Guild Wars 2

You are also forgetting that while you are in stealth you are no longer accruing threat, but any nearby allies (including clones) still are. It’s very likely that the mob will switch to a different target and not immediately reacquire you because he’s busy with others now.

I did this several times last night in HOTW. I got better positioning, was able to group heal w/o interrupt (MoR), and setup bursts/support with ease all because the boss/mobs were busy elsewhere when I came out of stealth.

Devs over in the engi forum said there were several updates and fixes that did not make it into the notes. We can expect an updated list.

@Decimus:
The strategy behind bringing both a staff and GS is that you typically stay in GS when all is cool for the DPS, and switch to staff when you need go on the defensive. After you shed the heat, or your opponents blow their CDs, you go back to GS to put more pressure on them. And many staff players also run shatter builds so they can mainatin some burst DPS with MW even while in staff mode.

@Seven:
Thanks, man. It was your 4 vs me vid that motivated me to stick it out with scepter.

Pyro is right, no ICD on the life steal food is what makes it so good, especially with sword or GS autos. Plus, every time I nail a BF or CI, it usually takes an extra 650-1000 off the target and puts it right on my health bar. More, if I hit a group or bust out an izerker on a zerg/mobs. I expect it to be nerfed at some point.

@Pyro:
Yeah, unfortunately the iMage sucks compared to other phantasms, but the skill isn’t completely useless. Like scepter and Prestige, it just takes a little creativity to make it worth picking the weapon up. As long as he is around, you can get over 40% uptime on both retaliation and 3 stacks of confusion. It’s the retal I’m really after w/o having to give up Prestige’s invis. You just have to play it smart and try to protect the guy. It should be closer to 100% to match other phants, tho, but I just really wish the CD wasn’t so kitten looong. Patiently awaiting a buff here.

Torch definitely takes a certain kind of build, and more than that a certain playstyle, to make it good, but its key for that playstyle due to the target drop. But I’m finding new ways to use it all the time, including the synergies with scepter I listed in the build. Understandibly its not for most and takes some of practice. But hey, so did focus for me.

@pyro:
Thanks. Sometimes I do change up a bit for PVE, but I was going for something could just hop from game mode to game mode here. Your suggestions definitely look good for most of the PVE content, and I’ll give them a whirl for times when I’m not to lazy to visit the trainer after a romp in wvw. Don’t want to go too far into phantasms while I’m running the torch, tho. Just doesn’t scale well with the mage, but CI is awesome with the +9% from Comp Power.

@Jalliel: Cool build. I like how you got the CD trait for torch in there. I was looking for a way to add it in mine w/o giving up too much defense and mobility.

PVE Variant

10(III)/20(IV, X)/10(IV)/25(IV,X)/5

In PVE I changed the traits around a bit to match the more strait forward style of PVE content. That said, I recommend the primary variant when dealing with difficult PVE content for the first few times to get a handle on it. Then you can switch to this variant once you become familiar with the area and mob patterns for some more DPS. The reason is because this build gives up a little bit of D and a slight bit of utility from staff that you might need when getting your feet wet. Note that I also almost never use torch in PVE, since it quite honestly sucks there. So focus, staff, and GS see much more action (and staff still performs just fine even without the trait). The return is that your phantasms do much more damage, and good sustained damage at that, without giving up much utility. Plus I also noticed that I tend to interrupt and daze a lot in PVE, so the chance to plant some extra vulnerability is nice. Other than that, the skill/trait strategies I outlined for the primary variant still apply.

Traits:
Dueling: Pretty stoked about these, and they never leave my bar unless I put down the swords. Which usually means my zerkers and warlocks get to play with more fury.

Chaos: These get switched around whenever I pick up a staff. Since my strategy means I almost always have 3 illusions out, I always have 9% damage redux, which is nice, and the extra tough and boon duration are icing. When I run with a staff, Chaotic Dampening is boss. If I take blink out, I usually put in Debilitation Dissipation for some extra D (weakness) or damage buff (vulnerability).

