Guild Wars 2

Vargamonth.2047:

I see it as good in the sense that should encourage players to look into their builds and try to adapt them, which IMHO is a very important part of the game that, since usually uneeded, A LOT of people completely ignore.

Two problems with this: One, as you state yourself, max dps “zerker” is the meta anyway, thus Anet should design such challenges to drive people away from it rather than further enforce it.

Secondly, the game interface currently can’t support constant build-switching. Even new sets of exotic gear are hard to get unless you’re rolling in cash anyway, so requiring a specific stat combo for time-limited content is a no-go. (“hard” is of course relative, but it still takes several days running CoF for the full zerk set if you’re broke and we only get 2 weeks total)

There’s also no feasible way to retrait/switch templates mid-adventure, meaning the hardcore players would most likely develop 2-3 “most adaptive” builds which can switch without a full retrait (banning all other builds and classes in the process) or enforce gear and build checks before the run.

Obviously the solution is to give us build templates and/or better inventory management so carrying around 2-3 different stat combos actually becomes feasible (without investing into the gemshop for additional bank+bag slots); but until that is done they should keep force-retrait “challenges” OUT of the game, thank you. Maybe 1-2 raid dungeons so hard even TTS will take months to beat them, with a meaningless “bragging rights” reward for their effort, while the vast majority of players can simply ignore it.

Healix.5819:

Durzlla.6295:

And all it does is boost me from ~700-900 a hit to ~850-1050 a hit, nota huge DPS increase and not worth the gold.

~100 extra damage * 50 players * 15 minutes is a rather large damage increase and probably enough to fill in the gap caused by low dps players. Of course there’s no way you’re going to get them to do it however.

Not true. With the numbers given we’re looking at a 20% damage increase, give or take. If all players did it the total damage output will still be only 20% higher!

If the boss fails with 50%hp remaining you’d need a damage increase of 100% to kill it! That’s more like the difference between bearbow PUGs and perma-25might+fury speedrun groups than “picking up an additional buff and some food”.

The main problem in all of these threads is people arguing completely different things. Most of those complaining are upset with the general design and how it ostracises “sub-optimal” playstyle choices. Most of the rebuttals accept the design as a “God-given” challenge and only give “advice” on how to improve within the designed limits. I have yet to see any valid argument as to why the knights’ design in itself is good for the game (and on the flipside everyone will agree that taking a condi build is a total waste)

Minos.5168:

The “burn” phases of the boss go by extremely quickly.

Sadly, this isn’t caused by the condition specs at all. I haven’t seen the effects of the debuff explained anywhere but it most likely includes an increase in direct damage and/or a reduction of melee damage dealt by the knight (allowing zerker specs to melee longer). Aside from that vulnerability adds 25% direct damage to the entire zerg and another 10%+ multiplier on many dps specs through “bonus damage to conditioned foes” passives.

The debuff mechanics also don’t favor condition specs as the damage and duration of conditions is entirely meaningless. A zerk mesmer can still proc 24 bleeds every few seconds, dps engineers deliberately spam conditions left right and center to fuel Modified Ammunition. And most ranged autoattacks will cause further procs on fire fields, which the zerkers want for might stacking.

Jeromai.8203:

I’m not sure about the last phase and if taking any damage from the Ultraviolet Prime Hologram would screw up getting the achieve – but the way to avoid the unavoidable lightning strike is to kill all microprimes before the Ultraviolet Laser charges up. The unavoidable lightning strike is essentially a group penalty for failing that.

The UV killsat shouldn’t count against it any more. It did prior to the latest patch by downing people.

I got it despite getting hit by all 3 small holos as well as the purple beam from the ceiling (that’s the “Ultraviolet Explosion” linked to the micro-prime timer bar btw)

I didn’t get hit by any attack from the micro-primes, but that’s pretty much the easiest thing to dodge this entire fight.

Also note that prior to the last patch (before 8.3. or so) getting downed or killed would prevent you from getting the achievement, this has been fixed.

The lasers at both ends of the arena were specifically added to prevent people from afk-leeching this achievement and thus count against it.

Any attacks made by Scarlet herself also don’t count (she has at least 3: “stun grenade”, “place bomb” and “knockback bubble grenade”)

Not sure about the prime holo stomp attack, but again very easy to dodge (just range the entire fight and don’t run through it in case the circle doesn’t render)

The main difficulties are the lingering scorch marks (teleports and perma-vigor help a lot in picking up color buffs) and getting knocked into stuff by Scarlet’s grenades, which don’t render most of the time until 2s after they hit you…

mark.3160:

Because it’s all about adapting, im a condi engineer, but for these fights, i switch to PVT and get through it without too much trouble. This would be problematic for ppl who have not been able to craft multiple sets of gear though, i admit.

And when did pure power-based dps specs ever have to adapt (to the extent of respeccing, not learning new telegraph animations)? Where was it prudent to bring lots of well-coordinated CC, boon removal, conditions etc? Which enemy has been completely impossible to beat with the intended number of players all in full zerker gear (or PVT if crit-immune)? Where are the bosses that require a 5-man group to output 2k aoe healing per second, or unblockable zerker one-shots you can actually survive and recover from by wearing PVT/clerics?

Never mind there is no gear to properly support CC/boons/other utility and they all work just as well in full zerk, except with boons you’ll actually want exotic runes instead of ruby orbs.

Against Aetherblade and Toxic spammers trying to cycle aoe removal is less effective than just killing them (outside of a huge zerg where conditions have <1s uptime anyway); any boon spammers outside of the LS reapply far too quickly to keep up except maybe dredge.

