Guild Wars 2

Rock Dog is pretty powerful when it procs, which it will. It also benefits from Signet of Illusions.

What he meant is that they do not block phantasm summoning.

Wryscher.1432:

Gaidax.7835:

I don’t think that invisibility is an issue at all. The real problem is those first strike all in scholar rune dagger builds.

3-4 days ago I had an encounter with such a thief in sPvP. When he dropped on me, my 22k HP literally got slashed off by half in one hit. His opening steal landed for 2k instantly followed bybackstab crit for 9300 and there was also some additional damage from Sigil of Flame. All in all in the first second of a fight he did 12k damage.

Later I spectated him to see what’s his build is – it was 30/30/0/0/10, Runes of Scholar, Full Berserk d/d.

So yes, in my opinion what is broken is not stealth, but the fact that it is possible to nuke for 12k from stealth in what is effectively a single strike. I had 22k HP, I survived for some time, but he still got me in the end, but let’s take some people like Eles who have like what 14k HP? That would nearly be a one hit K.O.

In my opinion what needs balancing is damage, not stealth. 12k HP gone in a split second should not happen.

You wound then balance out the skills that could near instant kill a 14k glass cannon thief too, right?

Or is it just thieves that aren’t suppose to near instant kill people with 14 k health. And it is fine if other classes do it to thieves.

My personal opinion is ofcourse anyone running 14 hips deserves what they get.

What other skill can instantly take out 10k HP in one strike in sPvP? Also I got leveled with 22k HP, it’s not like backstab is everything the said thief got.

In my opinion any skills or combinations that can take out more than 7k HP in one timestamp should be looked at and reduced appropriately. It is pretty ridiculous that 12k HP can be gone in a second literally and there is no ifs and buts about it.

It is even more ridiculous considering it was done in sPvP with it’s already soft-capped damage. It is not a matter of who deserves what, it is a matter of 10k damage in one strike is simply too much in a game where you have professions that have as low as 12k base HP and thus can’t even realistically break 20k EHP barrier without completely screwing themselves.

I don’t think that invisibility is an issue at all. The real problem is those first strike all in scholar rune dagger builds.

3-4 days ago I had an encounter with such a thief in sPvP. When he dropped on me, my 22k HP literally got slashed off by half in one hit. His opening steal landed for 2k instantly followed bybackstab crit for 9300 and there was also some additional damage from Sigil of Flame. All in all in the first second of a fight he did 12k damage.

Later I spectated him to see what’s his build is – it was 30/30/0/0/10, Runes of Scholar, Full Berserk d/d.

So yes, in my opinion what is broken is not stealth, but the fact that it is possible to nuke for 12k from stealth in what is effectively a single strike. I had 22k HP, I survived for some time, but he still got me in the end, but let’s take some people like Eles who have like what 14k HP? That would nearly be a one hit K.O.

In my opinion what needs balancing is damage, not stealth. 12k HP gone in a split second should not happen.

Also +5% damage and +5% crit runes on weapons do not affect illusions.

Pistol is superior to Sword. Magic Bullet helps with runners, Swordsman is problematic on uneven terrain.

drongas.4189:

i guess u never get blind, if u blinded, enough just press #1 one time with sword without target, and it remove blind, u can try self if u dont trust me. and if i remember, when shatter mesmer use f1, clone do miss? or i wrong?

This is actually correct, I guess our little Phantasm basher was not aware of this fact

Blind will be removed by the next attack even if you just intentionally attack a thin air to begin with. You can do it without removing stealth either too.

I really don’t understand why on earth that dude thinks that blind is some sort of counter to Phantasm Mesmer, it’s a laughable waste of time really since you can instantly removed anytime by pressing 1.

I’m not even talking about the fact that by equipping torch you basically shoot yourself in a foot by giving up phantasm damage and cc options you could get from other offhands for a brief stealth that won’t change anything.

Well, I have spectated Mesmers with such a horrible builds in hotjoins, that it almost looked like they rolled their face over the keyboard just to fill out 30/30/x/x/x for teh l33test dommag! and got out to the field with no clue whatsoever.

I bet it’s like that for 70% of the people there, so just let it out…

On a serious notion, there is a sticky in the Mesmer forum with a bunch of build generally acknowledged to be effective. I think you should go read those guides there, before you take decisions.

I think it does well enough, if you think about the amount and quality of new content on top of lengthy monthly fixes and changes, it is clear that there is a team actively working on GW2, which means that the income they get from it is sufficient enough to invest it back into the game.

As for expansion, I am pretty sure we won’t see any for a long time. I think IF it will arrive, it will at least be one year from now. The decision for expansion is not in the hands of Colin or Anet – it is in hands of NCsoft – it will happen when NCsoft will let it happen, it’s just they are not interested in it at this point.

