Guild Wars 2

They are ilusionary constructs, but they are not created solely by the mesmer like typical illusions. They are created by the target’s mind under the effects of the mesmer’s spell. Simply, the mesmer spell gives the target’s mind the power and compulsion to create the aparrition in the world.

Only solution I can come with that explains the current mechanic.

Heh, that just means you only have ~8 hours until TC comes to take it all back. Hope you can get enough points by then.

Shinigami.5932:

Where is the quote that contradicts the nightcapping explanation?

None that I am aware of. The contradiction is the fact that the Lost Shores final event was only offered once and at one time across the whole world. The event’s structure contradicted the night capping quote.

You need to see your target to lock the illusion into his mind. Mesmer illusions are not physical constructs of light created and animated by the mesmer like in DnD. That would suck. You would have to concentrate on their movements instead of being able to use your other skills, because they don’t have their own minds.

Instead, they are mental apparitions that are given a visual presence and behavior by the target’s mind under the effects of your magic. They are only visible because your magic gives their mind the ability and compulsion to create them.

Launch or blast finisher would rock, but more than anything it needs a bigger AOE.

Quick question. If a guardian tries to hit a target with an attack, but he is blind or the target is invulnerable, dodges, etc, does a symbol still spawn at the location?

Mesmers do have to work a little harder for some content, especially tagging in Orr DEs and map completion (poor speed buffs), but other than that they are actually pretty strong.

Still, Orr DEs are efficient for farming, so unless you want to be creative there and run a pigeonhole build, you’re better off finding other content to grind. Apart from that I don’t have any complaints here. It’s a blast, especially when other classes see you solo a champ and 2 vets then ask WTF?

Staff is already an incredible powerful weapon. It already has access to plenty of great offensive conditions that stack menacingly and some of the most extreme boons. Maximizing the condition damage of the auto-attack would make it way too strong, especially in light of its considerable defensive buffs.

Vulnerability, a debuff that actually provides indirect offensive party support without being too powerful for an auto-attack, is a good, balanced selection.

Don’t forget about target lock breaking.

Staff/GS is one of the easier and most efficient paths to level. That being said, once I started using sword/focus, it never left my bar unless I found a very powerful pistol or extra sword to try out until I found another focus of equal level. I rotated staff and GS for my secondary set.

Once you get used to using a focus effectively, everything else feels subpar. Though pistol is much easier to learn/use, nothing matches the combine power/utility of a focus if used well in a power build, esp if you have Warden’s Feedback. Though staff can rival it in a condition build.

Major master level traits. The game changed for me was the clone on dodge trait (as it is for many mesmer builds).

I hardly died after level 40 except when blindsided and often did missions rated for several levels higher than my own. Keeping gear up to your current level is important, too. Don’t be afraid to spend karma/silver on gear. You can always make it back much faster at higher levels.

At level 40. You can pretty much become unstoppable in PVE and a good match for almost anyone in wvwvw if traited and played right.

The focus trait in Inspiration goes a long way towards making the warden more useful in pvp, esp in zerg wvwvw, by using it defensively. Between the.curtain, the warden’s attack, and Feedback, you can shut down an enemy zperg for several seconds in certain choke points. Timed well with Time Warp in a coordinated group, and you can then the tide of the battle if lucky.

When I really want the warden’s damage, I generally use the MH sword’s immobilize and double it up with BF and shatter for a big spike. It’s hard but if you get good at yanking ppl into the warden with void, it can really help, too. I need a bit more practice with that tho.

Mesmers have clones to distract and plenty of evasion/invulnerability options to keep them safe in melee. Now even with a sword/sword setup you do need to circle strafe/dodge fairly often, but with the sword trait, a staff for CA/CS aegis, and good uses of your block, daze, and distortion abilities, you can survive pretty well in close quarters while keeping up good damage or frustrate other players. Throw a scepter/torch in your rotation instead of GS or staff and forget about it; almost nothing can touch you, tho you do lose some DPS.

