Guild Wars 2

I have been running with a thief guildy recently as well. I run a condition tank setup keeping the pressure on multiple foes (melting those with poor condition handling) and devastating ones with confusion stacks while my buddy bursts guys down. It works well outside of being forced into close quarter fights against multiple melee foes.

Great video as always osicat

HoD, this is just low. Several of us GoM had to come to our keep this afternoon since the grub had come into our keep and caused it to be under attack until we finally put it back down. Later I was passing through and found this asuran mesmer commander from TAA in our wall. We killed him after a little bit of time but apparently had been the one who brought the grub in earlier. It’s bad enough when people exploit into a tower but into a keep is simply inexcusable.

I have been running a condition tank spec for many months now. I have experimented with several different trinkets and have settled on a few mixed ones. I am currently running perplexity runes instead of the undead.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWl0zKqXQTmGb9IipHEnvBckUoavWJF42FC-jU0AINBRaRgoOgpQkc40YzjAVzioxqkB0yw6ZUNDmuFRHDZulqN5AOEEvCmUAQsGA-w

My back piece is actually an apothecary one while the 2nd accessary is an ascended rampager one but this was as close as the editor would allow. 1250 power, 1600 cond dmg, 41% crit chance, 2.8k armor and around 17k HP. I have found the added heal power very helpful for the regen providing a lot more staying power. I also carry a 2nd scepter and staff to change out the sigil I am currently using once my corruption stacks are full.

The real beauty of this setup is the flexibility it creates. I roam solo most of the time but when I group up into a small band of allies, I change out my Dom III trait for IV and my sig of dom for sig of inspiration to provide boons for my group.

Osicat.4139:

Well, with close to perma protetcion, chaos armour 2k toughness 4 stelaths etc I say that of my builds Condition Cat 2.0 with undead runes must be one with best survival. If you want more dmg I recomend the condition runes thu.

Can roam a full evening without die once. If thing going kitten stealth blink and bail. Trait in extra range on blink if you want extra mobility + cd on staff for more blinks and chaos armours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQqUDt90XOw

/Osicat.

If he wants tankiest build, he’d better off going with melandru runes instead of undead.

Now here’s a team support setup that would make you one hard guy to take down, but you are also going to hit like a wet noodle.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArdWlwzKqHQzmGbNJhpHEH5A/kCovcUF2OpCuG-jUCBIOCiUDBi+AMPqIasFhDRr6KsKZER1qbYmcFRrWEAzaA-w

2894 Armor, 19592 HP, 795 heal power (1045 w/ max stacks), +80% boon duration. This would mean prot and regen will be up most of the time with regen providing 229 HP/sec (260 w/ stacks). You’d also be passing all your good boons to your allies as well as using some stealth to stack even more boons up and providing a good source of might stacks. You could go with either scepter or sword main hand, just depends on your preference.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Nuka Cola.8520:

I mentioned Chaos Storm which is on RNG and not even guaranteed rupt+the person needs to be stupid enough to stand on it. I only named the most ‘popular’ rupts we have and most used. Are you seriously gonna waste an utility for mantra of distraction? Sig of dom is a bad idea because the target is stunned for a long duration instead of taking damage from your confusion you inflicted and is on long CD. Into the Void mostly means you’re then missing on Magic Bullet so meh.

It procs ALOT surprisingly, works great for solo and group play as well. I do run with MoD and this as well works great – VERY helpful chasing down runners along with Magic Bullet.

I agree with Sig of Dom, the 3 second stun is good but not good for confusion builds. Again, i agree with Into The Void, tend to only use it for Swiftness and then its unequipped and used during big zerg groups.

Currently even with the fact that the 30% confusion duration is bugged i can still get 8+ stacks on the target without even changing my gameplay. 1 Vs 1 the highest i have gotten it is 17stacks against a silly Necro that decided suicide by Confusion damage was his only option

I completely disagree about sig of dom being a bad option. Yes the stun is for 3 sec but that actually works in your favor because of 2 reasons. One they will use a stun breaker (a skill to activate confusion) or they panic some after the stun wears off. With a duration of well over 10 seconds for the interrupt confusion, there will be plenty of time for your foe to be pounded by it even with the 3 second downtime.

Chaos storm procs interrupts very regularly for me. You pop it on a group of foes and I see at least one interrupt immediately practically every time and usually get a few with each cast.

I rupt plenty of foes and I only carry staff (chaos storm) and have diversion. To me, the rupt confusion stacks are a great bonus.

Osicat.4139:

My latets vid use the runes. I only see good things form em, have not felt that enemy preasured me more with condis latley eather. Fought several necros and feel even if both they and I use the runes my preasure is harder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQqUDt90XOw

/Osicat

I have to agree. I have really been putting a lot more pressure on necros now with these runes. I find myself carrying arcane thievery more and more these days and it really makes those guys, who use confusion on other professions, pay.

GenerationX.9178:

I always wonder why like my server, then saw this and how much fun we get to have winning or losing ^ ^

Reminds me when SF took briar earlier this week and I made a ram site smiley face for those up in the lords room.

@Drps, confusion is not a burst condition. It procs with skill usage of our foe and hits for a whole 200 damage per stack with 1800 condition damage. So if you do happen to max it out a stack (without it being removed) and your foe uses a skill, you are only looking at 5k damage. Many professions can hit one skill and do more than that kind of damage on a foe.

I like having confusion to add even more punch to my condition spec, but the poison, bleeding stacks, and burning I do are the bulk of the damage my condition spec does and it’s not even close.

