Guild Wars 2

It does count.

/15characters

Is Condition damage viable for leveling?

I tried to level as Condition damage as soon as I could but it did not work too well. The Staff and respective clones did not produce enough conditions. It is doable, it works, but it needlessly slow compared to the Power route. After a few attempts as I shelved the idea to level 40, which is when we can buy our second trait book and can put enough points in Dueling to reach Sharper Images. From then on I leveled as condition damage and it went pretty well, no complaints.

The reason why it works so well is that we can focus more on clones instead of phantasms. Clones can be quickly generated via dodges (20 points in Dueling), the weapon and Mirror Image/Decoy instead of one phantasm every 15 seconds. Since they do no damage Power is useless for them, but Condition affects their bleeds and burns.

My suggestion? : Both Power and Condition are viable after level 40. I suggest trying both since respecs are dirt cheap and gear is not much more expensive than that.
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What leveling build?

A very common question is which traits to picks when leveling. There is no quick answer here and the cheapness of respecs pushes to indulge in respeccing often and try everything. There are some ‘must haves’ though, and I suggest picking them first and try them out. Do not do as someone in these forums once complaining about being level 50 and finding Mesmer to be so dull and slow to kill. As it turns out he had not wanted to spend the gold in the second trait book and was rocking a 10 -10 – 10 – 10 – 0 build.

For new players consider that traits are often game changing options. Though we get stats from going down the trait lines it should not be the sole reason to do so. The Deception Evasion trait is a complete game changer and having it will completely modify your game. The extra bounce trait from the Illusion tree will greatly increase your Staff damage and the -20% cooldown reduction weapon traits will make the play game a lot more fluid. Experiment away.

My suggestion? : With the recent buff to HP to Phantasms they have become some very very nice tanks for open world content (AKA leveling). I would suggest a skill layout of Decoy (great to escape sticky situations), Null Field (get rid of annoying long lasting conditions that are keeping us in combat while they tick down) and Signet of Illusions to get your illusions more HP to tank with (it was recently patched to instantly give the extra HP which was not how it worked before).

• 10 points in Domination will get Crippling Dissipation (clones cripple in AoE when destroyed) which makes soloing a lot of things very easy (and even at 80 it makes for an in-built utility in dungeons that is always up). As a bonus it gives 100 points in Power so those are ten well spent points on both offense and defense.
• 5 points in Duelist gives Critical Infusion (the Vigor buff when you crit), which you should be doing in a regular basis with Precision in your gear. Vigor grants endurance regen so you will dodge more often. Which coupled with ….
• Deceptive Evasion (20 points in Duelist), a clone-on-dodge trait, becomes a winning combo with the previously mentioned one. It is also 200 points in Precision, thus more crits.
• 20 points in Illusion grants Illusionary Elasticity (extra bounce on bouncing attacks) which greatly increases Staff damage, and even the Greatsword’s as Mirror Blade hits like a truck and recharges very quick while also adding another 3% damage to the enemy and 3 stacks of Might to yourself/who is closer to the enemy.

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Consumables

Something that is not mentioned often are consumables. Are they worth it? Are they useful? There are a ton of them on the TP and it is difficult to see which ones are useful in that ocean. Most are dirt cheap though.

My suggestion? : Life Leech food. Why life leech food? Because even with the recent nerf (one second internal cooldown between effects) it is a good damage boost (each life leech effect will hurt the enemy for about the same amount you are healed with) and it is a passive heal effect which you will be getting simply by playing normally. Because it is an on-crit effect it will only be useful once you have Precision which means you can hold off and wait until then.

• Which conveniently is around level 25, when the Strawberry Pie opens. 30 minutes duration, 28% life leech.

• Cherry Pie opens next at level 40 (36% chance on crit) and Blackberry Pie at level 55 (40% chance on crit + 50 precision. It is what I still use at level 80).

• Sharpening Stones and Maintenance Oils are also available. You can have both a Stone/Oil and food. Not something I bothered with but the option is there and quite cheap as well.

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I hope this will be of some use to new players both to the game and the class. If anyone has questions feel free to ask

I leveled a mesmer to 80, enjoyed my time, played it for 1300 hours. After a lack of things to keep me interested I decided to make an Asura for RP and went for another Mesmer, because, Mesmers. I then decided to see what difference would it make in the leveling process with 1300 hours of experience behind me.

This is a guide compiling those experiences for new Mesmers. It is a not a level 80 guide nor will it exhaustively dissect traits, but for someone just starting a Mesmer and even for those starting a different character having only recently picked up GW2 it should provide some useful tips.

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Leveling tip.