The thing with mesmer at just about any range, but especially in melee, is that if you mess up, you have to react quick or you go down fast. If you are on point tho, you can survive just about any foe, even champs and semi-perma-stealth thieves.

Gankfest.4965:

Everybody out of the circle! Put 1 guy in the circle, and AOE the crap outta that guy. Thief will die if he gets near, and visible if he doesn’t.

No… Dodge in >> Cloak and Dagger >> Dodge Out. No matter how you stack it, if the Thief is good, you won’t kill him in time before reinforcements arrive. Just remember this thread when people say GW2 is balanced and working as intended… D+e-r_p!

Heh. You don’t even have to take that risk. Just CnD someone outside of the circle, run inside the circle’s edge while stealthed, and then retreat/repeat when stealth ends.

Put 5 points in Illusions first. Then, it really depends on your playstyle and weapons.

If you are using a power/crit build, 10 in Domination gives you Crippling Dissipation. When you add clones on dodges from Dueling it compounds the effect or adds shatter fuel.

If you focus on staff, put some in Chaos and continue the Illusion lines to add some great survival that is needed until about level 40 when you really start to define how you want to set your traits, or respec.

Respeccing is so easy don’t worry too much about making bad choices early on. Just stick to the guidelines more experience player give until then.

Quam.7218:

20-20-0-0-30 is squishy but You have so many survival ability it’s almost insane.

Yeah people seem to underrate the defensive options in the Dueling line. Illusions also has a few good D picks, too. But I also agree 20 in Inspirations is very powerful, especially if you run with the focus and the mantra heal for condition removal and speed buff from centaur runes. Personally, I prefer 20/20/0/20/10 (tho I do miss IP shatters). Melee opponents are a joke with this setup and several reflect options take care of ranged fools. You can always make up stats with gear.

Use dodges and cripple to make other targets more attractive. Proximity is a fair part of the aggro in this game, and cripple seems to multiply the effect. If something comes for you, dodge and put a clone it its path. The farther you get, the greater chance the mob will disengage for an easier target.

The reason your berserker is getting tagged is because it applies the cripple at point blank range. Try using 4 before 2 so the mob switches to the clone after the zerker spins away. GS5 also works great to switch it up.

EDIT: kitten Ninja’d.

There are some times when I’ll stay in melee or even use the auto attack instead of BF if I know certain skills are on/off CD. The best you can do is get to know your enemy.

For example, I’ll usually save BF when fighting a GS warrior, especially if I know his stun is on CD. Then when he cripples me, or I see him wind up for 100B… well, let’s just say I’ll trade blows with a warrior that way all day long if he’s stupid enough.
Tip: BF is shorter than 100B, and 100B does more damage on the last hit, so wait half a second into his attack to start BF so you are invulnerable for his last big hit.

Ahh. Yeah, now I see. Yup those rabbits can be tough!

Hehe, OK, I’m done now.

Ether bolt needs at least something to make the clones worthwhile. Currently every clone has an ability to do something, except scepter clones unless I am missing something. Sword clones stack vulnerability, GS clones are decent with SI, and staff clones are just sick. Not only that, but even with the change, GS and staff can spawn clones just about as fast as the scepter, too.

If you are looking for shatter bursts pick up the trait in Domination that adds +20% damage to Mind Wrack and the trait in Illusions that adds +10% crit to it. Make sure you stack your skills that add vulnerability right before shattering, too. Otherwise you won’t notice a big burst of damage except against trash mobs, tho it can be great if you round a few up and AOE shatter them.

It’s more of a constant rotation of building illusions, making sure your phants get at least 1 attack off, and then shattering when the CDs come around. This way you can keep up a steady rhythm of DPS which is generally more important in PVE except when a single burst can take out your foes. You won’t see big drops in the red every time you hit F1, but you will see it dropping consistently faster than most other builds.

Note that if you go staff and max condition damage and get sharper images, you can do more DPS, especially AOE, than a power/crit GS build, but it’s not reliable since most of your damage is randomized by which conditions get spread around. I haven’t found anything that beats a sword/focus build for DPS, but there is obvious risk there as well.