Ran into a group of warriors the other night. It was taking 5 of said builds (not all were running a confusion build but all were warriors) to take down me and a friend. Yeah really OP. I’m a condition tank spec and I just laugh when they put 9+ stacks on me. I simply use arcane thievery (I’m traited for manipulations) and laugh as they melt to the ground. I also run a traited torch so I can bring out iMage and the confusion is gone. Sorry, not only is a warrior confusion spec inferior to our own (which it down right is) we can actually deal with it better when it’s put on us.

Here’s how the fight basically played out. Warrior(s) jump me looking to stun me and interrupt in the process. I hit blink, prestige, and follow up with arcane thievery (thanks for the boons you put up before the fight) giving them all that confusion he/they stacked up on me. Thanks for making my job that much easier.

People complain something is OP when they don’t understand it, can’t kill it (with their profession/setup/skill level) or all of the above. Right now condition necros can be seen as OP against most of our mesmer setups but that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn tail and run when one is near by nor say it’s OP. I simply die on my feet or learn to deal with it.

I run retal on block and never have a problem keeping it on me most fights. I run staff and scepter/torch (traited). This gives me block on scepter plus plenty of aegis (staff and PU). I run a condition tank build and it’s mostly an added bonus to see those retal hits. I used to have more of it when chaos armor provided it instead of the swiftness it now gives.

Natronix.9827:

Sororita.3465:

Colt.9051:

Sororita.3465:

OOOOooOOOO! ME TOO!

i got chased by an IoJ zerg and then killed by the SF zerg all within a 2 minute time period!

They all seem to gravitate to you Honeybuns <3

Day 2: they still haven’t noticed im not actually a table.

This is why I love GoM. You guys always make the match up thread fun rofl :P

Yaks Bend and Kaineng spent the majority of the thread complaining about the gifs.

Wreckdum.8367:

Hope we get an interesting matchup next… Borrrrrrrrrring. So tired of every Kain or GoM guy I see running away from a 1v1. Grow a set! =D

I never run from a 1v1 fight, especially against a warrior.

I got the biggest compliment while chilling on Kaineng’s BL today. After I dueled with a pleasant Yaks ele (who we agreed was a draw), I sat outside the south camp and just relaxed for a bit while some of her server mates took the camp. Once they finished several saw me and passed by as I obviously was just sitting there with my kite (plus we even acknowledged each other with some waves). Unfortunately 5 of them (1-2 were uplevels) decided to jump me. I say unfortunately but it was more for them. I wiped them clean but they came back to the camp shortly afterward. At which point they wouldn’t leave the camp towards me (who was still sitting on the western edge with my kite) and then decided to build a ballista. I couldn’t help but laugh with my guildies in guild chat over this. Now that is what I call respect. A lone mesmer keeps 4 guys in a camp plus them making siege to try and hit you.

Also a great shout out to our mini 5-man pug gang who played havoc on the Kaineng BL earlier today. Flipping several towers (including Dawn twice) in the process.

Azo.5860:

would u choose guardian or mesmer for boon spreading primarly and giving solid damage and other alternatives? ithink guardian is more effective while boon supoorting and overall..
for survivability i think lack of break stuns stability or cond removal, i think eles,thiefs are more mobile, or guardians more survival, u pulled in to the bomb and get cc blink on cd, or stunned what u do, u have veil, portal or feedback or another skill rather preferable than decoy, mantra of concentration, mirror images, or signet of midnight in orginized team, thats why i cant leave ipersona trait, so it doesnt give any selection of builds as well..

99% of the time neither veil or portal is on my bar. Having 2 readily available stun breaks (blink & decoy) is more than most classes. As you said you could always bring one of the others as well. I trait for torch and carry arcane thievery most of the time so condition removal isn’t much of a problem except if i play badly against a cond necro or engin. I take on 4+ foes all the time and the only other class which I see do this regularly is a heavy stealth thief. I’d say that is pretty darn good survivability.

Guardians can certainly do a good job of booning up their allies, but when I choose to take on that roll (which is only a minor trait skill change from my roaming build) I can pump 5+ boons to my allies every time signet of inspiration (14s) is available on top of the other boons my skills are providing them (depends on traits and what winds of chaos or chaos storm give them).

I’ll say there are quite a few pros over other classes. One is our flexibility, but it’s more than that. We can easily run a great support style role (while doing solid damage) by booning up our allies. We can excel in a roaming role. We also have great survivability (despite having light armor and not a lot of access to swiftness).

Frosch.7809:

To the Asura warrior i just fought in the NE of our BL, if an opponent does not kill you when downed you should not get up to attack again – especially not while using Vengeance, makes you drop dead after a few seconds. You could have healed and walked away. GoM not used to 1 vs 1 ?

Plenty of us are used to 1v1 situations and I often let my opponent get back up (especially if it’s a great fight and they didn’t make me chase them all over the map). There are still those guys who don’t understand a duel situation and as such they either charge in (when one is going on) or do as you just experienced. I, personally, try not to charge in a fight when I see it as a 1v1 situation to wait and see if it’s a duel. I will instead ask (in Say chat) or look to see if one of them spikes.

Devanuze.8734:

Done a lot of work with RUN today, some of you may of seen us doing our thing. Nice seeing you ET and SF

PS. To that pink ET commander in the night crew, quite amusing how you threw yourself again and again at us. Hope you had the outnumbered buff or thats a lot of armour repair…

PPS. Thanks for the omega vs omega showdown. We couldn’t stop laughing

I had a fun time running with you, Moose, and all your RUN guys. Thanks for the party and hopefully next time we get a little more action. To the DCN guys (especially the thief), hope you guys got a good inkling on what you are up against next time you see me and look to jump me.

