Guild Wars 2

They changed it to a PvE only sigil didn’t they?

Edit: Doing a fast google search has poped up with it apparently does work but I found a few that still says it doesn’t. ^^ Sorry ^^

I just started sPvP myself recently. It took me some time to get used to it but I seattled with a shatter build. S/Pist and GS. I don’t use Centaur or Air as I don’t think any of the maps are big enough to need the extra speed. HOWEVER, one thing I really like doing is once I have taken a point if I decide to go take another one or go help defend one under attack I leave a portal in the circle at the one I am at. Most of the maps the range isn’t long enough to reach the whole way to the second point but it is enough of a jump that I can surprise people who think there is no one at the point they are trying to take.

In sPvP I think taking those runes for the speed boost would kitten me a bit. ^^ I am still kind of amazed as how different sPv kitten ince I can’t play with my stats as much and no food. ^^

Don’t think of them as ONLY themselves but in coordination with other traits.

It is obvious but with a phantasm build you want to pump them out as fast as possible and the weapon reduction as well as the adept minor trait in illusions do stack to make the phantasms on the weapons able to be used a lot more often.

Focus Trait is by far the best of them all though. Give us more swiftness up time and gives us two forms of reflection. Standing inside of an iWarden is a particular pleasure of mine when fighting ranged enemies.

Staff is also great. extra 50 toughness isn’t something to shake a stick at.

Pistol is awesome again because of the synergy with the other illusion CD trait. Also, even though the phantasm (this may be a bug or not) does run into 900 range before firing, being able to summon the iDuelist from farther away means that when you are running at an enemy you can get a damage dealing phantasm out before you and him get super close.

Sword is amazing when using dual swords. I use it even if only a main hand though because 50 precision is super nice. As well as being able to use Leap more often.

Greatsword is nice because of the snyergy but also because GS is a heavy hitting weapon to start with 50 power is super nice.

Torch is a joke but torch is also bugged.

I personally have never used Scepter.

I agree that in PvE if you are taking the traits just for the Cool Downs that it may not be worth it but in PvP or WvW a second or two can decide the battle.

Well, the Asuran iWarden is for sure the coolest looking since it looks like we are raving at some crazy party. ^^

Any MMO I have ever played I have always picked the smallest race (I blame that on being 192cm/6’4" in real life and totally hate it). However, I have always been jealous of the fact that smaller races loose out on some of the armor looks and stuff because of size constraints. HOWEVER, we also look better than some races with certain armor so it is really a throw up.

Waiting for Chinese and Japanese text in chat.

I would rather have a fan like in the concept art. ^^ No idea how they would work it but I would hope it would be a new weapon not just a focus skin. ^^

As for MH Pistol. It has to have a clone generator as every weapon that has a skill in the first three skill slots has a clone generator. A bouncing attack would be to much like the off hand number 4. Giving us an Unload like the Thieves have is just asking for the Thieves to get all worked up over not having the single coolest attack in the game.

I simply don’t see how they would work it.

Aveneo.2068:

Duelist Discipline being a Master trait

Poor argument since our torch reduction trait is also a Master Trait. Sword is the only weapon reduction trait that isn’t Master actually.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Skill 1. Bounces up to three targets, 1st target gets 1 stack of bleeding (4sec), 2nd is poisoned (2sec), 3rd 1 stack of confusion (3sec).

Skill 2. Do an evasive move (1.1/2sec evasion, matrix style) that bleeds (1stack 6sec) and burns (3sec) foes and summons a clone at your current position. CD 12sec.

Skill 3. I want something like Static Shot on engi’s pistol!

I love Mesmer and even I know that skill 1 is over powered. A move that does a condition each to three different people on auto attack? That is the definition of OP i think. Also, it isn’t random enough. These kinds of FOR SURE THIS TYPE OF CONDITION ability is stepping on the eng and necro’s territory too much. We gota be much more random. ^^

Great grats you are the 1millionth person to make this thread. Let them fix all our weapons we have now and make the game not buggy before making new content.

I agree that they are different but they are also kind of similar. I was just trying to correct his thinking of retaliation a bit. ^^ Since I use both retal and confusion on my Mesmer. Both need to be either cured or ripped off or the opponents own attacks will kill themselves.

Retal is a bit rougher because you have to be hit(actually you can still do retal damage to them even with out being hit but that may be a bug) BUT it is still very damaging. I personally don’t think either of them needs to be changed.