Basically, since release they’ve introduced gimmicky mechanics to encumber every single playstyle except maximising direct damage and now they’re trying to get rid of the “zerker meta”, well what else are we supposed to kill our enemies with?

Kal Spiro.9745:

Actually it’s lore too. According to the lore Dragon Corruption can’t be undone. They go into it quite a bit during the Sylvari personal story that no matter what happens, even if Zhaitan is defeated, that Trahearne probably won’t actually be able to fulfill his wild hunt.

That story takes place before you discover the Source of Orr. On the final stretch things look a little better, and both temple events and the personal story instance clearly show the land healing, albeit in a small area and in the story we’re forced to leave back into a static world before we learn whether the ritual actually lasts.

Kanto.1659:

The difference is that the GS doesn’t count as a projectile. My grenades, and I’m berserker geared, thrown me fire, 10/15 stacks of bleed, poison, confusion…. And I’m like, wut?

Grenade #1 isn’t a finisher either, thus perfectly safe by itself. Mesmer GS owns itself pretty hard when using #2 and #4, especially if you have Sharper Images (you know, a Bleed on crit minor trait, in the Precision+Critdamage line)

Carighan.6758:

Hrm, not directly (having a second gear-set is a tall order, carrying extra weapons is already expected among decent players due to specific skills on each weapon).
But in general, I’d like that.

We had a mob specifically punish Berserker setups during the worm. Heavy, high-damage AE stomp which was easily survivable with some toughness/vit/healing, coupled with a near-immunity to direct damage. However the downside here is that zerker-specs cannot weapon-swap to fight those.

So what we’d need is basically a boss which disregards all crit damage (you only hit for base damage) but takes extra damage from conditions based both on condition damage and on crit damage. In other words, a Zerker spec player would have to swap to a condition weapon to not feel entirely useless.

Many things could be made to work, what I said wasn’t an honest suggestion at bugnet but a mirror of what condi specs get during this fight.

The problem with the worm is it’s meant to be the most hardcore “raid” content to date, and should thus have effects that consider all playstyles. This is the finale of the “living” story and is aimed at the entire PvE playerbase.

Another thing they should add is “tag by proxy”: you buff/heal/cleanse allies, you get a % of their tag credit. Less need to run full zerk egoistic dps, good incentive to actually support allies.

And I for one wouldn’t be complaining if the alternate mode was “immune to crits and returns 50% of direct damage taken” as opposed to “spam condi so zerkers can do more damage”.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

The biggest problem here is you dont get hit by YOUR condition. You get hit by everyones conditions. So I get punished for other people not paying attention to the boss mechanics.

As a condition user since day 1 I do feel the pain of conditions being useless, it cuts my dps in half. But the killer is i’ll get burned, 7 stacks of bleed, 5 stacks of confusion, poisoned, and 3 stacks of torment. I dont even have a way to inflict torment, burn, or poison on the weapons i’m using.

Actually it does seem limited to your own conditions, but with a few problems: combo effects are applied on the caster of the finisher, so random poison/fire fields will hurt the wrong people. And then there’s guardians for burning, and some trolls seem to be running venomshare thief for torment+chill+immobilise…

Dalanor.5387:

This logic fails kitten the fact that every condi skill has a direct damage part while not every direct damaging skill has conditions on it.
Swap weapons and try to be effective.

Except some condi skills don’t have direct damage (at least glamour mesmer and other fields), and the damage that is dealt is abysmal.

And what about my crit suggestion? Or just throw in a token healing aura that can sustain anyone attacking in dire/rabid gear.

Okay, and what can condition users do that power specs don’t do better/have done already?

Sure, you can swap a few traits and change gear, but when, in the history of GW2, were Zerkers forced to do this?

By the logic of most retorts it would be perfectly fine if Anet made a boss that reflected every crit back at its source, or even just all Power damage. “you can switch to dire gear, cry moah!”, “respec, pick the lowest dps weapons with the highest condi output”

Yes, that’s the best option. That’s what people are complaining about!

Also note no mechanic in any of these fights actually favors condition specs. Neither condition damage nor duration factor into the shields, just spamming application. That’s 1 weapon/utility swap for a power spec, compared to a full respec for condi.

There seems to be some weird effect/bug that causes the finisher to fail if you channel it through her aoe attack. Tried with elixir U→S and got the “Invulnerable” message on her attack, but my character ended the finisher and then just sat there for a second before taking a blast to the face (with no red circle in sight)

Either damaging her right before channeling or canceling your first attempt (during her aoe attack) and then trying again immediately worked for me (I did both on that try, so no idea which part did it)

Slightly off topic, but has anyone tested the full ruleset for this “evade”? Because at least Tequatl’s wave attack goes right through it every time (I have accounted for the 0.5s cast time), while regular dodge roll “evasion” works normally.

And yes, in PvE the random Static Aura stuns and getting gibbed on retaliation are quite annoying. Maybe it was needed for PvP but mode-specific balance changes exist for a reason.

I think it’s an issue with auto-tracking combined with the limited aoe size. For example, holding right mouse button and actively leading a target will hit it all the time if done correctly.