Inspiration: Love this line, and it got most of my points from Illusions. It’s just so versatile. Wish I had points for more (contemplating taking some out of chaos for 30 here). Mender’s Purity takes care of conditions very well, especially with the mantra heal, and RM makes MoR worth it, plus helps keep my teammates and fragile phantasms alive. Mantras also pair well with my stealth and warden giving me the safety to charge them. That said, RM and MoR get the boot any time I pick up my focus. WF is just too good. When Malicious Sorc bugs get fixed, they will probably go for good. I’ll also use Medic’s Feedback and Glamour traits a lot in zergs or dungeons. Did I mention I love the versatility in this line?

Well, there it is. As I said, it may not be the best at everything, but it’s a good, balanced build that can adapt and work well enough everywhere. I’d be grateful for any advice you can give to help me improve it.

Weapons

Swords: I love swords in this build. MH sword offers plenty of damage, utility and defense, and paired with a OH sword you get even more damage, clones, and defense, plus the phantasm harasses and hits hard. You can be offensive or defensive with this set. What’s not to like? I also put a sigil of accuracy on my OH sword for extra to keep up maximum vigor for dodging/clones. I go here for boon removals, too.

Scepter: Oh boy. This weapon was hard to get used to and even now it’s not my first choice. But, its getting to the point where taking it makes getting a 2nd OH worth it, and I was getting bored of staff. The key to making this weapon bearable is timing #2 and landing #3, which is why I like to pair it with torch. Coming out of invis in a blaze of fire or blinking on top of someone’s head is a great way to make even good players expend their dodges/escapes. That is when you unload Confusing Images. I can usually get the full channel or close enough. This works ESPECIALLY well in small groups or zergs when there are other distractions around, but good in solo, too. Too bad the auto still sucks. At least it gives decent shatter fodder and synergy with chaos and illusion traits for keeping max illusions. Sometimes I run Debilitating Dissipation, too if they start dying too quick.

Torch: Yeah, I only pick this for The Prestige. It’s a great target drop that has some extra utility/damage attached. The blind actually helps to keep my clones alive and the invis on decent CD is perfect setup for scepter #3. Oh yeah, it’s awesome for staying alive, too. iMage still sucks, but I can live with it, especially since it gives me retaliation and tends to make players burn condition removal (another good time to use Confusing Images). Can’t wait ‘til they improve this guy.

Focus: I use the focus a fair bit in place of torch or OH sword. Maybe even more than torch, and half of the time in PVE. It’s just too much utility. Since I use Centaur runes, a focus means 100% swiftness for my entire team in and out of combat. Now I do switch up my build a little bit for the focus, since it is so awesome and has great synergy with MH sword. I usually pair it with the MH sword, pick up Warden’s Feedback and Ether Feast (drop RM), and put the OH sword with the scepter (or use staff or GS). I make heavy use of retaliation and reflect when running with a focus and can even do a rather light version of the Chaos’s boon storm if I put a staff in the OH and take SoI. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Chaos-Maestro-Boon-Support-Tank/first#post1472714 (Great build, BTW)
The build is just that versatile. Or maybe that’s just the focus.

GS: I usually take this for zerging, dungeons, and events. When I just need some good, ranged AOE DPS. ‘Nuff said here.

Staff: I ran staff in a condition/confusion build before trying the scepter and still love it for defense and the extra ethereal field. In some dungeon parts I still switch to it as a backup for my GS, or when I need to kite a boss while the team takes care of adds.

Utilities:
Decoy never leaves my bar. Blink only when I am in a dungeon or zerg, and my party needs more support/combo fields. Then I replace it with Signet of Inspiration or Null Field. Feeback gets switched around a lot; usually with Portal, Defender, Null Field, MoP, or Veil depending on my situation. Mass Invis usually gets swapped out in dungeons, events, and any group bigger than a small coordinated team.

Hey all. Here is the build I have been running around with for a while, and since I liked it so much, I’ll share it here with you. Good for roaming as a lone wolf, but can adapt to run with a pack.

