Guild Wars 2

This was broken in the recent warden patch.

BlackBeard.2873:

Pyroatheist.9031:

And I’ll happily have more healing than you, and I won’t worry about it getting interrupted because I’m skillful enough to know to protect the cast. It’s just a not good heal for pvp. Full stop.

My point is that ether feast is more healing if you use it off CD, assuming that you always have lost exactly that amount of life within the CD time. A passive heal ticks, even when you wouldn’t actually use ether feast b/c you wouldn’t get a full benefit. For instance, you take 3K damage, the signet heals you to full within 9s, ether feast would never get cast until you had 6K damage, for instance. If you take a 3K spike, you use feast and are at full with feast on CD. With signet, you just keep kiting for 9s, are still at full, without having to interrupt your offense/clone-spam deal, and have the burst-heal backup should you need it.

That is what I mean by it being more efficient: as long as you have any damage, you will get heals. With active heal skills, you have to decide when to use, can make a mistake, and its value will never be optimized.

Also, with signet, you can do your dance and stand around/hide in your clones better w/o revealing yourself by glowing/lifting your arms up for a heal. Its superior for confusion as well.

You’re assuming that you’re constantly healing though. I spend a good amount of time at full hp, healing back to full when necessary. In that circumstance, you’re wasting almost all of the passive healing, at the sacrifice of the total burst heal you can obtain.

BlackBeard.2873:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Jabberwock.9014:

Good lord, blackwater mesmer will be unkillable. Do they think when they make these skills? Giving the class with the most active defenses the best passive heal in the game is madness. And why are they buffing passive ez mode builds like blackwater and phantasm instead of the actual skill based shatter specs?

I wouldn’t take this in blackwater. Just saying.

I will absolutely take this on blackwater. You have 95% uptime of 3 illusions, have very long down-times between being attacked (during which you can passively heal to full), and you can always use for an emergency burst heal. Its not like blackwater can’t survive 35s w/o needing a heal (or being able to run). However, 90% of the time, this allows you to not even have to cast a heal (with a distinctive animation), allowing you to blend in with your clones even more.

And I’ll happily have more healing than you, and I won’t worry about it getting interrupted because I’m skillful enough to know to protect the cast. It’s just a not good heal for pvp. Full stop.

Jabberwock.9014:

Good lord, blackwater mesmer will be unkillable. Do they think when they make these skills? Giving the class with the most active defenses the best passive heal in the game is madness. And why are they buffing passive ez mode builds like blackwater and phantasm instead of the actual skill based shatter specs?

I wouldn’t take this in blackwater. Just saying.

StickerHappy.8052:

you only need 1 right?

For the ascended backpiece, you need 1850 fractal relics.

My advice is try to do 1 fractal per day. Don’t rush it, don’t grind it. You’ll slowly increase your fractal level, and before you know it you’ll have enough relics.

Feel free to send me a PM to do fractals if you see me online.

Just going to go out on a limb here. At 35 seconds the signet heal is near useless for any and all purposes except for PvE. 35 seconds is far too long in PvP to be without any healing of any kind, especially for the very weak burst heal it provides.

Ultimately, a failed implementation.

I think that this is solved by an checkbox in your options that’s called ‘promote skill target’. I think that sorta ‘locks on’ to your skill target and prevents it from changing.

Marsares.2053:

Taldren.7523:

Marsares.2053:

This heal mostly caters to passive builds like Phantasm or PU Condition which have a relatively low skill-floor and largely ignore our unique class mechanism of shatters. Nor does it address one of the inherent problems we face (i.e. our role in large-scale fights) as our clones get wiped instantly.

Low skill-floor? Compared to what? Shall I greatly over simplify your play style and suggest that any monkey could do what you do?

Our unique class mechanism is illusions. If you want to just use your illusions as fodder that is fine, but there are other things you can do with them.

“relatively low skill floor” I said. I personally rank our builds as follow (from relatively low skill to relatively high skill).

- PU Condition
- Phantasm
- Shatter
- Lock-down

Now, you can disagree with me or not, but that’s my view, and the newly proposed signet mostly caters to the first two types of build where the core tenet is – and this is obviously a gross over simplification – to rely on the AI of your illusions whilst confusing your opponent with teleports, stealths and other movements, and in doing so largely ignoring our core mechanic of shatters.

You seem to be assuming that our core mechanic is shatters. That is false. Our core mechanic is illusions.