The really annoying thing is that certain enemies use cone aoes with perfect accuracy! That one type of Risen in particular has a chill-breath attack that will hit perfectly even with swiftness and after a dodge roll – despite the animation usually being stuck in the original casting direction…

Phantasm skills should run a range+LoS check before casting (while keeping the current check so the skill fails if an enemy breaks LoS during the cast time)

It’s so annoying for one of them to fail and go on full cooldown because half a twig got in the way and it just so happens that object blocks line of sight, while the massive coral chunks in Orr don’t.

iWarden should let you pick its location to act as a reliable defense (but keep its current AI so running away from it once negates further damage), Feedback should spawn on the enemy weapon, or at least their geometric center as opposed to ground level, and Temporal Curtain really should be 2-3x as high, right now even standing inside it doesn’t guarantee the reflect unless you’re an asura.

Downed State #2 should start with a 1s cooldown so you don’t cast it if you miss another skill (everything except GS has a defensive skill on #2…), or better yet simply cancel all orders when downed. Also remove the random teleport, it has killed me more often than it helped (especially in combination with the above)

Shorter cast times on blocks and interrupts would also be nice, but that might be bad for PvP.

tattoohead.3217:

Man I drool at the idea, exploding bolts!

Unfortunately I believe it’s been confirmed that existing weapons will be made available before adding new ones to the game. I could be wrong though.

So warriors get scepter/focus before engineers get a crossbow/shotgun?

And how come there’s a wrench skin probably since release, yet engineers can’t even wield it?

Orb of light doesn’t target players so it should be okay. Do highlevel groups use the bouncing Focus skills?

Has anyone tested enemy reflection against WoC? Does it properly usurp ownership, or do reflected bounces still buff the original caster?

Also, what about that “swirling blades” elementalist skill used by oozes and such? Especially from the Temple of Dwayna Priestess event it seems as if you have to reflect on the return phase or the projectile deals no damage. Basically, Dwayna Priestess casts a cone of 5+ reflectable green swirls. If you simply Feedback her she takes no damage, if you put up the reflect after the swirls pass and they only touch it on the return path they deal damage, and if you stack multiple reflect effects it sometimes deals damage, presumably because you have to hit 2 reflects on each projectile. Very noticeable here because each projectile does over 10k damage to the Priestess when reflected.

Get Illusionist’s Celerity and as many weapon-specific CDR traits as you can (0/20/0/25/25 gives full reduction on duelist/swordsman+warden, for example)

The extra health will rarely, if ever, save a phantasm under attack so make sure you can resummon them as quickly as possible. Duelists also rarely die unless the boss floods the entire arena or their line of sight is broken (Dwayna Statue and the Iron Marshes Fire Shaman are good for seeing that in action, especially if the statue gets pushed into a corner duelists tend to run into melee range instead of strafing 2m)

Anet dev post in the old thread:

LeifChappelle.4069:

From a lore perspective, the story of Twilight Arbor repeatable is a lot like a “what if?” situation. Who gets to the Nightmare Tree first? Scarlet is now present in the arbor, and that presence has a very tangible effect on how the Nightmare Court can pull off their race to the tree. Because of that presence, the possibilities are narrowed, and Fyonna will not be able to make it to the tree in time.

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/twilight/TA-F-U-path-is-being-removed/2943234

There is no lore between Scarlet and the Nightmare Court to justify this besides generic favoritism/meddling. As the post was made before the release it suggested a tangible interaction in which Fyonna gets shafted somehow. This is not the case.

My only response is F/U BUGNET! HOPE THE BEES GET YOU!

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Photoloss: The fact that you honestly think the blind fields were only used on the hounds is proof of how little you actually care about the issue. If nullifying the offense of every non-champion enemy in the dungeon isn’t enough “support” for you, then nothing is. Come back when you actually care to think about the issue.

I’m sorry. The way you phrased it made me think you only tried it/found it useful for that one encounter. That actually sounds like a really nice way of shutting down Thumper+Taskmaster squads, and you probably have a stun or 2 to spare for those ever-annoying Strikers too. Does this need a specific build to work properly or do you only need the right utilities+weapons?

Vox Hollow.2736:

Not really.
There’s a difference between reflection just being a plain ole’ option, and being the only option. It’s not like you’ve ever really had the choice to push, pull, immobilize, minion body block, stun or daze Lupicus’s Necrid Barrage, you know? That’s clearly favoring certain classes. But, Fire Elementals? Everything’s on the table.

Still guardian cc spam and massive aoe reflects work very well. Plus a mesmer can additionally aoe immobilise, push, pull and daze, and if sword clones aren’t the very definition of “minion body blocking” I don’t know what is. Other classes can do it, true, but some have a much easier time than others. Elementalists and engineers for instance are unable to use most of their damage skills for fear of squashing the ooze.

@Blood Red Arachnid:
Aside from the hounds (which I don’t even remember, do you mean the swarm of puppies?), everything you describe sounds “selfish” (no insult intended): You maximise your own damage and therefore contribute very well, but you rely on the rest of your team taking care of themselves as you offer no direct support. Basically this all goes to hell once someone else screws up, because then you’ll either have to pull twice your weight in terms of dps, or sit in the refuge and rezz dealing 0 damage. Raw dps is certainly needed and welcome, but for such a tactic to work you either need a group full of good players or someone else in the team to provide the “support”. A guardian pretty much provides incidental support with everything they do, and a phantasm mesmer can protect the whole group, spec into aoe healing if needed, and can keep half their dps going while rezzing/running around like a headless chicken. Your thief can be replaced with most other top dps specs, but good luck keeping the rest of your team alive or dealing top dps as a ranger.

Khisanth.2948:

Reflects are useful for the Ooze but reflects in general for this path isn’t as much of a necessity as in CM.