To begin with my most important tip applies to both Mesmers and any other character: do not blindly follow the storyline quest. You will find yourself quickly fighting +4 enemies which is a recipe for disaster. GW2 employs scaling which means there are no grey mobs so prevalent in WoW and other games. If we go to a lower area the enemies will still be challenging and the loot will be appropriate to your level while the enemies will not receive a bonus because they are higher than you (on the contrary, you will do more damage to them because of your better gear and skills/traits). This far outweights the lower XP received from hearts and events.
What this means is that there is no incentive to dash on ahead. A common example I usually bring up is how we finish the first area around level 14 and the next area immediately sets up against levels 16. A bit of progression deeper into the map brings us against 17s and quickly to 20s while we are just getting to level 15-16.

My suggestion? : Head to another starter area and do it instead. This applies at several levels when the leveling slows down as we progress, namely the levels 40 and 50 maps.

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What kind of gear?

Expecting the game to drop the gear you want or need is like playing the lotto with as much chances of winning, multiplied by 15 slots.

My suggestion? : Use the Trading Post. Always buy Masterwork (green) gear, armor, accessories, weapons (aquatic as well). It is cheap and you will recoup most of your losses by selling it back to the vendor once you are done with. I swapped my full gear every ten levels and my weapon every five levels, but it is up to personal taste. Masterwork gear opens at level 14 and it is a massive difference when we leave our pele-mele bits of armor to don a complete set of green gear. Personally I also buy blue level 5 gear to tidy me over until level 14.

• Power is the best to begin with. Do not invest in defensive stats, you will not notice nor need them. The early armor is prefixed Mighty and will have +power. The next one is prefixed Strong and will have both Power and Precision. At level 62-65 Berserker opens. In both armor and accessories (rings, earrings, amulet) put Garnet Pebbles and then Carnelian Nuggets (level 20) when they open up. Eventually Carnelian Lumps (level 35). At level 50 Ruby Shards open and at 65 Ruby Crystals.
• The same applies to weapons, but, important, buy a minor sigil of Bloodlust (or of Corruption if you go with Condition damage) which grants 5 points of Power for killed enemy. It is very easy to cap it at 25 stacks which is an extra 125 Power and zero reason to not have it. At level 39 the Major Sigil of Bloodlust opens (7 points of Power per dead enemy for a total of 175 Power).
• If you duel-wield consider a sigil of Fire (or of Earth if going Condition damage) in combination with the Sigil of Bloodlust. But, even if you use only one weapon like the Greatsword or the Staff you can still buy two of them and put the Bloodlust sigil on one and use it until you have 25 kills, then swap to the other weapon with the Sigil of Fire on it (or Earth). I did that but it was a bit of a pain to be quite frank. Simply a Bloodlust sigil on each weapon is quite enough.
• Your underwater weapon of choice should be the Trident and since it is a Condition weapon I suggest the Earth sigil on it since a lot of sigils do not work underwater. Personally I used the Bloodlust sigil on my underwater weapons as well.
• New players, you can buy ten slot bags from the TP quite cheaply.

Second pro tip, the clone always appears first, always, so ignore the first downed mesmer and wait for the second.

Seriously though, look for the skull on top of the downed mesmer. It is big, it is red, it is a big arrow pointing at your target

I recently re-leveled a mesmer because, mesmers. I was going to make a leveling guide for the hell of it but never went around doing it.

Tips by order of importance:

- Verrrry important. Don’t blindly follow the storyline quest and don’t enter areas you’re barely leveled enough to. As an example the first starter area usually leaves us at level 14-15. The next area starts with level 15 mobs, but you barely begin entering it and you’re set upon by level 17 mobs. We barely reach level 16 (if so) and have level 20 mobs. This happens all the time as you level up. Go back one area, you lose nothing (do 100% of the maps if you like it (I do), not only does it make leveling less obvious but the reward is yummy).
I started an Asura, did the Asura starter area, then went to the Sylvari starter area and did it too. The second Asura area which would have been a nuisance was much easier with those extra levels under the belt.

- Buy everything off the TP. Hoping to get a drop which just so happens to be what you need is an exercise in futility. The TP has everything very cheap and you barely lose any money by selling it back to the vendor afterwards. You don’t want to spread your stats though it really does not make a huge difference in the low levels. Still, why do less damage by going for Cleric gear?

- Power first (prefix Strong if not mistaken). Precision too (prefix Mighty I think, it opens at 20) when armor starts having two stats. Don’t forget to buy your rings/earrings etc too. Buy gems to put them in the armor + rings. Carnelian pebbles are the first, carnelian nuggets afterwards (or are they lumps?).

- Important: buy a few minor sigils of Bloodlust. It is a big boost. I bought a full new set of gear every ten levels and new weapons every five levels. Up to you though.

- Five points in Illusions first. It affects all weapons and all utility skills. What ever build you do never remove those five points.