@Kanto: You can really kill any single mob in 7s? I call BS too. Took me almost 4 minutes to kill the krait witch. :p

Morfedel.4165:

portal… really? Hm, honestly I hadnt played around with that much, but I remember the trailer video… I suppose that would make you a lot more dodgy, eh? LOL

That reminds me, anyone get any good use out of blink?

I was just trying it out at the time for a nearby explorable, but it really helped in this case because of the size of the boss and the confinement of the cave. He was so huge that portal was the only way I could dodge from before him to directly behind him and not get spanked by a big melee attack. It worked great, tho. By the time he turned and his minions caught up with me, my CDs were all back up.

I had a similar experience as Tina. I was in charr lands and found a cave with an event that spawned 2 giant effigies. There was a group of 3 in the area, but I was on my own. I saw them fighting one and went over to help, but ran into the other effigy. Using portal, decoy, and many dodges I kited and nearly took down the effigy alone. The other group took a while and I could see some of them down in the background. They finally finished with theirs and came over to help put the final blows on mine (one of them went down fast). After the battle one of them asked what was my class.

Qelris.6901:

I don’t know if it was fixed, but why are bug fixes always called nerf? People are just sad..

Because the devs seem more interested in fixing bugs that give players an advantage while ignoring many bugs that make skills/traits/builds unusable. Remember last time when they “fixed” Phantasmal Haste so the warden waits longer between attacks, yet they neglected to apply the fix to the swordsman; it STILL doesn’t benefit the swordsman at all? At least they improved sceptre this time around to compensate for fixes that nerf the class.

I really liked when it was a daze in beta. But since it’s not very likely to revert back, I’d like to see a larger AOE, personally. Maybe a bit more damage.

Geo.2084:

All added up = less obvious DPS than any other class.

Aye, but less obvious DPS =/= less actual DPS. Mesmers have a lot of little ways to make damage add up to a ridiculous amount that is not obvious. Especially when teaming. My mesmer regularly puts up damage higher than both my warrior and ranger buddies specced for damage in dungeons.

Puffendorf.1694:

So, anyone found any decent charr light ones yet? (

I actually really like the male charr heritage set, tho I usually change out the mantle and head pieces. Been using it since level 1 to replace the hideous apprentice kitten. Gloves don’t matter much with this set. Currently, I am using cabalist hood and conjurer mantle. Looks pretty sweet.

Zenith.7301:

Gaiawolf.8261:

Yeah, that issue was brought up in beta. We wondered whether mobs would stop attacking at certain levels of confusion, but Anet simply replied they attack and take damage like good little mobs. Yeah, like bleed.

I say keep the duration short, but increase damage in PVE so it acts like a little spike if you time large stacks right, but it’s just a little pressure damage if you only maintain a few stacks.

It’s sort of a catch-22, because Confusion either function likes a bleed as pressure damage, or it steps on Burning’s toes if we decide it’s better off as a spikey condition with duration instead.

It feels like a redundant condition when it should be different from the others — they repurposed Poison for this very reason.

There’s some strategy involved with short duration confusion that burning does not require, so the reward should be worth it. Burning is just straight DOT. I’d like to see confusion do even more damage than burning since it has a chance to not hit at all if your enemy does not use a skill. There was a reason why Backfire and Empathy did so much more damage than burning in GW; it was avoidable. That didn’t translate effectively to GW2.

iMage (and torch in general) is great for fast attacking foes like thieves, especially ranged opponents. Retaliation+confusion+reflection from traited Distortion just rips up Unload thieves. The Prestige helps us mitigate thieves stealth, too, as an added bonus. Unfortunately, this makes it rather suck for most other encounters (and most of PVE in general since mobs attack slow).

Now if iMage bounces were a small AOE that could tag groups, like bunches of risen and skritt, the benefit might be worthwhile.