Ranger has a pull too(although I wasn’t aware of this until last night). The recharge is faster than Scorpion Wire even with the Trickster trait.

Yes, I feel bad for the poor bandits whenever I do CM :P

Reflects thankfully aren’t necessary, but a full lockdown pretty much ends the fight on the spot, which clearly isn’t intended considering the enrage mechanic of Slick&Sparky.

Didn’t know about the ranger pull either…
Still wouldn’t have helped much as the pulling often was a clutch move while scrambling to rezz said ranger after the big shockwave. Fancy that, the thief and me survived the longest in the Clockheart fight, guess who can spam the most dodges XD
…Except I had 1-2 iDuelists up while rezzing, while as I said above the thief has to choose between dps’ing Clockheart or helping the others.

The sad thing is, I myself can’t think of any encounter mechanic that would favor rangers, or at least put them on par with guardians/mesmers. Warriors, necros and engineers might like a facetanking challenge, elementalists are good for aoe and anti-structure dps (hi there, AC gravelings!), thieves are unmatched at skipping and wrecking single targets quickly. Condition specs could be encouraged by giving enemies high armor/physical damage immunity (without shutting down crit-procs!), and the Slick&Sparky fight is the closest you can get to encourage group healing as Healing Power straight up sucks. But rangers and “creative” specs? No idea.

Has anyone found anything in the new path that actively favors classes other than warrior/guardian/mesmer? I play a mesmer myself and several times I felt like I was carrying the group through spamming gimmicky mechanics. Oozes: spam all cc and reflect sword/focus has to offer and then some. Slick: complete faceroll after Sparky dies, could tell the group to sit back and just smack him as nothing would go through 3 iWardens. Final boss we all messed up badly time and time again, but I personally saved us even on the successful attempt: focus pull holo into boss, leap, frenzy both of them while standing INSIDE! the boss. Repeat until thief has revived the others, then pray I don’t bugport into a cog again.

Now I don’t mean to brag, in fact I felt terrible because all of these fancy gimmicks are limited to 1-2 classes each. At no point did I think “man, wish I had a ranger” or “a good condi necro could really wreck those guys”. At least Scorpion Wire proved rather helpful, which it hadn’t since cheesing the T4 candidate trials.

Not So Secret jp and scarlet invasions, possibly others. In the jp you only have to reach the first cache and can then camp for respawns, or board the airship for a dozen more. If there’s a mesmer at the top you can grab another batch on the airship balloon.

What exactly are you fighting? Trying to do group events solo?

Even in Orr I just walk up to an enemy while casting iWarden, double-cast leap to root them on the warden, then sit in melee range until the enemy attacks again (their first hit usually goes for the warden). At that point I use blurred frenzy and keep sitting until the warden stops spinning, then shatter. At this point up to 3 regular enemies in melee range will be dead.

For veterans run through/around them, making sure they stay in warden range. If you have a decent phantasm in your other weapon set (no torch) a nice trick is to summon one, then immediately switch weapons. You will swap before entering combat, allowing you to immediately swap again if necessary.

I haven’t actually tried soloing champions with full melee, one additional problem is that most of them have devastating aoe attacks, which you want to guide away from your phantasms. Running in a big circle spamming iDuelist on cooldown usually works just fine, though that’s neither melee nor particularly fast. Sword is still better for this than GS because you can use frenzy to negate big attacks.

In general, most of anything that can actually harm me will attack from melee range. If it’s single trash mobs they die anyway, and anything else is rather difficult to kite at maximum range. Once an enemy actually closes in on you GS is absolutely worthless.

I don’t pay much attention to it, but circle-strafing and generally edging away from the enemy seems to make most of them “stumble” and abort their attack, plus quite a few enemy “autoattacks” have a long delay, low cleave area, and don’t allow turning during the “windup”

For general “quality of life” I run the healing mantra with Mender’s Purity traited, which acts as a great instant-cleanse. Very useful against spider webs, confusion bursts, chill and fear. Add a traited focus and most ranged foes will actually kill themselves faster than you can get to them XD

colesy.8490:

No, they’ll learn because they’ll be forced to (or they’ll faceplant again).

And to be honest, if they’re going to just be a reflect/TW bot I’d rather take a guardian because at least they’ll be in melee and probably contributing more DPS than the mesmer as a result of it.

Seriously? That is your best response? Anyone who’s used the GS before will just switch back, because then they’ll be alive and well. You can’t “force” anyone to do anything, and if you simply kick those using the GS you’re actually having a worse impact on the community than said people.
Switching to full melee and learning to stay alive take time, much more than you’ll be willing to spend on a single dungeon run, and kicking when they fail to “show improvements” within one run will simply leave you looking like an elitist jerk. They’ll discard anything you told them as trash talk and keep doing their own thing. It’s not about what you tell them, but how you phrase it.

colesy.8490:

It has a weak autoattack, three weak skills and a phantasm which is weaker than off-hand sword, pistol and lacks the reflection of the warden.

It has nothing going for it besides letting you tag loot better, therefore it’s bad. How hard is that to comprehend? Are you now going to argue staff is good in PvE because of chaos storm? Of course you aren’t, you’re going to keep saying GS is awesome despite there being practically no reason for you to think that after being told countless times why it’s not.