Scarecrow.5792:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

New video up, but with old clips from AR/DR/IoJ fights since I’ve been mostly farming instead of playing WvW this week. Just need about 150 gold and some dungeon tokens to finally finish making Quip, then I can get back to business.

http://youtu.be/xbMS57i7fNw

1:40 STEALTH

I caught that too. BTW, I miss roaming with ya. I’ve had to cause havoc without you (or with other pugs).

Got to love these guys who fight, just to run. Then they come back with more numbers, just to jump on you as though they are special. Congrats female CoS zerker warrior. You can beat a mesmer 5v1. Sad that even you and the thief are no match for me. Better to just run away (which you are good at) if you see me.

Before you select what armor to get, you need to decide what kind of mesmer you want to run. I’d suggest going back through and look at the various builds others have posted to find the one you like. Once you decide on a setup you like, then it becomes much easier to figured out what armor to get.

An easy starting point is to get Knights armor & weapons and cavalier trinkets. This will at least provide you with good offense and defense.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Tootsie.5217:

Crow for president ’13

#VoteCrow

#VoteNOtoCrow2013

Not sure why you’d vote no. He’d have to be an upgrade over our current president. At least Crow will admit that he is over his head, unlike our actual pres.

pita spoon.5708:

can I get a SHUT UP!!!!??

Seconded

Insane Pancakez.9182:

Ummm… I’m pretty sure GoM is losing now. I was thinking we were going to get destroyed by GoM, as I’ve heard about your large zergs and things. If GoM beats SF, it looks like it will only be from Oceanic coverage (If you have any, I have no clue) but if you’re dependant on your NA coverage, well.. you’re about 4k behind ATM. Anyway, VS had fun tonight playing against GoM for a change. Haven’t seen zergs in a while. Hope the large fights continue all week.

It’s the weekend. A lot of players (including myself) aren’t on that much during the weekend. Not to mention that I personally hate resets and prefer to fight once the initial zerging is done.

Tots.3056:

SickDelirium.3956:

AggieTechGuy.4901:

To DR as a whole:

Siege (including ACs and Ballis) is a mechanic of WvW. If you don’t like it, go to sPvP. My goal isn’t to have a glorious charge with nothing but an even or outnumbered zerg against my enemies. My goal is to win / make others lose. So, why would I stop using siege on you all when it kills you & caps your assets more efficiently than banging my face against you? Isn’t that also something you complain about (PvDooring)? Don’t act like you all don’t take advantage of WvW mechanics in an effort of “fairness”.

This.

Basically, half of the criticisms in these threads can be boiled down to something like this:

Q: “Why don’t you fight in a way more advantageous to me?”
Correct answer: “Lol. No.”

There’s a fun aspect of open field combat with no siege to weigh down a side. It wouldn’t bother people so much if you didn’t do it every time. However every single fight zerg on zerg you guys flash build siege like clockwork, first thing you do. It just gets old after a while, and when our only move is to change positions away from your siege it is frustrating. Nobody likes staring at each other for 15 minutes awaiting a fight that takes 30 seconds.

There aren’t any roaming groups interested in even fights, and when we go to your BL looking for enemies every single player is balled up tight on the commander, and you choose to waypoint instead of fight. I understand that is the tactic the game mechanics suggest and we even use them sometimes. It’s just the total dislike of open field combat that IoJ has, it brings boring fights and a boring matchup.

I understand it’s a PPT game, but surely we can’t be the only ones who like large scale open field combat.

I’ve noticed that a lot in IoJ. I love to roam solo or with 1-2 others I happen to hook up with. It seems like each of our engagements go like this. 2-3 guys find me (or the two of us if I’m with someone) and they either attack just to run or simply run off the bat. Once they have 2+ on siege at their tower, they must call out for help as another 2-3 will show. A few of those may actually come out to fight, but all the while we are dancing around the siege. Finally 10+ will suddenly show and it’s either run looking to spread them out or we get wiped (if we don’t see them in time).

Just today, me and two other pugs (so that’s 3 of us GoM) were just north of your EB keep. Around 3 guys would come out and engage us just to turn and run. So, 3 more show and take up positions on the cannons and a treb. Now it’s 6v3 with 3 guys on siege and 3 sitting on their bridge for NPC support. Finally another 6 join in, making it 12v3 with three of their guys on siege just to take us down.

I know I can be a tough memser to take down, but it is more people need to grow a back bone so they can learn. If I die, I just run right back to the fight as it is just another part of the game.

I run a condition tank build the bulk of the time. If they are a great cond necro, there is little I can do, but most I can take if I’m careful. I run staff and scepter/torch (torch traited) so I will use my torch skills to start with and wait for them to do some sort of condition spike on me. When they do, I use arcane thievery and watch them panic. Seeing as I’m a condition spec, they usually already have several conditions on them and the new 3 which gets passed over to them can be their down fall if they haven’t been good with the CD’s.

If they have plague signet (which you’ll see on their bar), never use arcane thievery until after they have used that signet or it’s game over for you.

Tukmolytes.3467:

Natronix.9827:

Tukmolytes.3467:

Wow! GoM needs to wall hack Klovan even though they are winning and got 3 trebs hitting it from SM. Just WOW! I hope ANET check our report on that mesmer.

And yeah it is a Zombieland guild member. Tsk! Tsk! Shame on you!

I didnt want to say anything so it woudn’t cause drama so late in this match up and get us all ticked off at each other, but yes this is not the first time they did. When i was commanding a mesmer i believe from Zombie land or with [Obon] tags glitched into klovan and portaled ppl in… They had plenty of mesmers in that group so dont know who was the one doing it, I do know that mostly had [Wvw] tags.

