Guild Wars 2

I’ve been using Longbow with surprising success in sPvP…
I want to use it solo and small group roaming in WvWvW
I want to use it in Dungeons…
Is this possible?
(assume full zerk with soldiers head/chest/legs)

That is a valid point about gravity. If I was firing from an elevated position, I would agree – that is mildy reflected in the greater distance you can get from superior altitude… However… if you’re fighting on level ground it should NOT deal more damage the further a way it is….

1. Boost damage slightly and firespeed slightly. Reduce required range scaling (not how physics works = irl closer = more dmg). Avoiding letting attackers get close is reward enough, don’t need more dmg too.
2. Rapid fire should be a short bow type skill. Give LB a charged up shot – more dmg more charge time. OR a movement skill…
3. Leave the way it is. (possibly increase camouflage traits for synergy) (potentially just change to camouflage skill)
4. Leave the way it is.
5. Change to a toggle skill with two modes. 1st mode: weighted arrows: bonus dmg to single targets and cripple effect (1 second every shot or something). 2nd mode: explosive arrows: deals the bonus dmg in an AOE instead of single target, but does not apply cripple effect to any target. Maybe give toggling a short cd.

Incurafy.6329:

I haves sneaking suspicion that you know nothing about economics.

Made. My. Day.
<3

ThiBash.5634:

Mice.8921:

I appreciate knowing that someone out there thinks staff can work to roam!!!

Rest assured then that there are others that roam with staff as well. I currently use the following build for both PvE, WvW and dungeons:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImgboR1gjDA0DmIZUxDlHzsjNA-jkCBYgAYLIkIBJ7pIasFhDRrMMsqZwqaCRKbYKXoA-w

While optimized for group play, it can hold its own while soloing because of the dual nature of certain traits and skills. For example, Glyph of Elemental Power is pretty cool in large encounters because it allows you to cripple or chill large groups with AoE spells (the cooldown is per target). However, it’s also a neat skill for 1v1 duelling because it gives all your spells a chance to slow down your opponent (which makes it easier to hit them, meaning they get hit more, which in turn results in more snares). The elementals are also rather versatile, allowing you the option of heal/chill (ice elemental), cripple/weakness (earth elemental) or range/stun (air elemental) as you choose. Zephyr’s Boon combined with Arcane Fury allows for perma fury and gives you the ability to buff yourself and allies even more with your Frozen Ground. Finally, Rune of Altruism gives you some extra might and condition damage whenever you heal but buffs allies too.

Whenever I enter a duel with someone, I’ll expect the realistic 50% chance to win or lose. Overall, I tend to surpass that number when roaming though.

THIS!!! THis is the sort of thing I wanted to see!!!!

Thanks

Basara.9405:

Roaming staff build is very possible, if you know how to use it.
My build is made to massive fights, but it works very well in the small ones. I guess that means someone could make a very good roaming staff build if needed.
This is the build I use… “Oh, staff with conditions! WTF?”, don’t say that, it works.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImgbnx4QlDAhCBMeEiGeUegzO2A-jkCBIhBhWAgmGJFqIasFMFRjVJjIqW3AzcTo2mLReEYA-w

Since it isn’t really made for roaming, I will lose about 40% of 1v1 fights. And 70% of 1v2 fights. But it’s good enough for a build that nobody really believe it works.
It’s been like… 6 months since I last found a staff elementalist who could survive me in a battle in wvw. Guardians, Rangers and thieves are almost always easy targets. Mesmers and hammer warriors will usually beat me.