This is nothing to do with variety or exclusion, it’s to do with players who make an effort to actually be decent at the game not wanting to use inferior weapons, and trying to stop other people from doing so as well, because not only will it improve the skill level of the average player if their weak concept of meta is understood to be sword/X + sword/Y (rather than GS+s/f, I don’t think people even understand why this weapon loadout is chosen of the time) but the overall benefit is the fact that they will give their parties smoother dungeon runs by dealing more damage.

PUGs currently understand that berserker is the best gear, the next step is to teach them the appropriate weapon loadouts. That means no bearbow rangers, and no junksword mesmers.

Do you seriously believe “those people” will deal more dps with a MH sword? All objective, proven facts aside, what do you think will happen when 2-3 people in a PUG try to melee while the rest are still “bad”? -That’s right, THEY DIE! That’s 0 dps. A lot less than the “inferior” GS would put out.
In your words, “these people refuse to learn and improve” (not exact quote). What do you think will happen if you “shift the meta” towards Sw/x+y? These people still won’t learn, but they’ll spend much more time on the floor.

Anyone who wants to learn has seen your message already. The others are better off clutching to the “noobstick” because at least they’ll be able to reflect/TW when you tell them to. Maybe even push back some mobs when that melee ele takes an unlucky crit.

Helios.3598:

I presume iElasticity was not used? Also, what are you trying to gain from this investigation? Overall, burn is a rather low priority condi for us. If it is indeed a defect, (omg… speculation) then possibly it was caused by code churn from the recent bounce priority changes.

No other traits, no bounces back to the original target at all.

I was trying to figure out how condition duration works at all, when I tried to read up on the subject a month ago I found unbacked claims of anything from “0.5s duration is always rounded up” to “any fraction of a second is completely wasted”. Some people also claimed bonus durations are rounded to the nearest quarter of a second, which is only true for tooltips.

Please don’t post pure speculation in this thread, I’ve found enough conflicting accounts already. Instead, I ask my fellow players to go out and do some actual testing, as well as report findings from previous tests.

If anyone has already worked out all the details please point me at their contribution, because what I’ve found so far is rather confusing.

The problem I noticed is with the staff autoattack: burns from Winds of Chaos show inconsistent behavior if one or more bleeds from previous attacks are still ticking.

First of all the testing conditions I used: The basic layout consists of a PvP Staff of Smoldering (+10% burn duration); basic PvP gear with runes of Flame Legion, Balthasar and Baelfire (2 each); and 30 points in Domination, without actually picking any traits. The gear was removed for low-duration tests (i.e. attacking naked instead of overwriting the runes), the staff was kept at all times.

For testing I picked an uncontested (usually Heavy) golem in the dps test corner and manually cast #1 with the autoattack feature disabled. I then counted the damage floaters above the golem as the number of times a condition “ticked” for damage.

As long as only 1 strike is made the “standard lore” holds: bleeding and burning tick every second, and only full additional seconds cause additional ticks. Assuming nothing is bugged my full test spec adds up to +85% burn duration, and so far no burn ticked twice. My sample size is too small to claim this is always the case (less than an hour of testing), but at least nothing seemed out of place.

Now here’s the odd part: If I land a burn proc while the target is still bleeding from a previous attack the burn almost always ticks twice. In fact, out of about 20 times I obtained this constellation every single one had the burn tick twice! Attacking naked (should be +40% burn duration) didn’t have constant double-ticks, but after 5 or so attacks I got one. I gave up after that as taking a sufficiently large sample size to use statistic evaluation is extremely boring and the core method has too many additional influences (for example, I got several burn procs without having lingering bleeds on the target, these seemed to tick only once but might have “flushed out” remaining burn durations <1s)

Notably Vulnerability doesn’t cause the odd double-tick. I didn’t test other conditions as I have no reliable way of applying them (maybe Sigil of Doom could be used for Poison)

Does anyone have additional/conflicting data?

Azure.8670:

I actually use sword/sword sword/pistol in dungeons. my build is 0/20/0/25/25 (I believe) currently. im thinking of taking 10 out of dueling because clones on dodge is worthless for pve/phantasm builds. I used to play shatter exclusively. The only consistent thing I have in all my builds is the trait for healing when readying a mantra, and I always have mantra of pain equipped. Dont ask why, its been this way sine I made my mesmer forever ago. Really dunno why I have so much trouble with my mes. I decided its the class to get 100% map completion with and its the only one I have trouble with smh. im sitting at 60-80% with 6 of my toons

Keep in mind you also lose the option of traiting sword/pistol cooldowns, as well as Sharper Images. The ability to slot DE for aoe event tagging is a nice bonus.

You can’t get Empowered Illusions and a third Inspiration major trait anyway, at most 10/10/0/25/25 (or some other variation) will be better for running dungeons with organised groups.

Mesmer is very inconsistent regarding how well you can handle specific encounters, and generally requires awareness (and a good internet connection…) to stay alive with. Just compare asura pirates/young karka to reef drakes: the former you can kill with 1 volley of their own dagger storm/spike barrage, the latter use aoe confusion which is guaranteed to kill illusions (their AI is worse than that of the average rock, sadly enough)

Your build also is very important: stealth and staff builds can avoid a lot of damage, phantasm builds can focus entirely on surviving while the purple ghosts bring home the pain. Attempting to stand at range with greatsword/scepter+pistol will get you killed against anything with Defiant.

Nretep.2564:

@Signet of Midnight
The exact mechanics of fractions of seconds for pulsing consitions/ boons have yet to be found out (for players). And duration stacking conditions/ boons just extend this issue.