Please note that I am not trying to insult or be disrespectful to GOM as a server since I have plenty of respect for you guys, this was just a specific groupd exploiting a paper tower… Either way, it should not be done.

I am not that active these past week because I am trying to regain my lost golds in WvW by playing PvE.

I only post what I think are lame actions from our opponents. It’s just frustrating that I was on treb for more than 40 minutes and suddenly after 5 minutes of recapturing Klovan here comes the mesmer cheater and portalled everyone in and retook the tower. It’s obviously organized and a lot knows what is going on.

I’ll own up to this. I was the [Obon] mesmer who got in. I was just dinking around with two [WvW] guys and got stuck in the wall. Figured I got in, I could get out and sure enough I did. It wasn’t a planned event seeing as I have never even done such a thing (other than being killed while inside other walls from a glitched phase retreat). There was no plan to it and I acted alone.

Snow Ghost.6817:

bokkieskitten.8023:

Snow Ghost.6817:

AggieTechGuy.4901:

Snow Ghost.6817:

I totally get what you are saying about the use of siege. If you have got it, use it.

The issue I have is that with your numbers, and I mean the CORE/HARD group, you should and could be better than you are at certain aspects of WvW.

You won’t see VP complain about being outnumbered, thats the way we like it. We only run between 8-12 guys on a regular night and like to fight the big zergs as much as we can.

Frequently, we get stomped, as is the tricky nature of poking the big beast with a sharp stick, but occassionally we manage to pull it off and wipe the big groups, and that’s what it is all about for us, that and open field fights.

The other night we were in the IoJ SE tower doing our usual open tower defence stuff. I think you guys wiped 2-3 times trying to get in. Then the siege comes out.

Arrow carts everywhere around the outside, ballistas, and extra treb hitting us inside the tower. All fair enough and fully expected. Most of which we were able to get rid of and get back into the tower.

What we have NEVER seen before, and I mean none of us in VP, was the 2 Omega golems you built in hills and came at us with next. 2 Omegas to take a tower with 10 VP in it and no walls!

Hey…. it worked

I did not think there was a limit to what is “fair” as far as siege goes, but I think that may have been getting close to it. And I really never thought I would say that.

Anyway, we are having some good fights this week and I am enjoying going up against IoJ and GoM.

/salute

There is a big difference between an organized [HARD][CORE] group and a mostly pug zerg. I’m usually in most of those organized zergs, and don’t remember omega rushing a tower with the gate already down, haha. Although if you wiped my pug zerg 3 times while we try to get up those god-forsaken stairs, I would not be opposed to building a treb right in front of you. I’d rather waste supplies than lower IoJ morale.

It’s actually kind of funny though. With the price of omegas, it’s almost as if pugs prefer to roam with them rather than themselves. I’m sure IoJ has omega rushed people very stupidly at times. I’ve had the DR pugs omega rush pangloss, and GoM pugs (actually there was a comm in one) omega rush Danelon. What makes me giggle everytime is seeing a lone omega golem trying to take a camp, and then run away when our “Blob” descends upon it.

At any rate, know that CORE is a little over a month old, and most of our members were pugs only 1-2 weeks ago. We can definitely pull out numbers, but we’re by no means were we want to be yet. We do have some really good WvW here, but the biggest thing we’ve accomplished is getting all our members to actually listen and stay in that 5×5 blob, while simultaneously getting our pugs to do it by example.

And to be fair (I forget who said it) that 5×5 blob is pretty deadly . You can’t count our numbers very well, so aren’t sure if you should stay to fight or run. It also lets me micromanage how we choose to engage, rather than just a massive and really spread out push.

And I’ll have to tip my hat off to the GoM commander that successfully got your pugs to ball up between SM, Anz, and Spelden 2 nights ago. I didn’t think you’d be able to get them balled up .

Fair enough. I have no way of knowing if it was the organised or pug version we were defending against. There was someone commanding, that was clear.

It was just so strange to see those Golems coming towards a tower with no walls at all

Didn’t know you guys were only a month old. Your Necro fields are very very annoying btw

We have had to change the way we fight against IoJ just in case we meet you guys. I was hoping for a bigger Necro nerf in the patch, but no such luck.

Running about in golems to take camps, well… thats just nonsense.

We aren’t too bad a judging numbers. We may run but only till we get a better position to fight from, well, usually

Give us a shout if you find yourself with only 20 people and nothing to do.

/salute

A BIGGER necro nerf? I feel the need to hunt you down now.

Lol…. so much for trying not to kitten people off.

Must remeber…. Necros have feelings too…… deep deep down … inside… they are smiling.

/salute

And every time a necro cries, there’s a mesmer smiling.

Snow Ghost.6817:

titanlectro.5029:

sephiroth.4217:

Neeho.3859:

ARM.3912:

Oohhh so DR is in last place! Thank you wish i couldnt see the scoreboard for some reason!

19. IOJ 149503 +1.473
16. GOM 171385 -9.966
20. DR 145207 +8.536

Yep, last place. To a server 1.3 tiers above us and a server with Oceanic coverage that completely owns us. And yet we are gaining rating, almost as much as you are losing. So, against 2 servers you should be dominating, you are losing rating points. And both of us are gaining. I agree, we are in last place. We suck. We just don’t suck nearly as much as you do.

