Guild Wars 2

DreamWeaver.3145:

So making clue of this post:

for semi-optimal build on PVE open world we go:

10/30/0/20/10 + GS + Sw/F

for PVE dungeons changing to Sw/Sw + Sw/F

Gear : Berzerker + Scholar
Sigils: night/force, force/slaying, night/slaying or force/accuracy

Skills: depend on situations but mainly 2x mantras for more DMG

Correct me if i made any mistake if not topic can be closed

I’d actually recommend then 0/30/0/25/15 instead of 10/30/0/20/10. The only benefit the 10 in domination gives you is 100 power, which is marginally useful compared to the 20% cooldowns on every illusion skill that 15 in illusions gives. The 10/30/0/20/10 build has its place, but for a general purpose build you’ll want 0/30/0/25/15.

EFWinters.5421:

Yodaman.3274:

Echoing the sentiment that in no way is FA wanting to drop to silver league and in fact we are trying harder than ever to stay in T2 since the only good thing about WvW is the fights, not the PVD. DB has been leeching rating off of SOR for far too long so currently its an inaccurate picture of the actual ratings imo.

While the ratings may be inaccurate, I doubt FA has enough time to prove it since we are only a couple of weeks away from S2, and the currently projected ratings will shift even more during the week in favor of DB, as their night time presence gains steam whereas FA’s lack of it becomes more apparent.

Their night presence isn’t gaining anything. They’re just stomping on sor and getting free points. They’ll get absolutely crushed next week in t2 and drop back to a more accurate rating.

InfernoHero.5687:

I wanted to find out what the general consensus states about a low-level running through Edge of the Mists and Eternal Battlegrounds in order to level at a fast rate.

Are the lowbies seen as worthless, leaches, ect. like the dungeon community sees them, or are we welcome to run with the zerg as long as we try our best not to go down?

The most important thing is keeping updated on all gear. If you have green gear that is at your level, including all trinkets, all runes, stacking sigil, and food, then you’ll have very similar stats to a level 80. If you don’t stay updated though, your stats will drop off very quickly.

Chaba.5410:

And, BTW, no one expected the gold, silver, bronze tiers again when Season 2 was first announced. The fact that SOR’s implosion is skewing the ratings for multiple servers is extremely bad timing.

Yeah, tier 2 is all artificially bloated to be too close to t1, and DB is going to get absolutely stomped when they pop into t2, due to the SoR implosion.

Xyonon.3987:

Anyone know what happens if a Defender has not enough HP to take 50% of the damage? Lets say he has 1000 HP left, somone takes a 4000 hit. So the iD will die but will that guy take 2000 or 3000 damage? :o

The player will take 50% as normal because its a buff, not a straight up transfer.

The defender will die, the other one won’t take anything, there is no ‘overflow pool’.

I think. Could do with some testing.

StickerHappy.8052:

I agree with pyro, spent so much time debating if hs was worth it. Damage scaling is funky. But i gotta add if you trait it, its one more dmg source for you.

@pyro

Was hs funky way before they boosted the dmg.?

I only tested it after the fact, but I’d imagine it was.

Toolbox.9375:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Toolbox.9375:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Toolbox.9375:

According to the Wiki, Warlock has a base of 438 an a coefficient of 1.65. Swordsman has a base of 672, and a coefficient of 1.925. Duelist, after combining all eight shots, has a base of 768, and a coefficient of 2.2.

Hate to rain on your calculation parade here, but that’s not how it works. Base damage isn’t something that actually exists.

Calculation for phantasms is as follows: (Level 80 exotic weapon damage) * (Skill Coefficient) * (Power) / (Target Armor) * (other modifiers such as crits or phantasmal strength)

Well, obviously, there’s criticals and other damage boosts to take into account, but are those different between each individual Phantasm, or did I cover the points of difference that would affect how they perform in relation to one another?

I miss the days when games had systems you could actually figure out and calculate through.

The system in this game is pretty simple actually, you were just doing it wrong I think.

I’m not 100% clear on what you did, as you didn’t show every step, but I believe you were using that base damage in the calculations. If you used that number, then every conclusion past that point is faulty.

The only thing I did with the base damage value was tack it on after the coefficient times Power calculations.

Yeah, so that makes them all wrong. Base damage is not a concept that exists in this game, full stop, end of story.