Zythan.5723:

Hexxen.7216:

Since when is retaliation fixed damage? It is based off of the person’s power.

I apologize, I forgot to consider this. I meant that retaliation will always be 33% of the output damage returned, and not able to spike like confusion when it gets to 10-15 stacks.

That is still wrong. The damage from retaliation is based off the power of the person who has the BUFF not the person doing the attack.

Zythan.5723:

Retaliation also has a fixed amount of reflected damage, 33%, so it wouldn’t make sense for it to scale.

Since when is retaliation fixed damage? It is based off of the person’s power.

Also, if they do nerf confusions like they did in PvP they better give us free re-trating as well cause going to have to start switching builds even more often than I already do.

Ok needs more testing but in about 3 hours worth of WvW roaming finding small groups I am able to beat 1v1 without really trying. I thought I might have an issue with a full galmor mesmer BUT i was lucky enough to find one. Wasn’t nothing. Just turned off my auto attack and cleansed before did a combo for CA.

Groups of 3 were taken down with a bit of difficulty but still 100% win rate. Groups of 4 however……. they would all down themselves but they I can’t take that kind of damage either so they would down me around the same time and 4 people downed beats 1 person downed.

Ran with a smallish zerg for a bit as well to see if I felt like I was helping and I did. Not nearly as much as a full glam mes but I was able to do my part just fine putting confusion on anyway who hit me.

In the end I am going to keep testing this build. I am REALLY upset that they took protection off of CA procs cause yeah I am sure I could take 4 with the extra protection duration.

I switched between Mantra Condition Cure, Thievery and Signet of Midnight. I liked the Mantra the best EXCEPT vs other mesmers. With other mesmers Thievery was the best can I could give them there own confusion back.

I would say this is a viable build even without the protection from CA hits. However, I must say that I found myself moving even more than I do when I run my Shatter Cat.

Was REALLY fun though. Wouldn’t say it’s the best but very much viable so far. As I said more testing to come but I think it will stand up. ^^

After a bit more testing I will rewrite the first two post to be a more easy to follow guide. ^^

Please fix all the bugs before worrying about ANYTHING ELSE!!!!! Thx.

Also, Sigils will be tweeked as I go. I have two Corruptions on there cause I want to get my stacks if I am on either weapon set. As I plan on dying a good deal while tweeking this (and potentially even after tweeking this if it proves to be a bad idea) I don’t think it will be much of a waste.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Gonna have to rain a bit on your parade I’m afraid.

Protection is only given when chaos armor, the skill, is activated. It will not proc from the on-hits, you can only get regeneration or swiftness. This build is certainly an interesting idea, but it will not have the tankyness of that permanent protection uptime that you were planning it to have.

Yeah I figured it wouldn’t when I read the forums and the wiki but it seems to be up in the air if this is a bug or not. If it is a bug I can hope it eventually gets fixed. If not I would say that this build might prove to be impossible BUT I am still going to try it out. ^^ I will let ya know if I can live long enough to do anything.

Reserved for future use.

The Bubble Build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQNAW8flwzKqXVTqGb9IhpH9G5A/UBmj6x1r+3B-jkyAINioZaRgIRKzpQscIREb1NI13pxqZw0oER1ekioVLEwi1A-w

I have switched up the build A LOT. With the new “nerf” (I in no way find this a nerf at all I was actually really REALLY upset when they first change the Staff#4 to give protection on use instead of procing on hit). The internal CD might be an issue. I am currently at work (love when my kids have tests) and cannot test at the moment.

The NEW idea with this build is you kill with condition/confusion.

You are going to be either invisible and getting PU buffs of visible with Chaos Armor on thanks to Staff4 and ether field leap finishers. You should never just BE visible. Like I said I cannot test at the moment BUT thinking about the CDs and timers in my head you really should either be invisible or in a Purple Bubble.

I will be testing this A LOT when I get home in both WvW and PvP. This was the absolute funnest build I have ever worked on before the confusion nerf and I am hoping that these buffs can make it viable again though in a slightly different way.

I use a tweeked immortal i know lol. But I didn’t think guardians had any issues keeping it up full time either. Just thought we had the advantage of a huge stack of time. I have never played guardian though so.

Before they limited the max amount of stacked time for retal, Mesmers had the most up time of it even over Guardians lol.

