Guild Wars 2

Just beat her now, didn’t change spec at all. Trick is to stick around middle for stage 2. I run a sub power dps wise pu power build. She seemed a bit less tough than last time I killed her, maybe because I have better gear now. Pretty much izerker and laser beam was enough to kill her in stage 2.

Wyrden.4713:

silver and gold means nothing, i solod 2 silver necros and 1 gold war today, didnt even break a sweat(w maim the disil. trait)

altho i gotta say that there was one condi ele in obsidian sanctum whom i duelled for hours and couldnt beat, he was running dskin and 3 points in water, tanky as hell, condis hurt as hell

/waves to the ele if u ever check this post, u were one hella good player

edit: tried all different spec against the ele in this one hour

I was thinking of running diamond skin with water on my ele after the patch I’ll try it now .

Pyroathiest.4168:

eldenbri.1059:

The silver and gold thing is something of a proxy for player skill. I mostly play as a roamer, so when I meet a silver rank player (e.g. silver colonel) I generally assume they are better than a bronze colonel who I assume is better than a colonel. Clearly this isn’t always the case, but there’s probably some correlation if the opponent is also a roamer.

Heh. Silver and gold is a proxy for amount of time spent zerging. That’s all.

True but someone with a gold tag are not total noob. Most of them know to run from roamers. the few who will fight you are super tanky build in my experience and takes forever to kill though they hit like wet noodle.

win a 1 v 1 v 1

those are always fun when all 3 players are good roamers

Pyroathiest.4168:

2x energy sigils are absolutely worth it. I will not run any build designed for pvp purposes that doesn’t include 2x energy sigils unless it’s some sort of super specialized zerg build. Even if you don’t swap weapons frequently, it’s still incredibly important. Lets say that when you do swap weapons, you’re swapping because something just happened. Well, you probably want a dodge. With energy sigils, you have one. That’s pretty much the bottom line. Energy sigils give you dodges when you need it, and for that they’re absolutely invaluable.

you convinced me , I guess I’ll have to fork out 10g now

Alex.9268:

Mogar.9216:

I’m a huge fan of dodge but not a very frequent weapon swaper in combat.

Then no it is not worth it. If you spend most of your time in combat with GS or staff for example you don’t want on swap sigils on that weapon, just put them on your secondary weapon set.

That is how I have it. I play GS/Sword+torch sword + torch is for spike damage and Defense (torch 4 and sword2) Most of the time I am doing damage with GS at a good range. The thought is though even if I rarely need the extra dodge when I swap back to GS which is when I am switching back to damage the few times I do need it is going to be a fight winner. That extra dodge I need to avoid a burst before my next stealth or blink is up. So even if it saves my bacon 1 time every hr it’s still worth it. I can’t really think of anything else I can put on my GS that can win a fight for me.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Bo Van Swill.7619:

Not sure how up to date this is but http://guildwars2viz.com/

Bleh so many humans. Charr Mesmer 4 life.

A friend of mine insists that no matter what class if it is a Charr it dies faster lol

is it worth it to have sigil of energy on both sets of weapons? I use 1 right now and I’m tempted to go for 2 , but rather not drop the coin until I’m somewhat sure. I’m a huge fan of dodge but not a very frequent weapon swaper in combat. The extra free dodge on weapon swap would be very nice. I could try it out in spvp but spvp isn’t roaming which is what I do 99% of the time.

I have a sigil slot to use because I don’t use bloodlust , reason being I don’t want to be a slave to the stacks ..

my take on arcane thievery is that it’s a much better offensive skill than a defensive condi remove skill. I used it for a looooong time and I still run it in spvp . The casting time and the fact that it’s not the most reliable skill make it a poor choice to depend on for condi cleanse. But as an offensive skill stripping 25 stacks of might or stability from people is amazing. If only they made it insta cast and doesn’t require a target….

