Guild Wars 2

Marsares.2053:

LordByron.8369:

fotm sword may be the most beautiful sword skin around…..if you see it in game with its long trail its really awesome.

I use bolt/whisperblade btw >.> because i already have elementalist being full fotm.

Whisperblade is cool being the phantasm’s sword

Do you have a screenshot of the FOTM sword? Not sure which one you refer to as I don’t do PVE really…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractal_Sword

That being said, my personal favorite is Lord Taere’s Shadow.

Gracious.4279:

Chaith.8256:

Gracious.4279:

hey, this is me female mind games.

If you know me chances are you either actually know me or you have a ginormous amount of hate towards me. I just wanna make this thread to say that Im addicted to guild wars pretty badly, and openly admit that. Im not new to getting trolled, or trolling others for that matter. But I just wanna make it clear that I do not at all run an OP mesmer build, contrary to very popular belief..

I understand hate towards mesmer because of clones and how much an advantage that aspect gives them. But if you think Im just a cheesy mesmer, let me explain what I have been running in all forms of pvp, for about 10 months now.

basic shatter build 20/20/0/0/30 main focus being to rupt skills for more damage, and plenty crit damage to go along with fury on phantasms and increased chance crit on mind wrack. I use GS, sword/pistol.

My utilities are Arcane Thievery, Blink, and Portal. I use Mass invis mostly, as my elite.

I wanna see some of you pro mesmers out there try running arcane thievery and then call me a cheesy mesmer, when 80% of mesmers are running decoy, veil, blink, and mass invis with buffs on stealth.

Im just tired of all the unconditional hate… can we please all just cool out? I wanna play at least 2 matches of hotjoin or tournies without someone hate mailing me. The only thing thats gonna happen is I send all your condis back to you in a 1v1, you die and get mad calling me a cheesy mesmer. Also, portaling out from a 3v1 to backcap is a good play, ask the best mesmer themself, Legend Supcutie.

Does anyone else use Arcane Thievery?

Why do you love yourself so much? Why are you making self-titled thread, implying the gw2 community has any popular opinions about ‘Female Mind Games’ the Mesmer? Addressing the haters? Why did you attempt to change the topic of the thread to Mesmer Utilities when it’s clearly about your e-fame, lol?

Chaith youre just mad cuz youre not the only Maurader title in ebay HotM. And youre one to talk about E-fame. Youre one of the gw2 esport maniacs.

I respect you bro, but you dont feel the pain of being a mesmer who doesnt go with the meta yet still get called OP. Im just another squirrel thats helping the game by running something different, and I really wanted to know if other ppl use arcane thievery.

Also I barley ever use the forums, you be trollin just to get mad at someone for explaining their experience over the year.

Right, but people actually know Chaith, and he also doesn’t go around making threads devoted to tooting his own horn.

I haven’t actually. I can look into doing so if there’s enough interest.

Just want to mention that my previous design was actually not possible. Here’s an updated version that is possible.

+1 my design.

Helios.3598:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Most mesmer builds should be able to clear camps in 30-40 seconds. Just make sure you group up the mobs with LoS or a focus pull and aoe them down. It should be pretty quick.

Well kitten , I guess I’ll go time myself to see. I don’t run staff so I can’t easily just sit and dump on one spot. Granted, I’ve solo flipped hundreds of camps without too many problems.

A fun side note on camp flipping. If you’re on an opposing borderland the NW and NE camps are great traps if you’ve a small roaming group. Flip it and sit out of sight. People will steadily steam in solo or in small, managable groups. You can pretty much farm them for hours with the right comp.

Focus or feedback or some other sort of strong defense is pretty important for the LoS pulling. The projectile defense from the warden/curtain allows you to not get permablinded by the scouts attacking you.

Brutal as usual Vash, nice vid.

Soul.5947:

what about the necromancer golem in that case? That also produces an entity on the field and you can cast that without a target so there is no chance of stopping that skill.

It’s also on a 60 second cooldown, and way less useful than most phantasms.

Soul.5947:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Slow cast time provides the possibility of counter play in pvp. In pve it is not an issue, just start casting a second earlier than you have been.

this is illogical because there are many skills that have a much lower cast time, are those not counterable in pvp? Take into consideration that unlike other skills that start their effect at the moment you start casting and provide their effect while you cast them ( channeled skills ) , this is not the case with our skills.