I’ve even read that a 3.6s bleed ticks four times – always. This disregards both current theories and creates a fourth. (Ignoring duration stacking)

1. 3.x second bleed = 3s bleed
2. general 1s tick counter on the first tick-based boon/ condition checking for current boons/ conditions.
3. fractions will be rounded to the nearest full second

and for duration stacking tick-based effects, there’re even more possibilities. If 3.9s of regeneration equals 3s regeneration, will 2x 3.9s = 2x 3s (6s) regeneration, 2x 3.9s = 7.8s (7s) regeneration or 2x 3.9s = 2x 4s (8s)? What happens when you stack from different sources ?
How does regenerating mist (engineer’s tool belt with healing sentry) cause two stacks of regeneration?

But to generalize it for boon duration:
The only tick-based boon is regeneration. Is it worth to get a utility skill for that?

I recently tested with staff burns, and if true the “3.6—>4s bleed” effect doesn’t apply there. A 1.5s burn can tick twice, but usually doesn’t. A 1.9s still ticks only once every now and then. Testing method was a single maxrange (=no bounce) autoattack on a golem, with varying amounts of +cond/burn duration.

The most reasonable explanation would be a central condition timer on each entity, activated as early as upon first entering combat, which ticks in 1-second intervals. If true leftover duration fractions would represent the probability of ticking an additional time, which would make short pulsing durations extremely unreliable but not entirely wasted.

@OP can we add scepter autoattack 1+2 to the list or is that accepted as being a roundabout recharge time on phase 3 clone generation?

Also, it might be a good idea to clearly split off mode-specific issues, for example Confusion is worthless in PvE period. As are interrupt-focused builds as anything actually worth interrupting has Defiant stacks. Meanwhile illusions are worthless in ZvZ except for Clone Death traits.

Is there a reliable way of canceling an individual autoattack? Hitting Esc doesn’t work if the animation has already started or something.
I mainly tried the setup against world bosses (Dwayna Statue being a prime example), where I can simply deactivate the autoattack and hit 1-1 whenever I have nothing else to do (i.e. 3 duelists up, #3 on cooldown, #5 or all combo fields on cooldown). The reset takes several seconds and doesn’t seem to speed up with Quickness. Confusing Images+occasional autoattacks should still hit for more than Staff auto.

Why do you use MoP without mantra heal? Is there any time it’s worth channeling in combat instead of autoattacking?

Do you find Signet of Illusions useful? Even during regular dungeon runs most phantasm deaths seem to occur from instagib AoEs or weaker attacks that pulse for far too much total damage. For example, does the Signet allow a phantasm to survive the CoF p1 endboss’s flamethrower attack? Without it my iDuelists seem to die within less than half the channel time if they get hit.

I find mantra heal to be a godsend during certain fights if some people can’t handle the damage on their own. Obviously not a problem for organised teams, but it’s very useful for introducing guild mates to dungeons/fractals without having them spend half the time on the floor. Especially Subject Alpha (he deals a lot of damage if your own Null Field is the only available AoE cleanse) or the Grawl Shaman (newbie/PUG runs often descend into chaos during the first Lava Elemental wave, if not sooner. Running between allies cycling MoP is priceless to watch)

I actually consider this another strong point of the build: You don’t need an organised group, and you don’t have to relog/quit after the first wipe. Unlike most other setups our main dps keeps going regardless of what we do, so we’re free to rezz people or stand there cycling a mantra. After all, the goal is to maximise the dps of the group as a whole, and with new/less skilled allies this often means keeping the Thief/Warrior/melee Elementalist on their feet.

Have you tested Scepter+Pistol with a deactivated autoattack as a pure ranged option? Slot Signet Of Domination and Malicious Sorcery if you can get away with it, and if you have some spare time use #1 twice, then wait for the chain to expire. #3 can be used on cooldown, #2 can still be double-cast for a blind if you have 3 phantasms up.

Note I’m only wondering how this compares when staying at range is mandatory, so the other options are Staff, GS, or sticking with a 0 dps mainhand.

Also, since the builds have that option, on which fights would you recommend using Restorative Mantras? (assuming you’re not in an organised all-melee setup and raw dps is the only thing that matters)

Specifically for leveling you should probably try both to see which one fits you better, but Fireforged Trigger is definitely superior pre-80. You can spam Flame Blast for safe(r…) damage and use the other abilities more often to get used to them, meanwhile your crit chance will usually be subpar and vulnerability isn’t that good for solo play to begin with.

Precise Sights also is much less useful on the Elixir Gun, so if you’re using that the CDR will help you spam Acid Bomb and CC too.

Shiren.9532:

Honestly, there are far more posts praising Scarlet that boil down to “I like her” with no other details (the most commonly cited reason for liking her from what I’ve read is the voice acting). Most of the posts criticising her as a character can not be fairly summarised as “Scarlet stinks”.

The post 2 above yours certainly can.
A crazy, Joker-esque villain simply is enjoyable for some. The insane, irrational antics are great fun in head-on encounters, and I for one find the mentality of spreading chaos for the sake of it (“just watch the world burn”) a very fitting departure from a world that sank into complacency after the defeat of Zhaitan.

Most of the negative posts regarding Scarlet attack the “graduations” statement (which was, at the very least, presented very badly) or assume her current appearance is all we’ll ever learn about the character (this isn’t her problem, but the LS as a whole moves far too slowly). Some also wish for some kind of multi-layered, well-developed character, but GW2 simply can’t reasonably give the same level of characterisation as a novel, not even for a straight-up evil like Voldemort.