If they nerfed PU right now I wouldn’t cry too much about it. But as it is , it would be crazy for me not to use it. I played without PU for a long time. In the end I switched to it after losing 6 straight duels to a PU mesmer. I chatted with him and found out we run more or less the same build but he use PU and torch and I don’t. In the end the extra stealth made all the difference. Shatter is fun but I find for it to work for me I have to stick with areas that I can trap people in small space so I can land the spike damage. However after playing with shatter I find my self use shatter more in my current none shatter setup. Even untraited, shatter is a nice bit of spike damage that can finish a fight when used at the right time.

I agree with the above post in the end F what other people have to say play what you want to play.

Jurica.1742:

As much as I love 1,2k range blink, I’d say cripple. With phantasm mesmer it will give you so much more damage.
Either:
a) they don’t know how to fight you and get killed by your phantasms, in this case blink would be better or
b) they kill them and get crippled, so they cannot kite them as much or just simply walk out of their way (which can be done with izerker or iWarden for example) so you can spawn more.

A lot of people know to kill phantasms so I think the cripple will be all around more effective.

yep that’s pretty much on the point. With phantasm that cripples on attack as well even vs warriors who constantly cure I can keep them crippled for much of the fight. That’s why I use condi food while running a power build. The extra time on weakness and cripple often shuts down your opponent. Don’t get me wrong I totally appreciate the 1200 range blink for disengage and chasing down someone. But in a straight up skirmish 900 blink can accomplish most of what 1200 range blink can esp with a PU build because you can manage range while in stealth.

Edit: Pyro Most attacks in game are AE of some sort it’s pretty much impossible to kill the phantasms without also killing the clones. 90% of the people will use their biggest AE to clear illusions in a fight, esp if you run a PU build and they are trying to get to you.

Nazer.7301:

“I have blink and I do blink behind people and 90deg to zerg to get away. Like I said before the lack of 1200 range from blink can be made up by better skill. "

Idk if your following this or not, I respect that you don’t like extended blink. I would also say that the mesmers on this thread that are more skilled than you are saying blink is better. Dont try to say that less skilled people use blink when 90% of your thread is using it. Need proof? cause I would love to duel you and show you how a 1200range blink works. When people are being polite don’t call them unskilled, remember a 1200range blink will go really far up your …

I like how you assume you are better than me . I’m up for a duel any time . We’ll see how well you’ll superior skill hold up.

edit: also no where in my post did I call anyone unskilled. I merely pointed out that the lack of 300 range can be made up by better playing i.e better position and anticipation of your enemies movements. However no amount of skill can make up for an un-crippled foe. But if you want to be a jack kitten about it, lets duel so I can shut your ignorant trap up.

I have blink and I do blink behind people and 90deg to zerg to get away. Like I said before the lack of 1200 range from blink can be made up by better skill.

Cripple is great for getting away from a zerg because when they kill the clones they get 3 condis applied to them, most won’t beable to cleanse all 3 which gives me that extra split second to get a head start and run away.

Once again thank you all for reply. I would encourage you to try a power build with condi food and clone death traits you might like it

Well I ran blink for one night and decided it’s not the way to go. Here is why.

While longer blink is nice the down fall is the cool down. 1 get out of jail free card every 30 seconds is just not enough to offset the almost on demand ae cripple I lost.
Also the benefit of longer blink can be compensated with better playing but the lost of ae cripple can’t .

So back to cripple it is . The one thing I will miss about longer blink is the ability to chase down DD eles.

Thanks for the replies I’ll run blink for the night and see

I play a power PU build. I’m very happy with it. But lately I’m s bit bored , so I’m trying to mess with it a bit. After much messing around I have come to the conclusion that the only thing worth changing is istead of 2 in dom 4 in duel , I can get 6 in duel and 0 in dom.

Here is the trade off.
Dom give me cripple on clone death which is great for keeping people crippled which allows me to stay at GS range.
By moving the pts to Duel, I get confusion on clone death which is ok but won’t help me much but it allow me to pick up longer blink which is very nice.

in a way cripple and longer blink serve the same purpose both allow me to control range . The upside to blink is that it works better for fighting necros and warriors and engis, the upside for cripple is that it works better vs thieves. So which do you guys think is better. I’m not posting my build because I don’t want to read pointless comments about other aspects of my build.