Now first off, I want to say I like being versatile and staying alive, so while my build may not be optimal for everything, it can switch up to do what you need quite well in most situations with plenty of staying power. It’s best for roaming/small group combat in wvw. So, the build link has the set I most commonly run with in wvw since that is where I use it most, but I play this build in both wvw and pve/dungeons, and constantly switch my weapons, ultilities, and major traits around to suit my current need. I’ll explain those as I go. I have mostly exotics with some rares right now and working on the ascended stuff.

Now, to set the frame, here is the build foundation (updated 7/3/13):
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.2|b.1h.h19.f.1b.h1j|c.1g.h14.c.1n.h1|1n.73.1n.73.1c.73.1n.73.1c.73.1n.73|411.d1g.1n.61.1n.61.3t.d19.1j.61.8i.61|0.k4a.u34c.k4a.0|15.7|32.3d.34.38.3o|e

Gear:
Armor: Coat/Pants: Soldiers, Rest: Knights
Trinkets: Amulet: Celestial, Rings: Knights, Back/Acc: Berserkers
Jewels: All Valkyrie
Runes: Centaur

Weapons:
MH sword: Berserkers w/ Air
OH Sword: Knights w/ Accuracy
Scepter: Carrion w/ Generosity
Torch: Rabid w/ Energy
Focus: Knights w/ Energy
GS: Berserkers w/ Fire
Staff: Rabid w/ Energy
(Backup sword and GS w/ Bloodlust)

Consumables:
Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew
Maintenance Oil

Traits:
0/20(IV, X)/30(III,IV, XII)/20(IV,X)/0

Tactics:
Now my playstyle changes up depending on the situation and weapons/utilities I bring, but here are the general tactics and breakdown. First, I only shatter occasionally in this build. I used to run a condition/confusion shatter build, but as I started to become more defensive and put more pieces into this build, I shattered less and kept taking points out of Illusions. This is the main reason I run cond dmg stuff on my scepter torch, and staff. It seems to add a lot more than a little extra power when you don’t MW. I find that most of my phantasms (f-u iMage) hit pretty hard and have great other uses as well (swordsmen are great harassers and proc leaps, wardens are great safe zones and whirl, and zerkers harass, cripple, and whirl). Still, you can shatter when you want in this build, and I do shatter moderately in some situations.

I also love swiftness in and out of combat, which is why I chose centaur runes. It really helps when using stealth and when using a shatter to help my illusions get to the target before they can dodge. Generally, I try to stay very mobile and not get targeted. This is why I carry so many target drops, AOE swiftness, and Blink while my swordsmen pound them, and I hit their backs. It really confuses most players, and mobs are too dumb to adapt. Passive tough and vit are icing to that effect and help quite a bit when I slip up, which is often (not the best player here, but adequate enough to have a lot fun in wvw and dungeons with this build).

I also started using lemongrass poultry soup when I know I am up against high condition builds, but this isn’t necessary in most situations when using MoRec with Mender’s Purity and/or null field.

Mechanically, Blink is a shadowstep. That is, you move from point A to B very quickly with all the normal pathing involved. Now I can only see 2 reason why it’s not a finisher:

a) Devs just didn’t think to put it in.
b) It’s already an insanely powerful and popular utility.

Either way, reason b is why it probably shouldn’t be a finisher.

I wouldn’t say it’s completely useless. It does have a niche roll in confusion spike builds and it works pretty well for that. The only problem there is that it’s effectiveness is determined by the skill of your opponent, but that’s a problem with confusion; not just the scepter. And let’s be honest here there are PLENTY of opportunities for confusion spike builds in wvw with the current player base.

It also scales rather well with power. When you get used to timing #2 and landing #3, it can out-damage the sword. The sword does come with much more utility, tho. So it really depends on what you need.

Yeah, he tried to correct his errors in an edit. But you got it right. You can’t just calculate it as if you are standing around doing nothing. I said as much in an earlier post. IMO cast times will affect the auto-attack model more than the 3 duelist model, but I don’t have time for any tests.