Edit: okay, where did the posts go?

kRiza krimos.1637:

Yeah but to become soundless they have to isolate from all things living and pratice concentration to separate themselves from Tree. At best they stick with other soundless in remote parts of world. And Scarlet was busy finishing all those schools and training with 4 other races…

This is my problem with LS in general, after all those months we haven’t been given any clue which would elaborate story so far, at least a little. Instead all we got are bunch of illogical pieces, and alot of guessing which usually turns to be false.

We don’t have much information on the Soundless, they might be able to rejoin society after severing their connection, and a casual stroll away from Mabon Market isn’t exactly remote. Plus they’re only an example to prove even Pale Tree sylvari have options besides Dream/Nightmare.

Actually each LS segment has a decent amount of plot advancement for the 1 story mission it is, the pacing is rather off (try doing the personal story at a rate of 1 mission every 2 weeks and see how much plot you can gleam from that…)
The biggest problem, which has been brought up in pretty much every LS release so far, is the connection to the open world. All the little facts missing from the personal story can be learned by exploring the world, with each zone in the state suggested by the story missions taking place there. The “Living” Story so far has failed to show any impact on the world at large, and all those little nuances are missing entirely. Apart from the instanced Cragstead area which no one ever visits, and maybe a few visual changes so insignificant I don’t even know whether any exist at all.

This really hurt the current release. Scarlet is a great villain for the general “good guys won” attitude after the defeat of Zhaitan, but she exists in a featureless void as all we know of the world after our victory is random mobs bashing random NPCs giving random loot.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Im wondering how does sylvari becomes mad as Thorn unless they slip into Nightmare. Even then they are not mad, they just switch to that emo gothic perspective. Otherwise, they are really attuned to Tree, and the Dream, so im really curious. She doesn’t look like she belongs to Nightmare court, so what does it take for sylvari to distance itself from Tree and go mad like that?

Err, just take a stroll around Tyria and be at the wrong place at the wrong time? Especially asura, nightmare court and dragon-blighted zones are full of crazy stuff, and the Dream isn’t a catch-all anti-madness insurance. Plus Scarlet might have been cut off from the Dream prior to her descent into madness, even willingly as the Soundless did.

Of course, this also is a great hook for expanding the story, especially as it could be made relevant to her current plans and how to stop them. Or reveal the true mastermind behind the entire plot, because forging an alliance of 2 xenophobic and 2(3?) sociopathic groups, stealing Pact hardware and corrupting the new Watchwork tech “foah teh evulz” seems awfully difficult to achieve by anyone mad enough to desire it.

Imagine Scarlet trying to negotiate with the Flame Legion, she’s a female sylvari (not even made of meat!), at best they’d try to chop her up for firewood XD

Why do most people assume that sylvari are scientifically inept or even outright dumb? Their tech isn’t compatible with asuran and charr war machinery, but the Pact still uses those weird magic-imbued vines throughout all of Orr, so at least some of it is up to scratch.

As for the “graduated from all 3 colleges in record time” bit, the original presentation made me facepalm over and over. However, I’ve seen some nice theories to explain it in hindsight, without just making her a Sue character that “simply is that smart”.

Overall I think the character is well-designed and enjoyable (in the sense that in-universe you want to bash her face in with Caladbolg then pin her to Tequatl’s head as the megalaser fires), but her backstory was presented in pretty much the worst way possible. She didn’t need that line on her graduations, it doesn’t add anything to her character (yet, anyway), and it wasn’t foreshadowed in the slightest.

Above all, it’s entirely unnecessary to the current plot, she’s blowing stuff up and unleashing her minions throughout the world, not engaging in some weird pseudo-science battle of wits. If this information is relevant and not just a slap-it-on Sue trait, we could’ve been told at the next “big reveal” once whatever her plan is actually requires some form of scientific knowledge.

In short: good character, straight T— (for Troll ^^) on story delivery. Can’t rate the backstory itself yet as we have no reliable sources.

I can see how it might have been needed in sPvP (I don’t play that, so I might be wrong, but I can see the problem with an unstoppable burst attack)

However, for PvE this wasn’t warranted AT ALL! and gets very annoying. Not many enemies have retal (which seems to be a problem in its own right for group PvP), but the inconsistency of what can and what can’t hit you has lead to quite a few stupid deaths. Especially since there’s no logic behind the mechanics, so you’re left with trial-and-error (as an example, the fire AoE conjured by Ulgoth neither damages nor burns during evades, while the static field of the MKII golem deals damage and cripples right through it; both are pulsing AoE fields)

It seems to be more or less random which attacks count and which don’t, as if they have 1 dev that makes everything tactics-proof and another that doesn’t care. One extremely irritating example are the legendary spiders: Malrona’s attack (TA “up” path) can be reflected for massive damage, trivialising the fight as her only other move is PBconeAoE, while the Spider Queen in AC is completely immune to reflects. Old Tom is immune to reflects, but not projectile negation…

Then again, some other dungeon mechanics aren’t exactly fair either: in TA f/f path mesmer Blink kills you if you try to reach the archers behind the domes, yet apparently elementalists can jump right through.

Most of those guys are just annoying gimmick fights with 50% evasion uptime to augment their already far too long hp bars.

The hammer guy would actually be more of a challenge if he stopped spamming his absurdly long spin attack (during which he’s immune to attacks…) in favor of sticking to his target and actually hitting it. Maybe use the jump-smash attack if people keep kiting.