You can proc it off GS #2. But I do agree it’s not reliable enough to use in WvW.

There is no arguing with people who already made up their mind. Most people do not understand range and position in combat . If you assign 0 value to the huge range GS has then yes GS sucks compare to other weapons if you fight in melee.

unless you play arena teams mesmer is very viable anywhere else.

GS is hands down best damage weapon if you play power build.

1. Range is huge, you can manage the range you get to hit people where they can’t fight back.

2. Zerker is hard to dodge if you cast him in stealth.

3. Push owns the Hut enough said.

4. Auto attack + fire sigil = farm mode in zerg v zerg.

pressure and range. Vs engies and necros you need to stay away from them and let your phantasm do the work. Vs thieves you need to keep pressure on and play super aggressive .

I roam 99.9% of the time. I have never had problem with finding fights and get a lot of kills. That being said GW2 is not roamer friendly by a long shot. There is no smooth road to go from a zerg surfer to roamer. A lot of game mechanics such as small map and access to CC for every class makes it hard to roam. The biggest hurtle imo is other roamers. If you see a solo guy on the map who is not running to join a zerg chances are he/she is a very good player and will wtf pwn you if you just started roaming.

My advice would be to seek out a roaming type of guild follow them in gp of 3-5 for a few weeks to get good then try go out solo. You will die a lot but once you become a true roamer the world is yours my friend.

The biggest reason to me would be the fact you can stack a lot of defensive stats going condi build. The margin for error is larger and it also allow you to take on more players at once and/or get away from a losing fight. The down side of-course is lack of spike damage.

Ision.3207:

I just adore these cartoon video game “gladiators” that always fight to the end, never flee and die “honorably”. ROFL

Trust me, it’s a load of crap.

Basically what you have are some classes that cannot as easily disengage and escape from a fight than other classes. This does not make these classes bad, as they may have many other very strong abilities that greatly outshine other classes in different game modes. However, if the player of these classes likes to solo roam in WvW, but is also one of these thin-skinned tantrum throwing types that demand that the world adjusts to their gameplay style, and everyone else be dammed – then you get these whiney QQ posts in the forums. And believe me, 9 out 10 of all these please nerf Thieves and Warriors thread starters could give a rats-behind about “balance”, the real issue is their wounded adolescent E-pride.

The bottom line is that WvW is an open PvP field that already has its rules of what you can, and cannot do. And sorry, but neither you nor I get to “invent” rules by which others must “behave/play” in WvW, no matter how many frustrated tantrums you throw when things don’t go your way. But you can at least take solace in one thing, you are not alone – because if you go visit the WvW forums of nearly every single MMO, you will notice the exact same whine/QQ tantrums being thrown as the ones on our forums. And the tantrums are being thrown by the exact same type of player: the terri-bad solo roamer that adores 1v1s, but unfortunately, they really suck at it, so they scream and whine for nerfs and game mechanics changes in hopes that mommy and daddy Anet will punishes their “bullies”.

agreed 100%. The real roamers have a code and respect the code but never expect other to follow their code. I often let upleveled players live but if they join a zerg and roll me right after I let them live it’s my own fault. I can’t expect him to know or fight with what I consider as honor. On the other hand once some one start sending me QQ tells it’s game on There are few things I love more in a game than to drive QQers into raging.

Jeknar.6184:

Mogar.9216:

I.e do you think it’s valid for a thief to drop the hut during a duel? if it’s ok for the thief to drop a hut then why is it not ok for the ele or warrior to run off to regen some health and wait out a cool down?

Because stealth doesn’t put you out of combat as long you don’t go on OoC range (The other person will get OoC too if the thief does it)… The regen comes from the last shadow art trait… Going OoC to regen mean you lost the fight already…

But if you mean, kite in the combat range to wait for the cds on healing spells and use them, it’s valid. Even on “offical duels”. I do that quite a lot on my warrior while healing signet, adrenal health and mango pie do the rest.