The way you need to do the analysis is simply assume a test value for both power and armor as your starting analysis. The armor value you won’t need to change at all, so just set that as 2500. Power you can start at 2000 as a good baseline. From that point, you’ll need to look at 2 things. The first is how the warlock scales with conditions, and how all of the phantasms scale with more power (as determined by the skill coefficient).

Toolbox.9375:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Toolbox.9375:

According to the Wiki, Warlock has a base of 438 an a coefficient of 1.65. Swordsman has a base of 672, and a coefficient of 1.925. Duelist, after combining all eight shots, has a base of 768, and a coefficient of 2.2.

Hate to rain on your calculation parade here, but that’s not how it works. Base damage isn’t something that actually exists.

Calculation for phantasms is as follows: (Level 80 exotic weapon damage) * (Skill Coefficient) * (Power) / (Target Armor) * (other modifiers such as crits or phantasmal strength)

Well, obviously, there’s criticals and other damage boosts to take into account, but are those different between each individual Phantasm, or did I cover the points of difference that would affect how they perform in relation to one another?

I miss the days when games had systems you could actually figure out and calculate through.

The system in this game is pretty simple actually, you were just doing it wrong I think.

I’m not 100% clear on what you did, as you didn’t show every step, but I believe you were using that base damage in the calculations. If you used that number, then every conclusion past that point is faulty.

Toolbox.9375:

According to the Wiki, Warlock has a base of 438 an a coefficient of 1.65. Swordsman has a base of 672, and a coefficient of 1.925. Duelist, after combining all eight shots, has a base of 768, and a coefficient of 2.2.

Hate to rain on your calculation parade here, but that’s not how it works. Base damage isn’t something that actually exists.

Calculation for phantasms is as follows: (Level 80 exotic weapon damage) * (Skill Coefficient) * (Power) / (Target Armor) * (other modifiers such as crits or phantasmal strength)

The difference in damage output between the phantasm/mantra builds and everything else is absolutely massive. As much as I’d love to say that condition builds or shatter builds do comparable damage and can be run, it’s just not true. Additionally, phantasm/mantra builds have traiting that lines up with a lot of the heavy support that mesmer can provide, and that’s not the case with other builds.

tl;dr: Yeah, it’s the only game in town.

Menaka.5092:

Works as every other direct damage source

Actually…not entirely true. I’ve done extensive testing with halting strike, and I’ve failed miserably to determine an accurate way of calculating the damage. It doesn’t seem to have a direct correlation with weapon damage, nor does it have any sort of normal skill coefficient.

It is, as you said, affected by armor and protection like all other damage sources.

sephiroth.4217:

Ok…

I started as a PU mesmer, my team raged at me for not holding cap points while in stealth, fair enough…

Changed to illsuion/shatter sorta build, enemy team told me to take “my meta build back to hotjoin”

So changed my build again to condi, again enemy team thinks "that my cheese build is all I have and I should l2p b4 q and go back to hotjoin…

Now I’m using a zerker lockdown build with insane amount of stuns and boon stripping and both the enemy team and friendly team think I’m using a “broken Build that takes no skill”

What build can I use to shut everyone up? (not keen on blocking all chat either)
Gets a bit old that every match there is someone constantly crying about something wrong with a mesmer build….

I’m rank 27 so I’m not a “pro” but I’ve had my mes for over a year as a solo roamer in WvW so I know my class well enough to know how to fight other people.

Learn to revel in the tears of the scrubs you crush underneath your boots. Use the build that works best and wins the most for you.

One will randomly take the damage.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Also, smashed a thief with a single scepter 2 riposte. That’s demi-god right there-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeG-ryU6fmU

Not to split hairs, but he also got hit in the face with a treb shot.

Yep, still by far the best leveling and open world build.

Ptolemy.5086:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Ptolemy.5086:

Fights in WVW are dynamic and illusions in a lot of cases left behind and do nothing good. That is why my 2 favored are Iduelist and Iswordsmen. They are actively pursuing target.
Mesmer limited to 3 illusions and phats>clones. Ie if you have 3 phats up you are unable to produce clones only phats and any moron can see difference between you and phantom. It left you open for attacks. All i am saying is just IMHO and other ppl might have different experience and opinion on the subject. I recommend to try it and see it for yourself. What do you have to loose. 2 s for repair in worst case:)

The Disenchanter attacks even faster than the swordsman, and has range like the duelist. Your point of them actively pursuing the target not only doesn’t make sense, it’s completely wrong.