We don’t have much oceanice coverage anymore, karma trains in EB on day crew dismantled our EB night crew really hard… We had 4 people at one stage trying to defend and on the only thing we owned in EB was our keep. The 4 that were on were extremely thankful RISE guild came to save EB while Ioj guys were halfway through trebbing the keep and DR were bringing golems. So by saying that, the truth is it’s Ioj that have supreme dominance during oceanic time zone now and DR can still field more people than us atm as I seen when you took durious from us, unless you call 2 GoM vs 6 DR as us having more. We also lost some more night crew players that used to help alot over the last few days to Tarnished Coast due to the bullkitten that happens within our own server and when a guild benefits themselves at the expense of the server this will only get worse.

GoM’s problem is a lot simpler than that. We are bored.

In order for GoM to fight a tougher opponent, we need to get a large positive roll and DH/SBI needs to get a strong negative roll. All other random rolls will result in us fighting weaker servers again. This is a ~25% chance of a challenge, and a ~75% of stomping weaker servers again. (This is just estimated math, I’m sure someone has the hard numbers.)

This is happening because of the HUGE artificial rating gap between rank 15 and rank 16. I call it artificial because last time we fought DH, we only lost by a little. NSP fared quite well against the T5 servers also. There is no reason for such a 250+ rating gap. Once GoM or NSP gets the opportunity to test that rating gap, it will collapse. But we need a really lucky random roll to get that chance.

So GoM is bored. I’ve barely played WvW this week, and my guild has not played it much either. Some of my “I hate all things PvE” members are working on map completion. The truth is, GoM is phoning it in.

It just goes to show you that morale is everything in WvW.

I can tell you guys are coasting this week. It is way too easy to flip stuff in your BL. Would usually expect the hoard descending within seconds upon anyone that strolls past one of your keeps and looks at it funny.

Good time to be practicing your open field fights and new tactics? There are a few really good groups to go up against in the open and I know the DR guys would love the fights.

Just a suggestion as a way to perhaps break the boredom slightly.

I know we practice on weeks that there isn’t much to be done PPT wise and it makes a difference for us.

/salute

Sorry I haven’t been on our BL to give you VP guys a good fight lately. I’ve been working on leveling some other characters as well as bringing my son up to speed on his first character. Don’t worry, I’ll be back causing havoc soon enough.

Your friendly Obon Mesmer

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

just a short video of me fighting a shatter Mesmer (I presumed shatter, could be a phantasm build)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2vdwnza0Y

been a while since I last used after effects and cant remember how to use most of it, however, sooner or later ill start remembering and make some better videos, if I start playing much more

Not sure what that other mes was. It looked like it might have been a GS condition, power, or hybrid build of sorts.

Joey.3928:

Had fun in GoM BL today! Good fights to the GoM at SE of the map. Especially the warrior and engi from [DS]. You guys were tough.

Not even an honorable mention about the mesmer? I’m hurt. And after I spent all that time chasing you around working to finally get you to fight me. :P

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mmmm, it seens you have to wait 15second before swapping weapons for it to proc again. After 10 seconds it didnt proc, will try for 11, 12, 13 and 14seconds and see where the perfect timing is

I have had no problems getting it to proc regularly even though I change my weapon set constantly. What I do see happen from time to time is that my auto attack hits a foe before I can see the doom buff register on my screen. I do notice the poison on my foe though.

nyckolag.2394:

hey everyone and gab

i have a quick question are whales reptiles or amphibians because they have blow holes but they don’t have gills and they have lungs to hold their breath but so do we and we’re and our nose and mouth get air to our stomachs so we can survive but what are whales??

also best mesmer na representing i can kill 100 of you DR and GoM put together with 3 times ioj’s numbers and you’ll still just claim that i pvd’d it. noobs

Whales are mammals of course. Now did you know there are fish with lungs and fish that are warm-blooded?

As to your best mesmer in NA claim, that just makes me laugh.

Palu.3405:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

How does this sound:

Scepter: Doom
Pistol: Corruption
Greatsword: Battle

3 stacks of Might as well as Might from the GS #2, Corruption stacks and poison every 10seconds.

Regardless of whether you use Doom or Earth, I would suggest using one on each weapon set. If anything, I would use Earth on the GS since it can attack more rapidly than the scepter. I would probably use Doom on the scepter since it attacks so slowly that you won’t get much out of Earth on it. I don’t know if I’d recommend Battle; you have to ask yourself if 3 Might is worth losing the damage that either Doom or Earth could do. In my opinion, it isn’t worth it. Given that Sigils of Battle are so expensive, you might not want to experiment with this one, but if you have the funds it might be worth testing. That being said, I think Corruption is perfect on the pistol. I have one on my torch and love to go coyote hunting before a roaming session to get some extra condition damage.

Well, let me say a few things. I laid out the math coming to 3200 damage for 10 seconds and some how you upped it to 4100. Keeping 4 stacks of bleeding from earth runes alone aren’t that easily done, but we are talking perfect scenario here so I will give that.

I actually don’t use a GS like the OP does. I prefer the staff which does have access to poison (albeit not a guarantee) as well as other conditions so stacking bleeds isn’t as important to me in my condition build.

I agree it’s all about finding what works for your game style. If you aren’t a heavy weapon set changer (which I do weapon swaps constantly), then having Earth (at least on your main weapon) is advantageous.

I’ve been meaning to add a second scepter and staff to my inventory (to swap out my corruption sigil ones after I have stacked up) and perhaps I’ll rehash Earth again.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Your math comparison is well off. Let’s say you have +40% cond duration and 1500 cond dmg (not high but at least a consistent comparison point). Doom and Earth both yield 7 seconds worth of their perspective conditions. So bleed will do 822 (117.5 * 7) and poison will do 1628 (234 * 7).