The burning damage from Evasive arcana, flaming burst, burning retreat and cleansing fire + the bleeding from evasive arcana and shockwave and eruption are a lot of condition damage. I have a decent controlling from unsteady ground, shockwave, lightning surge, gust, static field and frozen ground. I have healling from the Glyph of Elemental Harmony, from Geyser and Healing Rain, and from evasive arcana.
Between all the weapon skills, Gust and Stoning are the only ones that affect a single player. Which makes very easy to deal with outnumbered situations (as long as you have at least one more person to take some hits for you).
Magnetic aura, armor of earth, arcane shield, Final Shielding (trait) and Earth’s Embrace (trait) are awesome defenses, as long as you know how to use them. Cleansing fire will help to deal with immobilize or when you are taking too many conditions. Healing rain will also help.
SOme of evasive arcana effects are also blast finishers. Very useful to get some might or extra healing.
Lava Tomb and Death Nova (from the armor runes) will raise the chances of killing the enemy while on downed state.
Although I don’t think it is perfect, this build works good enough for me both in big and small fights. But I’m use to it and developing it for more than a year, so I have an extraordinary experience using it. I am not sure if it would work that well with someone else.
Sorry for any english fail.

Hey :-) your english is great! Thanks for the good build, I appreciate knowing that someone out there thinks staff can work to roam!!!

@Xernth – guess I’ll give it a go then :-) thanks!

@juno – I think that makes sense, thanks and… erm… at lvl 60… with a staff… i beat a level 80 necro… #justSaying (he sucked :P )
EDIT: I had him low… then someone came along and finished him… he wasn’t able to kill me though… Thanks for being so unscathing :-) I appreciate the good honest advice

Bhima.9518:

The current support/dmg meta builds for staff are: 0/0/10/30/30, 0/0/20/20/30, and 0/0/20/30/20. Don’t use clerics anything as the healing from your geyser/healing rain pales in comparision to coordinated blasting of the water fields and the healing effectiveness of those blasts are dependent on those that blast them… not the elementalist. Gearing for WvW is somewhat flexible, though the REAL goal of all good elementalists (and I’m no where near there yet) is to find that perfect balance that maximizes damage but having just enough defense to not go down before your main melee train does. I’d start with a zerker staff, zerker trink, zerker back, cav rings, soldier earrings, soldier armor. Play for a while… take notice if you are surviving much better than the rest of your team. If you are easily surviving, then you haven’t properly geared and will need to swap some of those soldier pieces for zerk, or start even smaller by swapping to knights or valk.

All these responses are stating that I don’t need to worry about healing power because my teammates can use blast finishers… However, I DON’T want to know what to use in a team… I’m quite serious when I say I want the best stat allocation for a solo roaming staff build

Morelia.6835:

Staff is awful for solo and small group roaming, switch to D/D or S/D for that.

I know its awful, its the most awful thing I could think of for solo roaming… Hence… That’s what I want to do… I had a necro roamer: boring… mesmer roamer: boring… thief roamer: boring… engi roamer: boring… I want something more challenging

P.S. Don’t misunderstand me, all those classes were fun, but I want something unusual… A real challenge… not a faceroll build…

This is a great guide for group WvWvW, but I want a solo or 2-5 man roaming build for staff

Relying on blast finishers doesn’t work by yourself

InFluEnZa.6908:

Here’s a very well written guide by chemsorly, an ele with 250k kills in wvw and a member of red guard before they disbanded: http://intothemists.com/guides/guide.php?id=107

I personally don’t like healing power and condition damage, so I replaced the celestial gear with a mixture of knights/soldiers/berserkers. Either way you should go read his guide, it is very well written. It mainly applies to higher tier WvW and the GvGs that take place, but good knowledge nonetheless.

Thanks, I will do

Sorry for the double post: With the sigil and runes I chose, I should have 9-12 stacks of might at all times just from attunement swapping and healing…

juno.1840:

Sorry for the noob question… but how are you getting perma-fury?

With a combination of my runes and 30 points in arcane, I have 60% boon duration increase.
Arcane Fury ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Fury ) applies two seconds of fury on attunement change.
With 30 points in arcane attunements recharge every 10 seconds.
That means, optimally, I should be spending about 2.5 seconds in each attunement, in reality, I spend closer to 3 or 4 seconds in each attunement.
With 60% boon duration, a 2 second fury from Arcane fury, will last 3.2 (rounded to 3) seconds.

This means, that assuming I attunement swap every 3 seconds, I will have permanent fury.