Also, if you get 3 phantasms up, one will pop to produce a clone. Additionally, having only phantasms up doesn’t leave you open for attacks. If you’re trying to hide by looking or acting like clones, you’re playing poorly. A good opponent will never be fooled like that, and so you’re simply wasting your time and hurting your potential by trying to do that.

Do you personally use disenchanter in Wvw or just saying it for the sake of argument?
I newer seen anyone does it and my experience with it was not good.

It’s more or less a permanent fixture on my bar. I won’t use it in zerg fights of course, but any roaming or small group actions see me using it.

It’s an incredibly strong skill. A 20 second cooldown for a phantasm that attacks every 4 seconds with a bouncing projectile that hits 5 targets and removes 2 boons from enemies and 2 conditions from allies. If it only gets 2 attacks off, it’s already better than null field and mantra of resolve and arcane thievery.

Lishtenbird.2814:

• #4 Temporal Curtain. This is a bug. The tooltip says: “Create a wall of energy that grants Swiftness to allies who cross it while crippling foes who touch it.” If I have swiftness and I cross the wall of energy, I am not granted swiftness. Thus, bug. BTW, Wiki says that cripple cannot be evaded; if that is still correct, I should probably list it as well.

Tooltip inaccuracies are not the same things as bugs. We know that it’s not a bug, it’s working as intended. It’s not working how we would like it to be intended, but it is working as intended.

You can’t evade the cripple, that is accurate. You can’t evade the effects of any line aoe in the game, this includes spectral wall, line of warding, ring of warding, traited glamours, and temporal curtain (probably a few more I’ve forgotten).

Lishtenbird.2814:

• #9 Blink not blinking. This is a bug. The tooltip says: “Teleport to a target location.” The range indicator is green, I use the skill and I do not get teleported to target location. Thus, bug. The fact that this is not limited to mesmers is another story.

This is sorta a bug, but not entirely. The skill is working as intended, just they didn’t think to extend a check as to whether or not it can blink to a location into the reticule color.

Lishtenbird.2814:

• #13 Warden’s Feedback. The Warden reflecting past its animation is a bug. The extremely short Temporal Curtain is an annoyance, as we expect it to work as Wall of Reflect but instead it often fails to reflect grenades at point blank from large versions of grenadiers.

Yeah, the warden bit is a bug. I’m pretty sure it’s consistent with whirling defense as well.

Lishtenbird.2814:

• #25 Underwater Phantasms. This one as well is an annoyance and non-consistent behaviour (even though not in your list).

This is actually definitely a bug. Way long ago all phantasms used to be this way, and they changed it so that they require a target to actually cast, and they forgot that underwater combat is a thing in this game.

Ptolemy.5086:

Fights in WVW are dynamic and illusions in a lot of cases left behind and do nothing good. That is why my 2 favored are Iduelist and Iswordsmen. They are actively pursuing target.
Mesmer limited to 3 illusions and phats>clones. Ie if you have 3 phats up you are unable to produce clones only phats and any moron can see difference between you and phantom. It left you open for attacks. All i am saying is just IMHO and other ppl might have different experience and opinion on the subject. I recommend to try it and see it for yourself. What do you have to loose. 2 s for repair in worst case:)

The Disenchanter attacks even faster than the swordsman, and has range like the duelist. Your point of them actively pursuing the target not only doesn’t make sense, it’s completely wrong.

Also, if you get 3 phantasms up, one will pop to produce a clone. Additionally, having only phantasms up doesn’t leave you open for attacks. If you’re trying to hide by looking or acting like clones, you’re playing poorly. A good opponent will never be fooled like that, and so you’re simply wasting your time and hurting your potential by trying to do that.

FrownyClown.8402:

That’s why I love ele guess I should throw away my pride and run lol

As an ele, you need to be careful though. If you engage fully, you can be burst down rather quickly with the condition load if you’re not careful. Once you’re low, if you drop any aoes when running, a long range torment tag can and will finish you.

Ptolemy.5086:

Not sure if block with sword 4 and scepter 2 considered as interrupt.

Uh…why on earth would they be?