- I suggest Staff to level with. At low levels we are plagued by ‘big’ cooldowns. Staff’s damage does not come from cooldowns but from its auto attack. That said Greatsword works very well and if you see you are out of cooldowns don’t be shy to swap weapons. A common way to play is start with Greatsword, use the clone, use the phantasm, shatter, swap to Staff, use clone and phantasm too.

- Decoy’s use has been gutted by the last patch, but it still gives you a small window to help running away if things turn sour. Mirror Images is also good to fit in when you’re out of cooldowns. Decoy, Arcane Thievery and Mirror Images (Time Warp hen it opens at 30) never left my bars until 80, and then only Arcane Thievery was swapped for Null Field since the previous is too finicky.

- Ignore condition damage until you’re level 40, at least. You simply do not do enough condition damage until you have Sharper Images (fifteen points in in the Duelist tree) which requires the second trait book which you buy at forty. I leveled with Condition damage from then on and it was pretty fine though so it is an open option, but with the current state of the game regarding Conditions you might want to stick to Power and Precision (at 65 the armor gets three stats and your next choice is Berserker. Things are (even more) easy sailing from then on).

- Don’t be shy about buying life leech food. Despite having been nerfed in the last patch it both increases your damage (the life leech procs hurt the enemy by that amount) and heals you up by a little bit. Considering it costs a few copper there is no reason not to be always playing under its buff. You want extra damage. You can also buy Sharpening Stones or Maintenance Oils but I don’t think it is that useful. Up to you though.

- I’m not going to give you a lot of advice regarding builds because you should play and see what interests you and your playstyle. Respecs are extremely cheap so you are encouraged to experiment. You might find the first ten points in Domination to both give a stat boost (+100 Power) and the clones-cripple-when-killed + the first five points in Duelist give Vigor (faster Endurance regeneration so you can dodge more often) and also +50 points in Precision to be a good blend of offense and defense regarding spent points.

Good luck with it

The real reason the pistol is so often neglected is that there is no decent main hand to go with it. I would love to use the pistol. But I don’t want to go into melee. And the scepter, with its weak Confusion beam, no clone on demand? Pass.

So I’ve got two choices and none appeal, thus no pistol.

sPvP? WvW? What type of build and gear are you using? Weapons? If you are glass cannon you can pretty much kiss it because some will kill you in three seconds flat. Even if you teleport or use Distortion they just re-stealth and re-do it while your CDs are still ticking.

That kitten me off so much (7k backstabs?!) that I went full Toughness which, coupled with Chaos Armor, makes me giggle at their attempts. Now my bane is condition damage since my HP is minimal but Arcane Thievery and Decoy and a multitude of clones helps.

I re-read the original post. Indeed you are right in which whether it is sPvP or WvW is not mentioned.

But the person does say they dueled with their friend,

I remember making my alt mesmer and at lvl 5 i went to 1v1 my friend who has played over 1000 hours on his warrior and i consistently destroyed him in fights pretty much

, which plainly hints of sPvP unless we go through a convoluted logic process in which they were in different servers, used a chat program to say where they were and met in some quiet place in the WvW maps so that they could duel together.

Were that the case then yes, there is no chance a Mesmer would win unless the warrior was spectacularly bad.

Moot point and derailing the thread anyway. Let us just agree to disagree. I have found good warriors capable of holding their own, they were just not a threat 1 VS 1. But the PvP game is not about duels but team fights.

SteepledHat.1345:

Say what you want, but I know many great wars that can hold their own against a mesmer. Perhaps you should get a larger sample size? Try looking outside your buddies and randoms in WvW.

Kanto.1659:

Heh, you should not offer advice without experience. I’ve fought all classes with my mesmer and always there is one person who is good enough to make me bite the dust. Never a warrior though, they just don’t cut it on 1 VS 1 sPvP.

Not talking of WvW or PvE.

When you say something like, a warrior is bad if he can’t win against a mesmer, yes, I fear your credibility is shaken.

SteepledHat.1345:

All this tells me is that your friend is bad at playing a War. They need to fix our skills and stop breaking the ones that were working to start with.

That being said, it’s like a almost 10AM Anet’s time. So give them a break.

Heh, you should not offer advice without experience. I’ve fought all classes with my mesmer and always there is one person who is good enough to make me bite the dust. Never a warrior though, they just don’t cut it on 1 VS 1 sPvP.

Not talking of WvW or PvE.

Balance, is my assumption. Underwater we go 20 stacks of bleeds in seconds (though also we do not waste 33% on Vulnerability).

But a skewed balance since condition damage lags behind. It is the assumption that 25 stacks for one person is too much, and whatever the case useless, since the current system of random tiny bleeds from random skills take up the precious slots from the 25 limit cap.

Does anyone remember WoW guild perk introduction? How guilds sprung up just for the perks and everyone would join them during the leveling process for all the goodies they provided?