That being said iMage is useless as is.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|c.1g.h19.d.1g.h1|1.1g.h8|1g.7h.1g.7h.1n.7h.1g.7h.1p.7h.1g.7h|1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67|k3a.k24.0.p28.5|39.7|31.3d.39.38.3q|e

I never run full zerkers like some people want. ^^ I also never die on my mesmer while running this like I have seen full zerker mesmers do a bit.

Switch out the GS for one with the 10% damage to Flame Legion though.

I fully agree that allowing the other races to join our prestigious colleges is a flawed idea. Our colleges are a privilege that every Asuran gets. They are not a business and if they were other races could never afford it.

That being said, I think we should open a College of Linguistics because most of these past posts have just been horrific. The common tongue is not our native language but we are Asuran we over come any obstacle of the mind. This display of poor language skills is unforgivable.

The cool down does affect iDuelist and it is worth only that if you are running a phantasm build.

I don’t care about Oceanic Servers. My Japanese guild is on an American server we don’t mind that. We would just like to be able to type in Japanese text instead of having to use roman letters.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|c.1n.h8.c.0.h15|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.7h.1n.7h.1p.7h.1n.7h.1n.7h.1n.7h|1a.64.1a.64.1a.64.1a.64.1a.64.1a.64|a3.u5a4.k45.0.a3|54.7|31.34.35.36.3q|e

I seriously made this just now for you. I would never use this cause I am also on board that not weapon swapping is gimping yourself. HOWEVER, I understand wanting to just auto-attack in PvE sometimes.

This build has a very high crit chance. That is mainly for healing purposes with the food. It has a 1second cool down on the activation but that won’t matter much cause its PvE and you won’t really be getting hit THAT hard. You also have the 30% chance on the off hand sword.

It has the generally accepted 1500+ toughness to be meleeing mobs. It has almost 19k HP. Just under 25% damage reduction WITHOUT active clones/phantasms for which you get an extra 3% for each one as well as 3% more damage for each one active. The iDefender is there to help suck up damage as well.

Again this is NOT a build I would ever use. Though I am positive that it will work for your purposes.

In zerg situation is gets killed rather faster. However, it has many uses.

With feedback trait you can just stand in it while facing ranged attacks.

Outside of dueling or small fights it is rather nice when taking towers and keeps.

If you can get line of sight on someone on a wall (which you can a lot) you can put an iWarden on the wall. This is good for hitting ranged attackers from a wall BUT even better is if you can put them on a cannon or oil. They just stand there and attack the cannons and oil and are rather good at damaging it for a Mesmer.

You have a lot of Japanese players as well as several non-Japanese players who live in Japan (like me) that have Japanese guilds. We currently have to type in Roman Characters which is EXTREMELY slow and rather rough to read during a guild event/mission. No idea how hard it would be to make the chat system able to support Japanese text but PLEASE if you can get some work on this.

Kajetan.3146:

2. if you get updrafted with staff equipped and port back you.will be stuck.in a standing up position until the cc runs out

Any kind of knock down has this effect. Not sure if you are saying the standing instead of being knocked down is the bug or if it is because it isn’t breaking the stun. If it is the later Phase Retreat was never a stun breaker and shouldn’t get you up from a knockdown either. Though it is nice to get more distance so that it can run out of the CC before the person gets to ya.

If it is about the standing position you are in then I think that is a bug but don’t really know if they will bother to fix it.

Even if it doesn’t affect the range of iDuelists attacks it is still worth it. (Though I admit that this is probably a glitch and I too hope that they fix it.)

It lets you stay farther away from the target when summoning. On a phantasm build or a hybrid getting them out as soon as possible is key. Being able to summon this when you are running into an opponent sooner will be helpful. Also yeah the 100% finisher part is really nice. And I would take the trait just for the cool down honestly. ^^

I do agree though that it is probably a glitch. ^^

Depends on your build. Many people say you need a Guardian in dungeons but I for sure do not find that to be true. If you are looking for someone to take hits for ya I can do that on my Mesmer.

If you are looking for group healing I can do that with my Mesmer.

If you are looking for condition removal I can do that but not to the same extent.

If you are looking for swiftness I can do that almost as well.

If you are looking for…..I can’t think of anything my Mesmer can’t do that a Guardian can. In either case both jobs differ based on their builds.

Mesmer is better in my opinion cause I am biased but also we can apply TW which no other profession can and this can make a huge difference in boss fights.

Mini Mesmer Tank!!!!