Arewn.2368:

Now if arena net would just rework defiance, we’d have a really nice PVE dungeon build going on with this.

Not really. You can already proc interrupt traits through defiant, you just wouldn’t take halting strike because the damage it provides pales in comparison to empowered illusions.

Something useful to note is that against a death blossom thief, both the scepter and sword blocks will hit precisely during the aftercast of death blossom if you block the whirl, making them quite useful to tag the thief with.

skcamow.3527:

Thanks for the response Powerr.

I have a question regarding your comment, “all these issues that are bugs have been investigated or logged.”

Would be possible for you to let us know which of the items in the list are indeed known bugs?

The documented items are there because it seems to us like functionality is impaired in some way. Some of them are obviously bugs, but others are not. It would be very helpful to know if some of these listed items are intended behavior so we can cease discussing them in a bug related context.

4, 7, 8, 9, and 13 are not bugs, they are complaints. I’d love to see them changed, but there’s a big difference between a bug and a complaint.

Melanion.4892:

The Mind Spike (sword 3) says it will rip one boon off of the enemy, but lower down in the tooltip, it says it will remove a condition. I don’t know that the skill works properly, but it’s a typo, so I thought maybe the skill isn’t working as suggested?

I’m fairly certain that tooltip was screwed up in a very recent patch. While I’d like to say that it’s just the tooltip, I don’t trust anet enough to just say that, so I’ll go test it out.

Edit: Can confirm it removes boons, and does nothing with conditions.

If played right, PU condies would be unable to kill PU phantasm due to lack of skills to counter.

However, PU phantasms would be extremely hard-pressed to kill the condie build because the phantasms are so weak in that sort of spec.

Equally skilled players would end up with a draw.

EnderzShadow.2506:

Looked at your build, in domination you took mental torment?
A mistake I presume as you dont use a greatsword.

Greatsword training is the gs trait. Mental torment is mind wrack.

kaikalii.4198:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I mean, there’s not really any mystery behind pvt, you said it pretty well. It’s just a power based armor set that lacks the other offensive attributes. You’ll be tankier but do less damage.

This will be more effective in zergs than zerker armor since you need that defense to survive. It’ll be more of a mixed bag in roaming and 1v1 fights. You’ll be harder to kill certainly, but you could have a lot of trouble actually killing slipperier or tankier people.

Playing in PvP alone, I noticed that while my survivability increased significantly, my damage didn’t suffer that much; I still had a 30% crit damage, and fury on phantasms brought them to 41% crit chance. I have died less and secured more kills that I ever did in zerkers.

It gives you more room for error in your playing. You won’t be able to kill people as well, but you can make more mistakes.

I mean, there’s not really any mystery behind pvt, you said it pretty well. It’s just a power based armor set that lacks the other offensive attributes. You’ll be tankier but do less damage.

This will be more effective in zergs than zerker armor since you need that defense to survive. It’ll be more of a mixed bag in roaming and 1v1 fights. You’ll be harder to kill certainly, but you could have a lot of trouble actually killing slipperier or tankier people.

hihey.1075:

Don’t run PU in tPvP. It sucks and will only make people on both teams to hate you.

If you’re talking organized team queue, then you’re correct. Otherwise, you’re very mistaken.

august.8016:

therefore the potions are useless for conditioner? O_O
This is really ridiculous if is true….

Anyone can confirm this?

This is not a bug, merely an application of game mechanics. Condition damage works differently, and I’m not going to explain it here, but suffice to say that slaying potions have no effect on condition damage.

Paul Kay.4891:

What about the point about Celestial Gear?

Due to how crit damage currently works, celestial gear has a higher ratio of crit damage than it does other stats, and this is getting a huge nerf with the change to ferocity.

Paul Kay.4891:

Would you consider running something else than Zerkers if it got nerfed? If so, what =]?

We will run whatever is best. If they nerf power-based gear so badly that it becomes worse than condition damage, I’ll probably just stop doing dungeons altogether.

Paul Kay.4891:

Also, What’s PU?

Prismatic understanding, grandmaster chaos trait.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

What about adding confusion/torment to subsequent scepter AA? Which kind of justify the long AA chain and those two conditions rarely occur compare to bleeding/vulnerability/poisoning etc as in AA from other class. Plus those condition seems more mesmer-ish. However they could be less useful in PvE situation.