New guilds were (not sure how it is nowadays) strangled by the simple choice of new recruits comparing joining them, or joining an established perk guild.

I am surprised there is not more of a call of attention towards the solution regarding the cap increase being based on the rank of the enemy.

It seemed both brilliant and elegant.

Player/normal mob = 25 stacks.

Veteran and/OR silver mobs= 50 stacks.

Champion/legendary = 100/200 stacks.

We could even say that veterans don’t need a cap increase though I would say that silvers do.

It boils down to: normal mobs don’t have five players wailing on them, and whatever the case they are going to die fast anyway. Silver mobs yes, champions and legendaries God yes.

Saying that it would unbalance the game does not appear to be correct. Unless something eludes me condition damage is accepted as being lower than direct damage with all the problems it brings in loot and without even going into the artificial restraint of caps.

As many have pointed, if condition has such problems then WHY are there so many traits that apply bleeds? If the bleed cap makes bleed slots precious, why is it allowed that a berserker geared mesmer/warrior will take some of those slots?

TL;DR I give my thumb up to the idea of raising the cap according to the rank of the mob.

Of course that if you do play at 50 without even having bought your second book and then say you find mesmers slow at killing and annoying it becomes even more giggle worthy. You are purposefully playing in some sort of crippled challenge and then complaining.

Try my advice above, mention if you notice any slight difference before and after.

Dude.. I can’t believe this. You fought someone able to survive your best, someone good enough to not be fooled, someone able to catch up to you…. And you tell him to learn to play?!
Wow! You played against someone good! Send a whisper saying he was a great player, not an angry whisper because you lost the fight!
Say whatever you like, but your description of the guardian fight pretty much resumed your point of view: hard fight, took long, but I won, so I was happy and bowed to him.

When I hear about snail pace killing with a mesmer it makes me giggle. Sorry. At 50 you should have all the tools to kill quick, but if in 50 levels you haven’t figured them out, well….

The thing is, not every class is for every person. At 50 you have the mesmer pretty much as you’ll have it at 80 and if it does not please you, then it will not at 80. Mesmer is not for omfgtwohitkillcombo! Mesmer is for those who enjoy the trickery and the the clones, confusing mobs (and players) into which is which while laying the hurt.

But sure, since you asked. Go staff. Since you’re level 50 put 20 levels in the Duel tree to get the trait to create a clone when dodging. Along the way you will have picked the minor trait to get vigor when you crit, the major trait to give Fury to phantasms and the minor trait to make your illusions do bleeds when they crit.

Put the other 20 points in Illusions. Along the way you’ll have picked the minor trait to give yourself 20% CD reduction to all illusions (weapons and skills, it is a huge trait to have), +3% damage per illusion who is active, and the trait to get an extra bounce.

You will want Decoy (great panic button, and it adds another clone though that is less useful now you can do your clones with dodges), Arcane Thievery (steal the boons, or transfer the conditions, a dual edged skill) and Mirror Image (insta three clones laying the condition damage).

You will have two paths with gear. Either go Power/Precision and emphasize your Phantasms more, or go Condition Damage/Precision and emphasize your clones. Either way you will want Precision since it feeds you Vigor (more dodges, more clones from dodging) and Sharper Images (more bleeds from illusions, more damage).

IF you feel that mobs ignore your illusions, or kill them in one hit and then go for you, then consider removing 10 points from Illusions (though adding them back as you level) and put 10 points in Domination for the clones-cripple-when-killed trait. A great trait even at level 80 since it slows even bosses when they kill clones and will be crawling after your party members.

Esplen.3940:

My clones can hit for ~100-500 damage at level 80. Of course, shattering them lets me do at least 1000 damage with each. If I get an F2 off, it equates to ~800 damage hitting twice. F1 is approximately 1500 damage. F3 stacks Vulnerability (specced) allowing me to deal bonus 25% more damage with other skills. F4 lets me heal up and survive, essentially forcing the enemy to target my clones, if you will understand the metaphor.

If you mean your clones do 1-5 damage with auto-attack that seems about right. But 100 – 500? No.

Unless you are adding condition damage to that (Sharper Images), and then the math makes more sense (around 42 per second, five second bleeds = 210 damage, and then it stacks).

Swap to Staff ASAP. Until you get Sharper Images that makes illusions bleed on crit only the Staff clones do damage.

Buy a minor sigil of Bloodlust too. Unlock Mirror Images. Don’t spunk all over your cooldowns to kill one mob. The beauty of Staff for low level mesmers is that it does not rely on cooldowns. You can easily start a fight with GS, throw the phantasms, Mirror Blade, Shatter, swap to Staff, do the clone + phantasm and have a dead mob.

Or you can start the fight with your Staff clone, do Mirror Images and just have your enemy die.