Most skills can be dodged. Phantasms actually produce an entity on the field if the skill is not blinded or interrupted. The slower cast time produces the opportunity for counterplay.

In PvE, again, it is not an issue. If your mobs are dying before you finish the cast, then you’re simply starting your cast too late.

Slow cast time provides the possibility of counter play in pvp. In pve it is not an issue, just start casting a second earlier than you have been.

hihey.1075:

Pyroatheist.9031:

hihey.1075:

Simplicity.7208:

Well, it’s been a good run. But with warriors and necros getting the nerf, PU mesmers are up next. I give it til the end of January. If you have doubt, go look at the thief forum, there are at least 8 different threads on the front page raging over mesmer stealth. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the forums go into an uproar and ArenaNet knee-jerks into a nerf.

They kind of have a point…When I first started with this build months and months ago, I realized it would become mainstream and get subsequently nerfed. So here’s to the good times.

Anyways, my question involves a new build…something with a similar level of deception. My favorite part of my mesmer (and my thief before it got nerfed to bejesus and back) is deception. I love the PU build because when I play it right, my opponent won’t be able to tell up from down, clone from me. So are there any other builds that can accomplish that?

The problem with PU is the boons that comes with all that ridiculous stealth uptime.
Shave the boons, or just cap their duration in a way that it would be impossible to achieve that broken protection uptime without heavy investment in boon duration through runes & food, and its effectiveness will be toned down a bit.

Only counter is a full condi burst from a necro and MAYBE a P/D thief. I managed to kill a PU with my D/P thief, but had to rely too much on stealth myself, since I needed to let him waste all his CDs before attempting to finish him, and I was always on the verge of death, not to mention that the mesmer I fought was really bad.

I tried PU but it’s too cheesy.

Actually, the hardcounter is a well played phantasm build.

@OP: It’s not tons of people complaining, it’s 1 or 2 whiners, Go read the threads carefully.

I tried 20 20 0 30 0 and it does not work. Condi appliances are too frequent and a skilled mesmer would stand near its clones to let them take the iDuelist unload or completely reposition away from the phantasms if the opponent is a GS/Sw+Sw user.

The PU I took down while using a phantasm build were actually really, really bad. The only thing that does not work against phantasm mesmers is Perplexity as they can freely stop attacking if they notice the 5 stacks of confusion.

You played poorly.

PU condie builds absolutely rely on their opponent to attack them for the condie burst. The vast majority of condition application is achieved using clone explosions and the torment block, and neither of these are effective against someone that does not attack.

Phantasm builds have the luxury of not attacking. You simply drop the phantasms and let them go to town. If you refuse to actually attack the PU mesmer yourself, you will never get hit with torment, rarely get hit with a clone explosion, and your innate condition removal from Mender’s Purity will be more than enough to take care of any stray conditions that hit you.

That being said, a poorly played phantasm mesmer will die just as fast as anything else. This style of counter-play absolutely has a skill requirement.

hihey.1075:

Not to mention that a skilled PU would use scepter #2 while in stealth… …since it does not give revealed.

This is false. The scepter block absolutely gives revealed. Go test it.

Most mesmer builds should be able to clear camps in 30-40 seconds. Just make sure you group up the mobs with LoS or a focus pull and aoe them down. It should be pretty quick.

hihey.1075:

Simplicity.7208:

Well, it’s been a good run. But with warriors and necros getting the nerf, PU mesmers are up next. I give it til the end of January. If you have doubt, go look at the thief forum, there are at least 8 different threads on the front page raging over mesmer stealth. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the forums go into an uproar and ArenaNet knee-jerks into a nerf.

They kind of have a point…When I first started with this build months and months ago, I realized it would become mainstream and get subsequently nerfed. So here’s to the good times.

Anyways, my question involves a new build…something with a similar level of deception. My favorite part of my mesmer (and my thief before it got nerfed to bejesus and back) is deception. I love the PU build because when I play it right, my opponent won’t be able to tell up from down, clone from me. So are there any other builds that can accomplish that?

The problem with PU is the boons that comes with all that ridiculous stealth uptime.
Shave the boons, or just cap their duration in a way that it would be impossible to achieve that broken protection uptime without heavy investment in boon duration through runes & food, and its effectiveness will be toned down a bit.