Conditions will not be getting added to the autoattack. The devs have flat out said this, and I agree with them completely, at least in this. The less condition spam, the better.

fedecane.6259:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Yep, purple is awesome, no need to change it.

That being said, it would be really nasty on server load to have customizable spell colors. It would need to do a full additional render and particle change for every single spell every single time if different spell colors were possible.

That’d not be really necessary, the render is of course client-side so anyone could render it just as smooth as now

If there were 4 colors in total you could send them in 2 bits it’s not like the internet is going to collapse for that, even with millions of users :P

Well, render was the wrong word. Right now all the display is client side, and the server just provides instructions as to which file to pull. If you could modify the colors, the server would have to transmit the color data as well…and the client would have to render each color type individually, so you’d be increasing both server load and client load.

Bad idea all around. I get enough lag in big fights already.

Yep, purple is awesome, no need to change it.

That being said, it would be really nasty on server load to have customizable spell colors. It would need to do a full additional render and particle change for every single spell every single time if different spell colors were possible.

Paul Kay.4891:

I do not doubt and I really appreciate the expertise of You both. I’m just on the verge of totally abandoning this class; playing around reflects, stealth and zones is just not what I intended this character to be about :/

So uh, you should probably just drop Mesmer right now. This entire class is about deception, reflects, stealth, misdirection, trickery. You sound like you might like a warrior instead, they’re nice and boring and straightforward for you.

Paul Kay.4891:

Let’s say I enjoy ranged play more than melee play, even though I’m positive it’s lesser damage than melee sword. Sadly Arenanet didn’t heed Mesmer’s call for a main-hand pistol(yet?), would run that so much if that were possible =p

Well, this means you should probably go play ele, because their highest dps is available with staff. You’ll probably refuse to use conjured weapons and fail that too, but it’s worth a try.

Paul Kay.4891:

I’d rather take it like a man than play around with reflects which isn’t Feedback, even if it would take a while longer.

Yeah, I find it adorable that you’re playing Mesmer and talking about ‘taking it like a man’. You’re barking so far up the wrong tree that it’s not even funny anymore. As I mentioned before, Mesmer is a class that doesn’t ‘take it like a man’. We have so many ways to avoid taking it like a man’ because that is the entire design concept of the class. You honestly should just stop.

korelg.7862:

I see all this talk about how GS #1 is so bad, but you guys are not considering that keeping your distance keeps you alive (in some boss fights/most world bosses)

Alive DPS > Dead DPS

If you ask me, the best set you could carry for dungeons is GS + Sword/* just keep swaping pistol/focus acording to the situation, but having a GS is always good, also staff is great for soloing subject alpha from COE

Open world pve is an entirely different situation, and greatsword is a good long range aoe tagging weapon for open world.

Staff is absolutely necessary for soloing subject alpha, yes. However, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that op will not be soloing subject alpha any time in the near future.

As for dungeons, there are very few situations where range is necessary. The molten facility boss fight is one of the only things that comes to mind, and possibly the jade maw fight. In all other cases, you can use the mechanics available to you to effectively protect yourself at melee range and complete content significantly faster and safer.

Fixing the thread with this comment.

As far as the iWarlock goes, surprisingly enough you actually have sorta the right idea with it, but not quite accurate. So I’ll sometimes use staff, but only in situations where the mobs have enough conditions that the horrible autoattack damage is outweighed by the crazy dps of the phantasm. Unfortunately, a Mesmer alone is unable to do that kind of condition load. If you have an engineer in the team though, your mobs will likely have upwards of 7 conditions at all times, and that makes the warlock hit like a truck.

In other cases though, the staff is simply worse.

Paul Kay.4891:

Sorry if you had that impression, I’m just trying to work around the meta in a reasonable manner and make the most well-rounded build for dungeons/pvp/wvw/pve :p

This is a horrible idea, but I see people trying to do it all the time. Dungeons and WvW are massively different game modes, and they absolutely require different builds. PvP doesn’t even use the same gear…so yeah. If you try to make a build that works well in both WvW and dungeons, you will fail miserably. It doesn’t take much time to retrain and swap gear, so do that instead of being lazy and useless in both situations.

Nyaru.7954:

I just got to 80 and crafted my spinal blades, and I need to choose a suffix. I have no idea what spec I’ll want to play. What would be the most generic and multi-tasking stats to choose?