However, if you assume that sometimes I spend more time in an attunement than just 3 seconds, e.g. casting meteor shower, I would potentially run out of fury…

BUT….

If I switch to an attunement for a very short amount of time, e.g. switching to water just long enough to cast Glyph of Elemental Harmony for the regen ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Elemental_Harmony ), then I would have 1 second left over when I swap; remember, fury duration stacks…

So in the long run, it works out as perma, or close to perma, fury…

Note: this doesn’t include fury duration stacked by allies (some skills, such as I believe warrior warhorn) can apply fury in an AoE to allies, so in a group you would have a higher uptime on fury…

TLDR: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Fury

EDIT: added the quote

So I’ve been leveling an elementalist (will be my 5th 80) and I’m looking ahead to when I have to gear him…

I’m interested in playing (for WvWvW) somewhere between a support and dmg as a staff elementalist… I’ve been playing with various combinations in PvP, and I’ve found i quite like the valkyrie amulet…

However, I’ve theorycrafted this build for WvWvW and I would love some feedback…
Cleric’s Armor
Berserker Staff
Valkyrie Trinkets (beryl I believe)

Including food, assuming no boons I would have:
18k health
26% crit chance (but with near perma-fury its 46%)
54% critical dmg
700 healing power
2076 armor
1827 power (3000 attack)

This is assuming a build that is either…
0/10/0/30/30
or
0/0/10/30/30
or
0/20/0/20/30

obviously those would have slightly different values each, but I think they all look viable…

Any suggestions such as changing my orbs to something else?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k;9;9;9;19-TT;12;347A47AS;5UydbTLQhGok51;6E-J0O1TYY3e_93-0N-5V5PcW5P;9;9;9;9;9;4V9k3C

Note: the precision is almost entirely provided by consumables… This could, potentially, be an issue, however I use food in WvWvW all the time…

I suggest changing the init cost of pistol #2 to 4, keeping the vuln shot, but giving it a leap finisher and cause your character to flip backwards (evade) whilst firing the shot.
This would allow p/p to have access to some stealth (pistol 5 and pistol 2) but the cost would make it difficult to stack as much stealth as a d/p does.

pistol can already cripple 100% of the time with the crippling trait…
that would let the pistol have either a good defense stealth strategy using 5 and 2 – lots of blinds, movement, cripples, and some stealth, or a more aggressive strategy using 4 and 3.

@eldenbri – does pistol shots through veil remove them from you or the phantasm? How do you escape people if you odn’t have blink?

@Rinzler – my server just got put against JQ and Blackgate – I might try moa too
@Helios – don’t have the gear for condi atm
@skcamow – ah yes, sorry, forgot to mention other set. I usually run S/F and Staff is by far my favorite weapon combination for WvWvW… I knew about the combo but never thought to use it, haven’t ever tried to beat a condition focused meta so I’ve never really seen the use for it, I can imagine its good now

@tetrodoxin – I’m afraid mesmer condition doesn’t appeal to me, thanks anyway…

@Xavi – I’ll do that, thanks

So I’ve played mesmer for a long time – its my main- however I recently took a month break over the summer. Now I’m returning, and I’ve started play my mesmer again, however, I run a staff/shatter build focusing on knights/cavaliers for high toughness. When I left WvWvW had a fairly power focused meta and this build worked incredibly well. However, I’ve returned, and it seems that the new “it” playstyle is condi burst – with burst condition necros crawling out of every nook and cranny. What am I supposed to do against this? When roaming I can at best get one condi removal onto my bar (I usually carry blink and decoy + a condi removal)… but that doesn’t let me do anything vs a necro condi burst…

What do I do???

Thanks

To be entirely fair, they were referencing the complexity of profession mechanics, and stating that BRAND NEW players don’t always take full advantage of attunement swapping…

That said…. the SotG is pretty pathetic tbh….

Leuca.5732:

Mice.8921:

Thanks for the great advice, I sense a trend here about Healing Power lol

It’s definitely a good idea to have at least some Healing Power what with our really low base health and being a light armor profession, but overloading it won’t help in the long run; the amount you get from speccing into Water Magic with a very modest amount of equipment help is more than enough.

