred Frenzy. Even its damage is pretty bad, and is only made worse for the fact that Mesmer cannot take prolonged melee engagements without blowing a handful of fairly long CDs.

TBH, I don’t know if that particular argument holds water, but you’re doing something very classic when it comes to claiming something is ‘too strong’ – you’re taking a single element of a larger design and comparing it to a single element of some other large design. Sure, Blurred Frenzy can be considered stronger Pistol Whip in a vacuum, but that doesn’t make it overpowered because you can’t just substitute Blurred Frenzy for Pistol Whip.

tl;dr – You really need to rethink how you’re comparing things. Could you be right? Sure. Is your main argument an atrocious pile that I have no trouble dismissing for pretty straightforward reasons? Yes, yes it is.

As I would expect.

MoR, of course, has the huge drawback of needing to channel it, but you also get three triggers of all on-heal abilities, which can be quite nice with, say, Runes of Altruism or Mender’s Purity.

Embolism beat me to the punch.

Regardless, as he states, near-constant 250 toughness and AOE healing makes MoP far from a ‘weak’ utility choice when traited properly, and it only gets better with additional Mantras because the damage can be activated while you’re charging them.

In fact, if they added a second damaging Mantra on a low CD I could see Mantras becoming too powerful, as you could simply cycle through them while providing good DPS, constant AOE healing, and a free 250 toughness. Topic for somewhere else, if at all, but still an interesting thought.

I can definitely see where you’re coming from with 2 and 3, particularly in sPvP.

My experience comes almost entirely from WvW, where I can use pizza to get condition duration to 50%, covering ground is more important, and iDefender is good but, I would think, not quite as good because of the prevalence of encounters where numbers are heavily weighted one way or the other.

Somewhat similar to a Mantra/Phantasm build I’ve run in the past. Some points…

1) If you drop Torch for Pistol and go 5 more points into Inspiration – probably dropping 5 out of Illusions – you might get more mileage out of your second set. No ability to stealth charge, but the stun/daze from Magic Bullet in combination with the pressure of damage from iDuelist may make up for it, particularly since you can heal him throughout the fight if they don’t bring him down immediately.

2) You might consider switching your runes to something like Lyssa. While you may not be speccing for condition damage, you definitely want your conditions to add more pressure and stick around for more damage from iWarlock. Even the slight 10% bonus from Lyssa will help with that, and you’ll get both the same precision as well as the six rune benefit which is quite nice for practically resetting fights with Mass Invisibility.

Almost certainly much better with Pistol and iDuelist for keeping the bleeds on, but still very useful if you’re going for two Staff clones with iWarlock.

3) Defender is good, but you might want to consider taking Portal or Blink in many situations. Both of them allow you more mobility without breaking your charging, and are just generally very good as well.

Only two real points/questions, as I’ve been running around with a similar build that has a slightly more offensive focus…

1) Feedback deserves a slot or mention somewhere. There are a great number of cases where it outclasses Arcane Thievery, Decoy, and/or Blink.

To be fair, it only really outshines any of these in larger group situations, but it is important to be able to transition at least somewhat when it is necessary to do so.

2) Have you considered Debilitating Dissipation? It is now also properly affected by condition duration, and a combination of Mirror Images, Decoy, Deceptive Evasion, and proper use of Staff/Sword can allow you to very, very quickly hit the bleed cap in many situations.

Again, also fairly good in large group situations, as often when you shatter your illusions will end up running close enough to get dropped and apply the conditions without getting close enough to shatter properly.

Focus is excellent in most situations, with Pistol being my secondary choice.

Focus has the AOE interrupt, huge AOE damage if the enemy stays next to Warden for the full duration, and can be traited to give you near-constant projectile reflection.

Pistol is only really useful against some specific bosses and other enemies where Warden dies too quickly and you need as many hits as possible.

A good example of this is the Molten Facility bosses. Illusions in general aren’t great there because of the huge number of AOEs, but iWarden dies particularly quickly in melee range of Berserker and isn’t reliable at hitting Firestorm. Duelist, on the other hand, spawns right next to you, so you can help it avoid the AOEs right in the beginning, and hits enough times to help significantly when removing Enrage stacks on the enemy you’re not focusing throughout the fight.

Embolism.8106:

Random conditions and boons are part of the chaos aspect of the Mesmer, represented by the Staff and the Chaos trait line. It is not the core of Mesmer design.

Since there was ever a point where I said random boons/conditions was the core of Mesmer design, as opposed to simply a large portion of it, hence the word ‘mainstay’…?