Retaliation does a set amount of damage per hit; it’s not like reflection (which only works for projectiles). It’s far more useful on Unload than Backstab.

That brings up a question for you testers out there. If I have personal reflection and retaliation, does the enemy get hit by both, or does the reflect get it before it actually hits me? I am not talking about reflect field, like Feedback.

If illusions stuck around they’d have to increase their CDs, or worse, the CD wouldn’t start until the illusion is killed/consumed. No thanks. Keep em fast and expendable.

If you really don’t like them dying on kills, you can trait for some neat effects when it happens so it’s not a total loss.

The thing I love about staff is that it can be both a power or condition specced weapon that brings a lot of D/utility, but it works best at close range.

GS does more direct, reliable damage, but only if you spec for for power. And it can do that at mid-long range. Longer range has more damage from SS, but you get great stacks of might from MB at mid range. Both beat staff’s damage but don’t match its utility.

Personally I cannot decide what I like better. I’ve jumped back and forth between staff/GS/MH sword combos and each setup offers things I love. Staff is so much fun and versatile, GS does great ranged damage and power/might goes well with sword, and sword, well… it can pair with focus and nothing beats the damage of a sword/focus set when used properly (plus swiftness for travel is addictive).

Yeah, that issue was brought up in beta. We wondered whether mobs would stop attacking at certain levels of confusion, but Anet simply replied they attack and take damage like good little mobs. Yeah, like bleed.

I say keep the duration short, but increase damage in PVE so it acts like a little spike if you time large stacks right, but it’s just a little pressure damage if you only maintain a few stacks.

Yes! Making the warden a GT spell would rock!

The focus is a more versatile weapon with complex uses. The warden’s stationary nature means you can set him on a strategic point and defend it against projectiles (and even reflect them back traited). If you want to use it more offensively, the focus comes with a tool for that built in, too (Void). You would lose these functions and quite frankly dumb down the weapon with your suggestions.

stonberg.4198:

Qelris.6901:

Chaos Armor’s cd decreased by 5s.

That’s the change I couldn’t really understand, considering you can keep up chaos armour pretty much all the time anyway. Was it done just to give it the same CD as chaos storm? Just seems a bit odd/pointless(?)

Seems like it was done because it was so easy to get CA from combos that people weren’t really using the skill. They had to increase the CD for CS since it was so powerful otherwise but didn’t want mesmer to lose any CA time, so they decreased the rate you can combo it, but decreased the skill so you can still keep it up about as often. Also, the skill only applies it to use but CS can apply it to allies. Maybe they saw that as a problem, plus AFAIK the skill always grants protection while the combo CA does not.

thehunt.9315:

So I don’t use roll+illusion creation, I don’t use a lot of what those who favour GS use. A lot of you keep trying to box how a Mesmer should be traited/played. I’ve played a Guardian, Necromancer, and an Elementalist and if you play them you definitely see the AoE damage differences.

It’s not that we are trying to tell you how to play your mesmer, it’s that certain weapons and traitlines are generally designed for certain playstyles. Anet didn’t design this game like most other MMOs where you can pick your skills and talents how you want and then pair them with just about any weapon that looks cool and has great stats. Each weapon was designed from the ground up for certain playtsyles. This is true for all classes, not just the mesmer.

A lot of people here seem like they are using builds with heavy defensive or utility functions (like scepter/torch and chaos/inspiration) and then complaining that they are bad because they cannot kill as fast as an axe warrior. We are just trying to direct those people to a more direct damage build since it seems that is what they are complaining about.

If you want good, solid direct damage, GS and MH sword/pistol were designed for that playstyle (ranged and skirmishing respectively). So don’t try to do it with weapons not designed for that task. If you want a defensive set, scepter and torch are king. Staff, focus, and OH sword are so versatile it really depends on how you gear and trait for how you play them, but even with these weapons certain trait loadouts are better for some playstyles than others.

I did a rough search of this in the forums and I know it’s a hard point for a lot of players, but I did not find a particular bit of info I was looking for.