Carrion (Condition dmg, Power, Vitality)
Berserker (Power, Precision, Crit dmg)
Rampager (Precision, Power, Condition dmg)
Celestial (a bit of everything)

Any word on these, or any other one?
I’m a bit time limited since I won’t be able to craft new spinal blades after the event ends. Or is there a better back item?

I currently play with GS/Staff, but it’s subject to change.

So, there’s few hard and fast rules, but there are a couple.

Carrion is never useful for a mesmer. Never in any build ever.

Rampager is….generally ill-advised. Hybrid builds aren’t usually a great idea, and if you do run a hybrid it’s better to do a mix-and-match as opposed to just using rampager.

Celestial is questionable for anything except a staff ele in WvW.

Generally, you’ll want a set of zerker/assassins for PvE, a set of tankier stuff (knights/cavaliers) if you want to run power in WvW, and a set of rabid if you want to run conditions in WvW.

Narsil.6579:

P.S. I also despise it when people use the whole “terrain and line of sight combat” crap , if they hide behind things or use portal tactics etc, I will disengage and kite until they are in an open space and then I will nuke them, throw siege over them and emote.

And those people will continue to use those tactics. I’ll use those tactics as much as I need to as well. In a 1v1 situation I won’t need to, but you can bet that I always know where the closest place to break line sight or pull a z-axis blink or drop a portal for a safe getaway is just in case a fight goes real bad real fast.

Paul Kay.4891:

Pyroatheist.9031:

If that’s what you want to hear, then sure. You can’t play mesmer well in dungeons without looking like a total wuss. You heard it here first folks.

Honestly, your whole attitude about this is ridiculous. Look, if you want to play how you want, then go for it. But the facts remain that your build is bad, and you’ll be a dead weight on your team. You can’t argue otherwise, you can’t contest the facts. If you want to play with that build, you’ll simply have to accept that and move on.

You want to find some sort of way to play with your build and not be useless. There isn’t.

Bluntness is fine, just be considerate about it. I join back after 1.5 year and meet a rather stale, boring, not too fun meta; are you really surprised I wanna go for suboptimal weapon choices just to find something that’s more interesting/fun?

I’m not really contesting, just wishing things were different and poking at the skill builder in hopes something other than what’s in the meta will pop out and will work for me.

I’m curious really – if You were cornered into going GS/Staff, how would you go around optimizing it for Dungeon?

Focus on phantasm cooldowns and damage. Your personal damage will be absolute crap, so you’ll be banking 100% on phantasms. Both damage traits (domination III and inspiration 25) are a must, as well as the phantasm hp trait (inspiration V). Along with that you’ll definitely need the phantasm signet and signet of illusions to help boost your phantasm uptime. The build would look like 20/10/0/25/15 probably, with the potential of doing 10/20 in domination/dueling.

It still wouldn’t be very good, but you’d at least do a bit of damage.

Bigbosos.2063:

‘Sup guys, I’ve just come back from a long break, and I haven’t found yet a build that I like.

As far as I know, apparently we’ve been pigeon-holed into Prismatic Understanding builds, because hey, a hambow warrior, kthxbai im ded.
Altho I don’t like this style, and I find it lacks quite some good damage.

What I’m asking is, is there anything else viable right now? I’ve tried around some lockdown builds, but they quite don’t seem to deliver / get rotflpwnd by other professions.

Cheers

Are you looking to do solo queue or team queue with an organized team (soloing team queue counts as solo queue)? If solo queue, check the link in my sig.

wolfpaq.7354:

Pyroatheist.9031:

It’s not like other classes have an elite on a 45 second base cooldown that can be traited to give 2 stacks of 20second might when used and traited to reduce the cooldown and traited to last longer and traited to lifesteal when activated and traited to be aoe shared to allies.

You forgot to mention that it would require 30 point investment in shadow arts & deadly arts, which no pve thief would do due to the insane dps sacrifices that would be required to do so.

Oh and it would still be worse than time warp for pve.

So, congrats on having a superior elite without needing to spend a single trait point on it!

Edit:

Edit: Or how about an elite on a 60 second cooldown that can be traited to increase damage and traited to give you extra toughness and traited to have a lower cooldown and traited to have more health and traited to cause a death nova when it dies and traited to strip boons on attacks and traited to drain health to you and traited to draw conditions from you.