I see no issue with that, because rather than damage the equalizer here seems to be the extra active defenses the professions with lower HP/Armor get.

For example, the profession with both highest HP pool and Armor seems to be having he hardest time surviving in PvP, because they just don’t get those extra active defenses, which are extremely powerful and bridge the health/armor gate easily.

Ironically, warriors are actually amongst the most fragile professions out there. On the other side of the fence, I’d say my Mesmer is amongst the sturdiest guys out there despite lowest armor and mid of the range health pool, because instead I get overloaded with active defenses that pull me from the seemingly low position on survivability scale to the easily higher one.

That said, I think there is a place for damage balance to happen in PvE, one should acknowledge how tough it is to do right in GW2, since something as trivial as changing a weapon can make a completely wild and sometimes unforseen difference in the playstyle and output.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Archituethis.8274:

Lets give them a chance to prove themselves, please post a phantasm build that will be more effective in group play than a shatter build.

Phantasm builds are not effective in group play because the phantasms themselves die. This is well known and established.

The issue is that this guy proceeds to then claim that in addition phantasm builds offer no utility and less survivability, and that’s where people are taking issue. In general, phantasm builds are more survivable and have more options utility purely because of the style of play.

Exactly. Claiming that phantasm builds have less utility and especially survivability is absolutely ridiculous – 25 in inspiration and Mender’s Purity are the core of the build and you can pick up Restorative Mantras right there too and abuse Mantra of Recovery with double condition removal and superior HPS and that is on top of the fact that Phantasm Mesmers don’t really NEED to engage in melee for optimal damage and have little trouble staying at range.

Claiming that this is less survivability than a suicidal shatter is outrageous. I mean as Phantasm, you can easily stand on a ledges at graveyard, mine, henge, pretty much all of the spirit watch, kyhlo or gate/temple and nuke the kitten out everything with GS and lose very little damage doing so, while being hard to reach, while shatter simply can’t.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

Phantasm does not die against Shatter EVER unless he fails… honestly… to what are you dying? To shatters? It takes as much as one Blurred Frenzy to totally negate it, even if you pull out a root and disable dodging into clones.

The best chance here is to stealth and pull out double shatter from melee range, but really any half decent Mesmer player who tried shatter builds himself will see that coming from a mile ahead.

The issue with Shatter vs Phantasm is indeed that Shatter is much more complicated to pull out properly AND that it’s sustain is crap too – it comes in with it’s big bursts, but as long as you avoid it at the right time, that’s all there is then and Mesmers have some awesome active defenses, especially Phantasm ones since you basically only need to defend. So what I am trying to say is that not only Shatter has to work hard, but Phantasm simply can concentrate on avoiding kitten and with Mesmer toolset and mechanics knowledge it is not hard at all.

My grief with Phantasm is that it’s a selfish build. You offer nothing to the team, you’re a single targeted autopilot mesmer, and generally speaking, yes, I’m only dying to other shatter builds.

I think you are getting a bit too much agitated with your Phantasm hate here.

Shatter build is used not because it provides some exceptional team support, but because Phantasm build is weak in the larger fights due to a simple reason that phantasms just don’t live enough and shatter has more burst which is more important in that setting.

Phantasm build provides just as much team support kittenter, it’s just that it’s damage becomes much less reliable as the amount of people involved increases. If we would live in a dream world and phantasms would take only 10% damage from AoE abilities like in that, other game, you would see swarms of Phantasm Mesmers excelling in any setting including team fights.

Well, I’d say pretty words and definitions aside – it’s not like every skill should have a meaningful counterplay option right away. Taking LoL as example, there isn’t much of a counterplay options for a player on the receiving end of Malzahar’s Nether Grasp.

I think there is plenty of counterplay options open in the game overall, even some annoying mechanics like stealth actually do have counters. A skill being fun for both the user and the target is surely a noble goal, but the skill user should have a natural advantage using that skill in the first place and the options to counter it in particular because of it’s mechanics should be few (unless it is hideously powerful, like Hundred Blades, for example), otherwise it will be frustrating to the user when his own skills do more harm than good on a constant basis.

So going back to your Infiltrator’s Strike example – is there much direct counterplay for that? Not really. However, on the other hand it also means that the said thief has no access to Backstab and Heartseeker, which is a heavy price to pay for having Infiltrator’s Strike.

I’d say it is a self-inflicted counterplay here – you get to enjoy mobility benefits, while the target is glad it is not getting huge crits in his face from dagger.

Besides that, I’d say GW2 has plenty of built in mechanics to make use of enemy skills, reflection, retaliation, blinding, confusion, boon corruption/stealing and that is in addition to the classic CC and counter-CC options and plenty of skills having a particular counter due to their mechanic – obvious one is Hundred Blades, but there is a lot more of those.