Only counter is a full condi burst from a necro and MAYBE a P/D thief. I managed to kill a PU with my D/P thief, but had to rely too much on stealth myself, since I needed to let him waste all his CDs before attempting to finish him, and I was always on the verge of death, not to mention that the mesmer I fought was really bad.

I tried PU but it’s too cheesy.

Actually, the hardcounter is a well played phantasm build.

@OP: It’s not tons of people complaining, it’s 1 or 2 whiners, Go read the threads carefully.

StickerHappy.8052:

Thank you for the replies.

My final questions.. I apologize in advance if this is common sense..

if you have 130% chilled duration.. how do you calculate it?

Ex. 3 secs chill = 6 secs x.30?

or 3 × 130%?

Remember that % is a . Bring to decimal: 130 —> 1.3. That’s your multiplier. Base duration * multiplier = final duration.

Eloquence.5207:

Liston.9708:

Some classes and builds are better for those small groups. I don’t roam enough to know myself, but mesmer’s with all their dang clones seem to have fun in small groups.

Too slow, they are.

Get a focus swap, centaur runes, traveler runes, trait blink, learn to effectively do phase retreat jump swaps…mesmers can be exceptionally fast.

Asrielle.6397:

I know this is super late, but I started using your chaos maestro build not too long ago and I had a question about the heals provided by the mantras. While using the Restorative Mantras trait, when is it that the heals show up for my allies? Is it right after I finish channeling the mantra or is it right when I cast the mantra? Basically: channel mantra-party gets heals or use the mantra-party gets heals.

It’s after the channel, just like it says on the wiki, and just like you were told in the thread you just made.

Actually, builds that just spam skills and run around will be decimated by a good PU condie build. You’ll pop all the clones with your pbaoe damage, the mes can just walk I to an aoe with the scepter block for the torment, and a low health ele will drop in less than 10 seconds, I’ve done it so many times.

Conditions are a good counter depending on how the mes is playing. I personally iDisenchanter, so it’s nearly impossible to lock me down with condies, would take at least 3 necros with coordinated spam.

The build ultimately has only 2 weaknesses: chasing ability and people that refuse to attack. People that refuse to attack is a hard-counter. The build works on punishing attacks; blocks, clone explosions, movement. No attacking = no killing. A properly played phantasm build will exploit this hard-counter well.

The other weakness is lack of chasing ability. Warriors can abuse this particularly well to disengage and reset. The one thing you have to be careful of is the condition burst. The condition burst from this build is deceptive and very strong. If you try to disengage too late, and the Mesmer manages to tag you with torment, you’ll die before you make it 10 feet. Be very careful of that.

Edit: The torment block in my build does 13k damage on a moving target. It hurts.

mambastik.8735:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Here’s a little vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6NeyXVwDaw&feature=youtu.be

Just watched the video, was mimic blocking melee attacks?

Yes. It does that. Check the wiki on it.

I believe conditions are removed based on number of stacks. This can lead to poor behavior with duration stacking condies though.

Duration stacking condies DO have stacks, but they’re invisible, and if you got hit with 10s of burn 2x, that’s still the same 2 stacks as 2s of burn 2×.

Septave.8042:

In WvW, is Health or Toughness worth more? I like health because I can -see- it and I’m not running overmuch condition cleansing so Vitality is probably going to be worth more to me.

Either way, should I go 3 Berserkers pieces and 3 Valk/Cav?

Health and toughness are different forms of defense, and it really just comes down to what you prefer. I personally like to have about 20k hp in my builds, but that’s personal preference, I know some people like to focus on toughness or more on vitality. You’ll need to play around a bit and see what fits for you.

It really depends on your preference. Additionally, the type of tanky armor depends on preference too. Valk is good for health, while cavaliers is good for toughness. Since you’re going 10/30, you’ll have very good crit chance, so I’d actually recommend against knights, and for either valk or cav.

Ross Biddle.2367

:sup rune of guardian + mimic

…huh

If they apply conditions, they should be affected by your condition duration.

You’ve never seen your zerker proc sigil of fire. I can’t tell you what you saw, but that doesn’t happen, and it’s easy enough to test out yourself.