I run an tweeked Immortal Build and thus wanted to look the part. Head and Body are SE. Gloves are CoF. Rest of it is HoW. Staff is The Crossing obviously and I like helping others on their journey to the underworld. ^^

I know you didn’t ask but this is my Phantasm Build for everything PvE.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|c.1g.h1d.d.1g.h1|1.1g.h8|1g.7h.1g.7h.1n.7h.1g.7h.1p.7h.1g.7h|1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67|k3a.k24.0.p28.5|39.7|31.3d.38.3a.3q|e

I switched the slot skills around for what I would run in CoF. I mainly use Greatsword to stay away from mobs. You can easily switch out the cavalier gear for full zerkers but I use this in other PvE situations and don’t feel like making a zerker set when I still do perfectly fine damage with cav gear.

For the Acolyte room your great sword along with iZerker is going to kill things at a distance letting you run away faster. If things are coming to you blast them away with the GS and then turn tail and run. Hit distortion for invulnerability cause you probably have one or two clones up so that is a few seconds of it. Curtain also reflects here so run past it and let it reflect for your while you run and before it goes away use into the void to pull the mobs that got past it even though they are crippled. You don’t need far reaching manipulations really. A normal Blink works fine.

For the Door Switch room. Stay away from the closest to the door. that has the assassins and they hurt. Take any other one. I usually kill the mobs actually and thus is much easier to run away cause I have nothing on me.

This is my advice. ^^ Also, in the Acolytes room always let a war run out before you. ^^

In a snap shot instance with a 2-hander ya got me there is no off hand. But there are health bars and so on. That aside though, battles aren’t screen shots are they?

Also, please don’t think that any of us are trying to convince you that you are wrong. We don’t care what you think for yourself we just don’t want other new Mesmers thinking your right cause well we know you aren’t. But it is a free world and you can think what you want. ^^

Arganthium.5638:

Hexxen.7216:

You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.

Arganthium.5638:

So, the theory is this: if you took a single snapshot of a scene in a battle against a mesmer, theoretically, it would be difficult, if not impossible to discern between the illusions and the players.

If you took a video spanning one tenth of a second, you might be able to notice movement patterns, but you can’t draw enough information as a character in a tenth of a second to determine which mes is real.

If the video took half a second long, then, depending on movement patterns, and, possibly, positioning, you could tell which mesmer was real.

The idea is, the longer that this video spans, the more likely it is that you will be able to guess the real mesmer. However, there are different factors that affect how quickly you can spot the real mesmer, including the above listed: movement patterns, positioning, etc. If all of the mesmers look extremely similar, by nature, it will take longer to discern between them than if one looked entirely different from the others. That’s my theory behind illusions, and I think that it’s a perfectly legitimate one, too.

So, yes, clones act fundamentally different from players, but, in the short run, depending on how players act, it can become less and less likely that a player will be able to discern between mesmers and clones, simply because they cannot collect enough information to tell which is which, which is why mesmers gain some degree of benefit from clones as tools of deceit.

You don’t mention DE once in that post. Also, if you took a snap shot you would just have to look to see which one doesn’t have an off hand weapon and you would know.

You haven’t really supplied us with any new ideas of how to use it though. You just keep telling us not to us it so much. Go into a more in depth post about how you would use DE for more than just an added bonus to a dodge or for pumping out clones for shatter fodder. I am sure we are all on our seats waiting to hear what you think we haven’t already tested and tried out.

Have you watched the Mesmert Videos? Like Osicat’s Shatter Cat vids. The really good Mesmers are always on the move. Also, we very frequently have vigor up and thus can dodge like crazy.

I am sure when the game came out several people (myself included) attempted to do the whole hid in clones thing instead of moving around like a mouse on fire like we do now. It didn’t work. Too many attacks are actually short AoEs and clones die SUPER fast and thus trying to hid only lets our enemies get closer to us. We also attack faster than out clones and have an off hand weapon and everything else we do that they don’t. Clones work great in PvE cause mobs are stupid, players are in general not as stupid as mobs and thus we Mesmers moved to extremely mobile and constantly moving builds. Other than yourself has anyone agreed with that that tryn to hid in clones is a good idea or for that matter even a viable idea? I am pretty sure I have read everything and no one has.

DE doesn’t have any negatives though. In the OP you mention that it exposes the real Mesmer. Ok fine I don’t trait DE and dodge roll. BAM you know which one is the real Mesmer. Now, I trait for DE and dodge roll BAM you know which one the real Mesmer is anyway but I now have a clone which probably isn’t my only one to either blow you up or give me a second or two of invulnerability.