Overall though, you should not bother much with that idea, because while people may claim a lot of counterplay option per given skillset in let’s say LoL if we continue with Riot Gaming franchise, their forums don’t seem to be filled with people happy about certain skills being used on them

So I’d say the vision is nice, but the execution is much harder and the outcome is pretty distant from the vision there.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

Defender could be good IF it did not take utility slot OR would not count against the 3 illusions limit.

It is problematic because you can’t have it and 2 phantasms together really, unless you totally want to ditch using leap, decoy or mirror blade.

I have no doubt that it can be powerful, but in my opinion it is not flexible enough.

Okay, if you’re not taking defender you’re going to die to a shatter mesmer… Enough said. And yes, I’m sorry, but phantasm mesmer is an autopilot. It’s easy to press a summon button, and then kite and spam invis. Shatter > Phantasm, when it comes to skill cap.

Phantasm does not die against Shatter EVER unless he fails… honestly… to what are you dying? To shatters? It takes as much as one Blurred Frenzy to totally negate it, even if you pull out a root and disable dodging into clones.

The best chance here is to stealth and pull out double shatter from melee range, but really any half decent Mesmer player who tried shatter builds himself will see that coming from a mile ahead.

The issue with Shatter vs Phantasm is indeed that Shatter is much more complicated to pull out properly AND that it’s sustain is crap too – it comes in with it’s big bursts, but as long as you avoid it at the right time, that’s all there is then and Mesmers have some awesome active defenses, especially Phantasm ones since you basically only need to defend. So what I am trying to say is that not only Shatter has to work hard, but Phantasm simply can concentrate on avoiding kitten and with Mesmer toolset and mechanics knowledge it is not hard at all.

Defender could be good IF it did not take utility slot OR would not count against the 3 illusions limit.

It is problematic because you can’t have it and 2 phantasms together really, unless you totally want to ditch using leap, decoy or mirror blade.

I have no doubt that it can be powerful, but in my opinion it is not flexible enough.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

Blink ontop, and pop torch invis. That’s an AoE blind… Enough said.

…

I just love it how everyone assumes that you somehow have to be in 900 range to decoy…

Want a good start of a fight as Phantasm Mesmer? Decoy just a bit outside 1200 range. Works every time. By the time a target realizes what happened you will already have at least one phantasm out, if they don’t stealth – you will have 2 phantasms guaranteed this way, 3 seconds initial stealth is enough.

Also, in case people here do not realize – you can start casting phantasm from above 1200 range, it will appear anyway as long as by the end of the cast you are in range.

Everyone knows you can use decoy whenever, but a good phantasm mesmer will channel that Defender immediately at the start of the fight, running forward, a stealth or decoy won’t stop this being summoned so even if you do go invis and start off with 1-2 phantasms (which like I said, is such an easy, skill-less autopilot build) they’ve already got a defender out. And for someone who’s playing shatter, that’s game over. A blink intop of their body, and a blind will ensure that defender doesn’t spawn. I run shatter, so that’s 24 seconds I can damage the phantasm mesmer at full, without the the -50%.

Good Phantasm Mesmer probably won’t be taking Defnder. The idea is not to get hit and it will get in a way with that, you either lose blink or lose Signet of Illusions. Not a good enough advantage over he loss, IMO.

Getting a good start is not “skilless, auto-pilot”, more like a sensible use of tools available to get early advantage. It is a powerful start, why not use it?

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

Blink ontop, and pop torch invis. That’s an AoE blind… Enough said.

…

I just love it how everyone assumes that you somehow have to be in 900 range to decoy…

Want a good start of a fight as Phantasm Mesmer? Decoy just a bit outside 1200 range. Works every time. By the time a target realizes what happened you will already have at least one phantasm out, if they don’t stealth – you will have 2 phantasms guaranteed this way, 3 seconds initial stealth is enough.

Also, in case people here do not realize – you can start casting phantasm from above 1200 range, it will appear anyway as long as by the end of the cast you are in range.

I think people are not getting in their imaginary battles that you are not fighting some dumb NPC… The opponent has a counter tool for anything you can throw at him and even if you let’s say do close that gap, can you actually keep that gap closed for more than a couple of moments? And then is that gap closing will actually really work in your favor to begin with?

The answer is not really.

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

DrixTrix.7168:

just stop them from summoning with any means necessary and your good, they hit hard but that’s it, not much more to the phantasm builds for the most part, if they do summon a couple destroy them there weak as peanuts, or alternately kite around you don’t need to sit and take it tasm style.

if your fighting on ledges or anything jump down, pull the player (or push him off) carry on the main mesmer he’ll have to re summon then blink back up, or jump back up, use the terrain, phantasm mesmer hit hard that is it take that away and they are weak.