Regardless. This isn’t an argument, you won’t win it any harder by misrepresenting what I am saying, and it’s not even particularly on topic.

More on topic, I think we can all agree that Scepter needs to get reworked so it has more focus, most likely on being a ranged one-handed weapon focused on condition damage. I’d ideally also like to see a ranged one-handed power weapon introduced as well to help fill a gap, but Scepter should definitely be reworked first.

jportell.2197:

Fuschia.6573:

jportell.2197:

No randoms.

Random conditions are a mainstay of Mesmer design, and are actually very powerful when mixed with condition duration – one skill can stack several different conditions, each of which needs to be cleansed separately.

So, yeah, I’m in favor of more random conditions, as they are both fitting and, in some ways, more powerful.

This is why everyone says the staff AA is so great? The problem with randoms is usually RNG is not in our favor (staff stacking nothing but vulnerability when you want fire/bleeds.) Which brings me to the point of staff already pumps out random conditions… Give the scepter confusion somewhere in its AA…. Why? Because now when specced right all skills in scepter torch cause or have the potential to cause confusion… This would solidify its role.

The last thing mesmers need is even MORE RNG in their skills.
EDIT: random conditions aren’t a mainstay of Mesmer design… They are a mainstay of the staff on the Mesmer. Every other weapon we have does only specific conditions…

A handful of things you have wrong…

1) I never stated Scepter shouldn’t get a consistent condition. One is good, and confusion is the proper one since it fits well with Mesmer class design.

2) I never said Staff AA was great, I said that condition duration with a skill that can quickly stack multiple conditions can be excellent because of the difficulty of cleansing each condition in turn.

Is Staff AA great with condition duration? Yes, it is. Does this necessarily mean Staff AA is great? No, no it does not.

I, personally, love Staff AA now that condition duration works with illusions, but we’ll have to see whether or not the numbers work out well or not before I can comment on how strong it is.

3) RNG is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at critical hits – they’re RNG and are incorporated into every class. RNG is a bad thing when there is too much of it, and a limitation to 2-4 conditions/boon when gaining a ‘random’ condition/boon is not at that point.

I would agree with you, however, if ‘random’ really meant ‘random’ and chose from all boons/conditions, as this gives you no reliable effect.

4) Random conditions and boons are a mainstay of Mesmer design. Staff auto-attack, Chaos Storm, Chaos Armor, Signet of Inspiration, Bountiful Interruption, Debilitating Dissipation, Chaotic Interruption…

jportell.2197:

No randoms.

Random conditions are a mainstay of Mesmer design, and are actually very powerful when mixed with condition duration – one skill can stack several different conditions, each of which needs to be cleansed separately.

So, yeah, I’m in favor of more random conditions, as they are both fitting and, in some ways, more powerful.

If you ask me they need to split things up.

Make Scepter the MH condition weapon and add Pistol as the MH power weapon. Give Pistol the excellent clone generation so it works well with Shatter builds and make Scepter have one reliable condition and one ‘random’ one and I’ll be happy.

It makes perfect sense.

Bugs that make a specific build stronger – particularly if it is to a high degree – ruin the game for everyone not running that build.

Bugs that make a specific build weaker ruin the game only for the people running that build.

Numbers alone mean you have to weight yourself more towards fixing the bug that makes something stronger than the bug that makes something weaker, assuming each are to an equivalent degree.

My Sweet Lily.1952:

This really is a nice buff, all may not be lost on behalf of condition builds.

Outside of the rather silly confusion bombing builds in WvW, this actually makes condition damage stronger than it was before.

Of particular note is the possibility that condition damage will be a workable build in PvE, where before it was more or less entirely outclassed by power builds.

Best thing to come out of this is that all of those people with tons of gold sunk into condition damage gear really just need to get new runes, maybe change traits/weapons a bit, and grab some different food and they’re set to at least do something, even if it’s not optimal.

There are a couple of things that are very good at dealing with Mesmers…

1) Awareness. Always know which is the real Mesmer.

2) Conditions. Most Mesmer builds don’t run a ton of condition removal, and Shatter builds often have none whatsoever.

3) Count CDs. Mesmers have two powerful active defenses in Blurred Frenzy and Distortion. Don’t blow your 100B when they have them up or you will probably end up quite unhappy.

4) Run away. When all else fails, remember that Mesmer builds often have low mobility over long periods of time. Blink, tons of dodges, and Phase Retreat often make it look like we’re highly mobile, but we’re actually pretty bad at covering wide swaths of terrain quickly.