What do you mean by modest equipment help? Cleric’s trinkets?

Thanks for the great advice, I sense a trend here about Healing Power lol

So I made an elementalist recently, and I’ve started to theorycraft what my end-goal should be. I want something different from my other characters: Condi-Engi, Toughness-Mesmer, Backstab Thief, and Condi Necro. My current goal is to create a fairly-support oriented Staff build.

Based on the guides I can find, support-focused staff builds seem to be quite diverse. Having healing power definitely interests me as I’m more interested in out-lasting someone and supporting my allies than I am in killing people quickly in a 1v1.
Their are two builds I’ve seen that interest me:
A build based on Healing Power/Power/Toughness gear and Condition damage/healing power/toughness
A build based on Cleric’s and Soldier’s gear.

Trait-wise I’m thinking 0/15/10/15/30 or 0/0/10/30/30.

So – knowing little about the elementalist – what can you tell me about these?

Does having less healing power – cleric’s and soldiers – rather than a build focused on cleric’s and apothecary, cost me a lot of healing?

Is mixing power and condition damage better consistent dps than only power?

Does this new trend of 0/15/10/15/30 give much less healing than the old fashioned 0/0/10/30/30?

Does 0/15/10/15/30 give any noticeable damage increase over 0/0/10/30/30?

Would condition duration substantially increase my crowd control – chill/cripple – or would it not be worth the stat loss?

After MF change, is celestial worth it now?

Am I insane and might be better just hanging my ele now?

Thanks

EDIT: It would be nice to able to use the same gear for a tanky roaming build with S/F or S/D…. but staff is first priotity… Thanks guys

NerfedWar.8749:

With announced plans to overhaul Necros and give them another DS skill and possibly a new condition, it’s my hope that the developers are focused on enhancing the uniqueness of other professions and not removing things from the mesmer.

/cheer

Ethics.4519:

Mice.8921:

I’ve considered trying this, but I must say, is it REALLY, any different to rune’s of the centaur?

Did you even read my post? =) jk jk

It keeps my heal off cd and it applies to ALL of the boons I get. If you’re in a zerg that’s a huge increase over, what, +165 power and 15% bleed duration?

I don’t know, I guess I’m just wondering what other people think? That trade off seems worth it to me, what about you?

Also, in no way am I saying that this fixes all of our problems, just saying this might be a better alternative

Yes, I did read your post, and I’m tempted to test it, but if you actually stop to compare the two, they’re in fact shockingly similar:

1. You’re forcing focus rather than a use of a heal, but forcing a skill usage regardless – E.G. I will often burn my heal shortly before entering a fight to get swiftness, and instead save my curtain to interupt their initial burst – centaur provides that option, duration does not
2. Still a specific rune set required, though, I will say that it does provide an alternative
3. In terms of other effects the rune set offers, since it only affects outgoing or self boons, you can only compare what you give yourself… Unless you’re running staff, you’ll not be providing a HUGE number of boons so you’re sort of looking at healing power (I believe(?)) vs power….

tl;dr Its a nice alternative, but not an improvement you’re simply forcing the offhand rather than the heal, and one set of runes over another….

P.S. I’m definitely considering trying it, looks like it has great potential, especially since I use focus and staff anyway… Not trying to be critical, merely explaining my previous comment =D

I’ve considered trying this, but I must say, is it REALLY, any different to rune’s of the centaur?