To be honest, you are pretty much wrong… Phantasm casts are very hard to interrupt, they are fast, summon itself can’t be dodged and you can cast them stealthed without breaking stealth. For example – starting with Decoy is pretty much a guaranteed 2 phantasms up, you can’t do anything about it really.

Killing phantasms is a sure way to hell, because by the time you get rid of them – mesmer has another batch ready. besides that – with the said Decoy opening after summoning 2 phantasms you can chain CC the target for about 4 seconds, enough time for Signet of Illusions to kick in most of the time.

As a matter of fact, Bunkers are probably the weakest target Phantasm Mesmer can get – they simply do no damage in the window when Mesmer is exposed – which is not that much, while constant pounding from Phantasms that got Signet buff is simply devastating to them.

People that try to play with LoS will lose out, because they have multiple targets to try and LoS and they will simply get hit, less, but still get hit, while on the other hand their dancing will just kill all their pressure on Mesmer. If anything, the Mesmer itself benefits from trying to LoS here.

The only thing that has a real chance is hardcore constant pressure on Phantasm Mesmer, WHILE doing everything to reduce phantasm damage on you. This is a very hard task, because Mesmer himself has loads of CC, escape abilities and tricks on top of the fact that he can also just nuke your face with GS or Blurred Frenzy. Phantasm Mesmer is a god-tier 1v1 exactly because of the fact that it has amazing snowballing pressure AND great active hard defenses.

Lower levels I don’t really know… but for a large part of my 70-80 in Orr I was just running around with S/S meleeing stuff just fine.

Pyroatheist.9031:

shimmerless.4560:

Gaidax.7835:

Besides that, shatter specs usually come around with weaker phantasms to begin with, due to different weapons selection, for example the torch guy, that phantasm is worthless to begin with and GS isn’t amazing either with it’s issues.

I find that rather interesting considering every phant I’ve seen runs GS (in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen one without it).

As a side note if I saw a phant ever trying to non-defensively shatter on me I’d take that as an opening to end the game. You’re lacking far more shatter traits than vice versa (IP, Mental Torment, Precise Wrack, shatter CDR in general) to the point where your non-stealth defense rests on Distortion. That and the fact that clones are shatter fodder while phants are not.

Phantasm builds that run greatsword significantly lack defense, and the GS phantasm is obviously underwhelming. The most efficient and effective phantasm build is one that uses both the pistol and sword phantasms, as they are far and away the most powerful phantasms in pvp situations.

I completely disagree. I used to run S/S and S/P, but I always come back to GS, S/P.

Why?

The reason is simple – I use Sigils of Energy on both GS and Sword, so with extra dodges I get all the time my defense is really covered, but what I was sorely missing with Sword main hand setups is 3 things – an efficient way to keep the pressure, AoE and a way to catch an enemy running. GS fixes all of it.

Yeah, berserker is troublesome, but you still reliably get 3k out of it with occasional +-1.5k damage and the big deal in it is that it is AoE. The same berserker also is very good at catching runners, because it cripples and spawns on top of the enemy as opposed to the Swordsman. And besides – just one Mirror Blade or even Surge will cover whatever you MAY lose damage wise there, which is the real point of having GS here! You can nuke and easily from afar!

So, the point is that with GS you can actually safely nuke people from afar with Mirror Blade and Spatial Surge. If both attacks of Mirror Blade crit – it is around 3k damage 1200 range nuke by itself and two casts of Spatial Surge do that too in a line AoE.

Basically, your extra defense here comes from a fact that you can decently pressure an enemy from range YOURSELF in addition to phantasms, you don’t need to leap into melee to actually do some damage and Berserker is AoE, Knockback is AoE and you even got AoE boon strip, a bad one at that admittedly, but still. I find it to be a big deal for a build that naturally suffers in AoE and team fight department.

GS is simply better when it comes to anything that is not pure 1v1, which is what will happen most of the time and it is still just as good at 1v1 really and while it may sacrifice defense it is also better offensively and I think it’s a good trade, because as it is you are armed to the teeth with defensive stuff anyway.

shimmerless.4560:

Gaidax.7835:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

I run a GS S/T shatter build, when I 1v1 phantasm mesmers, my first move will always been, blink ontop of them and use torch invis. This blinds them, so their first cast will be a failure. You’re now invis, and they’ve got nothing. You’re going to want to then pop a mirror images or something and get a full burst off ending with an interrupt. That’ll rupt their current cast. Few more auto attacks, follow through with like a GS knockback and then mass invis so they can’t cast anything on you. Then, you can keep your distance, and auto attack from afar. If they’re summoning use a blink to blink further back, this will cause them to fail their summon yet again. Rinse and repeat, pretty fool proof. Just don’t let them get more than one clone out, if they do, try and force a distortion so you can reset.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you seem to rely on enemy doing nothing. Everything you said is countered by one small Decoy at the start.