The problem with duelling purists is that the best duelling builds are often not a roaming build. Because mobility is not important in a duelling build. You can give up a lot of mobility to squeeze out extra defence or damage , yet it’s some what cheap to run a build just for duels.

kitten happens . When you roam people will run when they are in trouble. Unless you agree to duel in advance then you’d expect the other person to stick to the bitter end. Even in those cases it’s valid tactic to disengage to refresh a fight if you messed up. I.e do you think it’s valid for a thief to drop the hut during a duel? if it’s ok for the thief to drop a hut then why is it not ok for the ele or warrior to run off to regen some health and wait out a cool down?

hmm you have 14 seconds of stealth without veil if you use veil you get 17 seconds of stealth. By then decoy or torch 4 would have came off cool down. As long as you don’t stack stealth and wait out the full duration you are very much like a perma stealth thief. Is PU overpowered? imo yes but only in 1 v 1 and only in the hands of a good player. A perma stealth thief can fight a PU mesmer to draw so can a high regen warrior or a good none glass DD ele.

There are lots of bad PU mesmers out there getting face rolled all the time.

Edit:
I also don’t get all the “I don’t use PU because it’s overpowered” posts. No one is asking you to only take on easy fights. Find 1 v 1 too easy? take on 2, 1v 2 too easy? take on 3, try 1 v 4 1v5 if you are really god like. An overpower ability simply opens up bigger and better challenges it’s foolish not to use it.

I am guessing the high condi damage isn’t real. I run a power build but uses condi food for cripple and weakness and a long bleed to stop people from getting out of combat and regen but not for damage. I’m going to guess whoever you fought most likely does the same.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Ranger is a powerful profession whether people want to admit it or not. They are the 1v1 duelist profession and if used properly can provide a fair bit of group support. Unfortunately being a duelist in WvW doesn’t get you much unless you like to solo roam, even then you’re not going to always be fighting just one person, and in a zerg and/or havoc any other profession can fill the bill better than a Ranger can. Ranger was formerly my main and I love the profession to death. If played properly they can be a huge asset, especially in PvE dungeon runs where they’re actually one of the most useful in a speed clearing group composition. But as for WvW, well… They’re squishy, their pets die fast, Spirits are basically out of the question in anything larger than 4v4 and the only real AOE they have is Barrage which, although if timed right can be pretty awesome for crippling mass amounts of people, does little to no damage unless you’re full zerk. In which case you’ll probably die within 30second of zerg contact.

Basically… If you’re a Ranger in WvW you can do what ever you like as you’re entitled to play the game the way you enjoy it most. But if you want to be in any way effective you’re better off solo roaming because 1v1 the Ranger is second to none. You just better hope you can either get the hell away or you’re a kitten good Ranger if anyone else decides to join the fight.

What? 1 v 1 duellist?!@$!# you got to be kidding. I roam 99.9% of the time, I have in the last 3 month meet a grand total of 1 ranger that beat me. The only reason he beat me was because he ran a very situational build once we started proper duelling it didn’t work any more. I don’t zerg so I can’t tell you if they are any good in large scale fights. But in 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 rangers are totally kitten. Pet AI is the problem with the whole class,

I would hate mesmers if I didn’t play one. How do you deal with someone who is hidden most of the time and can spike huge damage while stealthed? When you do casth the mesmer off guard he just blinks away.
Lets be honest in wvw roaming mesmers and thieves are miles ahead of other classes.

it’s a new bug. The damage will keep building up as long as you don’t interrupt auto attack with another skill. It never did that before.

I try a few build and ended up staying with my 2-4-6-2 hybrid GS/S+T build. Only thing I changed was added sigil of torment on my GS. Works just as good as before tbh. Haven’t really lost a fight but then again we have a pretty easy math up this week no real skilled roamer to be found. We’ll see when we get paired with better servers.

Staff by design is a defensive weapon and all the damage skills works well with condition. On top of that most condi. builds have high toughness which works real well with staff.

just kill him I love single out players with max stacks , esp the ones who run at the slightest hint of danger because they don’t want to lose them.

on the other hand watch out for thieves who Cnd/steal/backstab you in 1 second… I knew this was going to be rather oped before patch.

