Besides the fact that shattering completely contradicts builds that focus on keeping clones/phantasms out for dmg/utility there are definately some things about shattering that just feels bleh at times, especially as I’m now leveling my mesmer.
The fact that Mind Wrack has a cooldown and feels wasted whenever you don’t have 3 clones feels kind of bad, sure it’s designed for burst I get that and when specced for it does a great job at burst, but anytime you have a clone that doesn’t do anything and your mind wrack is on cooldown it just feels bad and you have this lull in your dmg output.
Cry of Frustration definately feels terrible, especially w/o traits, the long cooldown combined with ONLY doing up to 3 stacks of confusion and a tiny bit of direect dmg with only a 3 second duration, that’s such a small window to even make use of that small stack of confusion, it just feels bad all around. It should atleast be adjusted to have the same cooldown as Mind Wrack and essentially be the condition version of it.
Diversion also feels terrible, a longish cooldown daze that doesn’t even stack with itself, it’s esssentially only useful with a single clone and just wastes your other clones, you could potentially spread clones out so they daze one after the other but that’s really difficult and unreliable to do. On top of that, since your clones have to run to your targets to shatter in the first place, it’s not even an on demand instant daze, it just feels bad.
Distortion I think is the only shatter I think feels right although again there’s the issue of having the same cooldown even if you only managed to get a single clone distortion, but still it’s solid.
Trying to make use of phantasms with shatters is also annoying mainly because of the delay phantasms have before they attack after spawning, if they attacked instantly it would feel a bit more fluid. And another crazy idea, what if Shatter cooldowns were adjusted based on what level clone shatter it was.
For example a 3 clone shatter Mind Wrack would be 15 seconds, a 1 clone Mind Wrack would be 5 seconds. A 1 clone Distortion would be 20 seconds and 3 clone Distortion be 60 seconds. Atleast then it wouldn’t be so terrible doing single clone shatters and could also make it more fluid, would definately have less deadzones where shatters are on cooldown.
In the end, it’s sort of the same problem as having Phantasm/Clones baked into your weapon skills, it’s just forced on you. Shatters are your mechanic and not using them is just a waste of utility/dmg but they can clash completely with your chosen playstyle.
I definately love the “pet” mesmer playstyle, it reminds me so much of Theurgist from DAoC and makes me wish ALL clones/phantasms were equally strong/useful. But I can also see the appeal of shatter builds, spitting out illusionary bombs.
With Ride the Lightning?
They will be dominated by thief/mesmer, so no, I don’t want it.
Because you’re forced to play it lol.
Was this in WvW?
There’s no way in hell you could reach backstab numbers like that in Spvp no matter how squishy you are, with 25 stacks of vulnerability, etc.
I know dmg is inflated by pve stats to insane amounts in WvW though.
I don’t think the holy trinity is really a bad thing either.
Some MMO’s (like WoW) just did a terrible job with it. I think Vanguard is a good example of a good trinity.
The trinity shouldn’t be (3 part mindless DPS to 1 part good healer and 1 part good tank), it should be (1 part good DPS/CC’er to 1 part good healer and 1 part good tank).
I don’t think a lack of the trinity is necessarily bad either, but you’re content needs to be well designed for it to still be fun and require teamwork.
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I’d highly suggest making a unique email only for GW2 that you will never touch that not only has a complicated email ID, but a complicated password that you write down somewhere.
Should never have a problem then, that’s what I do.
If you have 2 sigils of the same type (effect on swap) (effect on crit) only 1 will proc and then both share cd. So if you have Fire Blast on Crit and Bleed on Crit, the first one to proc will set the cooldown for both, so it’s pointless to use 2.
There are plenty of good support and or healing specs out there that manage to get 200 or more point games, however you will not be rewarded for dropping healing spring and then dying or standing behind a wall casting healing rain. And there is plenty of points to be made off Resurrections but that would require you to actually get into battle and rez people as apposed to trying to passively get points for casting a few heals and running away. Game is not holy trinity, if you try to build an all or nothing heal spec be prepared to be disappointed because almost every spec has a heal that effects other people even thieves heal you when they use Shadow refuge. However they do alot of other things while in shadow refuge not just sit there waiting for free points to tick.
Yet you can do that with a dmg spec and be rewarded for it. I’ve done it alot, hide behind a wall, spam aoe, get top score lol.
I wish all the marks had the same cast speed. =/
Makes me think of Vampyr. That would make an awesome trait lol.
Yeah I would like to go for Poison as well, they could replace the poison on Chaos Storm with Confuse which I think is more fitting.