Yeah, I’ll just add a little bit here. Mesmers absolutely can command well, but they do far better as commanders of organized groups than with pugs. Pugs can have trouble following blinks or other movements like that. Pugs will blindly follow the blue dorito, making it impossible to do something like a portal bomb with your own portal.

Overall, a mes can command quite effectively, you just need to be careful with your movement if you’re commanding pugs.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The problem is not the Passive, its the active. For one, i dont see why it should affect others. remove the group aspect and buff it for the Necro. Then you get what if they dodge the application, or dodge after getting it that is at least 2-3 seconds of it wasted. Then you have the CC which could waste all of it and thus…

…You have used it, lost the passive and gained no healing. Now if it was that the “Mark” meant that the Necro got all of the healing, that would be GREAT. I just dont see why when EVERYONE gets a new heal why ANY of them should affect teams (bar the Ranger Spirit) and the Thief as that would be a trait bonus.

Also, ONE sentence that states its alot weaker than the others (which it is) isnt really that much of a “whine” now is it….

The necro forums are that way —> https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/New-Healing-Skill-Speculation

Nretep.2564:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/New-mesmer-healing-skill

Right here folks.

kyubi.3620:

doesnt critical damage has no effect on phantasm damage?

As I already told you in the other thread, and have stated probably more than 30 times in response to questions, yes, it does work.

Edit: You could also just test it out yourself…

BlackDevil.9268:

But okay, if you think this conversation is useless then feel free to ignore. Just seems another reason why the ‘’master of shatter’’ can’t explain why shatter is viable in solo roaming.

Seems to me he just explained how shatter is viable quite well. It sounds like it takes more skill to do that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not viable, it just puts it at a differen point.

Skill level defines a lot of how builds roam. I personally get my kicks from engaging 1v5 or worse odds on my blackwater variant. Other builds or players can’t necessarily do that, and likewise not everyone will be able to handle a 1v4 on a glassy shatter build.

One last note is that I would definitely rank most phantasm builds as less effective than a shatter when roaming. Phantasm builds are absolutely horrendous in outnumbered fights due to how the mechanic works, but you seem to sorta be ignoring that.

Arewn.2368:

We do know that illusion attack rate can be readily manipulated, as seen with Phantasmal Haste.

Not quite accurate.

The way traits work, including phantasmal haste, is that they actually call a different skill. This is evident when you see bugs crop up where they make a change to a skill, and forget to change the traited version, or the traited version has a different cooldown (this was the case with blink + long range manipulations).

So, what phantasmal haste does is it makes you summon a phantasm that has a different cooldown for the skill it uses. It doesn’t actually modify the phantasm skill recharge, it just uses a different one. It would be a 100% new and different thing to be able to affect the rate at which a phantasm uses skills from the mesmer.

This sounds like a pretty great idea. Avatar has been somewhat less active lately, so I’d love to see a nice Mesmer squad to run with.

I said this before, but I’ll say it again. I’m fairly certain that the heal will refresh the phantasm summons.

Causing the phantasms to attack again is a functionality that does not make sense. Phantasms are separate units. You the Mesmer can’t actually control them, they just fire off their skills.

This would be a fully new functionality to code, and something to remember is that coders are lazy. It’s much easier to copy paste functionality than write new stuff.

Qaelyn.7612:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Now you can spam defense. Block, block, dodge, dodge, weapon swap, blurred frenzy, dodge, dodge, stun, swap, repeat.

Unless there’s some way to dramatically speed up weapon swaps, I honestly don’t get what you mean here. Those things just happen way too fast, and then all I have left is running in circles and hoping they attack the phantasms instead of me.

Well, you shouldn’t be actually spamming all your defense at the same time. Condition classes are the ones that spam offense, and you deal with that by using cleanses. Most other classes have specific things to dodge or block. Avoid that backstab, the heart seeker, the earth shaker or pin down. Not every random autoattack.

All sigils with a cooldown share that cooldown. That’s pretty much all you need to know.

Blurred frenzy is far better defensively than the block. Don’t even worry about the damage it deals or anything. BF is 2.5 seconds evade all attacks. The block blocks 1 attack, that’s it. Additionally, illusionary swap is a stunbreak on a 10 second cooldown.

This build can spam defense quite effectively, and most importantly it can spam defense while it spams offense. Drop your phantasms in, and that’s your offense spam. Now you can spam defense. Block, block, dodge, dodge, weapon swap, blurred frenzy, dodge, dodge, stun, swap, repeat. You can play with los, dodging around the point. They have to stay on the point, you don’t.