In a ten second span (from the onset of the condition), your bleed ticks from earth would end up: 117.5, 117.5, 235, 235, 352.5, 352.5, 470, 470, 470, 470 for a total of 3290. Now this is a best case scenario, seeing as you mentioned someone can purge those stats at any given time and you have to be directly attacking after each 2 sec CD of Earth. Getting your duration up to +100% only furthers the cause for poison since you would only be adding an additional 235 damage to the bleed (since a stack didn’t fall off in 10 seconds) but would add 568 of poison.

You also don’t take into account in your comparison that poison further hurts a foe since their heal is 33% less effective so a skill like ether feast would yield 1600-1800 less so effects are nearly identical to the bleed gained by Earth. Which brings me back to what makes poison that much better to have since you are adding one more condition that other professions (such as Mes) and specs that can’t purge more than 1-2 conditions at a time. This means the more types at your disposal, the easier it is to keep them on your foe.

In the end, anything that effects duration (+ or -) further strengthens the call for poison since it’s damage is superior and the negative heal for your foe is a constant -33% and not stack reliant.

FYI, I have been running a condition tank mes for many months now and tried all kinds of variants. I am not saying Doom is the end all. It has simply been my experience that points me away from Earth Sigils.

Thanks for the information. I will be giving Poison a try.

That is the fun part about Mes. Plenty of things to try, especially when it doesn’t cost a lot (like Earth and Doom sigils).

If you were to go with the Sigil of Doom, I would put it on what ever is your secondary set. This is because you would be switching to it to through out a few skills, as I laid out in my example, and going back to your main set.

Palu.3405:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Yeah i was thinking about the other Conditions Poison seems to be the best compromise, with it doing damage and reducing healing, so would be good both in groups and solo.

I might give Poison a try on the Greatsword and see what it is like. If i use it on Greatsword will the iZerker be able to proc it on multiple targets during its attack or is it only one?

The iZerker wouldn’t be able to proc poison. Only the attacks you personally make would do that. For greatsword, that means all skills except the iZerker can proc it.

However, I would strongly recommend sticking with Sigil of Earth. Given that GS lands three hits for every autoattack, you can expect to proc an extra bleed with that sigil almost every two seconds. Let’s assume each bleed does 900 damage. Over the course of 10 seconds, you will have inflicted almost 4500 extra damage due to that sigil. To me, a few seconds of poison is not worth that loss of damage.

Furthermore, you have to consider how conditions are removed; many classes use cleanses that remove all conditions, so in that case, extra poison won’t stop your bleeds from getting removed. Many classes also use poultry soup and Melandru runes to decrease condition duration. Again, in that case the poison isn’t doing you any good and you’re better off sticking with Sigil of Earth. Finally, there are classes that periodically remove one or two conditions. Between the GS and the on-death clone traits, you should be able to keep vulnerability, cripple, and weakness on your opponent with a decent uptime that they will serve as filler conditions for the purposes of periodic condition removal. Again, I’m just not seeing how poison can compete in any of these scenarios. Even the healing reduction is provides won’t make much of a difference the majority of the time compared to the extra damage.

As for the sigil of hobbling, I’d definitely swap that for something else too. I’d recommend Corruption for the convenience of being able to stack condition damage without carrying around an extra weapon. You could use Force or Accuracy though, but I’m pretty sure those two sigils only apply to you and don’t affect your illusions.

Finally, utilities: your current setup is pretty good, though I did notice that you aren’t running blink. If you are doing lots of roaming, I’d probably swap out Feedback for Blink simply because Feedback is only useful against ranged attackers, meaning that every time you’re fighting a melee fighter, it’s doing nothing more than serving as an ethereal combo field for you. A decent ranged opponent also won’t just stand there shooting into Feedback. However, if you run with a zerg or a large group, Feedback suddenly becomes amazingly useful and is totally worth using over Blink.

Your math comparison is well off. Let’s say you have +40% cond duration and 1500 cond dmg (not high but at least a consistent comparison point). Doom and Earth both yield 7 seconds worth of their perspective conditions. So bleed will do 822 (117.5 * 7) and poison will do 1628 (234 * 7).

In a ten second span (from the onset of the condition), your bleed ticks from earth would end up: 117.5, 117.5, 235, 235, 352.5, 352.5, 470, 470, 470, 470 for a total of 3290. Now this is a best case scenario, seeing as you mentioned someone can purge those stats at any given time and you have to be directly attacking (and critically) after each 2 sec CD of Earth. Getting your duration up to +100% only furthers the cause for poison since you would only be adding an additional 235 damage to the bleed (since a stack didn’t fall off in 10 seconds) but would add 568 of poison.

You also don’t take into account in your comparison that poison further hurts a foe since their heal is 33% less effective so a skill like ether feast would yield 1600-1800 less so effects are nearly identical to the bleed gained by Earth. Which brings me back to what makes poison that much better to have since you are adding one more condition that other professions (such as Mes) and specs that can’t purge more than 1-2 conditions at a time. This means the more types at your disposal, the easier it is to keep them on your foe.

In the end, anything that effects duration (+ or -) further strengthens the call for poison since it’s damage is superior and the negative heal for your foe is a constant -33% and not stack reliant.

FYI, I have been running a condition tank mes for many months now and tried all kinds of variants. I am not saying Doom is the end all. It has simply been my experience that points me away from Earth Sigils.

TheDevice.2751:

OMG here is OP.

I read all your replies. Ty for taking the time to voice your opinions on the matter. And to sum-up the frequent retorts about “play a mesmer and learn to counter”; I have played a mesmer.

Anyways, looking at all the replies a few things stick out.