I would love if there was a trait to make shatters have a bigger aoe (or if they just changed them to be). And maybe just make Greatsword the “AoE” weapon, since for other classes their 2handed long ranged weapon is usually all about AoE.
Maybe changing the GS auto to basically chain/bounce (chain lightning effect) with reduced (or increased) dmg per bounce.
Or even sexier, change the laser beam to slinging purple crescent blades.
I’m still annoyed they didn’t make class specific stomps. =/
Well… dissapointed, not annoyed.
This is one of the big things I thought Anet would’ve learned from WAR Online, including DE’s.
Sigils (AFAIK) have absolutely no ICD sharing or interaction with any traits. It’s possible procs may be limited to 1 proc per hit, but I’ve never noticed that.
Completely different abilities.
Most transforms increase your hp and add Stability.
Rampage is pretty much just a bunch of CC abilities (your Physical War Utilities essentially), and Melandru is just supportive abilities.
Melandru is pretty friggin terrible TBH, just because all the abilities take forever for the animation to finish, but it has the 1200 aoe root ability which is nice, and you can always pop it on and off just to get the stability.
You can always test (non-racial) stuff in the Mists just so you know.
Well it’s really inconsistent depending on where I am. But I’m not sure I noticed a difference with the patch. Some areas like a town with no one around I could be getting like 16-20 FPS, other areas even WITH people around, get 40-50 FPS (In the same zone).
And yeah as said above, loading in some areas seems longer than it used to. But I don’t have any solid proof.
I think it would be more like Age of World of Skyronancraft.
Atleast how it feels like to me. W/O the same endgame of course.
They should be completely randomized anyway imo.
Static nodes never made much sense to me. =p
I’ve done it. How would it be an exploit? What are you gaining lol.
You people saying WoW was easymode and that this game doesn’t have a rotation, that is completely false.
There is most definately “optimal rotations” for classes in this game, in some cases there aren’t any just because auto attacking is the best dps. There are too many moments where you are “safe” and unchallenged so naturally, you’re doing your best to put out the most dmg.
It was the same thing in WoW, when you were doing something actually challenging or when sh** hit the fan, you were no longer just sitting there doing your optimal rotation, you were doing your best to put out dmg as well as moving/kiting/cc’ing whatever.
In the end, whether or not you’re “just doing a rotation” or not has to do with the fights and how challenging they are. For the most part it’s just : Kite kite, do best dmg rotate, kite kite kite, dodge big hit, kite kite, more dmg spam, kite.
Again, the only reason you may think there’s no rotation is because for most it’s just : Put stuff on cooldown, then go back to auto attacking.
The rotations/abilities/traits could definately use more depth. Think of something like Ranger abilities that boost pet skills and how they combo together, could work the same way with weapon skills : Skill #2 causes your next (#3 skill) to cause X and (#4 skill) to cause Y. And not just “more dmg” of course, but other effects like CC, so you’re thinking about your combo’s.
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I think this is a problem with the game in general, pretty much every class has this problem outside of maybe Elementalist.
Dmg is just too passive and automatic. Not deep/fun/interesting enough. They need to work on having lower cooldowns and creating more combo’s (not just combo field stuff) but actual combo’s like Ranger’s SORT of have with their pet (This Attack causes your next Pet Hit to X/Y/Z).
Also falls to traits.
The awkward moment when no one can tell who’s side the wrap belongs to.
Or the feedback bubble lol.
I used to, they just drag on a little too much, having it pan faster would be nice.
So, an update…. I tried this out last night and it was totally awesome. I just did some sPvP, to get a feel for things. I used the greatsword/staff with Illusionary Elasticity and the trait for might on shatter.
I would open with greatsword, use iBerserker, mirror blade, Illusory wave to blow them back, swap to staff, iWarlock, CoF, then iDefender and just go to town. I found the iDisenchanter to not be so effective due to the zerg environment (which will change of course in tPvP), so null field was a better choice there. I also used the Signet of Illusions to better keep the iDefender alive in the zerg.
The lasting power is unreal. You can totally lol at a thief who is trying to backstab you down, which is probably the most satisfying thing ever. No one could really do anything to me 1v1, and you even win against other bunker builds, since you are stacking might and putting confusion on them + your retaliation actually adds up to some decent offense. Especially since you are double-tapping them with the staff due to illusionary elasticity.
Really really fun build overall. Highly recommended.
If you ever use the Confuse on Blind trait make sure you find a Shortbow Ranger and use Chaos Armor, you’ll laugh your a** off.