I run something very much like your build. I have 2 in dom rather than 6 in duelling. I run a hybrid power/condi/shatter setup mostly zerker . Ran it for a long time now, works great tbh.

As mesmer main I can tell you a heavy condi pu mesmer can’t chase you. When you are low just run off to regen and reset the fight.

Osicat.4139:

Then there ofc is PU power 10-20-30-10 alt 0-30-30-10-0 who is close to immune to conditions due to mantra heal clean x 2 every 10 sec + a utility condi clear (like pyro say alot pl ppl run pDisenchanter aswell). With generosity on 2 weps and 40% less condi food travaler runes I have had see how a condi build can take this down in a open world fight. A shatter build it al depends on how tanky the PU build play, 1800-2k toughness is common (what I run atm in group fight) and this is rather good defense ~3k.

My latets video 10-20-30-10-0 PU power/condi hybrid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W85z_lkmpC4

Powertank Ftw

/Osicat

I run 10-20-30-10 as well. I think it’s the best build for roaming. The only down side is that it’s not as good kittenter when you are trying to bomb a cluster of noobs. Then again I can’t see your build maybe it’s different enough that you found a way to do that as well.

Get away from open world. Find a tight space and dps dump.

You are 1/2 right and 1/2 wrong.
Yes you simply need stealth to roam. Stealth is just way too powerful. Without mobility like warriors and Eles have we have no choice but to use stealth.
You are dead wrong about mesmers are like poor thieves. We are simply better than thieves in a lot of areas. The least of which is range. Range gives you options a thief does not have. You can take on a large group , pick out and stay on a weak target . You don’t have to worry about CC nearly as much or fear AE condi. Mesmers imo is better than thief at roaming because of range. I play both btw.

I run a build similar to that I have 10 into inspiration for condi remove instead of torch condi remove. I use mostly zerker gear because I find that if I play my toons right I don’t get hit all that often. There is more than enough defence from stealth.

I have dueled a few times where my opponent got rid of his/her stacks first. I don’t care either way. But if you are dueling to get better there is no reason to use stacks as a crutch.

Ye boon strip is definitely great for aggressive play style. It screws soo many classes . I love it when you mess up a warrior or ele or guardian who over extends thinking their boons will keep them safe.

Next patch will be ferocity hit. 10% reduction in damage if you are full zerker. I really don’t think it’s a big deal because the lost damage can easily made up because of the sigil/rune change. If anything you should look at how thenew sigil rune and new class changes will impact the meta rather than the ferocity.

people have been doing this since release. It’s a very good tactic but hard to pull off since there are soo many aes.

toughness is your friend. leveling have 0 in common with end game. Don’t bother with guides or builds, just use gear with toughness so you don’t die all the time. Explore all zones, you get almost same amount of xp finish a 1-5 zone at level 40 as you finish a level 40 zone. There is no need ever to explore at your own level.

Every build have high skillcap. lock down is harder to learn than others. imo Shatter build has the highest skillcap. Because in theory you could win 1 v 4 or 5 if you played it perfect, however you really have to play at perfection to do it.

I turn my camera back to look at the chasers. A lot of the skills can be fired without los like GS#4. kite is not all running. The art is to run and stop then run . You got to let them think there is a CHANCE of caching you or else they will just peel off.

For the last few days since the patch lag has been really bad. The game has become nearly unplayable for me at times. Random disconnections happen all the time. Any one else having this problem?

Simonoly.4352:

I like to play Greatsword/sword+torch shatter build if I’m zerging. I certainly do not get anything like the number of loot bags that a Guardian, Warrior, Necro and Ele might get, but I find that I can more or less move freely along the edges of a ZvZ picking off shortbow Thieves and poor staff Eles mid-meteor shower (actually very useful that one). I often use Illusionary Leap into a large group with Mirror Images to land a shatter spike, blinking away immediately after and using The Prestige to reset. I find it quite fun.

:) down a soft target, pop torch 4 then sword leap to his corpse and blurred frenzy + shatter followed by a decoy and blink out. It’s pretty funny when I pull it of in zergs.