Yes, probably warrior and thief did spoil you as with mesmers you can’t really auto-attack-to-win, but weapon swapping and your skills are there to be used. Plus you can tackle down champions even at a low level.

P.S. First five points in Illusion.

Personally I keep the GS for its CC. I know, GS is not known for it, but yeah. iBerzerker to cripple, knockback to stop someone from stomping a team mate or push thieves out of their shadow refuge, and two illusions on demand.

The 9 stacks of Might don’t hurt either even though staff is my real weapon.

Quite true. Vulnerability that does not increase condition damage in a condition weapon. Genius.

But it’s one of those things. We can be busy dodging and rolling and our clones will keep on putt-putting away. So I dunno, and we return to the same quandary.

Yes, but, gut feelings don’t really achieve much. Is it really? By how much? Are you sure? Or are you seeing big numbers from a warrior doing 100b while forgetting how much time it spends out of melee range or dead on the floor.

Or maybe you mean grinding events on Orr VS waves of normal mobs. Sure, mesmers are weak there.

Gut feelings and napkin math don’t really do much. To consider DPS we must consider a whole fight. Not the first thirty seconds of it with the X class imbued with a dozen boons and on full HP dashing headfirst and spunking their CDs all over the boss.

As Osi says. This thing works great in sPvP because if the other dude legs it then fine, you cap the point, GG.

In WvW people simply run away, your clones are too slow (they run to the very edge of maximum distance, shoot, the other person has not stopped running so by the time the projectile reaches them it is out of range) and people hiding in forts are pretty much immune to you. Vice-versa if you’re defending and they move away.

I tried dueling a few friends over sPvP and at least one of them was impossible to kill since as soon as things went wrong he’d just leg it and keep on going until health and CDs reset.

But as I mentioned for a normal game of sPvP it works fine. After a while some people just give up when they see me and run away. It is fine, I do not chase them. I cap the point and work towards winning the game.

Though I use Decoy, Null Field/Blink and Mirror Images I am beginning to think I should swap Mirror Images for Null Field or Blink as to always have them on demand.

Tip: In Illusions pick Retaliation when using Cry of Frustration. Start the fight, generate three clones (I have a GS on the other weapon slot), Cry of Frustration, swap back to staff. Chaos Armor. 1900 toughness + Protection diminishes your damage taken. In the meanwhile whomever is hitting you is doing so hitting both through 6 stacks of Confusion and 15 seconds of Retaliation. Add staff 2 + Mirror Images + Chaos Storm to the mix. Then follow the usual of stealthing, mingling with the clones etc but keep an eye on your Chaos Armor and Cry of Frustration to do it all over again, the only time where you actually sit there eating the damage.

Dead DPS = no DPS.

P.S. Without addons to measure damage this is futile. Burst has great DPA, big lovely numbers, condition has tons of little numbers. Which does more? You need a five minute sample, at least, and it can’t be napkin math since it does not take in consideration all variables we may or may not be aware of.

I think that we can all agree about burst (GS) being great against lower HP enemies, and if there is a ton of AoE and all illusions die in three seconds then burst gets ahead too, since in three seconds the phantasm and Mirror Blade will have time to do their burst, where condition clones need to be up for a certain time before rolling out all the bleeds and burns.

Finally, this is not a a WoW raid with DPS checks or the fight will fail. If you like condition then go for it, I can assure you if the group fails the fight it was not because you did your damage in condition instead of burst.

Nozdrum.2894:

Autoattack is not burst-damage.
And yes of course you can dodge physical attacks, but condition can also be removed – there are even some bosses that lose all their condition after less than a second, where you will be completely useless. But I don’t think that I tell you anything by that – you should know that there are ways to deal with every type of attack. So this is not an argument.

And yes the only fair compariso is damage over time. I already gave you mine: about 3k-4k per autoattack, without berserker and switching weapons for phantasmal warden.
So where is your damage over time?

I call BS on the 3-4k auto-attack, thankyouverymuch. No need to inflate your side of the argument. As someone who played GS with berserker gear for a good while I can safely say I never saw autoattacks go past 2.5k.

My ticks of bleed are doing 126 (self buffed with tuning fork) per second and I can stack to about 8. 8 X 126 is 1008 per second. Now this doesn’t include my auto attack damage (low, because I have no power but around another 300 + bounce which might do another 300) or the fact each bounce from my auto-attack and my clones’ is giving Might and Fury, which easily stacks to 5 – 6 stacks further increasing those 126 ticks I mentioned back, or giving it to a meleer who is wailing on the enemy.