Dodge: I’d really like to ask how many times you think people can dodge? Dodge the clones dealing damage every 15 secs (not like you cant make more who conveniently take aggro once spawned), dodge the phantoms insane damage output, dodge the incoming weapon attacks and the weapon swaps, more clones btw, invis if you manage to get too close (while the mesmer has probably dodged himself creating more clones to pop), heal?, refresh, and the fun continues….

before I continue I’d really like to share the relevant fact that vs a mesmer is farrrr more work than playing one. (as i’ve said, I play one…) And I do well most times. I’m not a level 47 nor a level 9 im a level 32. So whatever thats worth.

Long cooldowns? Have you looked at the other classes yourselves? Have you only played mesmers and now have some silly belief that they have ungodly cd’s? They really are not that intense folks. And if your only real defense is saying that thieves are worse… then no kitten. Thieves are worse when it comes to stealth. Does that make it less bs? Not imo.

I would for a sec like to refer to this lil quote I found amusing:

looks like u don’t even know the difference between clones and phantasms, as clones don’t deal a great dmg to u

Especially about the part that clones don’t deal a great dmg to you. That was the actually the only funny part. But really funny. I dug it gj mang. Do you know what a shatter mesmer is?

And I guess since im just fuggin tired I’ll end with this: I really don’t care if dev’s nerf mesmers or not. I would rather they didnt imo. The point the OP(me) was making was that there is hardly if any real hard counter to mesmers in-and out, clone popping, CC throwing, DPSing, mobility-having, lil booties. And pls stop with the 3 second invis thing. 4 seconds is the spec and u are aware of that. Bottom line: provide more counters.

You realize you can dodge the shatters, right? If you are up against a shatter spec, it’s about outlasting his initial onslaught.

And to the poster who talked up how long the CD’s are on the shatters, if you take the shatters recharge when your HP hits 50%, you have 2 full round of shatters that a mes could do within a minute and a half. Shatterers often don’t mind taking some early damage just to get that free reset and simply use their heal after it. After that, he’s going to be looking to use his phantasms to keep some pressure on.

Personally, I have run into some great shatter spec players. Sometimes they get me but more often than not I kill them or stalemate them.

Sigil of earth isn’t bad although you aren’t boosting that many bleeds since it has a 2 sec CD. Sigil of Doom has been really nice with my scepter/torch set. Having access to poison (especially since you aren’t using staff) would bolster your conditions. With each additional condition, it becomes harder to cleanse the ones your really are stacking up.
Example:
Say you use GS #2 followed by GS #4 (vulner and a few stacks of bleeds), weapon swap scepter #3 (poison + confusion), scepter #2 (look to block to gain torment), pistol #4 and end with pistol #5. You now have 4-5 conditions with your bleeding stack buried below at least 2 other conditions making it that much harder to cleanse them.

Personally I didn’t find earth to provide that much more bleeds to me, so I like to run sigil of corruption. If you don’t mind, you could have a second GS and Scepter each with a sigil of corruption until you have a stack and then switch them out to the earth ones.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Your missing the fact that it also used to never blind. Enemies cleaving through several chaos armor clones greatly increase that 33% blind proc.

Edit: Chaos armor from combo finishers also never procced protection or blind at all.

Chaos armor used to cause blind so I have no idea what you are talking about. I use to love combining chaos armor with blinding befuddlement before they nerfed both confusion and BB (now has a crap 5 second CD). It made for a powerful stack of confusion since 2/3 of chaos armor would cause a stack of it.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

pita spoon.5708:

Shanks R Us.2489:

Lets hope the mobs of IoJ players tone down after reset day. Don’t think I had a 1v1 for longer than 30 seconds that didn’t result in either A them dying right away or B 5+ of their friends showing up.

ive dueled you before.. its gonna take more than 1 anyway to beat you so get used to it..lol

Only took one of me to beat him. It was a fun fight. Now the Charr engin from TWIN is really tough. On his normal setup, we had a fast fight (our first) where I dropped fast and a second where I had to really work. That second fight lasted at least 10-15 minutes and I finally got him. I’m looking forward to more such encounters.

You’re a mesmer. Technically, there’s never just one of you. :P

I suppose that is true. I might even try not using them if I had crow to run around some more to pull my aggro, but then again that would be 2 people (well one and a decoy). :P

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Phantasm and clones are only created by targeting a foe. Therefore there is no reason for them to stay on the field after your foe does. To suggest otherwise is pointless. If you are seriously having trouble keeping illusions on the field because they poof after your foe dies, you simply need to learn to play the class better. With AoE illusions (i.e. iBeserker), you can cast one and then target another foe to cast your second one. Clones are a dime a dozen and are constantly on the field (especially if you are using the Deceptive Evasion trait.

When I am PvEing, I never have any cool down problems with keeping my illusions going. Are you utilizing both weapon sets?

That is part of the issue with the class, its like out downstate its USELESS against ANY class that has access to stealth as they all know we cant do ANYTHING if we have no one to target

To do pretty much anything we need a target, i think some of them would be better if they were Ground target-able

Actually our class is VERY strong against ANY stealth class. This is because our illusions won’t lose aggro on stealthed opponents. In fact, phantasm builds are the best 1v1 builds there is and it’s not even a debate.

I hardly ever lose to thieves (the stealthiest of all classes). At worst it will be a situation where I or he walks away from the fight in a stalemate (if he’s a perma-stealth build). It is so easy to cast a clone while he’s not stealthed. Simply target and press a skill. You can also use stuns and dazes to further lock him down. Bait him into attacking you just to use a block like scepter #2 (which I am loving) or sword #4. You don’t even have to target him if you have deceptive evasion traited. Just do a dodge roll and a clone will spawn aggroed to him (provided there aren’t other targets nearby).