To be fair, 2 and 4 aren’t true of all builds, but they are of most. If you wander around the forums you’ll find lots of suggestions for 1, and 3 is dead simple if you just take a little time.

Also, remember not to do something stupid like start channeling a bunch of projectiles into Feedback. It’s really all just learning how things work and not tossing all your skills at them right away, kind of like dealing with perma-stealth Thieves.

Upon further testing, I can confirm that virtually everything I can think of now applies duration increases.

Still not positive if this is more of a buff to support builds with Staff or condition builds with Staff and Torch/Pistol with Sharper Images.

On the one hand, you can easily get perma-burning and/or tons of bleed/vuln stacks with three Staff clones. On the other, you can keep perma-Fury up on one target as well as drastically increasing the number of Might stacks you can stack on someone without putting forth any extra effort.

Also not sure if this favors Shatter builds or builds that generally don’t Shatter more. I would think the second, but I don’t think it’s exactly as straightforward as it seems.

Can confirm duration increases on all conditions imparted by any sort of staff clone. Can even get essentially perma-burning with three clones and a ton of burning duration increase.

Unfortunate that they didn’t fix the bit where base Bleeding duration is 5 instead of 7 seconds for the clones. That along with making them affected properly by Illusionary Elasticity could’ve given us a decently viable Condition Damage build again.

EDIT: Can also confirm that boons from staff clones also have increased duration.

There are two very important differences between a virtual economy and a ‘real’ economy that I believe games such as Guild Wars 2 give us a good look at…

1) An increase in the average opportunity cost of time.

In a game, you only have so much time to play, and you could be doing ‘real’ things with that time. As such, a combination of less time and pressing alternatives leads to an increased opportunity cost of time.

This is part of the reason such large margins in the TP exist – getting money or goods now as opposed to later is a much different choice in a virtual market than in a ‘real’ market. That is, increased opportunity cost of time leads people to discount the future heavily, leading to arbitrage opportunities for those willing to be patient.

In a sense, people benefiting from arbitrage are, at least in part, being paid the cost of the time they have to wait.

Lots more to be said here, but this post can only be so long so I’m going move on…

2) An increase in ‘irrational’ behavior.

Behavioral economics studies people as something other than the bounded, rational beings that classical economics treats them as. One well-documented example of this sort of behavior is that people tend to treat cash differently than things that are exact substitutes for cash – most commonly credit and debit cards.

Virtual economies, being removed from cash by many more steps than credit and debit cards, will naturally see a large increase in behavior that would be considered ‘irrational.’

There’s a ton of things that could be said here, as well, but none that haven’t been said already elsewhere.

(On a related note, I hate the term ‘irrational’ as a descriptor for this behavior, as there is always a ‘rational’ explanation. It just doesn’t fit with the classical concept of a rational individual – a vastly flawed concept, hence why behavioral economics is a thing – which requires them to use a moniker that doesn’t fit the behavior particularly well.)

Anyways. I think, in general, there’s a lot to be learned by looking at virtual economies as though they were modified versions of real economies. You can determine some major influences that cause divergence from a real economy and track what sorts of changes those influences cause, or you can take the economy as it is right now and tweak it to see what happens, both to obliquely look at real-world economics problems and to see differences between how virtual and real economies relate to similar changes.

I’ve actually been doing a decent amount of looking into these sorts of things myself, so if you ever want to talk about it, I know I would enjoy doing so.

There are Mesmer set-ups that do take plenty of damage and are quite difficult to take down, just like more or less every other profession.

As an example, 30 points in Inspiration lets you go for good condition removal if using Mantra of Restoration, constant AOE healing with Mantra of Pain, and healing/removing conditions whenever you shatter.

That’s in addition to the fact that you have a low CD 2 second invulnerability with Sword and a much higher CD invulnerability for 3-4 seconds with your fourth shatter.

When traited properly, charging any Mantra will heal allies in an area around you. Base heal is 2600 and the scaling is .2 per Healing Power.

Spamming MoP, charging MoP, spamming MoP while charging MoR, and then charging MoP again will apply quite a lot of healing. Even with no Healing Power, you’re looking at 8400 in AOE healing, and the number should increase to a bit over 9000 as a result of gear and traits.

I refuse to change because of how much I love playing with Staff and Deceptive Evasion, so yes.

Will it be harder to do things, absolutely? Will it be impossible? No.