It will keep the classes that use them too simple (and boring), and will either be mandatory or useless the way it is.
If you are going for burst damage in those classes, then you must bring quickness to be competitive. Yes. That’s the long and short of it. However it’s not true that to play those classes you must necessarily go for burst damage.
Funny, the massive burst and super short TTK makes this feel like pvp in most MMO’s. Was really hoping fights would be slower and take more skill.
Fights would not end in 3 seconds if you had some defense and stunbreaks, then you would have 45 seconds minimum to kill your opponent before the next burst.
Necro/ele don’t have high reward specs sorry.
All classes are different. Each has specialties.
I do take and use defense and stun breaks lol. The TTK in the game is still tiny and is twitch gameplay.
Do the stat on kill sigils actually work when you kill a player with a kit equipped?
No idea myself, would have to test that.
Just asking since I really think they would go so far to not let those work either…
No, you would have to swap out of the kit when someone dies, but the point is the bonus will affect you while using a kit.
The fact that they’re just permanent pets summoned whenever kind of cheapens the experience as well.
There’s no feeling of actually managing them, outside of just popping their activated skills on cooldown.
And really there’s just nothing interesting and fun about it, you just spawn as many pets as you can, then run around and auto attack stuff. No interesting combo’s of abilities/traits or anything.
I’ve tried doing some Death Shroud tank builds, they’re just not that good. You only have a small window to do some dmg in Death Shroud before you’re really not doing any again, then when you need to come out to re-build Life Force you just fall too far behind and eventually lose.
The fact that Death Shroud/Life Force is not only your best survivability skill but also your best dmg skill is what ultimately makes it fail IMO.
Spectral Wall converting projectiles into healing bolts, and chilling people that run through it would be awesome.
Stat on kill Sigils are the only ones I use for engy, assuming I’m using kits.
Death Blossom by itself isn’t that good. What puts it over the top is stacking regular caltrops along with caltrops on dodge.
The key is to constantly dodge roll away from your target while on to of them to stack even more bleeds, which can do up to 4 short extra bleeds in a tiny area, which then also means you will have a ton of cripple stacking on you. Best bet is to stay on the move and if they blow like 3 LDB’s in a row a single cleanse will screw them.
P/D Thieves are the ones you should really be worried about, they can pretty much be unkillable and just maintain bleeds nonstop.
LDB thieves are much more vulnerable to condition dmg.
Yup, it’s just not healthy for the game.
It will keep the classes that use them too simple (and boring), and will either be mandatory or useless the way it is.
The game is designed to have high risk/high reward builds available. GW1 was also like this. Millisecond reaction times were required, particularly of monks. This is not your typical mmo pvp combat.
Funny, the massive burst and super short TTK makes this feel like pvp in most MMO’s. Was really hoping fights would be slower and take more skill.
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The game could definately use some more optional “fluff” carrots. That’s for sure. Preferably unique to specific zones so there’s reasons to go back to each zone.
I’ve lived in Federal Way nearly my whole life. I feel ashamed not knowing any of this LOL.
Because progression feels great, despite what people will say otherwise lol.
I’m not sure I understand what the point of that is exactly.
If the ONLY thing it does it change from one sword to the other during day/night, why not just keep them and rotate whenever you want? Oo
I’m sorry, but staff auto isn’t nearly as strong as you guys say.
In beta it used to be alot better, the clones attacked alot faster, having 4 of you spamming it would do some decent bleed/burn dmg, but it’s really not that good now, Greatsword Clones with a crit/condition build do SO much better.
Clones also aren’t affected by the “additional bounce” trait, nor affected by our condition/boon duration %. If they allowed that trait and duration %‘s to affect our clones I’d settle for keeping vulnerability.
Or at the very least they could increase the duration of that vulnerability so having 3 clones out could MAYBE maintain 10 stacks or so. It’s pitiful as it is now.
I don’t even care if all it did was Burn/Bleed. Just removing the Vuln would be a buff lol.
I haven’t tested, but would taking Superior Rune of Lyssa (6) and popping elite stack on the others to spread just for lulz?
No reason it shouldn’t work, it’s just that you’re losing the +30% Boon Duration from Water/Monk combo which is really really good.
Just to point out. The 15% Stun Duration Sigils affect both Dazes and Stuns, and do NOT stack with Runes of the Mesmer, so take one or the other, sigils usually being the best.