While mesmer is probably the potentially strongest 1v1 class, that requires a massive amount of skill. If the 1v1 tourney is really soon, I wouldn’t recommend trying to run mesmer, but if you have some more time, go for it.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Pyroatheist.9031:

If you think that getting lost in clones is the cornerstone of Mesmer tactics, you’re doing it wrong.

A good player will ALWAYS know the real Mesmer within 1-2 seconds. Assume that you are always fighting a good player, and act accordingly.

Of course that said, thay’s a 1-2 second advantage each time in favor of the Mesmer. Yes, it does make a difference.

Sorta. Under perfect circumstances maybe, but if the Mesmer opens with a stealth or a summon or something, that advantage won’t be there. You’ll see the summon and know right away, or see the Mesmer unstealth. That 1-2 second pause is really the very most you’ll ever get.

If you think that getting lost in clones is the cornerstone of Mesmer tactics, you’re doing it wrong.

A good player will ALWAYS know the real Mesmer within 1-2 seconds. Assume that you are always fighting a good player, and act accordingly.

If you try to summon iZerker immediately after a weapon swap, it will fail.

This isn’t a new bug, for what that’s worth, but it is a nasty one.

Here’s my submission. I based it off of Xenn’s, which I liked, but I wanted to make the background smoother, and give the eyes a bit of pop.

Edit: And was just informed by Fay that the game is dumb and you can’t upload things. I’llllll work on this one.

Azure, you have full guild membership.

Xavi, you have full guild membership.

Mongo, you still have full guild membership.

Mongo and Niva, you both have full guilds.

How about you delete this and post in the thread with everyone else?

Mesmers actually have great aoe heals, but they don’t scale well with healing power. Restorative mantras is a 2600 aoe heal every 3 seconds or so with mantra of pain, and that’s incredibly powerful.

One persons night is another persons day.

Horrible idea. It’s been horrible every single time it’s been proposed over the past year, and it hasn’t gotten any better. Whine less, play more.

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

Anet Read this Thread!

Here’s how you fix the iWarden Phantasm. simple as one two three.

1. Moment it casts, it gives AoE Immobilize.

2. Every time it starts a new attack cycle, it pulls enemies towards its range. Much like the curtain pull. (Disregarding first initial attack cycle)

3. From the point after the first initial casting immobilize, it provides cripple to enemies who touch it.

Plz do this thang!

That would be monstrously overpowered. Just saying.

Josh Davis.6015:

Justin has been looking into ways to make rosters more balanced. He’s mentioned placing users with dishonored together in queue

Yes. So much win with this idea.

So, why did you choose to take imbued diversion?

KrotaVoida.8243:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d go the power route. If you’re looking into Fractals, I’d change around your build to provide more support. Like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJAWRl4zSqHRTgGaNJhJF9G5nZAdnTShqTdZBA-jwBBIgAUEA5PFRjtMsIasqapWjETBTICA-e

This build gives you lots of tools, especially for fractals:
* you can group heal by spamming mantra of pain
* Phantasmal Defender takes 50% of everyone’s damage (not just you)
* group regen
* Time Warp

Plus, it’s hella flexible so you can change your support on the fly:
* Swap GS for Sword + Focus, Warden’s Feedback and Feedback for strong projectile reflects
* Swap Mantra of Pain for Disenchanter, Shattered Concentration for condi cleansing + boon stripping
* Pick up Bountiful Interruption for huge might sharing

I like the choice of Signet of Inspiration. When I get in a dungeon run, I’ll often shout out ‘GIVE ME MIGHT’ to get some group might stacks. Then I share it right back and double everyone’s might stack, then hit time warp = very powerful.

Thanks for the tip on Mantras as a support tool, never really thought about them that way…
I’ve seen that in your build there’s no Illusionist Celerity, I thought that it was almost mandatory for every mesmer build.

Yesterday evening I’ve tried to use the sword more in-depth. All good. Killing things more quickly than staff/conditions (even if still level 77 and with masterwork rampager gear). But with staff I could solo some champions… with sword I cannot.
It’s probably just me getting something wrong. You should be able to solo Champions with Sword and off-hand as a zerker build?

Eh, soloing champions is a bit more of a niche thing. I find that greatsword works the best usually, since you can just kite away and let the zerkers cripple the mob.

Scratch that, I see it not working now.