My current hope is that one of the bugs they fix in traits for the next patch is Illusionary Elasticity not working with illusions. This would make me incredibly happy, as well as being a bone thrown to iMage, which will really, really need the help after this patch.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Iavra.8510:

If they really want to increase build diversity, they just have to give condi mesmers something in exchange. We need at least an increase of 100% on our confusion duration or a massive increase in other damaging conditions.

But well, just about every other promise they have given to their costumers has shown to be a lie up until now, so…keep on nerfing until every profession got like 1 competitive build left.

Make illusionary elasticity apply to staff clones, and make condition duration apply to clones as well.

This, in addition with either removing Vulnerability on WoC or replacing it with another condition. Even if they replace it with Confusion it would be nice, although I’d personally prefer a short duration Poison.

Also make Illusionary Elasticity apply to iMage. Would at least somewhat make up for the fact that it’s pretty much useless as is and is about to get nerfed pretty hard.

Fay.2735:

Nice to see more people interested in mantras now that they are reducing cast time further

I’ve always been somewhat interested in Mantras, I’m just of the opinion that Illusionary Elasticity is so good that you can’t pass it up, and you also can’t afford to get it without basically removing the point of going Mantras in the first place.

Probably different for support-ish builds that don’t care about casting Mirror Blade and Illusionary Leap as much, but that was my experience when playing a more aggressive Mantra-based build.

Now, though, the ability to drop aggro with Stealth and heal back up while readying Mantras is looking pretty appetizing. I had considered doing something similar a long while ago by going 30 points in Chaos, but the build never panned out because it pushed your points too thin.

knight.8926:

Fuschia.6573:

Kazhiel.8194:

I don’t think it breaks stealth. The radius is quite small, basically safest to stand right next to them.

So – and correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve never tried this – you would now be able to fully charge a Mantra while in stealth from Decoy or The Prestige, right?

Seems like it could end up making an interesting Bunker build or something of that sort if you built around that in some way.

Anyone have information on maximum affected allies? If it’s unlimited this is probably what I’m going to start doing in WvW fairly soon.

Last time I tried I could charge during stealth both decoy and prestige. It wasn’t very useful for me when I tried a bunker build honestly but it might work out for you, you never know. Also it heals 5 allies.

Difference being that you will now be able to charge entire in Stealth, even after a very brief amount of movement.

Not sure how much of a difference it is, but it certainly is one.

Pyroatheist.9031:

sephire.7296:

I don’t have any ConditionDamage yet my Confusion does huge amounts of damage. That’s clearly not right. Blanket reducing it to 50% damage would punish those who do spec +CD too much though, imo the scaling/CD contribution needs to be changed, so that the damage is very punishing for those who have high +CD and negligible for those like me who have 0 +CD.

Now this is a nerf that actually makes sense.

I was about to say basically this, but instead I’ll just quote you.

If they reduced the base but kept the scaling more or less the same I would be a very happy Mesmer.

Kazhiel.8194:

I don’t think it breaks stealth. The radius is quite small, basically safest to stand right next to them.

So – and correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve never tried this – you would now be able to fully charge a Mantra while in stealth from Decoy or The Prestige, right?

Seems like it could end up making an interesting Bunker build or something of that sort if you built around that in some way.

Anyone have information on maximum affected allies? If it’s unlimited this is probably what I’m going to start doing in WvW fairly soon.

darkace.8925:

Fuschia.6573:

Because the only real damaging conditions we will be able to apply will be Burns and Bleeds, with very limited ability to stack either on a target? AFAIK, Winds of Chaos and Sharper Images are the only methods of putting a bleed on a target, and we only have Winds of Chaos and The Prestige for Burning.

Maybe if they made it so Illusionary Elasticity affected Clones properly we’d be fine, but as it stands those simply aren’t enough methods of applying conditions to make Condition Damage a worthwhile stat.

So Confusion is being removed from the game?

Yes…?

Take a look at sPvP. Confusion simply isn’t used there, because it is terrible. Will it still deal damage? Yeah, sure. Will that damage amount to anything? No, it will not.

Tell me what would happen if they took Guardian’s Burning and reduced it’s damage to half. Would you still be willing to use Condition Damage gear on a Guardian?

(Not that you should use Condition Damage gear on a Guardian, but it’s a solid example since that is their main condition as Confusion is ours.)

darkace.8925:

selan.8354:

Rabid armor as a mesmer is useless now!

Care to explain to me why rabid armor is useless to mesmers?