Jarettellis.7813:

@Mice

Okay these builds came to creation from watching long sieges in wvw, and noticing that some people while in tunnel vision tend to not know the difference between clone and real mesmer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfWlwzSpXUTsGb9IipHBHyBckUUavWJF82FC-jEyAYMBRyBA9BiIAmALiGbNrIasKbMNMRUtMAMjB-w
-anti condition laughing stomper

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfWlwzqqXUTsGb9IipHBHyBcoU0dWXJF82FC-jEyAYMBRyBA9BiIAmALiGbNrIasKbMNMRUtMAMjB-w
-blind glamour stomper

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsf7dlwzipXUTsGb9IipHBHFCcnUAdLXJF22FC-jUyAorIjxCI5Ag+ATEiYCsIas1sioxqsx0wER1yAwMGA-w
-torch/focus control stomper.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfWlwzqqXUTsGb9IipHBHFCcoUcdWHJFlGqB-jUyAoLIMWAJHA0HIiAYCsIas1sioxqsx0wER1yAwMGA-w
-partial glamour blinder/stomper

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsf7dlwzqqXUTsGb9IipHBXvBcnUQdLXJF62FC-jUyAorIjxCI5Ag+ATEiYCsIas1sioxqsx0wER1yAwMGA-w
-heavy annoyance stealth disrupter/stomper

-Adds: you can swap Superior rune of the Centaur for Superior Rune of Melandru if you worry about stuns/conditions.
-swap lemongrass for Omnomberry compote (for more heals on kills to ensure maximum annoyance)

-Just fyi: these are mainly for a mop up crew/havok crew during a siege. (They may look odd, and that they may not work, but they do.) Just remember to manage your steath wisely, your clones/illusions summoned when you can (to cause new targets for them to attack and distract em) and stomp downed enemies when possible.

Job: finish stomps, distract the enemy, and just be a general nuisance.

Funny tactic: drop one of the non-steath utilities, and use portal to throw down a random portal (but dont complete it till its about to expire) this can cause people to gather near it (enemy) and pull their focus away as they worry about what will come through. (that or you can complete it, and while in stealth use it if they dont worry about it and capitialize on their negligence of a portal)

They look fun, thanks

@Juno – no, not a full bunker build, and I do understand what you mean – that’s why atm I’m trying shatter, it gives my some decent burst…

@Osicat – thanks for the number – I’ll check my build and see where I fall!!!

@Jarettellis – I would actually be interested in seeing that build – I love stealthy builds on my thief so I would love to have one for my mesmer too!

Osicat.4139:

Enjoy the shatter cat heavy 2.0

new build added today after 3 weeks testing. Al info in my guide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmmFlBxz6XY

/Osicat

Awesome!!! Thanks
What do you think about knight’s armor instead of valkyrie to increase crit chance at the cost of crit dmg?

Thanks for the answer… I tend to switch up my build, but it is power based…
I either go 10/20/0/25/5 phantasm build with GS SW/F
or shatter with either
20/20/0/0/30
or
0/20/20/0/30
or
0/20/0/20/30

and sometimes if I’m bored I do this mixed up staff SW/F mesmer using:
20 in dueling
20 in chaos for staff cdr and reduced % dmg
20 in inspiration for glamour and focus cdr
and 10 in the last tree

I’ve never had any graphics lag in GW2 (except for massive zerg fights – and then not with the WvWvW graphics options set low) but after some of the recent hotfixes since the last stand update, I’ve started getting horrible FPS – about 7-11 no matter what I set the graphics to… This occurs primarily in LA (sometimes here the NPCS don’t even load properly, they just stand in crucifix position a foot off the ground), it also happens in WvWvW, The charr fractal, and TA to name a few locations…
I understand that it appears to be occurring in populated places, but this has only started happening since some of the recent series of hotfixes, is there any solution for this? Or do I need to just wait for another hot"fix"?

So I’m working on a toughness heavy build for WvWvW and some of the tougher PvE (lol)… If my gear is zerk or valkyrie weapons, runes of the centaur, knight’s armor, and cavalier/valkyrie (exotic) or cavalier/cavalier ascended… will my damage be unbearably low? kittenter? as phantasm?

No real nerfs (except shadow return, which is kinda fair lol)!!!

+1
15 character couplet:
“I needed 15 letters so I wrote this little ditty
The forums needs a new rule, cos this ones kinda….”

seriously though… +1 +1

no
“The 15 Character Couplet”
I needed 15 letters, so I wrote this little ditty,
The forums need a new rule, ’cos this ones rather…. bad(?)