Just tested it. I’m not noticing any problems. Tested against a moving target, a static target, a slowly moving target, etc.

I’ll test this out, try and quantify exactly what doesn’t work.

PandaBear.7510:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I use fraps, it’s pretty straightforward and easy to use. Your frame rate will take a significant drop with it active though, and it records completely uncompressed, so the quality is high, but so are the file sizes.

Thanks Pyro. I’ll try it out and see how I like it. I added a second question to the OP. What software do you use to edit your videos?

I use adobe premier, but that’s by no means the only choice.

I use fraps, it’s pretty straightforward and easy to use. Your frame rate will take a significant drop with it active though, and it records completely uncompressed, so the quality is high, but so are the file sizes.

Too tired to type up a full response right now, but just to let you know, elasticity doesn’t work on staff clones.

Erp. Yeah. Please don’t actually try this.

Hayashi.3416:

Pyroatheist.9031:

colesy.8490:

I doubt it. When I did COE story with some pug full of bads there are a bunch of mobs there that I think stack toughness the more damage you deal but I just zerked it all down. Not sure what the point of this thread either, who asks for a second best build?

I wouldn’t necessarily count them out yet. Anet definitely knows about the whole stacking deal, and I guarantee that they don’t like it too much. With this instability thing, they could easily introduce some pretty nasty mechanics for stacking.

Imagine if you did aoe damage to allies, or applied a debuff, or something like that. They could even do something like cleaving attacks do damage to yourself for every additional enemy hit.

There’s a lot of pretty creatively nasty things I can think of that would instantly kill stacking.

Edit: If you did aoe damage to allies equal to outgoing damage you dealt. THAT would be nasty.

Actually they’ve already instituted an antistacking mechanic long ago for Sorrow’s Embrace – General Molradovich.

Playing the best you can is something they’d encourage, rather than simply spamming a single mechanic all the time, every time, everywhere. A skilled player can adapt. The bads will just die and complain about how GW2 is broken.

Meh. That mechanic is hardly noticeable. When I fight that boss I just stack up and dps like with anything else.

colesy.8490:

I doubt it. When I did COE story with some pug full of bads there are a bunch of mobs there that I think stack toughness the more damage you deal but I just zerked it all down. Not sure what the point of this thread either, who asks for a second best build?

I wouldn’t necessarily count them out yet. Anet definitely knows about the whole stacking deal, and I guarantee that they don’t like it too much. With this instability thing, they could easily introduce some pretty nasty mechanics for stacking.

Imagine if you did aoe damage to allies, or applied a debuff, or something like that. They could even do something like cleaving attacks do damage to yourself for every additional enemy hit.

There’s a lot of pretty creatively nasty things I can think of that would instantly kill stacking.

Edit: If you did aoe damage to allies equal to outgoing damage you dealt. THAT would be nasty.

Kanto.1659:

The pistol also immobilizes? I must have missed that. Is it recent? Because, I repeat (there is no iSwordsman close or even summoned).

Pistol shot. Dazed. Cannot move. Cannot dodge. Use stun breaker. Still cannot move. Still cannot dodge. In the meanwhile three clones blow up while they use their sword attack. Conveniently, invulnerable while doing it so I cant even fight back and try to stop them, but that’s another bag of kittens.

First of all, magic bullet is a stun if they shoot it at you, not a daze.

Secondly, a stun is basically a daze + immobilize, and except a stunbreaker removes all the effects of the stun. A daze will be completely removed with a stunbreaker. If they daze/stun AND immobilize you, then you need to use a stunbreaker and a condition cleanse.

Stun: Can use no skills. Can not move. Removed with a stunbreaker.
Daze: Can use no skills. Can move, can dodge. Removed with a stunbreaker.

That’s simply how it works, no arguments allowed.

Edit: And for a guy who claims to have a mesmer leveling guide, you’re awfully ignorant about game/mesmer mechanics.

Stunbreakers work fine on dazes. You can also dodge while dazed.

It seems that you’re missing some major mechanics of downed state.

First of all, number 2 isn’t phase retreat, it’s an entirely distinct skill.

Secondly, your health will decay over time while in downed state unless you channel the 4th skill to heal yourself.

Thirdly, that advice given to you is correct. You shouldn’t ever really be getting downed unless you’re trying to solo champions.