I met enough shatter Mesmers and honestly, they are not hard at all 1v1. If you dodge their pretty obvious shatter, they have nothing left really and it’s a field day on their faces then.

This isn’t true. Most shatters spec 20 into Dueling (so bleed on crit). The phants don’t hit as hard as a true phant spec, but it’s still nothing to joke about.

The difference between having 30% extra damage and 20% crit chance or not on phantasms is large, same with HP boosts from Signet and trait. Besides that, shatter specs usually come around with weaker phantasms to begin with, due to different weapons selection, for example the torch guy, that phantasm is worthless to begin with and GS isn’t amazing either with it’s issues.

Besides, phantasm spec power comes from keeping phantasms around, so they can attack again and again. Can’t really have that with shatter.

Same can be said in reverse too by the way. Phantasm Mesmer can shatter too, I never hold back when a good shatter is possible close to phantasm CDs refresh or just opening up or simply to remove those last 4k health on target. Mirror Blade + Decoy and shatter is a good opener I use, that does decent damage even with only 2 clones.

Arganthium.5638:

As a thief, here’s my view for fighting these builds as a thief.

For one thing, this is one of the very, very few situations where I approve of the D/D weapon combo, which, personally, I have always despised. Actually, anything with /D is decent here, as CnD is very good against illusions, particularly if they stay out for a long period of time.

Furthermore, burst is an absolute essential; there’s no doubt about it whatsoever. You have to be extremely aggressive against a phanta mesmer and try to burst them down as quickly as possible, in order to prevent them from destroying you with their phantasms. What the phantasm mesmer lacks in some areas, like toughness or aggression, it makes up for multiple times with its phantasms.

So, the solution? Be extremely aggressive.

That is probably the best shot here at phantasm mesmer – getting a full glass cannon thief with a balls to the wall uber ROFLburst spec AND (important) Basilisk Venom elite… then try and burst the mes down right away ASAP right frikkin NAO!

If you fail – you either run away or die, but overall I’d say that anything less than that is auto-loss anyway, so it’s a good shot at that.

And it’s a shame you caved in… Just take another footage without names, the idea is good, so keep up with it and don’t be discouraged.

There will always be lots of whiny comments, but with no names I think there isn’t much to complain about.

Also, I don’t think you should ask permission either. Just hide names.

I think the vid was really good. I wrote a huge post about it, but the forum issues ate it.

I think the idea is sound, it is really interesting, since it lets you see what other players and professions do and useful comments with pieces if information like sigil shared cooldowns are great, a lot of people are not aware of it and there is a lot of stuff like that.

The Necro bit at the start was really ok and I’d say it is good it was there, because it’s good to have some light hearted entrance and not start cracking out numbers right away.

The guardian part was very good, you showed off the build’s possible strengths and weaknesses in the footage there. And you did a nice review of traits on the fly and we seen in action what they do, how much they heal or damage/effects they do.

The warrior one was a bit worse, IMO, but I think that mostly it was because of his supportive nature where he did not do much himself and you seemed to have a hard time understanding what is the point of his build.

Overall, very good.

Things to keep:

1) Light hearted opening where you show a funny bit to get the mood going – I like it.
2) Constructive narration.
3) In-depth traits and gear review.

Things to improve:

1) Hide names – people get offended by this and I think the reason is sound.
2) Work on a more light hearted style where you sound as respecting people’s choice and suggesting what could be better, without sounding as some sort of authority or seasoned veteran (this really makes people rage in comments). Builds that look silly on a first glance may actually be good and you could have just happened to watch a bad streak for the guy in this game, happens with all of us.
3) Incorporate 5v5 footage, IMO it is better because it is more personal, more small scale action going on, it is clearer and a personal build has more of an impact in every fight.
4)Review 3 builds per video, take 2 guys, which do ok and another one who does really well. This way we all can learn from the good player and understand why he is doing good and have a more down to earth guys where we can see and understand together how they could make it better. Don’t review obvious noobs who have no clue what they are doing, waste of time

So in the end – good stuff here, make more!