Playing condition damage is simply a different way of playing. As much as you would want us to believe you do ‘4 -5k autoattacks’ the truth ranges more between 1500-2k and it is a more aggressive play style. Done it, liked it, was plenty fine with it, decided to try condition, found it is slower but still gets the job done. In this I include that I leave my clones up so they apply conditions, so my team has less pressure on them as trash and boss goes to kill the clones instead of them, are crippled by their death, and every meleer, or myself since I fish for it, gets the stacks of Might and Fury from being pelted with the bounces, or that each time I need to run and dodge my clones are still happily being a machine gun and the conditions are ticking, whether or not I am there. Do we need to include how Chaos Storm helps when we need buffs or adds a bit more damage on trash?

Where conditions really don’t work is on waves of normal mobs, but for that I have my trustee GS, which even without Power still serves to AoE.

The choice of gear as you level should be a problem if you just head to the Trading Post and buy Masterwork gear. I did so every ten levels but you are free to do it much sooner. It starts at level 14 and it makes a huge difference to buy everything, jewelry included, than to wear what drops. Also, big tip, buy several Minor Sigil Of Bloodlust and apply one when you get a new weapon. It is a big boost as well.

The gear you receive from your quests can be chosen just for the looks and not the stats since you will depend on the gear from the TP (it is pretty cheap gear, something like 2 silver a piece, so don’t get fooled by flippers who want to make a profit). The gear at 80 does matter since your build will depend on it. Know that you can both buy most of it from the TP or grind it from the dungeons. Since the dungeons also let you make gold you can do the grinding for some gear and use the earnings to buy the rest.

As for the damage while you level I suggest the staff and simply getting gear with Power. The staff uses Condition damage but at low levels Power just scales better. Tbh I’d skip Condition until exotic gear.

The trick with leveling is not to blow all your cooldowns at once, and what makes the staff good is that its damage comes from the auto attack.

So, for example. Start the fight, Staff 2, then Staff 3, auto attack until dead. Second fight, Staff 2, then Mirror Images, auto attack. Third fight, Staff 2 and Decoy, auto attack. Fourth fight, Staff 2, Staff 5, auto attack. By now you can start again.

It is better to stagger your skills instead of blowing them all up at once and then have nothing to use the next fight. As you get used to the class you start seeing when you you can use more skills to hurry things up without falling into that thing of having nothing to use the next one.

The 10 points in Domination make a big difference for the cripple-on-clone-death, but so do the first five in Duelist once you can buy gear with power + precision.

Don’t think too hard about it. Just keep on playing now, the leveling is a different beast from the end game builds. Five points in illusion is your first priority, and then I would risk saying ten points in Domination for the clones-cripple-when-killed.

Respecs are extremely cheap so just explore and see how you like the different traits. But don’t get too attached to a given build. Leveling with low HP mobs pushes for short lived battles where dungeons have mobs with a lot more HP and you can easily find yourself twiddling your thumbs and auto attacking because you pressed all buttons.

wookalar.8952:

The main way to get condi dmg out of a Mesmer is sharper images trait under the dueling tree and the trait that gives fury to illusions.

Fury to Phantasms, who only attack once every seven seconds or so, and are mostly (if not the iMage) working with power. It is still a viable strategy if using Rampager gear (power/prec/condition) but power will not help the clones and is kinda wasted on the staff.

I used to be full berserker greatsword shatter build and it worked fine. But it was sad to have the Shattered Might trait buffed and then nerfed. So I begun picking a new set of gear for the hell of it.

The idea was to completely change the playstyle, so I went with completely ignoring the phantasm (only summoned kittenter fodder when I need AoE) and only using clones from the staff.

10 from Dom to get the clones-cripple-on-death, a very good thing whether we are soloing PvE or in dungeons.
20 in Duel for the clone on dodge. Since I don’t use phantasms I have the cloak-at-25% even though it lies and it’s 10%.
20 in Chaos for -9% damage and -20% reduction for staff.
20 in Illusions for the +9% damage and extra bounce.

The idea is to summon only clones and let them rip and clone-on-dodge, staff 2 and Mirror Image gives plenty of options for that.

My gear is from the Honor of the Waves gear (condition/precision/toughness), my runes are runes of the undead and my sigil is the greater Earth for extra bleeds. I have around 1500 condition damage and 1800 toughness with about 46% crit, which feeds my sigil, my Sharper Images for the clones and my Vigor-on-Crit minor trait.

I usually pick the Blackberry Pie since it is cheap and does 40% chance of life leech + 60 Precision and it has no ICD. Just what the Sigil of Blood should really do tbh.

With a GS it means a constant trickle of HP but it also hurts the mob for about 400 HP (as much as we are healed, sorta). So it serves as both offense and defense, and works well for those condition heavy dungeons where the trickle of gained HP counters the trickle of lost HP.

Pretty cheap too.

Now that I switched to the Staff I find that the lack of multi-hitting reduces its usefulness.

I’ve looked into the different foods but am at a bit of a conundrum.