He said he wanted to try scepter, but didn’t because he was afraid the auto would lower his DPS. He just wants to see if using the auto is worth it, or if he should not auto when using scepter.

This part of his post seems to be his auto-attack calc:

scepter
~ ((1050 × 0.2) + (1050 × 1.7 × 0.8)) / 2
~ 819 dps

Good point about the MoP damage though. The return is instant, but charging it takes time. Similar to my argument about CI.

No. In his calculations he includes the scepter auto attack as part of his clone+2 duelists DPS. He wants to decide if auto-attacking (him + 1 clone + 2 duelists) will yield better DPS than not auto-attacking (3 duelists doing their thing with no clone to overwrite a duelist).

@Nretep:
You only do 325 DPS with scepter auto in rampager gear? That seems a bit low. I more than double that in knights/soldiers.

@Seetoo:
You also have to take out the time required to cast CI from your scepter auto calcs, because you will want to use that. A 3s channel every 15s or so is a 20% downtime in auto attacking. The 3 duelist scenario does not suffer from this downtime.

Scepter 2 can also do a nice chuck if timed right. That only takes a split second, but can interrupt your chain (Ether Clone does more damage than Bolt and Blast).

EasymodeX.4062:

What I’m really curious about is:

1. Does ret proc while you are invuln.
2. Does it proc when you block.
3. Does Signet of Inspiration have a target limit. Because 31 teammates with 2 minutes of retaliation each would be lulzy.
4. Does that ret trait have an ICD.

1. Don’t think so.
2. No.
3. No clue.
4. Not sure, but… to think there are ppl on the wvw board whining to remove the aoe limit on attacks. Can you imagine what that would do if it doesn’t have a limit? Or just imagine what the meta would become with a few mesmers and guardians on each side. OUCH!

iMage is intended to be the GW2 version of Backfire/Empathy, so I doubt it’s basic function will change.

We can only hope for buffs, and the problem there is that the confusion mechanic in general is borderline OP against noobs in WVW, decent in sPVP, and woefully UP in PVE. So any scaling they do for him will have more effect on some game modes than others. He does need a buff for all game modes, but confusion in general needs a PVE overhaul to bring it in line with it’s usefulness in PVP.

#1: Daunting Pistolier: Fire 3 shots. 3rd shot causes weakness.

#2: Dual Gunmen: Create a clone while evading and shooting your foe. (Picture a gunman that suddenly splits in 2 and both shoot at the target simultaneously).

#3: Shatter Shot: Shoot a phantasmal bullet that shatters and causes AOE damage and bleeding.

Since you cannot decide between the 2, I think the answer is obvious: Eternity.

Yeah, I’m having a hard time following his format as well, but what he seems to be saying is that using a sword/pistol with 3 duelists (and not auto-attacking due to range?) yields roughly 137 less DPS than using a scepter/pistol with 2 duelists plus auto-attacking with a scepter.

I didn’t bother to check if his calcs were correct b/c even if they are, there is much more to using the weapon than just static attacks w/o weapon swaps, utilities, shatters, etc, so the situation isn’t representative of anything outside autopilot PVE content.

KratosAngel.7289:

How could this be a field ? It’s just a hit, seriously, it’s impossible :o

Lots of attacks that would otherwise just “hit” create fields. Poison Grenade, Combustive Shot, Symbols. I don’t see how it’s so hard to understand. The sword pops up, hits enemies, removes a boon, and a field appears over the AOE for a few seconds.

I’ve been trying out a sw/sw sc/torch build recently (occasionally swapping out a sw for a focus), and it’s going pretty well. Like you, I love most of our OH weapons, but I’m not a big fan of scepter. I’m learning to use it, and it takes practice (going slow too since I haven’t had much time to play recently), but don’t worry at all about using it in a power build vs a condition build; both #2 and #3 scale wickedly with power. In fact I think it’s better as a power weapon.