There is very few things you can do in the game on any profession that doesn’t require targeting your foe.

Phantasm and clones are only created by targeting a foe. Therefore there is no reason for them to stay on the field after your foe does. To suggest otherwise is pointless. If you are seriously having trouble keeping illusions on the field because they poof after your foe dies, you simply need to learn to play the class better. With AoE illusions (i.e. iBeserker), you can cast one and then target another foe to cast your second one. Clones are a dime a dozen and are constantly on the field (especially if you are using the Deceptive Evasion trait.

When I am PvEing, I never have any cool down problems with keeping my illusions going. Are you utilizing both weapon sets?

pita spoon.5708:

Shanks R Us.2489:

Lets hope the mobs of IoJ players tone down after reset day. Don’t think I had a 1v1 for longer than 30 seconds that didn’t result in either A them dying right away or B 5+ of their friends showing up.

ive dueled you before.. its gonna take more than 1 anyway to beat you so get used to it..lol

Only took one of me to beat him. It was a fun fight. Now the Charr engin from TWIN is really tough. On his normal setup, we had a fast fight (our first) where I dropped fast and a second where I had to really work. That second fight lasted at least 10-15 minutes and I finally got him. I’m looking forward to more such encounters.

pita spoon.5708:

styx.7294:

Averaelas.1876:

The talk of spies stems from a few things over the past few weeks:
1) Someone hacked/trashed/demolished a TS server
2) Someone walked 25 golems off 3rd floor SM
3) Someone notified a certain server of a golem rush minutes before it began.

Not pointing any fingers or saying what we’re aware of as far as culprits go :p

1) Was not a spy, so why bring it up?
2) Coulda just been a troll. EB has golems growing out of their ears and as far as I can tell there is an all-month drunken “build to siege” art competition goin on
3) Who cares? A plan should include a contingency for being scouted on anyway! Think ahead

Apparently, there’s nothin to point fingers at!

I point my finger at you sir

I like to point mine at things that really do matter. BOOBS!!

Zumi.6384:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

As a fellow GoM mes, I find myself doing the same type things. Although I think I’m a little more durable than your setup, but always do crazy stuff like run in like that.

I couldn’t help but think you could have been using GS #5 and Staff #5 more often which would have kept him from building the ballista in the first place. I guess hindsight is always 20/20 though. Another thought could be that since you knew he was going to be hanging around, you could have changed out your weapon sets to a sword/torch to give you a little more stealth and use BF on that ballista.

It’s possible you’re tankier than I am, but it can’t be by much I have just under 1800 toughness, 17k hp, and all the protection/regen from PU. Definitely possible to be more tanky though.

As for attacking the ballista, you’re absolutely right. To be honest, this is one of the big reasons I wanted to start recording myself in the first place. I’m learning a lot just going back and watching myself play. Although at the time I had just woken up and I was probably still dumbfounded that he was building a kitten ballista to 1v1 me…

Hadn’t even thought about switching out weapon sets to be honest. Probably because my traits are set up for those weapons, but definitely not a bad idea.

@Pocachubbz – Thanks! There’s def room for improvement, but I have the most fun trying to win near impossible situations. Some of my favorite fights were taking down 2-3 people while having the vets beating on me. I find that people get way over confident when they’re inside a camp and I’m usually able to take at least one down before I need to pop back out and heal up a bit.

My toughness is 1960, 19.4k hp, and 400 healing powers so I am a little tankier. Running a condition tank has it’s bonuses (draw backs at too) but I will often change out my weapon sets even if i’m traited for something else. Plus since you are using PU, torch is even more beneficial to you.

I"m right there with you. Often it’s after the fight that I realize some of the things I could have done differently. One of these days I’m going to start recording to help with the learning and to share some of the really funny moments that other passer-bys have been privy to.

Zumi.6384:

So the quality is garbage, but here’s the video I was talking about yesterday. First ever vid, and it’s not a serious video so the editing is pretty terrible, but you get the point. I’ll figure out how to make it look nicer in future videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqdl3uwIxFM

As a fellow GoM mes, I find myself doing the same type things. Although I think I’m a little more durable than your setup, but always do crazy stuff like run in like that.

I couldn’t help but think you could have been using GS #5 and Staff #5 more often which would have kept him from building the ballista in the first place. I guess hindsight is always 20/20 though. Another thought could be that since you knew he was going to be hanging around, you could have changed out your weapon sets to a sword/torch to give you a little more stealth and use BF on that ballista.

Colt.9051:

Eveningstar.7834:

If someone created a more defencive based guild for WvW, we’d fo far. But good luck to the person who’d get players just sitting in towers all day and manning Acs. ._.;

I’d so love us FGJ to take that role more often… Minus the whole AC thing >.> Challenge accepted

Well, you know I am constantly on our BL defending our stuff. I haven’t been the last few days since I have been leveling a necro.

I’ve got several good stories but I’ll keep them to a minimum.

1. Getting chased around by two separate mobs of 15+ (one for each server) in WvW within a few minutes of each other. It was particularly funny since they kept chasing me and each lasted for at least 20 minutes each. Both finally got me but by then my server had taken back several towers.

2. I went to the northern camp on our BL to defend against invaders. A 4-man guild group showed up from the east and I proceeded to work them over. 2 of my server showed but died off. They stuck around to watch me in action though. As I was finishing the last guy off, I turned around and found 8 more coming from the west. I got another 2 before shear numbers overwhelmed me. The two server-mates were laughing constantly in team chat.