Last time I checked it’s only like 2600 with healing power, if you feel like chain dazing yourself to do that every 5 seconds feel free. =p
I only bother with the trait if I want to use the Heal Mantra.
Would throwing those last 10 trait points into Inspiration for Shattered Conditions allow you to bunker more effectively? Or do you find the iDisenchanter handles condition damage well enough?
You could, the thing is you want your iDefender to have as much uptime as possible. If you try using signet to boost it’s health I’d suggest just keep iDisenchanter out. AFAIK that trait is only 1 condition removal per shatter, unless its 1 per clone, I haven’t actually tested that out really.
If you focus on Phantasms instead of the boon spread gimmick with Phant HP signet and Phantasmal Haste the Disenchanter is godly, 2 conditions removed every 4 seconds and you can pretty much keep him up 100% with only a 16 second cooldown.
The double bounce trait is probably my favorite trait ever, since it basically doubles the Staff’s damage potential.
That trait is amazing for Greatsword, if you go for this build and want to take the bounce trait take Greatsword, that’s 9 stacks of might per cast with a 10s base duration (18 seconds with the runes/traits). It’s fantastic to doing good dmg as a tank build and you can spread it.
The only thing that sucks is that clones/phantasms don’t benefit from the trait which is a tragic.
Also you should see with this build does to necro’s that Life Transfer. 9 tics of dmg on 5 targets = 45 tics of dmg x2 = 90 tics of retaliation alone x 210 (average retaliation dmg) = Well, they usually don’t last the whole channel lol.
And Chaos Armor/Double Retal is just disgusting against shortbow rangers.
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Tried. Not enough healing to bunker properly. Most people run when low and not enough dps to finish.
Can turn a group fight tho. So more of a group build.
I can bunker against 3-4 people for a decent amount of time. You shouldn’t have any problem lasting in a 1v1. And it’s not meant to chase and kill people. It’s just a super tanky boon spreader.
It’s terrible. I miss the old one.
I would prefer if it wasn’t ground targeted, and either hit harder or had a bigger aoe.
You want boon stripping, go with MH Sword; you and your Clones will ensure your opponent never keeps a boon for long.
This is WRONG. Clones only use the first attack in the chain, meaning all they are doing is applying vulnerability. Boon stripping is attack #3.
I agree GS 3 I pretty much garbage. I only ever use it on dense clusters of mobs in PvE, or in WvW against a really packed zerg.
Look carefully at how Sword Clones attack.
Really, people should test things for themselves before making random claims in CAPS.
This, do people even play their mesmer? Oo
I agree 100%. This is something I’ve wished for, all it does is completely kill the dps on Staff auto’s.
It would be so much better w/o it. Or even replace vuln with a short duration confusion. =p
I would like Glamours more if they actually lasted for as long as their tooltips say. Currently all Glamours last for a significantly shorter duration than what is shown on their tooltips. Also, Veil is crap.
The only good Manipulation skill we have is Blink, the other three are useless (IoL), stupid (Mimic) and buggy (Arcane Thievery).
Mantras in general take too long to charge, taking more than one without Empowered Mantras (which encourages you to not use your Mantras) and you’ll have your hands full juggling them. Plus they aren’t even good unless you trait them heavily.
Our Signets are mostly very niche: each works decently with a specific build, but rarely would you want use them together. SoD is the only generally useful Signet we have and only for its active effect.
Illusion utilities are generally quite good, although Phantasmal Disenchanter needs a buff.
Disenchanter is actually amazing.
It strips 2 boons/2 conditions per hit, and hits like 5 people with a 5 second base cooldown.
You won’t unless they’re bad. It’s as simple as that. I played that staff bunker build even in beta, nothing short of some EXTREME unseen burst or a few people will kill it. That build is probably THE most condition resilient build in the game as well, they’re pretty much completely immune to conditions lol.
Best bet would probably be to try to do some extreme surprise burst with a glass cannon Mind Wrack build.
An alternative option MAY be to try to get him to blow his defensive cooldowns and keep boons off him with Disenchanter, but…. yeah. Doing a single clone daze shatter combine with some dmg could possibly spook him into popping something.
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I would probably suggest Greatsword and Sword/Pistol or Sword/Focus to try and kill people. You can usually catch up to people with pistol stun or focus yank and then just do your sword combo, and Greatsword does pretty good dmg now with the auto buff, along with zerkers to chain cripple people.
It could also just be the level difference, maybe you fought a tanky self healing war in lvl 80 gear and you’re in poor low lvl gear.
Mesmer’s tend to be better at people that commit to fighting you as opposed to just running away.