There are no negatives. Now if you are trying to get at that people are using DE in a build that shouldn’t be using it and should be using another trait in that spot then yes you are true but that is just because they are new and don’t have their build finished yet. But my point still stands that in ANY BUILD, even if it isn’t the BEST trait to take there are ZERO, NONE, NO negatives to the trait itself.

I actually kind of hope that the iWarden not moving isn’t a mistake. I REALLY like it not moving.

Arganthium.5638:

My point with DE is that mesmers often use it as their prime method of spawning clones, which is perfectly fine, but if they abuse it too much (as they often do), then it can backfire.

We abuse it for shatter fodder to blow you up not to confuse you. This is what EVERYONE is trying to tell you. We are not using DE to CONFUSE you!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, let me play devil’s advocat here and say that it actually is not as easy for other players to tell the real Mesmer apart. Let’s even say you are facing a Mesmer who is actively trying to confuse you in that way (trust me none of us are).

You are posting in the Mesmer Forums. Many of us even if we have other jobs leveled are what we consider to be Mesmerts (Mesmer Experts ) of course we are going to tell you that it is easy to tell the real one apart, it isn’t stretching the truth at all saying that we are well trained in telling which one the real one is more than other classes.

HOWEVER, post this in any forum and MOST maybe not all but MOST people will tell you it is easy. And if you try to say that it is easy because they are not Mesmerts then I have this to say, there are only a few builds that would even try to confuse you with clones and from what I have seen not too many Mesmerts run them.

Don’t worry about your swiftness so much. The reduced cool down on curtain is enough to make you not terribly slow. Use your runes to boost your fighting. And though swiftness is nice when evading people and letting your phantasms do the work those 2.5 seconds are not worth a wasted 2 rune slots.

Also take into consideration that Shatter builds have this skill for shatter fodder. When I run my shatter there are many times where I wish I could toggle this trait on and off at a blink of an eye. It can get annoying popping out a clone that goes and attacks a mob but I can’t take the trait off cause I need it for when I run into a real enemy.

The people running away from you probably are not dodging to confuse you with clones. Anyway who gets confused by clones is a new player or needs glasses cause it shouldn’t take more than a second or two to figure it out anyway cause clones don’t have second hand weapons. They probably are just thinking they will dodge and hopefully evade one of your Heart Seekers or Backstabs and the clone they pop out is a second after effect that they arn’t even thinking about. But out right telling people to not take it is kinda over bored cause they arn’t taking it for the reasons you are arguing.

I run that puzzle in about 3-4min if I don’t run into enemies. You still have a safety net with portal. Just throw it down before larger jumps. If you fall port back up and try again if you fall again more than likely your portal is still active and you can port a second time back to the start point.

Put 20 points into Insperation to get the 20% reduced cool down for focus off hand to let you use Curtain more often. Have a Staff in your off hand to throw down Chaos storm for a chance for more swiftness (this is not something to rely on as it is random and very short lived).

You will probably be nearish or can get to lvl 39 even with just doing it for the portal. At that point runes of the centaur will give you 15% duration bonus.

In the torch area you can drop the torch and put down your curtain to get yourself swiftness for the short cut.

Also, Signet of Insperation will randomly grant you a rather long lasting swiftness as a passive once ina while.

I am not saying to use this build.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|b.1c.h4.a.1c.h1h|1.1c.h1h|1c.7a.1c.7a.1c.7a.1c.7a.1c.7a.1c.7a|4u.0.3u.0.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c.1c.9c|u5ac.k59.0.0.k24|1k.1|33.3.3h.3k.3o|e

I made this build STRICTLY because I felt like being the most annoying son-of-a-gun in the world. Could I kill people with it? Yes, in 1v1 I was able to take people out about 80% of the time. Anything more than 1v1 and my survival went down FAST. But like I said I made this just to be annoying and according to my opponents I succeeded.

You said you want it for PvE. I don’t think it will be worth it in PvE. Normal mobs you don’t need to daze/stun to kill and bigger vets and champions get defiant stacks and render you drastically less effective at locking them down. Sorry but I think for PvE this kind of a build is 100% pointless.

Dolan.3071:

… All dramatics aside I’m getting real sick of only seeing Mesmers (and to a lesser degree, Thieves) in WvW.

Hits for nothing, the ports and evades are out of this world. Hell even just standing still to blend in with the clones threw a few people off, and only evade at the last second if a big hit was coming my way.