===

To the haters – cut the crap. I seen someone write “lol how can you review, ur only 800th place NA”, why does this even matter? If you see some sports commentators, there are some really good ones who are right on the spot and people love them, yet if you would give a ball to them, they would probably not be able to pass it properly the guy standing near them or if we exaggerate less, would be nowhere near the level of the guys they comment on. It does not matter, as long as you comment well, you are right and comment in proper style.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

I run a GS S/T shatter build, when I 1v1 phantasm mesmers, my first move will always been, blink ontop of them and use torch invis. This blinds them, so their first cast will be a failure. You’re now invis, and they’ve got nothing. You’re going to want to then pop a mirror images or something and get a full burst off ending with an interrupt. That’ll rupt their current cast. Few more auto attacks, follow through with like a GS knockback and then mass invis so they can’t cast anything on you. Then, you can keep your distance, and auto attack from afar. If they’re summoning use a blink to blink further back, this will cause them to fail their summon yet again. Rinse and repeat, pretty fool proof. Just don’t let them get more than one clone out, if they do, try and force a distortion so you can reset.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you seem to rely on enemy doing nothing. Everything you said is countered by one small Decoy at the start.

I met enough shatter Mesmers and honestly, they are not hard at all 1v1. If you dodge their pretty obvious shatter, they have nothing left really and it’s a field day on their faces then.

I play phantasm in sPvP and honestly… I have no idea. I never really met any hopeless complete counter yet.

I mean yeah, sometimes I get outplayed, but really when it happens it’s just purely because I did obviously worse. Same skill fight – very hard to lose. I’d say the biggest challenge playing phantasm is landing a killing blow on someone who only tries to run away.

Ah yes, Mirror. I started using it in sPvP like 3 days ago. It heals ok for it’s CD, but the real deal here is reflection. It can save you thousands of HP and you won’t even be aware of it.

I remember yesterday I was just messing around as usual and some rifle warrior came in… So we fought a bit on a spot, then I popped my Mirror just to get some health back and block some damage and it seems that just at that time that warrior decided that it’s a Kill Shot time… Long story short, he nuked himself for 5.5k damage, while I healed 4k. There you go, effectively 10k heal AND instant win button in your face nuke on enemy.

Now yeah, warriors are meat and that fight did not really matter, since I would win regardless, just because Mesmer vs Warrior is like beating a baby, but then you have rangers and engineers and I’d say those two can be extremely troublesome, that’s where Mirror shines, you will often see rangers nuke themselves for like 2-3k and stack awesome bleed on their butts and engineers suddenly getting a bouquet of conditions on themselves.

I’d say the only Mirror’s downfall is thieves, I’d like to pack Ether Feast there instead, but well. You can live with Mirror too and overall, I’d rather have more protection against rangers and engineers which can be kitten hard, rather than thieves which are pretty easy unless they suddenly drop on you in the middle of a fight in which case the deciding factor is if you have your escape utilities up or not.

If you are talking about the #6 skills then I’d say we have it decent, all 3 are useful and they are coming on a very short cooldown relatively to what others have.

If you are talking about other healing means, then I’d say we don’t really have anything significant other than occasional regeneration here and there. There is an option for some more self healing with restorative mantras, but honestly it’s not that good, IMO – it’s clunky and channeling for 3 seconds to get 2.6k heal is not really worth it, unless you run Mantra heavy build.

I honestly don’t understand what’s the issue…

Here is what you get in the list now for example.

Server 100 – 9/20

Then in description you see if it is 5v5 or whatever.

So just use your brain – this means there is a spot, yay!

Occasionally this spot will be taken by the time you join, so just join spectators and the moment someone leaves you will be able to join that team from the score window even mid match (there are arrow things at the right top of the score screen, where you can chose which side to join).

Too hard?

Let’s review example b:

Bobby the kitten stares at hotjoin server list, then he rolls his mouse over Server 78 – 15/20 with description 5v5 in it’s window. Will Bobby get the spot to play right away? Noooo! Good! Why not? Because 5+5=10 and server already has 15 players either playing or spectating, so he won’t get a spot to play!

So yeah… Really, the only viable complaint here would be the option to see how many players are actually playing the match as opposed to the current value of playing+spectating, but then – there aren’t really many cases of spectators when there are 9 players or less playing, so it’s ok as is anyway.

On the first one – if someone runs up to a Mesmer and starts mashing buttons then it’s his fault. By now pretty much everyone should know that MH sword = Blurred Frenzy incoming, so don’t just unload everything before you get rid of it. F4 is impossible to predict, but then it happens only once in 60 secs only.

On Signet, to put it plainly – it probably won’t be fixed. That’s because that is how signers are designed to work, they proc once per 10 seconds and give their invisible buff or trigger effect for 10 seconds. This is a technical limitation and I don’t think they will lift it.

The best way to deal with them is simply out stealth them. Dodge and avoid initial burst, once he pops stealth wait 2 seconds and use decoy or just use Mass Invisibility right away. He will get revealed before you and you can really go berserk on his kitten like that, because he instantly loses all his advantage and will have to go defensive or get stomped by phantasms and even if he starts dodging like mad your phantasms will spawn and just blast him later. He stealths again? Use Decoy or Mass Invi (whichever you did not use before) and you will again put him in kittenty situation.