Para sigils are mainly because nothing else really makes sense honestly. % bonuses don’t transfer to phantasms so…w/e. any other on swap sigils (like doom) or on crits will replace energy sigils, and that’s not a sacrifice that is smart to make.

The issue is that you’re only applying 2 conditions and a little confusion. That’s very easy to cleanse, so your losing a lot of damage for some potential damage that will be completely nullified by any build with cleanses.

Additionally, your personal crit chance is extremely low. You won’t be hitting people much, so you want your hits to have a high chance of critting —> easier to proc vigor, which is very important for defense.

The goal is defense, but defense is actually secondary to absolute maximized phantasm damage. The warlock is strong, but it tends to miss a lot in pvp, because the bolt doesn’t track. It’s also significantly weaker than the swordsman. Additionally, the mainhand sword has far better defense than scepter, and offhand sword actually has defense, unlike pistol. Ultimately, you’re not changing you’re defense that much, but getting a significantly weaker phantasm.

It’s so not 800 hp/s. maybe /3s. Even /2s seems on the very high side. Because does anyone honestly think they’ll give mesmers a heal that’s stronger than warriors?

@Qaelyn: Against high condition builds, take mantra of healing and mantra of condition removal (or iDisenchanter in place of that second mantra).

Remember that the scepter and sword blocks are your defense, not offense. Any offense from them is merely coincidental.

Carrion amulet would be an awful choice. You’re not only losing a ton of power and critical damage, but also a ton of crit chance. Where are your bleeds coming from wih that low crit chance? Additionally, condition damage is worse than physical damage. Condition damage is susceptible to condition removals, etc. Additionally, the swordsman is bad for condition application, you have no access to poison or burning, and so your conditions will be very weak.

Xylith.4873:

I use a very similar build, but I don’t bother with the Scepter as it feels a bit out of place (Scepter to me is a condition or shatter spec weapon if anything)

Sword / Pistol & Greastsword

20/20/5/25/0

I find the GS is excellent when you have a bit of breathing room. 1 Can put out moderate damage at range, 2 is pretty decent , 3 is great for removing a boon from an enemy (Especially when they are trying to get away with swiftness) 4 is… well iZerker is pretty sweet and 5 is great for interrupts (Excellent if the enemy is about to finish off a downed allie)

I take the 5 in chaos for the extra regeneration and toughness. Also to say the GS has no defensive use is nonsense, the knockback on it’s 5 has saved my kitten so many times (not to mention the amount of times I’ve knocked people off ledges )

5 in chaos is all sorts of a waste. With 15 in inspiration, you have permanent regen.

Again, the greatsword is an offensive weapon. This build is designed to let phantasms take the entire offensive role. Weapon skills have only 1 purpose: defense. Additionally, the zerker is a weaker phantasm than either the swordsman or duelist.

kyubi.3620:

may i ask why the build use critical damage if technicaly the phantasm dont benefits from it?

They do.

Qaelyn.7612:

Anyone still running this build? I’m trying it in sPVP now, almost exactly as Pyro laid it out, with mixed results. I’m far from experienced, so there may be nothing wrong with the build. I sometimes do pretty well with it, but often find that I am not able to keep enough illusions up to pressure my opponents and keep them off me. I sort of end up running around like a moa with my head cut off and feeling very much not in control of the combat… though maybe that’s the point.

Anyway, any tips to making this feel more “overpowered” would be useful.

Are there any particular classes/builds that you’re having trouble with?

keenlam.4753:

Pyroatheist.9031:

That being said, if the mesmer stealths, the illusions will re-target onto a nearby target, then re-target onto the original target when they unstealth.

It seems to me that if the target stealths and moves out of range, the illusions will re-acquire a new target nearby and won’t resume the original target when they come back.
Is this true?

This is accurate and also sort of awesome.

Normally, illusions will dissipate if they lose their target. However, if the target stealths and runs out of range, illusions will simply stay where they are, and will immediately latch onto the first unfortunate soul to show up.

This thread contains all content relating to the Mesmerized podcast. The most recent podcast can be found in the answer. Feel free to ask questions or discuss anything you want about the podcasts here.

That being said, if the mesmer stealths, the illusions will re-target onto a nearby target, then re-target onto the original target when they unstealth.

Don’t even bother. The other thread got deleted, this one will too.

Fixing thread.

Bumbler.7581:

Ryn.6459:

Signet of the Ether: Signet Passive: Heal yourself based on the number of active illusions you control. Signet Active: Heal yourself and refresh all phantasm skill recharges

Just a note in this discussion. If the ‘unverified’ notes for the heal skill are accurate, phantasm uptime in pve is going up significantly.