The biggest thing I will suggest to you is don’t use sc/focus. Sw/focus just has too much awesome synergy to ignore especially in a power build. With curtain and iLeap you can instantly stack 12-14s of retaliation, and nothing scepter/focus has can compare to that. On top of that I found some unexpected synergy with sc/torch by using the prestige to mask the painfully long windup animation of scepter 3 or using scepter 2 right before a stealth.

I generally use the sw/sw set for harrassing and sc/torch for D, and while the D isn’t quite as good as a staff, it’s close, and turning around to go on the offense is definitely faster; almost as fast as a shatter build. Especially since BF, sword 4, scepter 2, and the Prestige can do both offense and defense simultaneously. It really throws people off.

I’m going 0/20/20/20/10 right now, so it’s not a shatter build, but you can probably work it by going 0/20/0/20/30 instead. Definitely need the 20 in dueling, and the 20 in inspiration helps a lot too. Since I play defensively, 20 in chaos works better for me than in Illusions, but hey, try that out as see how it works. I don’t like running torch in shatter builds, just cuz the CDs are too long, but DE and IP would definitely help make up for that. Confuse on blind seems like it would have some promise with both the Counterspell and Prestige too if you have some CD gear in the mix.

Any 2 of the 4 in order of preference:

1) Ethereal Field (while a blast finisher would rock, GS already has 2; 3 is too many)
2) Bigger AOE
3) More damage
4) Targeted splash effect

I also agree with Daishi. It seems many of our “on daze” traits were meant to synergise with the beta version of this skill. When the daze went away, it left a rather obvious hole in the usefulness of those traits that is only filled with rather specific build options. Either the traits need to be beefed up, or a reliable, moderate CD daze needs to fill Stab’s hole.

I think ppl are underestimating the combat benefit of swiftness as well. In a game where combat mobility and positioning are so important (especially illusion placement for mesmers), I’m surprised ppl write it off so quickly.

I can’t count how many times I was was able to move into position quickly enough because of it (esp when blink is on CD). Many times it was the difference between coming out of stealth in an enemy’s face or out of view behind him. Also, centaur runes provide your allies (ie, illusions) with swiftness too. It can be the difference between nailing a critical shatter burst and giving your foe time to dodge it.

Don’t even get me started on warrior fools that refuse to slot a ranged weapon because they think they are melee gods.

Obviously an exploit. Not worth getting banned.

@skcamow:
EasyMode is pretty spot on. I think what osicat was getting at is that 1500+500 = 2000 power is a 33% increase in your damage, but 2000+500=2500 is only a 25% increase. But +10% crit damage is always going to be +10% times your crit rate, no matter how high you go.

At some point +% crit damage will yield more damage than its equivalent in extra power (which varies for traits vs different types of gear). The ratio is also highly dependent on your crit rate.

I’d be more interested to see the skill coefficients for each of our skills. I’ve seen the ones for phantasms but that’s about it. Only then will you know how much power affects your damage.

Simonoly.4352:

I wasn’t a particularly big fan of the prestige until I realised you can blink whilst channeling it so, if timed correctly, you can land the burn attack as soon as you’ve blinked to your distant target and come out of stealth. For me, it completely changes the viability of that skill and gives me so much more control as to how I move and land the attack in battle. I equip mainhand sword and use prestige bombing with blurred frenzy to harass groups of players in WvW. I also utilise the blink with the prestige to set off blast finishers within AoEs cast at my enemies. I mostly target dark fields to pop area blindness or fire fields for further might stacking.

And yet we should be able to do some of that with rolling/dodging if it wasn’t channeled in the first place. I suppose I’m only bitter about it because actually in the first place (beta) the skill wasn’t channeled and torch was fine/balanced.

Still a great skill, but it was fine the way it was and not clunky. Now its still a great skill but clunky to use. Harder to use effectively w/o losing much overall power = not a good design decision. Easier/more intuitive to use for about the same amount of power = good design decision.

Underwater combat in general is meant to be forgotten.

I could see fans as a fcous. And when you have one equipped, your warden wields dual razor edged fans! :p

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Build-Guides/page/2#post1426789

I love that warden trick. Perfect time for a BF followed up with a MW when the warden is winding down.