Save your GS knockback for shadow refuge, it will destealth him which is a huge setback there. Also count seconds in your head, if you use Magic Bullet close to be moment when he will stealth, you will often hit him after he stealths and with Rune of Paralyzation he will be stunned most of his stealth which will let you gain some space and will give him little opportunity to make use of his stealth.

Also use energy runes on both GS and Sword main hand. Those extra dodges are golden here.

I run phantasm build. 20/20/0/25/5. IMO 10/30/0/25/5 is not that good with GS, because since you are going to be switching weapons a lot, the less CD on blurred frenzy won’t really matter much anyway, while 4 less seconds on Phantasmal Berserker is noticeable.

Also I really dislike the idea of running with only one stun breaker which is Decoy on top of that, Decoy is an excellent ability to open fight with since it just lets you get your phantasms up easily and set up a surprise burst right away. I kinda need another stun breaker (blink) or else this will become a very dangerous way to open combat. I realize that you can use veil for that, but 90 secs cd is just too heavy there and you are still left with only one breaker.

I also lately been bringing Mirror as my heal, it does not heal much, but it has less CD, so it’s more condition removal and a lot of condition players rely on projectiles to stack those so that’s some further condition protection right there (besides seeing a typical moron ranger nuke himself down or overzealous engi getting a nice conditions bouquet on his face is fun).

I think Moa is not good for a simple reason that it’s CD is really long. A clever use of Mass Invisibility is much better, IMO, since it can both get you out of trouble vs several guys or allow you to surprise and steamroll a defender before he realizes what is going on and all that on a relatively short cd. Besides, it can not be avoided.

Nerf the hard hitters and then give them more gap closers, conditions protection and CC.

All the kitten like hundred blades and such is just dragging warriors down, because as long as theoretically they can do like 12k bursts every 8 seconds, they can’t really be buffed.

Slash the theoretical output by 30% and then add more NON-DAMAGING abilities to either sustain himself longer or control the fight more.

GS and S/P or S/F along with blink is usually enough to catch most people. Honorable mention – Null Field or Thievery to rip swiftness.

Phantasm Mesmer should stomp BM ranger with little problem most of the time.

Commander tag is bad in sPvP.

Why would you want to feed your enemy info? That just sets your team back.

You basically “flaunt” at expense of your team, I would get angry too.

I run phantasm in sPvP.

Shatter is awesome because it allows you to pump out some really insane bursts, way above what Phantasm build can do, you can literally kill some people in 3 seconds without exaggerating here IF you pull everything out perfectly.

What I don’t like about Shatter though is that it is sort of an “all in” type of the play. You really need to focus on nuking or else it just does not work well.

Phantasm build on the other hand can’t really burst that high, right away, but you get the ability to systematically snowball into a monster that enemy just won’t be able to sustain eventually. It takes some time, but not really that much and you also are really good at buying that time. Basically it is a very safe approach, which I like more. Also it has some great sustained damage, which is pretty hard to avoid unlike shatter.

While it is interesting indeed, it is clearly not intended and is a clear exploit if abused.

I run Phantasm in hotjoins. Honestly, 80% of the people there don’t even know what are they doing…

I mean, I had 1v2 just recently – warrior and some other dude who dropped like a stone (I think it was ranger). So I just roflstomped both of them and then the ranger dude started whining at the warrior in /s “OMG, why didn’t you revive me?” and that warrior answered “How do I do that?”.

I mean… yeah… those two totally deserved to win there, right?

And there are a lot of those, really… Tons of rangers with enough brain capacity to only spam #1, warriors who just flail around with 100b randomly, people who run full Zerker “cuz dommage good!” who just fall apart in seconds, people who are mentally incapable of disengaging, thieves who think that Shadow Refuge is the ultimate escape and then just find themselves on their kitten after Illusionary Wave.

Heck, even when they do kill me it’s often filled with fail – like a couple of guys chasing me across the whole map for a minute, while their points are being happily capped meanwhile. Really…

People who are actually good won’t be dying easily. The build is strong, but there are plenty equally strong other builds out there.

There are some good eles who can really give you a lot of trouble and are basically unkillable because they can disengage fast with you having no chance to catch them unless they want you to catch them.

Heavy condition Engineers are the end of me, if the guy is good – I’m either toast or running for hills.

Other than that I sometimes meet people who are giving a really good fight.

So yeah, phantasm spec is really powerful 1v1, no doubt there, but GOOD players will come with GOOD specs too and you will not be beating them easily, that’s for sure. The problem is that there are not many of those good players out there.