Maybe is my crappy English. But I don’t get it. “Refresh all phantasm skill recharges”? What does that mean?

Since they specifically use the word “recharge” which is present in the phantasmal haste trait, my guess is that if you have, for example, 2 iSwordsmen and 1 iDuelist, then they will attack on heal and behave as if you had just summoned them.

I think you’re wrong. I don’t think they have the code to do that.

Phantasms are completely seperate from the Mesmer. They simply have their own skills on a certain cooldown, and what you do can’t affect them.

Ryn.6459:

Signet of the Ether: Signet Passive: Heal yourself based on the number of active illusions you control. Signet Active: Heal yourself and refresh all phantasm skill recharges

Just a note in this discussion. If the ‘unverified’ notes for the heal skill are accurate, phantasm uptime in pve is going up significantly.

Maybe is my crappy English. But I don’t get it. “Refresh all phantasm skill recharges”? What does that mean?

Sounds to me like it resets the cooldowns on the phantasm summons.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Its partly everyones fault, especially in NA S1, money was offered, people took it, what can you do?

I can’t speak for henge, but I can say that FA bought no guilds. We had multiple large guilds transfer to FA just a day or 2 before seasons started once it was sure that we would be in silver league simply because they wanted that top spot, and that sure did clinch it.

Jaxs.5830:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Well, I will say that objectively, being the stomper is preferable to being the stomped.

Many of us disagree with that statement.

Target rich environment > winning.

That’s a matter of scale. While I too enjoy a target rich environment, 40 man zergs tend to be rather resistant to roaming pressure.

Just a note in this discussion. If the ‘unverified’ notes for the heal skill are accurate, phantasm uptime in pve is going up significantly.

phaeris.7604:

Defensive mesmer detected!

Even mesmers in this thread admit to PU being a cheese build, so i’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to get at.

I should have probably written ‘In the last month I have yet to encounter a mesmer…..’

Ahh, you’re Gunnars hold (i’m from deso), that explains why you’re desperate to hold onto cheese builds. You chaps need all the help you can get in WvW.

Dat ad hominem.

Not surprising. Runes of perplexity are bugged too in this fashion.

Jedge.3619:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Player Character.9467:

The poster is right… you can do things like make a lvl 2 ranger with over 30khp, 2k condi dmg.

So that’s a lie.

Post a screenshot and I’ll believe it.

3400 Attack, without much optimization.

The person I replied to quoted ‘30k hp, 2k condition damage’.

You’ve maximized one stat. Nicely done. However, my point still stands. What that previous commenter quoted was a straight lie.

NondSwiftshot.9168:

Pyroatheist.9031:

NondSwiftshot.9168:

I’m not sure why I overlooked the build video earlier but nonetheless I went on a shopping spree and got zerker gear and traveler runes and respeced to your GS roaming spec from the video. I’m hoping to get better like you! I also liked your guild support spec and will be getting some PVT gear too.

Question – Where can I get a zerker backpiece? I’m still using my rabid piece from my blackwater build.

Fractals. Takes 1850 fractal relics for it.

As someone who has never done Fractals..this sounds like a lot of relics.

If you’re farming for the relics, it absolutely is. If you simply run a fractal once a day, increasing your level slowly over the course of a month, it’s not so much.

Player Character.9467:

The poster is right… you can do things like make a lvl 2 ranger with over 30khp, 2k condi dmg.

So that’s a lie.

Post a screenshot and I’ll believe it.

Well, I will say that objectively, being the stomper is preferable to being the stomped.

That being said, this last week fighting SBI has been far more fun than any of the other weeks simply because we’re actually getting to play WvW. I would have much preferred having a reasonable league between SBI, Mag, SoS, Yaks, and TC…but it did not happen unfortunately.

Xernth.8561:

Please redo the uplevel boosts for very low level toons.

Level 2 characters are running around with 3500+ armor and/or 3500+ power. Its ridiculous, please fix it.

Uplevels will always be significantly weaker than level 80s. If you get killed by an uplevel, it’s a massive statement on your lack of skill. Perhaps that’s why you’re complaining?

colesy.8490:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I’m honestly still unconvinced about Scholar runes, since phantasms do not get that damage bonus.

I got both set i’ll try to test it out tonight if I have time.

Well, I know that phantasms don’t inherit the damage bonus. I’m just doubtful that in most situations that 10% outweighs the bonuses to phantasm damage from ruby orbs.

