Confirmed another person who does not receive the buffs when it procs.
I’m with Trik, I hope it will function as the description says rather than when we are hit – I blew a fair chunk of my $ to get this set on my mesmer, and he rarely takes hits.
Also, are the boon icons not intended to show up when it procs? I hear the proc fairly regularly/see the wolf animation during play and I do not get any new boon icons.
I should add I have a full set of superior on my mesmer.
Well again this is an example of people trying to play the mesmer like a necromancer. Clones are there to distract temporarily (absorbing 2 hits from an opponent is actually pretty good mitigation in this game – comparable to other defensive skills except we get them all the time) and to fuel your shatters. There are a few clones who can put out conditions including vulnerability from sword, random conditions from staff and bleeds if you have the sharper images trait.
Clone lifespan is intended to be very short, get them out then use a shatter if you’re built for it.
If you want to try going summoner, phantasms do good damage and will over wright clones if you are at 3 illusions – though necromancer is a lot better at doing the summoner thing and you will likely end up being frustrated with illusion fragility if you go this route instead of a shatter build.
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Pretty sure I can autoattack in a DE and get gold.
As I said, for most group events getting gold is very trivial but some of the more difficult ones (end zone temple of the gods type thing) I’ve found much easier to get higher credit with other weapons or swapping continuously from GS to to mirror blade’s “lost in the crowd” nature. Staff at least has better clone spawning capability, condition stacking and a good deal of even tingle target damage from chaos storm.
I’ll just throw this in – phantasmal disenchanter really needs to spawn at range. He pops up right by your target meaning he lasts about 2 seconds on boss fights.
Also I’ll put in a vote for etherbolt being too slow.
When using GS on boss events/large group/some WvW a lot of damage goes down the tube as mirror blade hits your target once and then gets lost in the crowd on someone who may or may not be using an attack skill (might), and also you lose credit for the damage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for buffing other people but I find I really need to use skills from my weapon swap to manage a gold in boss events with GS.. and gold in these events usually isn’t terribly difficult.
Solo/small group is nice because of the multiple mirror blade bounces, stacking a fair amount of might, vulnerability and damage.
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I agree, this skill tends to miss a lot. If a target isn’t moving in the first place, why would we want to root it? If it’s moving, we can’t root it…
For all you necromesmers (ie. ones who want to throw out a warlock and /popcorn) who tout is as the best build and then moan how they get despawned for every new mob or die to the copious amounts of AoE damage in this game, I invite you to stop being frustrated, build your mesmer to shatter and just try out all those nifty 4 special buttons that Anet gave just to us.
Try to take a utility slot like mirror images or decoy, try taking a trait that spawns clones on dodge, try the trait that casts confusion for every shatter, switch weapons right after your first set is out to pop out all those illusions asap.
You will have succeeded when, attacking a normal mob, you are able to detonate no less than 6 (six) illusions (2 shatters) on it before it is able to close melee range on you (you are allowed to dodge spawn and cripple of course)… and yes it will be practically dead considering how many confusion stacks are on it and that your weapon attack skills are probably still available. You also have enough illusion spawning buttons that the first ones you used will be ready again.
Then you will realize why Anet designed illusions to be so fragile, why all your special keys are shatters, why mesmers are an extremely fast paced and quick playstyle, why if an illusion or two dies to random damage it not only doesn’t matter much, it can be preferable if you are built that way. This playstyle functions in all areas on the game from WvW to Spvp to dungeons and regular PvE. This is by design, it’s not a mistake.
And stop reaching for the lich form key.
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Also I forgot dazes, knockdowns and stuns. Add those to my other list and you can see the things you should be doing to survive as melee.
You guys were doing something very wrong. Yes a mesmer downed ability is to leave a down clone and steath for a couple of seconds… even if you stomped the clone you have plenty of time to stomp the real mesmer who is only a few meters away before he can rally. Unless he managed to kill a weakened mob or one of you he can’t rally that fast. Also a tip… killing illusions instead of the real mesmer is what we want you to do.
A lot of people are forgetting about blocks, parries, blindness condition, invulnerability abilities in addition to dodging. If you time these right melee can hold up to mobs pretty nicely and do a whack of damage.
That being said you have to watch the mob’s animations a lot more closely and react a lot more quickly or face a gruesome death.
If i can do it as a mesmer clothy, the rest of you heavier armored folks should too with a bit of practice.