Ah, the good ole 30/30/30/30/30 build. Also, even if that build was possible, it would still be significantly inferior to time warp. Necro minions suck.

Note that I wasn’t saying someone would take all of those traits in the same build, just the same as someone would rarely take every single glamour buffing trait in the same build either.

The point I was trying to make is that the options for the customization of how their elite skill functions in any particular build are available for classes, but not mesmers. If thieves want to do venomshare support with life leech and cooldown reduction, they can. If they want to do self buffing with might and extra use venoms, they can. If a necro wants to focus on various aspects of how the flesh golem performs, they have that option. These options are not available to mesmer in any way.

Paul Kay.4891:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I’m not being condescending, I’m being blunt. Your build will do poor damage due to it being unfocused in traiting and lacking access to the top damage phantasms, as well as utilizing the 2 weapons with the lowest autoattack damage. It has no access to good reflect uptime, 0 traits in the support/utility tree of inspiration, no good mob control, and very poor boon stripping. It does all this while still managing to be squishier than a standard build due to your traiting.

Again, I’m not being condescending, I’m being blunt. Your build is bad for all the reasons I’ve stated before, you just don’t want to hear it.

hendo.1940:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CKyzb3CDHc

do this with GS/Staff

This looks honestly boring, exploit-like and nothing fun about playing at a corner stacking zones. :/
Not saying GS/Staff is more efficient, but at least it fights its enemies head on.
So what you’re telling me is I can’t play Mesmer well in Dungeons without looking like a total wuss?

If that’s what you want to hear, then sure. You can’t play mesmer well in dungeons without looking like a total wuss. You heard it here first folks.

Honestly, your whole attitude about this is ridiculous. Look, if you want to play how you want, then go for it. But the facts remain that your build is bad, and you’ll be a dead weight on your team. You can’t argue otherwise, you can’t contest the facts. If you want to play with that build, you’ll simply have to accept that and move on.

You want to find some sort of way to play with your build and not be useless. There isn’t.

Ansau.7326:

The problem with TW being a Glamour skill is it’d be upgradeable too much.

Yeah, upgradeable far too much.

It’s not like other classes have an elite on a 45 second base cooldown that can be traited to give 2 stacks of 20second might when used and traited to reduce the cooldown and traited to last longer and traited to lifesteal when activated and traited to be aoe shared to allies.

Yeah, time warp being a glamour would definitely make it op.

Edit: Or how about an elite on a 60 second cooldown that can be traited to increase damage and traited to give you extra toughness and traited to have a lower cooldown and traited to have more health and traited to cause a death nova when it dies and traited to strip boons on attacks and traited to drain health to you and traited to draw conditions from you.

Yeah.

Paul Kay.4891:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Paul Kay.4891:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Well, to be blunt, you’re wrong. A damage skill once every 4.8 seconds, requiring traiting 20 into domination (which is a poor choice) is not even remotely close to an autoattack. It simply doesn’t add up.

Again, it will work. It’ll just be bad. If you’re ok with being the weak link in every party, then go for it.

Man, you’re being depressing, no offense.
After spending(read: wasting) over 100 g on different sets of armors/weapons and rerolls I just decided I was okay with my prior build just as well(just needed a little more toughness). Just won’t be joining those elitist zerg teams. Maybe it was a mentality thing after all.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJARGIJMfo3oUg9sTShqTd5D4G-zABBZmFRjt4qIas6aYKXER1iCIiA-e

Here’s how it looks like at the moment.
Kinda tough choice between 25 dom or 15 Chaos, I’ll see if I need either more as I go on.
Not sure if I really need the crit damage but likely I’ll just alternate between Berserker and Knight sets.
Would welcome tips for equipment/sigil/rune setup and that’ll be it for me

It’s not so much an issue of elitist teams as it is an issue of personal performance. With that build you simply will be unable to perform anywhere close to as well as someone using a good buid.

It’s not like you’ve wasted massive amounts of gold on useless gear. The greatsword has uses, and all you need to pick up is a couple swords and a focus and retrait. You’re just refusing to use an effective build, which is your personal choice of course, but don’t get mad at people if they kick you from a party for being useless.