I PvP only and #2 is awesome – it’s one of the better stomp interrupts there are and #3 is great too really – it crits for nearly 7k on glassy guys, I had quite a few last moment rallies just because if you down a guy with Phantasmal Rogue, it will still be around and with your #1 and this thing you can actually win out.

Here is your test: go to the Heart of the Mists, equip berserker amulet, use 10/30/0/25/5 spec.

Go to the Light Armor practice golem, first summon Illusionary Swordsman – it crits for around 4.3k damage and hits for like 2.1k. See how much of the golem health bar it takes off. Take a simple ruler and physically measure the life bar taken on screen. Do it 10 times to make sure.

Then summon Phantasmal Berserker. You WILL see that it hits as low as 1k and sometimes, rarely even manages to not hit at all. Use your ruler to make sure the floater number is true and is not just some visual bug (although it is just obvious to the naked eye, really).

Here is even more data, if all Berserker’s hits connect and crit he does about 6.2k damage. Which means that if he won’t crit with ANY of his attacks at all, he should do about 3k damage minimum… Let’s even make it 2k just to make sure.

Yet he still manages to hit for 1.3k damage and this is what the dummy golem actually loses if you check it with a ruler.

Really, this test takes whole 10 minutes… And this is also a completely stationary target too with set stats. How can Anet claim that the issue is with floaters is beyond me.

TooBz.3065:

It wasn’t sarcasm so much as a joke.

I actually though you were either talking about timewarp (haste, fenzy) or mass invisibility (blinding powder, shadow refuge)

Both Mass Invisibility and Time Warp are vastly superior to either options you mentioned.

I’m having fun, good enough for me. When I won’t have fun anymore, I’ll leave for something else, there is plenty out there.

I, personally, would love 2 things: more solo queue gameplay support, new maps and modes – siege (one side attacking other defending then flip), 3v3v3

The same reason there is no 1v1 in LoL, Dota or just about any similar game. It is inherently unbalanced and if you would try to balance it, then it will hit 5v5.

Leuca.5732:

Carighan.6758:

I was wrong btw, it’s 4300 HP, not 4600. Had to look at the wiki quickly. :P

I also don’t get where this signet is strong than a +180 stat passive one. It’s so weak, people slot it for the active and use that on CD. Great passive that one is!

Mind you, your nemesis, the Phantasm-specced Mesmer: Kill his Phantasms, and you can heal faster than he can damage you. The signet never stops you from killing the Phantasms, because even buffed, they are fragile as hell either way. They no longer die from the damage caused by random bystanders, yes. But since the Mesmer is completely committed to them, just commit to them and kill them and the Mesmer becomes a non-issue. It’s a really easy spec to overcome (by comparison to shatter builds) because you can dictate the fight rather well.

You were wrong again. 200% more health is essentially adding the base health twice, which is multiplying it by 3. That brings phantasm base health from 2150 to 6450 before any other effects come into play due to traits, etc. If I’m correct, the trait adds 20% based on the health the phantasm had before any other effects were in place, so it adds 20% of 2150 for a grand total of about 6880 health with signet + trait active. If you wish to tell me that spammable AI with that health and bunker like base toughness is ok even without their ability to be traited for fury/constant regen, there’s something wrong there imo.

In all fairness, bunker-like toughness is there only if you decide to use toughness gear yourself.

I, for one, would not have an issue with it being only 100% bonus, IF it would work instantly. However, since it is not the case, I find 200% value to be completely reasonable, since if the enemy decides to not keep phantasms in check ASAP, then he can’t really complain about them escalating into an issue 10 seconds later.

Besides, giving up an utility slot on Mesmer for that is not a small price, considering you are already expected to use one at least on team related stuff. If you hotjoin, then it means that you either lose one stun breaker/escape or condition removal. Not an easy choice either.

Take Phantasm Mesmer, add Soldier’s Amulet with Berserker’s Jewel, add s/s and s/p (both right hands sigils of purity, offhands accuracy). Equip Signet of Illusions.

Have fun doing almost Berserker level of damage, while being insanely tough with 8s cd Blurred, 2.5k armor, 24k hp and block on demand that crits for 3k+.

Weaknesses: can’t chase people, extremely heavy condition spam from a non glass engineer, slow.
Strengths: 1v2 are not a problem, can survive insane bursts, can fight on a point really well, excellent damage to survivability ratio.

Amazing in hotjoin. High damage and heavy defense crush pretty much 90% of people there, many won’t even be able to really hurt you.

If you nerf Blurred Frenzy then you will have to compensate Mesmers somewhere else defense-wise, do you want more stealth and clones BS?

Don’t think so.

Either turn off auto-targeting or don’t spam stuff mindlessly… fixed.