The bonus of less power and 4%+ crit damage? Crit damage scales with power anyway, so I’m sure the extra power from scholar runes makes up for the crit damage deficit. Maybe the extra 4% crit chance is useful in pugs too, but then I suppose you could use assassins + scholar runes. Or you could stack perception depending on the dungeon. I think I’m more in favour of scholar runes, even for mesmers to be honest. To answer the OP, 10/30/0/20/10 is the meta build, possibly 10/30/0/10/20 post patch, though with the more widespread use of off hand sword it makes phantasmal haste a questionable trait since you’re basically just giving up focus traiting for illusionist celerity.

Just a note on phaste: it’s broken with wardens currently, so there is literally 0 reason to take it until that’s fixed.

Odokuro.5049:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

From a Roaming Thief perspective, you’re an easy kill. You can stay in group with this build judging from your utility skills (feedback and mass invis), but unfortunately, you’ll have a hard time roaming with this compare to Thieves’ and Warrior’s roaming builds.

In my experience as a Thief, I respect the Staff/GS Phantom Shatter build. Other Mesmer builds are child’s play. You can’t crit what you can’t see, you can’t interrupt what you can’t see, and you can’t reflect a backstab.

But I’m open-minded on builds, you might just pull it off — who knows?

Well 7 more days and Stealth orientated thiefs, won’t be such an issue. (No offense)

Anyways I am running the black water build, but, I want to change over to a power build but not be so glassy, any thoughts?

Permastealth thieves won’t be an issue, but they never were actually dangerous, just incredibly aggravating. Stealth is still a mechanic for thieves that is powerful and needs to be carefully dealt with.

Well, as a roaming build this isn’t super great. Glamours are skills that generally are very underperforming in small situations, and scale incredibly well as the fights get longer. By extension, builds that have a focus on glamours perform similarly.

For taking halting strike, you’re a bit low on interrupts. GS5, focus4, and diversion are the only 3 you have, and ultimately that’s not enough to really pressure someone to make full use of interruptions.

NondSwiftshot.9168:

I’m not sure why I overlooked the build video earlier but nonetheless I went on a shopping spree and got zerker gear and traveler runes and respeced to your GS roaming spec from the video. I’m hoping to get better like you! I also liked your guild support spec and will be getting some PVT gear too.

Question – Where can I get a zerker backpiece? I’m still using my rabid piece from my blackwater build.

Fractals. Takes 1850 fractal relics for it.

Mantra of Pain

Overall underwhelming by itself. However, it’s a mantra on no cooldown, and that means it synergizes incredibly well with traits such as protected mantras and restorative mantras.

Mirror Images

This is a shatter burst skill. Equip it accordingly. You could also use it for clone death burst, but it’ll have a much lesser effect.

Arcane Thievery

I personally really don’t like this skill. If I wanted condition removal, I’d take either the mantra or the iDisenchanter. However, some people make good use of it. I guess it comes down to personal preference.

Signet of Domination

This is a signet that you either take to not use, or take only to use. In a build that utilizes one of those 2 situations, it does pretty well though.

iDisenchanter

This is probably one of the strongest skills in the game. Summon a phantasm that attacks every ~3.5 seconds. Each attack is a bouncing projectile that hits 5 (total) targets, removing 2 boons from enemies and 2 conditions from allies. 20 second cooldown. Insert into builds for instant condition immunity/boonstripping/team utility

Xyonon.3987:

What does Scholar give exactly? No wiki here ^^ And rubies :o total … ^^’’ ty

Scholar gives 10% increased damage while over 90% hp (and other stuff).

Silas Drake.8946:

Threads like this hurt my brain. The players of GWs are its own worst enemy.

Thankfully, the devs don’t listen to all the worthless whiners in the game.

For better or for worse, the devs do their own thing.

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I’m honestly still unconvinced about Scholar runes, since phantasms do not get that damage bonus.

I got both set i’ll try to test it out tonight if I have time.

Well, I know that phantasms don’t inherit the damage bonus. I’m just doubtful that in most situations that 10% outweighs the bonuses to phantasm damage from ruby orbs.

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Xyonon.3987:

At least 10/20/0/20/0 and the other 20 points are free for you.
Run full Zerker equip and for PvE in dungeons ruby orbs as “runes” and for sigils stacking or +5% damage / 2 weapons with +10% damage and of course the sigil of battle for swappers.

If you group can stack might properly, Sigil of battle is not worth it. Also, ruby orbs is the cheap option, if you can afford it, go for Rune of the Scholar.

I’m honestly still unconvinced about Scholar runes, since phantasms do not get that damage bonus.