1 and 2. Yes, clones are for distraction, they fuel your shatters (important) and if traited can cause conditions when killed. Things/people will target them in both PvE and PvP instead of you – this can be surprising but things can move so quickly in PvP that people will very often mistake your clones for you. They aren’t intended to do significant damage themselves aside from the nice numbers from shattering and conditions – though sometimes high level mesmers will see a single digit number from their direct attack.
3. I’ve seen this too sometimes, I assume it has to do with terrain los issues.
4. Yes this is intended, there is a trait to speed it up but will make sense if you read the fifth point.
5. From my experience the biggest mistake people make when playing mesmer is that they think of their illusions like they are necromancer pets. They aren’t. They are extremely fragile, they die for every new mob you fight, they don’t change targets and most critically, they fuel your ever important shatters. Don’t get attached to your minions! Spam them out, let phantasms get a volley or two out, let an enemy blow up a clone and pump away your shatters as quick as you can to get the best damage and utility – preferrably when the CD for your next round of illusions is just about to come up. You need to be quick as it can mean the difference between getting good numbers from your cooldowns or your illusions dispersing uselessly.
There are many more interesting topics you will figure out as you get higher level including how to get good confusion damage and pulling off combo fields in coordination with your phantasms. One thing for sure about the mesmer, few things are as they first seem when you look at them. Good luck!
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Well well. I’m 80 and I had a couple of /facepalm ididntknowthats.
Chili, I play a sylvari and I have found that the racial skill “healing seed” which causes a short range regeneration synergizes well with the trait that gives protection upon receiving regeneration.
The only race I would say is pretty bad as a mesmer is Norn, those shapeshifting skills just make you stick out like a sore thumb around your clones.
Coming from other MMOs other than GW1 I can say it took me a bit to get used to this as well. GW2 focuses much more on skill selection, proper timing and combinations for success rather than a bazillion skills.
It’s different and feels a lot more “consoley” but I’m having fun with it so far.
To be fair, with 60 seconds uptime and 180 second CD, you can be using your elite skill for 1/3 of your fighting time which is decent. It’s on par with many other elite summoning skills in terms of duration. I’d seriously doubt they’d ever consider making it permanent.
I can’t really speak on the power of the skills as I don’t have an 80 asura.
I’d assume that legendaries would be difficult because the components are difficult to acquire, not because we don’t know how to make them. Spending weeks worth of resources only to find they are not useful for what you are seeking doesn’t sound like fun.
A nice starter guide. I would try to avoid excessive favoritism towards condition builds as there are some professions that completely nullify condition characters in PvP, including the mesmer and guardian – though I do agree that at this time staff is easier to do well with than greatsword (GS still decent though).
Personally I’ve found 2 traits to be immensely helpful. The first is creating a clone on dodge in the + precision line, and having all shatters cause confusion in the + condition damage line. This supports an active shatterer play style which is what I’ve found to be the most fun.
Some people try to buff their phantasms and leave them running like necromancer minions, but this sort of passive play style fails badly in many common situations such as when targets change/die fequently (this despawns all your illusions), or when there is a lot of AoE damage.
As for weapons, I personally love everything swordy though greatsword got some heavy nerfs since beta and staff is easier to do well with lately. Mainhand longsword is a lot of fun if you put the time into mastering it, and will let you stand toe to toe with enemies instead of needing to kite – I prefer it over scepter which feels too slow and I only use if I need a ranged option to go with an offhand.
And yes, mesmer can to amazing spike damage but requires some setup to achieve.
The mesmer is a complicated class there are half a dozen things you have to keep track of simultaneously, you have to love it to play well, and it can be very rewarding but it’s also easy to play a mesmer badly.
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Smackjack that is not actually correct, many mmos like to encourage long term farming/grinding in order to get people to stay in the game for performance rewards regardless if the actual process is fun or not.
I believe the reduced drop system for farming has a lot to do with the dynamic events in the world. In order for these events to function, there needs to be a regular traffic of people through different areas.
In short, reducing drops for just standing about in one area helps to breathe life into all the dynamic events happening – one of the most fun aspects about this game.
So quit throwing insults around about having a life/not having one and for those of you used to the old-school method of mmo grinding – try something new! Get around and see different things. I highly doubt they will change this drop system as it does much more to help the game than hurt it.