I think all the phantasms are useful in some situations. The most being zerker, swordsman, and duelist. Followed closely by the warlock and warden. Defender has its place, but mage and disenchanter are pretty crap, although some do find good use for the disenchanter.

Zerker is amazing for instant, powerful AOE plus cripple. Swordsman and duelist are great for single target harassment. The way the swordsman does it is especially beautiful. Swordman is better for power/crit, duelist is better for rabid/rampager.

Warden is great when you get it to stick and it’s a good safe zone. Can be difficult to land on good players, tho, so it’s not top tier for me unless it’s traited. Then it’s a beast anywhere. Warlock and mage are great for bosses, but outside that mage sucks and warlock is still good for power/crit builds. Mage still sucks.

Whips and spears definitely need to be added for land weapons in general. Wouldn’t mind seeing hand weapons, too.

For a mes, MH pistol tops my list, but a whip would be awesome, too. I encourage hand weapons for most classes as well, esp casters and warriors.

If you are running with staff and blink, the phase/blink trick works really well on most classes. You can phase out of interrupts and blink back in for the kill, and against thieves, mesmers, and sometimes eles you can follow them with blink. The last can be tricky if they time it right, but even if they evade your stomp at least it takes the reviver off them, too.

Usually I just use f4, Void if I have a focus, and sometimes decoy or CS (aegis). Just wailing/shattering on the reviver with any AOE is good, too.

Staff is awesome for dungeons. Don’t let jokers tell you otherwise, and GS compliments it well. Actually it’s more like the other way around. Power/crit builds with GS will serve you well in most situations, and when it gets hairy whip out your staff and go on the defensive and support allies with CS. Against most bosses 3 warlocks will out-DPS any warrior or guardian, too.

If you prefer a support/condition build, that’s fine, too. Just let your team know beforehand. Most of the group should be DPS, but 1-2 condition/support guys can be quite useful, and mesmers do that very well. Just make sure no more than 1 other person is running condition DPS or much of your collective damage will go to waste due to stack caps.

EDIT: Since you are interested in phantasm builds, here is one I ran a while back that worked pretty well:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMmz0c9cManrmManrmGG0pVcaMaMV

The key is positioning your illusions where they won’t die right away, and possibly give a little regen to allies. Since most are ranged you can set it up pretty well by watching where you stand/dodge. You will be switching up utilities and maybe some traits depending on the situation, tho. The ones I put in are baseline for general sections, but portal and decoy will be good in certain places, too.

Spend most of your time in GS and switch to staff when your teams needs some support or to put out warlocks on vets, champs, and bosses. Make sure your team knows about the combo fields you are putting down, too. Chaos Armor on leap/blast makes everyone happy in any situation.

That would definitely help better in wvwvw than PVE, but the little extra D in PVE isn’t always wasted either. I’d do it over full zerkers, personally, but mostly because my reaction time isn’t that great.

If you are fast and good at using your active defenses, try full zerkers in PVE and switch to a few knights/valk pieces for wvwvw.

Agreed. I had an edit going but it didn’t save. So here goes again:

My overall opinion of this build is that it is a bit OP in zerg situations. Like most glamour builds, it can be deadly in small groups if you use VOIP and coordinate well with your team. It’s a mixed bag for roaming/solo. If you meet bads, it’s all good, but it provides only moderate control vs good players on long CDs w/o the burst or defense other builds have while you wait for CDs to come back around. In this situation I think I’d try to space out the glamours one at a time, and try to whittle them down and not blow all my control at once, and hope the GS/staff combo can make up the difference.

More versatile yes, but don’t underestimated the raw power of massive confusion on noobs/zergs.

Swiss army knives are more versatile than grenades, but which would you prefer when being swarmed by enemy troops?

Generally true for duels and good players, but in zergs most ppl have mob mentality and just spam aoe assuming they are safe in numbers. Cobfusuion if god against bads just about anywhere there. Too bad there are no bad players in wvwvw tho, huh?