The obvious choice to replace the Blackberry Pie would be the Mango Pie. It heals 88 per second and has 70 Vitality. Every ten seconds that’s 880 HP recovered so it is a nice HP recovery considering we are not supposed to be taking frontal damage.

The other option would be the Rare Veggie Pizza with 70 condition damage and 40% condition duration, but most of my conditions come from my clones (I don’t use the phantasm) and they do not use condition duration.

The third option is the Bowl of Truffle Risotto with 100 condition and 70 precision, both stats we and our clones will enjoy. A tad expensive at nearly 4s though. Bowl of Mushroom and Asparagus Risotto is much cheaper and provides 80 condition and 60 precision.

The Master Tuning Fork works well for an offensive boost but it can be a bit expensive too, so the Quality Tuning Fork is what I use.

The reason I do not bother with the best consumables is that A) the boost they bring is small and only adds up over a long period, and the game is not so hard that they are a necessity a la WoW raids.

- Auto attack should have its range thing removed. No reason for it at all. Zero.

- Mirror Blade could be the answer to the lack of AoE mesmers have. It just needs to favor enemies instead of allies. As it is right now if we have two allies facing two enemies the skill will hit the enemy and then bounce back and forth between the allies. Yes, it is nice to give stacks of Might to allies, but it does not help a mesmer’s lack of AoE nor does giving boons to allies help us get loot by tagging. And I also doubt that 3 stacks of Might really add up to 2k+ damage from a bounce.

What it should do is favor enemies instead. Obviously, but this seems to much to expect, it should favor enemies it has not hit, but barring that if we are two allies facing two enemies it should bounce between the enemies instead of the allies. No stacks of Might but direct damage is applied. If there is only one enemy, like a boss, then it should bounce properly from boss to random ally and back to boss instead of hitting the boss once and then spreading itself against all allies in range.

This single change would, IMO, help a lot with AoE woes.

- Mind Stab is… okay. No, really, it’s okay. The boon stripping is what I use it the most, but it’s fairly useless at that. When I fight Dredge who buff themselves they get four buffs and on less Boon every 15 seconds is bof. Auto attack does about the same damage with no chance of missing. Where I do use it when two two or more enemies are close together since I will do more damage with it than auto-attacking. But for one mob alone there is no point.

- Berserker is plenty fine just the way it is.

- The knockback wave I rarely remember to use it. It has too large a CD and tbh, mobs don’t stay on their back for noticeable amount of time nor does the knockback really push them that much. If it did knockback and cripple it would certainly be worth using.

Like everyone else, glass cannon is fine. Actually have toughness or vitality is not going to save you either way.

What will save you is:

A) Decoy, to shed the agro from the boss/adds. Also to break the stuns from the Ascalonian Stalker who pounces and kills. It never leaves my bar.

B) Null Field. AC is ripe with conditions. From the spider’s poison to flame to whatever you can watch your HP dwindle.

C) Blink. If you’re in a bad position, like the AC’s last boss and his frontal cone, then Blink to safety. Did Kholer grab you? You have half a second to Blink.

D) Most important of all is situational awareness. Is that Graveling Stalker glowing? Ignore who it may be facing, when you see one glowing dodge the moment it pounces. Is Kholer glowing? Time it and dodge as soon as he moves to avoid his Scorpion move.

Situational awareness is what will keep you alive. Not another 400 points in toughness or vitality. This you will only get after playing a few times and get used to the moves each boss is going to do. Knowing that you can move your utilities about. Are you fighting the spider? Slot Null Field. Are you fighting Kholer? Put in Blink, it might save you. Are you getting the scepter pieces? Slot your invisibility, get the scepter, go stealth and run until you reset agro. Etc.

Don’t blame Anet if people want to get those 20 extra points of stats, when already having 1800 to begin with. What you are trying to say is that the players should be protected from themselves. Like children playing with fire. And new content should not be added because, dawwwww, players might get into a (mostly useless) farming binge.

20 extra points in stats!! W00t!

Kvitoq.9154:

Seems to me a lot of people here assume you get 3 stacks of might for each illusion you shatter… that’s not true. You get 3 stacks of might when you shatter, independent on the number of illusions you just shattered.

Big difference…

It’s really sweet of you to think every single mesmer in this thread was just goofing off and had no clue

But no, three might per asploded illusion. If they get killed before exploding then no Might.

Centaur runes. The 165 power is decent even if the rest does pretty much nothing, but other runes bring a marginal increase in DPS. A bit more crit, a bit more damage, nothing that will show outside five minute fights.

We have no DPS checks and no DPS meters, so slot Centaur. No more being left behind by friends.

It does feel too strong. In a sense if became a second Illusionist’s Celerity. Even I, someone who does not advocate shattering because I feel our clones are like Aegis, get lured by shatter.