Do we know why Anet does not give us credit (loot/xp/etc) for using support and CC skills in DEs? Is it because they want everyone to act offensively and not just try to use support builds for events, or is this just a hideously glaring oversight?

Sci. Both the builds in the previous two posts are… Unreliable for dps at best. Not to say they don’t have their place, but phantasm armies are effective only while you keep them alive, and that means you need a staff and good utilities. Bleed spam is just not efficient. It’s a good secondary damage source.

Yes, mesmers can do good, reliable dps and it cones with power,critic builds that use shatters well. And no, I don’t mean pure shatterstorm builds. I mean GS + sword builds that build illusions, shatter, and use direct attacks in sync.

Yup, especially since Null Field and Feedback can also give CA. Between those 2 and CS (and I could easily see having them all on my bar when running a staff), you’d almost never need to touch your #4 button.

wightnoise.8092:

I think one of the problems is drawing too much aggro in pve. I’ve been trying to finish my storyline quests recently and just did that quest where I’m defending hyleks from the undead. So there’s an army of hyleks fighting an army of risen, but if I cast iBeserker, they ALL b-line right for me, like 8 risen. Really have to drop snares and having a cripple on shatter helps.

Hmm. You must be running quite a different build than me. I LOVE it when that happens. Saves me the trouble of having to run after them. When they all charge, the weakened risen slam right into a Blurred Frenzy + warden + max Mind Wrack = dead risen. It’s when they spread out and only some come at me while the others chase my berzerker that I have to scurry around dodging to round ’em up again.

I agree levels 20-30 or so were well… maybe a little frustrating if not just a little troublesome, but once I hit 40 I haven’t had any problems at all unless I get blindsided by an unseen spawn.

What really needs to be done is to give mobs extra health when more players show up, and they should space out the spawn points, too.

It wouldn’t hurt to award tags for assists (CC and buffs) either. That would go a long way to making PVE support builds viable for more than just dungeon runs for all classes.

How much fun it is to shatter really depends on your build. Obviously if you are going for a phantasm army build, you are going to get less out of it, and it feels rather counter intuitive.

On the other hand, I have a blast with some builds setting up a trap and then blasting it in my foes’ faces and then just when they think I’ve blown my trump, the illusions start pounding them again. I can understand it’s not for everyone, but to those complaining it’s not in theme or “mesmery” I just don’t agree at all. What’s deception and trickery worth without the reveal? You lead your prey through false images and deceptions confounding his perceptions, and just when he thinks he figured you out, you shatter the mirage in his face and cut him with it. What’s more “mesmery” than that (except maybe denial, and we have plenty of dazes for that)?

The only things I think the shatter mechanic needs are a buffed effect for each shattered phantasm and illusions need to run faster to their targets when commanded. And perhaps a bigger AOE for DEs.

One of the best things about staff is that it works with a power or condition build. And it even works very well with a mix of both. Obviously it does more damage with most of its skills in condition builds, but power will increase the damage done by the warlock and your shatters. Since it’s so easy to pop out illusions with this weapon, shatter builds are awesome, esp if you also trait Illusions for some secondary condition damage and use Signet of Illusions. The trick is to play close range if you can, and use IP for max effect and reduce enemy dodges from your shatters..

And nothing competes with 3 warlocks on bosses/champs/dungeon mobs in a power build if you keep them alive, but that’s PVE.

Just a tooltip bug. The skills are actually receiving both buffs in practice asaik.

Without any doubt whatsoever, Decoy.

I agree with what the others are saying. Sword/focus + shatter can kill trash mobs in <3-4s easy. Lots of trash mobs in maps, plus once you learn to use the focus well, you’ll never put down b/c it also gives swiftness.

GS and staff both make excellent secondaries for outing and synwrguze very well with sword/focus when skirmishing. I love them both and cannot decide which is my favorite, so I tend to go GS for outdoors and DEs and staff for indoors where space is tighter.

Definitely charr. They look fricken beastly. Asura I could punt 40 yards.