Iavra.8510:

The changes were made to make Staff #4 similar to the combo version of chaos armor like ele auras. Problem hereby is that ele skills generally “do less” than those of other classes to balance out the higher amount of weapon skills the class has.

So we essentially got a skill that does the same as an ele skill but is “costing” us double since we only have half the number of weapon skills compared to eles.

/edit: An easy fix would be to just lower the cd of staff #4 but i’d rather see a replacement of useless RNG elements (swiftness…) for something more useful.

I know the old skill could’ve caused problems with the Chaos Armor rework. I just think the skill itself is extremely lackluster, previously it was already boring and only really useful as a panic button.

The effect of Chaos Armor itself is okay, but to lose an entire skill slot for a single application of this effect is annoying, especially since the 5→2 self-combo also hands it out “for free”. In addition it’s an incredibly simple and selfish ability on an otherwise complex and supportive weapon.

Oh, and a big +1 on Moa removal. That or make it work through Defiant stacks (it is an Elite after all)

The staff AA change seems kinda meh, not the strength but the “theme”. I actually like having random condition and boon procs and it makes the weapon stand out from other condition setups, it’s just that vulnerability has 0 use in a condition spec.

So, how about instead changing it to a 1-3s poison/torment? Or chill/cripple/weakness if a dps increase must be avoided for some reason.

Also staff 4 became rather underwhelming, especially since Phase Retreat essentially does the same and more, at 1/4 the cooldown. Maybe add a blast finisher, or would that make it OP with specific team comps?

The main problem is the same as with Time Warp: Both scale incredibly well with groups, and thus the effect on an individual has to be weak. Target caps prevent them from being faceroll/essential in zergs, but a group of 5 will always get more out of them than a single player.

Which basically means mesmers don’t have any elite they can reasonably use for their own benefit outside of noob sPvP, as anything worth morphing has either dodge/interrupt or Defiant. MI doesn’t count because it’s the absurdly strong trait that’s worth using (sometimes) and not the skill itself.

Has anyone tried it against Giganticus Lupicus? 4s seems like just the right duration to last through a full wave of the spazzy projectiles in phase 2, provided they actually count…

Do you play sPvP, WvW or PvE?

For PvE you can go 0/20/25/0/25, full rabid gear with runes of undead. Basic strategy is to run in circles and spam Phase Retreat. Played properly you can solo most champions and support teammates in dungeons with might+fury+chaos storm+signet. The main problem is you kill things slowly, and you also lack AoE (0/20/20/0/30 helps with AoE a bit but you lose condition damage, survivability and boon duration)

Carighan.6758:

It’s quite buggy for a fair few Phantasms however, check http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste .

…and read the discussion section, that table is quite wrong apparently.

Just to add to the list, this morning I used it on the Champion Risen Spider at the Temple of Melandru event. Guess where I ended up?

…turns out there’s water inside the hill, you can actually swim inside the mountain! Luckily you also leave combat after a while so you can port out. Yup, it’s Phase Retreat all over again, good job Bugnet!!!

Did some tests in the mists and still got single-tick burns with what should have been + 95% duration (+45% from runes, 30 points in Domination and 2 sigils of smoldering), more than a possibly expected 5% too.

The wiki claims the sigils are broken, but then I had + 75% duration and still got a lot of double ticks.

I think the only way to be sure is to go + 100% duration, which would require either a Giver’s weapon (30Dom, pizza, lyssa+mad king runes, giver weapon) or specific runes+traits (for bleeds, burning and confusion you need pizza, 30Dom, 10Illusions and 2runes+sigil)

Neither option sounds feasible and you’d definitely have to fully spec for conditions to get any decent return on such a heavy investment.

zexion.5842:

- Staff power damage isn’t as strong but it’s still damage, also you will be using Iwarlock more often then you think which scales better with power and you will want power when you switch to your off set.

-If you read the guide fully it explains when to switch to scepter.

-I take scepter over sword because it benefits more from condition/power hybrid

-The traits are there for a given reason also explain in the guide. Givers weapon is crap ton of stats lost for 10% condition duration and since conditions scale to the nearest quarter it’s not worth it and no other trait line really stands out as better except maybe chaos with the staff trait.

First of all I apologize, looks like my post came across slightly more negative/ignorant than intended.

The point on giver’s weapons is moot if conditions aren’t rounded up. If they were it might be better to go 0/20/25/0/25 for full conditions, picking up IC, extra bounces and might on shatter. 6s recharge on Phase Retreat would go a long way towards fixing the “your staff clones are dead” problem. One can dream

As for scepter I know it deals more damage in a non-zerker spec, but to me it just feels so …clunky as a defensive swap. I actually died to the freaking fire elemental once because the “jump” on the counterattack teleported me right into an AoE! I’d rather have the guaranteed “panic button” of the sword and sacrifice the dps. Sword also gives boon stripping and a leap+snare while scepter gives only damage.

Has anyone tested the raw dps of this build vs. pure conditions?

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

“Duration of conditions is rounded to nearest quarter of a second in skill tooltip’s list of effects (0s, ¼, ½, ¾ and 1s) and conditions which inflict damage over time (bleeding, burning and poison) only deal damage each full second.”
+77% burning rounds to 1.75 seconds of burn. This is only 1 tick of burning unless you are hoping for easier chain burns with clones/aa.
You need to reach +87.6% or basically +90% for a 1 second condition to be 2 ticks.

Odd, people keep saying the duration is rounded up to the nearest quarter. Then again the wiki only mentions the tooltips, not the actual duration. And we should know how wrong those are.