It’s not bad, mind. I play an hybrid spec so I shatter when I need to shatter and I let clones sit around like distracting targets to lure the boss into wasting its attacks on them.

I like the change. It does push me into shattering more often. I’m just not sure how long it will stick around.

The thing is that only two places really demand swiftness: WvW and outdoors PvE.

sPvP and dungeons swiftness is a luxury. Welcome, but not necessary.

Now in PvE it will be nice and we can use whatever we want as PvE is not challenging, but in WvW every utility skill is crucial. Tying one down for movement speed (AKA changing one of the useless signets) is not going to work.

I’m thinking they will just increase the swiftness time/lower the CD on the focus.

Would be nice indeed, but I can’t see which skill I’d remove for a signet. I wish I had more skill slots, not one less.

Of course, if illusions are attacks, as proven by being blocked, dodged, blinded and etc, then we should not held with double standards. If they are attacks then they should spawn with our current sigil as well. Phantasms and clones.

Not just that but it is high time to remove the range restriction on the GS’ 1. You can’t balance all five skills, then tweak some of them, without having to rebalance the whole.

You’re all a bit late now. The dev already said he is putting the delay to 0.25 since if he put it at 0 it would mess some things.

0.25 seems okay.

Yet another ‘looking into it’? How much gazing into problems can you possible do? What about fixing instead of admiring the handiwork? Do you even understand what you’re doing to the class with these bugs?

Two weeks since the iBerzerker bug. Next patch comes and ’you’re looking into it’ but now you’re ‘looking into it’ for another bug you’ve introduced. So now you’re ‘looking into it’ for both and it makes me fear for the next patch because at some point we’ll have all of your two designers more busy beatifically ‘looking into it’ instead of fixing the kitten things.

Fix what is broke first, kitten then try to balance!

Charr fractal, dolphin fractal, ghost shapechange in AC, a myriad of quests and a few more I am not bothering to remember atm. Anything that ‘disguises’ you kills the Deceptive Evasion trait.

You’ve bought the game, Mere Image. What are you going to pressure/force them with? Quit? You’re not paying a subscription.

Do you really believe there is anyone okay with poorly implement patches instead of bug fixes? What are we going to do?

Leave, of course, eventually. Think Diablo 3. A massive success since it has no subscription plan. You bought it. Millions bought it. No one cares a month after the numbers dwindled to a tenth of that. For the record Diablo 3 will always be an astoundingly successful game even if gamers will have declared it a flop.

GW2 is pretty, I like it, I’m still playing it and have no plans to leave. I have my share of a pretty game with graphics, decent combat, WvW is casual enough to let me go in and out. I find the grind too much for mere cosmetic gear but since it’s cosmetic it’s not crucial either. But the lack of fixing bugs and adding nerfs is getting tiresome.

It’s not even as if the balance will stick if those bugged traits would be fixed. The meta game would change. But we get balance patches (who add more bugs) to balance the current game despite the fact the current game will change once all the bugged traits and skills are finally fixed. Which will then need more balancing patches making the current ones moot.

Which one do you believe? The one who blurted it or the one who came afterward trying to cover up what was said? Does the myriad of bugs and non working traits waiting to be fixed since beta seem the work of two guys, or of a ‘full team’?

I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories, but.. Do you really believe in that? Or was it damage control after the cat slipped out of the bag?

The original post was quite clear while this one massages what was said to give it a better spin.

Ultimately we must see not words, because words are easy, but actions. Since beta how many bugs are waiting to be fixed? In how many classes? Does it sound like a team of devs is working on it, or two guys balancing and fixing 500 skills?

Don’t fret. One of the devs slipped that they have two (2) designers to balance 500 skills and 480 traits. With 2 (two) designers to do that for PvP and PvE is it a wonder the necros have reached 100 bugs in their thread?

That so many traits don’t even work, or work erroneously?

That patch after patch only minor things are done, and fixes touted are proven to not do what they advertised, AKA fixing.

Two designers…. for 500 skills… This is a very simple and basic ‘You bought the game now, so shush, or go play something else. We don’t care now the cash has been spent’.

I get better than that! I get ressurected with other people downed by me. I try to raise them and I end up ressurecting my clone! I need to click on them or move away to stop picking my downed clone.

After all the hullabaloo about gear I was surprised at checking the back items and finding them worse than my current ones.

Rare guild back pack with a exquisite ruby jewel in it:

45 power
4% critical damage
29 precision.

Ascended backpack that has no jewel slot:

22 power
16 precision
1% critical damage.

What am I missing here?

Completely subjective. But head to the Heart of Mists and check out the PvP Locker. All, with the exception of the Rubrik Armor, have PvE equivalents.

What are you trying it against? I tested a few days back on a GS and in the mists and it was working.