Pros are that you can stack extra confusion for more damage, plus massive blind gives some nice CC. The cons are that it requires 3 traits and 50 trait points.

Confusion stacks intensity, so each independent application counts as 1 stack with its own duration and the damage they do is added together for as long as they last together.

For example, if you get 1 stack that lasts 4s and does 300 damage, then a second later get another stack that lasts 5s, then you would take 300 damage for the first second each skill activation, then for the next 3 seconds (when both stacks last) you would take 600 damage. Finally, when the first stack wears off, you go back to 1 stack for 300 damage for the last 2s. If you get 5 stacks (say from scepter 3), you would take an extra 1500 damage from each skill for as long as those 5 stacks last (3s base iirc).

I ended up going warrior after mes. Actually, it was after engi for a few levels, but the warr quickly overtook the engi. Not that I disliked engi, but warr was a nice simple change from playing the mes. And I RP and really like the warr as an RP character, too.

dank.3680:

Well sw/sw scepter/focus is easily viable.. I wouldn’t use the sword mainhand for both sets even with the reduction trait unless you like trying to chase people around with a 130 range slow skill for 8 seconds.. I mean it could work but there really isn’t any reason not to take scepter as the other main and keep pulling some dps out in between your frenzy CDs(which match well with swap cd).

Sw/sw sept/foc? If he really wants the sw/sw aesthetic, having blocks on each set is nice, but there’s just so much synergy between the MH sword and focus with curtain and iLeap, it’s hard not wanting to go sw/foc scept/sw. Scepter really needs a combo field or finisher to keep up the sw/foc combo. I’d have to play around with the skill flow to see if I’d really consider it the other way around.

@EasymodeX:

Heh. Get a group of friends together with names like Illusionary Duelist and Illusionary Warlock.

Justin.7163:

Not really sure why shooting musical notes at someone would make them bleed. Confusion made more sense :P

The notes also carry your singing. They bleed from the ears.

Nevhie.6079:

Dunno Osi.. Is this a good story or Sarcasm. I don’t really get it hahaha.. Because the meaning of “Outplayed” are 2 for me. “Ur enemy do better in term of skills rather than u” or “Ur enemy use dirty trick coz s/he has less skills than u”

I’d say in this case his skill was in how he set up the dirty trick. :p

Reminds me of a trick you’d use as an old dnd thief in a RP session to take out a higher level NPC.

Dess.4391:

Lol another of this rant post that some1 comes QQ and never shows again??
Im starting to think we all mesmers should just start flooding every class forums complaining they are OP :P

It would be well deserved on the engi forum. They are waay OP!

@dank:
I’m using a very similar trait loadout and gear set, but I have less focus on phantasms. Basically, 0/20/20/20/10 with +3% damager per illusion and Blade Training instead of phant fury since I run both MH and OH sword.

I found that since I started using this build, I don’t shatter very often and almost always have +9% damage. I never liked relying on pet damage, but I guess that’s more of a personal choice. It would allow more of my damage to be automated which would be nice though, so I may have to try that out. Still, I love BF on 8s CD.

One question though. You say you use food to offset lack of condition removal, but it looks like you have Mender’s Purity. Do you find that is not enough? Seem like another food would be more valuable, and you can always go MoRecovery w/RM in a clutch.

I use centaur runes, Blink, and sword 3. Even then it’s not enough if they are good.

@Zirael:
I have been trying out the scepter a bit in wvwvw and I’ve picked up a few things. The key to using it are timely activation of #2 and #3. #2 is a little clunky (slow), but not too bad. I think it’s the best scepter skill in PVP. The trickier key is getting #3 to connect. It actually does better damage than sword #2, so try getting your opponents to burn their dodges/evades on weaker attacks. For me that usually means starting with a leap/BF combo and perhaps coming out of The Prestige on top of them.

It still doesn’t feel as good as staff to me, but I’m starting to get the hang of it. I think it still needs work, tho, and still support my earlier posts in this topic for some minor improvements.