Because the only real damaging conditions we will be able to apply will be Burns and Bleeds, with very limited ability to stack either on a target? AFAIK, Winds of Chaos and Sharper Images are the only methods of putting a bleed on a target, and we only have Winds of Chaos and The Prestige for Burning.

Maybe if they made it so Illusionary Elasticity affected Clones properly we’d be fine, but as it stands those simply aren’t enough methods of applying conditions to make Condition Damage a worthwhile stat.

1) Does casting a Mantra – the charging bit, not the activation bit – break stealth?

2) What is the radius of effect and maximum number of affected allies – if any – for Restorative Mantras?

Just do the good ‘ol 0/20/20/0/30. You can get Deceptive Evasion for all the clones you could ever want, and that’s worth much more than the stat conversion from Toughness to Condition Damage.

Poster right above me is spot on.

This is particularly true when you realize you don’t need to be farming to manipulate the market to the degree you’re talking about. Anyone with a few thousand gold can eke every possible morsel of short-term profit from a market as simple as crafting materials, and there are plenty of people like that.

Pyroatheist.9031:

It would ruin build diversity, except that its a 5 point minor trait (also a reason that it is so strong). A 5 point minor trait has a tough time actually ruining build diversity, as evidenced by the massive number of viable builds the Mesmer has.

5 points can be a lot of points. It really depends on what it is you’re trying to do, and how much you need traits at 20+ in lines that aren’t Illusions.

Simply stating that we already have build diversity doesn’t really mean all that much, since we don’t know how much build diversity we could have if we were to fix the problem.

A good example? Mantra builds. They could be excellent, but instead of going as heavily into Mantra’s as possible, they end up having to take Illusionist’s Celerity to be more effective. That, of course, removes the reason for running Mantras and the purpose of the build, causing it to collapse when matched up with builds that take full advantage of those five Illusions points.

Pyroatheist.9031:

It’s the strongest trait in the game. It’s therefore essential in all builds. Leave it alone.

I’m not positive that I agree it’s the game’s strongest trait, but it is certainly the Mesmer’s strongest trait, even disregarding the number of points required to obtain it.

Will also disagree on the idea that it is necessarily essential because it is the strongest trait. Everyone should know that synergy can and often will beat out strength when it comes to constructing a solid build.

If that is the case, however, it should be removed or toned down. Any trait whose raw strength makes it the best choice for every build – regardless of the possible synergy of other traits with the build’s goals – ruins build diversity.

That being said, I don’t know if that is the case, nor do I have any ideas for fixing it to which I am particularly enamored.

Pretty simple thread with a pretty simple discussion topic – is Illusionists Celerity necessary on all Mesmer builds, and why do you think so? If you run or have run a build that doesn’t require it, what was it? If you believe it is essential, do you think this is a good thing, or a bad thing, and what – if anything – would you do about it?

I’ll get started with saying that I don’t think any points in Illusion are a necessity. I’m currently working on a pair of builds – one of which looks promising while the other looks like a flop – that aren’t interested in taking a single point in Illusions.

That being said, nearly every build I’ve ever had work successfully has run 5 points in Illusions for this trait. Some of them have run 5 points at the cost of going to 30 points in another line for no other reason than getting the 20% CDR.

I personally think this is a problem for build diversity and whatnot, but I don’t know what could be done to fix it. Simply rolling the 20% CDR into the base CDs for the skills seems too simple. Maybe slightly increase the CDR on this and all weapon CDR traits, but make it so they don’t stack?

Anyways. Discuss, please. I’m interested to hear what everyone has to say.

AOE condition removal, AOE regeneration, AOE heals, consistent blinds, consistent chills?

Just look at what a Staff build with Wells and constant flipping in and out of DS to stack Vulnerability and provide more healing does. It’s pretty kitten good.

It definitely works your way, but I usually prefer something other than OH Torch and the last ten points in Chaos if I’m going to do that, i.e. last ten points in Illusions or Domination and OH Sword.

For me, the major reason to go for Torch is a combination of the good condition removal and permanent invisibility, and I’m more or less unwilling to do it if I can’t have both.

They’re both fine for what you want to be doing, tbh. Some pros and cons…

1 – Mesmer has higher direct damage, while Necro stacks the conditions like no other.
2 – Requires more effort in terms of traits/gear to support well with Mesmer, but still works fine.
3 – Necro has more AOE, and more reliable AOE.
4 – Mesmer is easily twice as mobile in fights as Necromancer without even trying.