Uruz Six.6594:

Mice.8921:

Thieves are my second favorite party members ( though I only want 1 at a time)…
Party stealth + blind fields + blast finishers = irreplaceable

EDIT: I personally like 0/30/20/20/0 for PvE – you can use any weapon set other than P/D effectively and it provides plently of initiative to blind spam…

Blind spam is a really big deal, don’t undervalue it…

Party stealth can allow for easy mob skipping + ressing + w/e you can think of in a given instance (I’m looking at you dredge fractal bomb run)

Single target damage thieves are entirely competent, and S/P or S/D (or just sword lol) and/or shortbow and/or Dagger Storm provide decent AoE for AoE fights…

You have me intrigued. Do you recommend zerk armor & weapons, or something tougher?

I personally run valkyrie armor with ruby orbs and berzerker’s everything else, however, I only run dungeons and lower fractals at the moment.

A brilliant guide I would recommend is this youtube guide by a man named Joshua Lewis . He recommends a lot of PVT gear – but he runs higher fractals. His other video guides give a taste of the massive potential a thief has in dungeons and fractals.

Personally I’ve started running 0/30/20/20/0 – this gives me basic damage, stealth and deception traits, dodging, and init regeneration.

Thieves are my second favorite party members ( though I only want 1 at a time)…
Party stealth + blind fields + blast finishers = irreplaceable

EDIT: I personally like 0/30/20/20/0 for PvE – you can use any weapon set other than P/D effectively and it provides plently of initiative to blind spam…

Blind spam is a really big deal, don’t undervalue it…

Party stealth can allow for easy mob skipping + ressing + w/e you can think of in a given instance (I’m looking at you dredge fractal bomb run)

Single target damage thieves are entirely competent, and S/P or S/D (or just sword lol) and/or shortbow and/or Dagger Storm provide decent AoE for AoE fights…

Yashi.8703:

Mice.8921:

I love Yishis’s videos, he inspired me to play thief, and with the exception of the month wiht 4 sec revealed time, I’ve loved it
When’s his next video? I was less fond of the P/D one…

My latest commentary video came out today and I’m playing Dagger/Dagger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKzHTFfi3mk

Apologies that I’m very busy with work IRL at this time. However, a lot of the suggestions given by others in this thread are great! Mobility, positioning, and knowing when to engage and disengage are all extremely important. Hopefully my latest commentary can provide additional tips/advice for you. Good luck!

Awesome, can’t wait to watch it… How do you think the new reveal traps will affect D/D roamers? It seems to me that it should only rarely affect thieves roaming as long as they stay away from primary choke points….

I love Yishis’s videos, he inspired me to play thief, and with the exception of the month wiht 4 sec revealed time, I’ve loved it
When’s his next video? I was less fond of the P/D one…

Pyroatheist.9031:

Mesmers in high level pve content (fractals and dungeons) are fantastic. The best possibly team composition will include a Mesmer in all cases, with no exceptions.

Mesmers are in a similar situation for tpvp. Almost all competitive teams will have a Mesmer because of the massive damage or bunkering they can achieve, along with the other party utilities and the ability to be in multiple places with portal.

In wvw, although the glamour Mesmer just got severely nerfed, mesmers are still absolutely essential to any sort of organized group play. Portals allow for massive group movements at high speed, as well as making golems a dangerous threat as opposed to a slow, massive target. Veils allow for massive groups to achieve stealth movements.

^
this is the guy to listen to – if you want to know more, listen to some of his (and Kylia’s) mesmer podcasts at sitting on a couch… they have some really useful information that I’ve benefited from….
Pyroatheist, Osicat, Fay, and Kylia pretty much represent the four majorly competitive mesmer builds, especially for W3 – you can definitely believe what they say lol

The Baws.5164:

I’ve been thinking about making a character which is mainly for tPvP/WvWvW so would you say making a Mesmer is worth it or are there different better classes?