I’m feeling perfectly useful so far at least =p
Geez, stop being so condescending 0o

I’m not being condescending, I’m being blunt. Your build will do poor damage due to it being unfocused in traiting and lacking access to the top damage phantasms, as well as utilizing the 2 weapons with the lowest autoattack damage. It has no access to good reflect uptime, 0 traits in the support/utility tree of inspiration, no good mob control, and very poor boon stripping. It does all this while still managing to be squishier than a standard build due to your traiting.

Again, I’m not being condescending, I’m being blunt. Your build is bad for all the reasons I’ve stated before, you just don’t want to hear it.

You stop runners on a condie build by tagging them with torment. That kills them when they run.

Overall, there is absolutely no such thing as ‘honor’ in combat. People will run and people will fight dirty and outnumbered and call friends and do anything they need to win. Your job is to beat them despite that. That’s simply how it works.

Paul Kay.4891:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Well, to be blunt, you’re wrong. A damage skill once every 4.8 seconds, requiring traiting 20 into domination (which is a poor choice) is not even remotely close to an autoattack. It simply doesn’t add up.

Again, it will work. It’ll just be bad. If you’re ok with being the weak link in every party, then go for it.

Man, you’re being depressing, no offense.
After spending(read: wasting) over 100 g on different sets of armors/weapons and rerolls I just decided I was okay with my prior build just as well(just needed a little more toughness). Just won’t be joining those elitist zerg teams. Maybe it was a mentality thing after all.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJARGIJMfo3oUg9sTShqTd5D4G-zABBZmFRjt4qIas6aYKXER1iCIiA-e

Here’s how it looks like at the moment.
Kinda tough choice between 25 dom or 15 Chaos, I’ll see if I need either more as I go on.
Not sure if I really need the crit damage but likely I’ll just alternate between Berserker and Knight sets.
Would welcome tips for equipment/sigil/rune setup and that’ll be it for me

It’s not so much an issue of elitist teams as it is an issue of personal performance. With that build you simply will be unable to perform anywhere close to as well as someone using a good buid.

It’s not like you’ve wasted massive amounts of gold on useless gear. The greatsword has uses, and all you need to pick up is a couple swords and a focus and retrait. You’re just refusing to use an effective build, which is your personal choice of course, but don’t get mad at people if they kick you from a party for being useless.

Nyel.1843:

I know the new heals, thanks. But yeah… two new heals as you mentioned.

I thought the thing with the elites was a fake – or only the new elites have been wrong?

Maybe they just should revamp some traits for this topic a bit. I think there are many options for Mantras.

Those particular elites were fake, but I don’t think the concept is wrong.

Paul Kay.4891:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Paul Kay.4891:

Pyroatheist.9031:

The reason you don’t use greatsword for single target is because it’s not particularly good at close range, but it’s a good multi-target weapon for trash clearing.

Staff is different. The phantasm on the staff is actually great. Given proper conditions, it’ll absolutely dwarf every other phantasm in terms of dps output. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of reducing your autoattack damage to something verging on literally 0. The staff autoattack is worthless for power damage. Due to this, even the fantastic staff phantasm almost never can make up for the loss of autoattack damage.

Conditions are abysmal in PvE on any class, and they’re even worse on mesmer due to the particularities of what conditions we can apply, and how we do it.

When push comes to shove, mainhand sword is your only truly viable option. While I wouldn’t instantly kick a mesmer using conditions or camping a staff/gs set, I would make a mental note that the dungeon is now a 4-man group, and the mesmer would be the first person kicked if the going got tough.

Allow me to repeat myself here – Spatial Surge is hardly used in GS-mode, it’s just a potential 3 stack bleed.

That’s the point. It’s a bad autoattack at close range. 3 stack bleed means nothing. You can cycle through the rest of the attacks and clear trash effectively, but if you’re on a boss fight, it now means that half of your weaponset is not very effective, since you can go 2-3-4 in about 2 seconds, and then you’re sitting around looking foolish for the next 8.

I technically consider 2 as an autottack, given you can reduce its cd to 4.8 so the gap is not as large as you think, imo.

Well, to be blunt, you’re wrong. A damage skill once every 4.8 seconds, requiring traiting 20 into domination (which is a poor choice) is not even remotely close to an autoattack. It simply doesn’t add up.

Again, it will work. It’ll just be bad. If you’re ok with being the weak link in every party, then go for it.