Overall I prefer Mesmer. Necro only really has serious condition builds – less useful in large groups – and AOE – more useful in large groups – over Mesmer, while Mesmer has about the same supporting ability, much higher direct damage, and tons of mobility in combat – which, IMO, makes it much more interesting to play.

Also, butterflies are better than zombies.

This seems similar to a build I run occasionally, which goes 20/0/30/0/20. Some features of the build, as you pointed out…

1 – Decent shatter damage. Far from the best possible, but it’s certainly up there.
2 – Near permanent invisibility, good condition removal.
3 – Confusion on Blind, which makes The Prestige and Chaos Armor quite dangerous.

I really wish I could work 10-20 more points in there for some Dueling traits, but that’s just how it goes, I suppose…

Afya.5842:

Fuschia.6573:

Bro, do you even flip?

Seriously, though, the guide in the post right above mine is pretty solid.

I will say that LSHD markets are probably the best to start out in if you can find one in your price range, as there’s very little risk involved – no loss on failed buy orders – and the waiting means you don’t have to do any micromanagement. Gives you a while to get comfortable with everything and all that.

Wouldn’t that takes months to fulfill orders? LSHD

In extreme cases, perhaps, but usually you’re looking a complete turnover of 1-5 days.

Low-level armor, dyes, some runes, some sigils, and some miniatures are all good examples of that sort of market.

Bro, do you even flip?

Seriously, though, the guide in the post right above mine is pretty solid.

I will say that LSHD markets are probably the best to start out in if you can find one in your price range, as there’s very little risk involved – no loss on failed buy orders – and the waiting means you don’t have to do any micromanagement. Gives you a while to get comfortable with everything and all that.

John Smith.4610:

The reason is due to the type of item that dye is, and how people interact with it. Not the different quantities of dye.

And no one suggested that it was?

Unless, of course, you are saying that part of the reason isn’t low turnover and the necessity of combing over a large number of listings coupled with the increased opportunity cost of time in virtual markets – less time, more opportunity cost.

You’d be wrong on that count.

To be fair, that applies to many markets on the Trading Post, but dyes is one where the sheer amount of information to look through is quite high and the turnover rate is quite low, both of which exacerbate the issue.

EDIT: Illconceived Was Na essentially outlines why the margin would exist to begin with, and what I’ve stated here seems to outline what is stopping speculators from abusing it so much.

As such, I’d consider this more or less answered unless someone has either an additional great insight or some counter-argument to one or the other of the two statements.

The reason why I think some of those margins stick around longer than on other margins is simply because there are 300+ different products to track and the demand is predictable for only a few of the most popular dyes (Abyss, Celestial etc.) It’s a lot of work to find the opportunity and there’s always the risk that it’s more lightly traded than you think it is…

This seems like the most important reason.

Combine it with the general increase in ‘irrational’ behavior and opportunity cost of time associated with virtual markets and it probably accounts for what I couldn’t already explain.

I’d attribute the growth to a lack of people farming the areas that Engraved Totems drop in. Without an associated drop in demand – which probably won’t happen, since you need them to get crafting fairly high, which is the leveling method on later characters if you have a pile of money – the price would have to gradually increase.

No idea as to the sudden drop.

And as to why everyone is so hostile? Everyone’s suspicious that you’re somehow trying to make a ton of money by bringing attention to anything. Fairly frustrating when you just want to have a discussion, but there’s no good way to demonstrate that you aren’t.

Just ignore and keep going, assuming you actually want a discussion.

How can demand not be related to margin in this game? I’m confused as to why you think they’re separate.

Demand is a separate concept.

Demand for consumption or other long-term use dictates price, as you are simply buying above the highest bid and consuming the good. Spikes in demand can influence margin, but, generally speaking, simple shifts in demand will only increase or decrease the price while the percentage margin remains the same, HAEC.

Included in demand for consumption is the demand for long-term speculation, as you are holding onto the item for later use.

Demand for short-term speculation purposes does have an impact on the margin. Since you are buying above the highest bid and selling below the lowest offer, you are constantly decreasing the margin by profiting off of it.

What you listed previously were reasons for consumption demand, which has little to no impact on the actual margin itself – and what impact it does have is largely related to increased turnover rates causing an increase in demand for short-term speculation.

As to the rest of your post, some of those concepts seem correct and are part of my outline for an answer to the question. I initially did not post that outline so as to encourage people to, hopefully, surprise me with something I didn’t know. I may post it later, once it’s a tad more well-written.