TBH that’s a pretty broad question… for tPvP I would say they’re probably very good ( I don’t tPvP much – but I’m fairly sure they haven’t been nerfed in that respect) for WvWvW they bring nice utility such as portal, time warp, veil and so on, however, their lack of AoE – AoE confusion builds were nerfed so they’re kinda stuck now – means that they are very poor zerg FIGHTERs.. though as I said, they can bring utility to a zerg that no other class really can…

Basically, as long as you don’t want to AoE or deal condition damage, mesmers are pretty awesome!

KnattyDreads.1856:

Spec for confusion damage, I hear its over-powered. Oh, wait……..

On a serious note, start with this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-WvWvW-Pve-Shatter-Cat-Updated-24-4/first

That is a lovely guide starting post 40 and climaxing post 60

kylia.4813:

Mice.8921:

Whilst I wouldn’t deny that this nerf was harsh, I would observe that on their podcast, either Kylia or Pyroatheist said that their guild was running W3 with something like a 50-75% glamour mesmer count… That strikes me as a sure sign something is too powerful….
Edit: I’ve played mesmer since BW3 – its my main and favorite class by far…

Well we ran that many as that was the group composition we ended up with I seem to attract mesmers on my server (who knows why!) and of course adapted my group composition to match. Was it because it was too powerful? More because those were the classes we were dealt

I think I died a little when I logged on tonight and saw the damage on cry of frustration at 180, time to number crunch and see if there is any way to salvage an awesome game mechanic that is unique to GW2.

I think my point stands regardless… but they probably could have changed it without entirely curbstomping confusion mesmers IMHO….

1. Endgame dungeons and fractals, yes quite useful, though not as good as warriors/thieves for single target damage in PvE.
2. They are good in tPvP. Asking about WvWvW mesmer is a sore topic right now, their strongest zerg W3 build just got nerfed 50%… Single target damage they’re just behind thieves….
3. Decent leveling experience? Haha, not in the absolute slightest I’m afraid… Expect to cry/tear-hair/cut-self until level 40 or 60, after that, yeah, they’re just suboptimal -early on (without traits) illusion cooldowns are so high it takes a while to kill things, throw in minimal AoE potential, its not pretty… That is of course for dynamic events and solo-hearts, in the grouped aspect of pve mesmers are quite nice indeed….

EDIT: That said, favorite class in an mmo-ever, very enjoyable combat!

Whilst I wouldn’t deny that this nerf was harsh, I would observe that on their podcast, either Kylia or Pyroatheist said that their guild was running W3 with something like a 50-75% glamour mesmer count… That strikes me as a sure sign something is too powerful….
Edit: I’ve played mesmer since BW3 – its my main and favorite class by far…

@Thorment – I believe you will find if you actually take the time to test that, you’re completely incorrect… If you read the tooltip, you’re correct they do not appear to be reduced in cooldown, however, if you use the ability, were to you take the time, you would notice that in fact the cooldown timer the moment you finish activating the ability is noticeably – 20% to be precise – shorter than the time listed on the tooltip – this is assuming you have both cdr traits…

Well, I’m concluding that there aren’t really any advantages to being an Asura – but you feel and look like a tiny purple ninja…

I made an asura mesmer and did some sPvP… I found that against good players I didn’t really feel a difference (ignoring how cool I looked lol)… However, against some less-skilled players I actually found them attacking my clones quite frequently, that is something I haven’t seen happen for my sylvari mesmer since a few months after release…

@Noss – Haha, I can imagine that’s a sight to see… :P

@Pinny – I fully understand that that is the case – I’ve played 200+ hours on the mesmer – I was more wondering – having perceived the size difference having being utilized by some players, I was curious if it would actually make a difference noticeable in the slightest way…

@Hexxen – playing at level 80 – not as an asura – in my opinion asura armor ends up looking some of the coolest – when you can see it past the honking great norn warrior in front of you….

@Pyro: Thanks, I’ve played my mesmer for about 200 hours PvE/WvWvW/PvP and love it, but don’t fight them that often, so I wasn’t sure to what degree people rely on the clone off-hand thing… I actually do use that on occasion – its quite easy if they have a very noticeable offhand weapon – such as two of the flaming heritage swords…

@Thorment: Why?