If you really think Mesmers are well balanced, then I ask you to take a look out in WvW, and ask yourself why almost everyone is a Mesmer (or Thief I suppose, the principle is the same.)

You mention our ports and evades. Yes, if we trait right we can become a VERY mobile class in side of a fight, very potentially even out doing D/D Eles. But if we get nerfed and are no longer the most mobile then D/D Eles will be up to bat and you will call nerf on them next. It is a never ending cycle. (So you don’t call me a Mesmer only player and say I am biased I have an Ele, Thief, Necro and War as well all of which I enjoy in WvW but just enjoy a little less than My Mini Mesmer Tank)

You mention the numbers of Mesmer you are seeing. What server you running up against? When I was still running with my last WvW guild (given it was know for its Mesmers) we would be asked to do all the portals and everything for other major guilds because no one else had the number of mesmer to do it and at max we could have only about 15-17 mesmers on and that is IF the leader forced everyone to jump on them, which he started trying to do and thus why I left. BUT NOT THE POINT.

At least on my server and the upper tier servers we are up against Guardians and Wars vastly out number any other class even Thieves.

It just seems like your experience has been drastically different than many other people.

You also said you confused some people by standing in your illusions. Those people are probably the worst players in the world. No one gets confused by clones anymore because it is way too easy to see which one is moving/dodging and which ones don’t have a second hand weapon.

Pretty much the point I am getting at is IF they nerf mesmers like you want them to then you will just move on to the next profession that you can’t beat and so on and so on. Balance in an MMO is a dream that not a single MMO has been able to accomplish yet. Every profession will be better at something than another one. To say that we Mesmer mains are exploiting a flawed system just makes you look like an idiot.

On the chance you are trolling well then you have no life. ^^

Mini Mesmer Tank!!!!!

That being that conversation.

There was someone complaining that this build was OP because of our Runes of Melandru and our Soup. I would like to remind them that because these are runes and food and have no way any connection to the Mesmer profession any class can benefit from this combo.

I am sorry to say that I am going to go off topic a bit. I personally don’t know about any mantra builds except for the healing mantra build I used to use for CoE before they made all dungeons cake walks.

However, I was surprised to see you say relying on an AI for damage is silly when out iZerker is still pretty ok damage and the utility of iWarden is so handy. I run this build

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|c.1g.h1d.d.1g.h1|1.1g.h8|1g.7h.1g.7h.1n.7h.1g.7h.1p.7h.1g.7h|1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67|k3a.k24.0.p28.5|39.7|31.3d.39.38.0|e

in dungeons and FofM as well as normal PvE play. I do not use it in WvW because I prefer another build but this build provides very good damage and lots of utility and support for your team.

I am sorry I can’t help with your mantra question but please don’t combine our phantasms with RNG pets as our pets are WAY better.

bhagwad.4281:

Before the patch I was able to stack close to a minute. It hasn’t really affected my play though.

Same. And it has only affected my group play.

It was possible. You don’t stack and then hit SoI. I would build up using CoF and the triple leap and my Pain Inverter. Once I had enough time to be over the cool down of SoI then I would hit it and could keep it up from that point on. It was a gradual process to start it but once you started it you could keep it going.

Yeah I didn’t want to believe they placed a max time cap but I think when they said the 5 stacks of retaliation they meant the duration. 5secs being a full stack. I made myself a full boon duration set just to test this and I can not get above 30 anymore either. However, I ran some fast math just now for my past stacking and came up with this:

5s X 3 leaps (sword 2 and staff retreat)
15s from full CoF (this may have been 4 if your own personal shatter counted but I don’t think it did)
That is 30 sec so far.
I would run Pain Inverter as I am an Asuran when running in groups to help so that is 5 more seconds.
At 35 now. (yes you lose a few seconds between using skills but you can do this rather fast)
If you add in the 30% boon duration we have naturally from running as immortals that is about an extra 5-6 seconds (I am HORRIBLE AT MATH)
so that is 40-41 secs. If you add in the chance to get it from Chaos Storm which i tend to get it rather often that is 45-46secs. And by now your sword ability is back up or you have reached 50% HP and shatter is up again.

It may have not been 100% but it was darn close. Even when not fighting in groups when I wouldn’t run SoInsp. it was still 100 times easier to keep retaliation up before the retal nerf. I mean it is still easy but I could usually forget about it after my initial stacking of it at the start of a fight and just refresh it as a side note to using my abilities instead of using my abilities specifically for stacking.