Guild Wars 2

Lapreea.4287:

http://bu.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1gy8ts/crystal_desert_commander_kate_austinmers_wvw/

http://darkcloudguild.enjin.com/forum/m/7410020/viewthread/7562198-kate-austinmers-build-for-wvw-mesmers-likely-to-get-buffed-during-next-patch

Actually blackwater, I got a build thats dated alot further back then yours, that can be similar. This build was posted, back before the torment patch, and it appears, that she even says that you can run the dueling line spec, in her guild posts…. so idk why everyone calls this blackwater, when its so similar to KATES >.>

Perhaps I’m not seeing it, but the build linked in the first link you gave is absolutely nothing like the blackwater build. It’s not even remotely similar. The second link you gave is in a private forum, aka useless.

I’m personally going for bifrost, and there’s a couple reasons for that.

Bifrost looks awesome, but almost as importantly, it is a varied weapon for mesmer. You can use staff in condition builds, power builds, and tanky builds, and that means you get full use out of the stat swapping capability.

Greatsword, while it looks amazing, you will only ever want it in power stats, maybe switching to something like cavalier or knight now and then, and so you really don’t get the full use out of your legendary.

This post is made from the perspective of a Mesmer.

So, as was mentioned a few times, the strength of the d/p thief lies in their ability to disengage through stealth. The obvious solution is to diminish this ability or to play in such a way that it doesn’t matter.

Direct Counter

Interrupts.

A d/p thief relies on traits that regain initiative in stealth and when using skills that stealth them. Black powder has a fairly hefty initiative cost, and if they aren’t able to stealth in it, that cost will add up rapidly. Well timed interrupts during the hss to stealth will rapidly remove the ability of the thief to disengage. Good skills for this are magic bullet, mantra of distraction, illusionary wave, and temporal curtain.

Additionally, d/p thieves absolutely must get more than 1 stealth combo out of each black powder otherwise they will run out of initiative rapidly. Standing in the field, while irritating to get blinded, will ensure that they can only get one combo.

Once the thief is low on intiative, they are vulnerable because they have lost their disengage ability. Capitalize on that fact with strong burst.

Indirect Counter

Burst damage.

D/p thieves aren’t generally known for their hearty dispositions. A strong burst combo can kill them in one go. This can be accomplished with a full shatter unload (diversion for vuln into wrack and bf). That can be done in less than a second, and so is extremely difficult to counter unless you see it coming.

Phantasm mesmers also do well. The phantasm Mesmer requires a bit of setup. You need to get 3 phantasms summoned on the thief, preferably swordsmen and duelists. Then you need to take a bit of damage. Try to do this when they don’t have BV ready or it could be painful, but the idea is to get the thief revealed. Due to how their ai works, all 3 phantasms will instantly attack the thief, landing the majority of the damage during the after cast of backstab. A quick blurred frenzy or a stun and shatter will easily finish them off.

Another way to do this is with a condition Mesmer burst. This can actually be the most effective mainly because it’s the most unexpected, and I’ve ended a lot of fights with d/p thieves within 5 seconds of engagement. The combo is something along the lines of getting the scepter block for torment, a few staff clones for burning, confusing images (perplex runes) for confusion, and then several clone deaths for bleeds and cover. What that combo does is apply 5 torment, burn, ~6-7 stacks of bleeding, and 8 stacks of confusion in around 3-5 seconds. I run with 2000 condition damage, and so not counting the confusion, that does about 3000 dps. On top of that you’ll have cripple, vuln, and weakness for cover. Since the d/p thief only removes one condition every 3 seconds, this kills the thief. If they attempt to escape via stealth, they’ll hit themselves with confusion a few times making the process even faster. The only real counter to that combo for a low hp class is to not get hit with it.

I personally prefer sword/focus over sword/sword for open world pve because you’ll often be killing groups of mobs, and the iWarden along with the curtain allows you to do that efficiently.

Far too strong is the problem. A more workable solution might be something along the lines of gain stability for the last second of the channel or something like that, but giving mantra casts permanent stability means there is no counterplay to them.

Well, it sounds like you’re low level if you haven’t tried 1handed swords yet. Your best open world leveling set will probably be greatsword + sword/focus for good aoe and ranged damage. Once you get to dungeons things will change slightly, but you don’t need to worry about that yet.

Virtuality.8351:

Suggestion: would it be better to separate the WvW builds into two section, roaming (solo or small team) and GvG (or zerg fighting, etc)? it should be easier for people to look up for the builds they need for particular circumstances.

And thanks for this post very helpful.

Not all builds can be separated that way though. Would be quite clunky to do.

Dem hax

…actually hax for real. Dem hax.

@Keenlam: As I mentioned earlier in this thread, you are NOT rooted for the duration of the pause.

Carighan.6758:

They are butterflies, and you’re trying to mess with the reason I love the class.

Stop.

Just play a different class. If you have issues playing a class with pink butterflies and pink fire for their graphics effects, then the problem is with you, not the class. And the devs certainly have more important things to do (like, hint, adding more pink butterflies ).

(edit)
To the rest of the forum: Don’t you sometimes wonder how people end up playing a class when apparently, they don’t like it at all? And then they take the stance of “I don’t get it, what’s wrong with it?!” instead of “I don’t get it, what’s wrong with me?”. Because yes, having rolled a mesmer despite not liking them is certainly the devs fault.
In fact, I think they should fix it by deleting the OP’s Mesmer. Problem solved! :O

Quoted for self evident truth.

juno.1840:

Pyroatheist.9031:

juno.1840:

The block response shouldn’t be dodge-able. The block is a defense response to a foe actually providing some sort of attack. If the opponent wanted to avoid the block/torment response then the proper “counter action” is to not attack in the first place when the scepter-2 animation is up. If the block happens, it’s my opinion that the rest of the chain should happen (regardless if the foe dodges or not). Removing the abort on self dodge would be a nice quality of life feature.

ANet is a bit over reaching in trying to give everything a suitable dodge window. It’s like Dodge-Wars.

The issue with this view is you don’t need to actually counter a skill with the block. You can just put up the block and walk through an aoe field or something, and that would be 100% guaranteed torment without a response time.

Is the torment actually applied on AoEs? Has anyone verified. I thought it only worked on directly targeted attacks. The reason I say this is I don’t get a clone for spurious blocks using scepter-2 (which is this use-case we’re discussing).

It works precisely the same on aoes as it does for normal attacks. If the person who dropped the aoe is out of range of the block, then you won’t get the clone or torment. It works exactly the same.

juno.1840:

The block response shouldn’t be dodge-able. The block is a defense response to a foe actually providing some sort of attack. If the opponent wanted to avoid the block/torment response then the proper “counter action” is to not attack in the first place when the scepter-2 animation is up. If the block happens, it’s my opinion that the rest of the chain should happen (regardless if the foe dodges or not). Removing the abort on self dodge would be a nice quality of life feature.

ANet is a bit over reaching in trying to give everything a suitable dodge window. It’s like Dodge-Wars.

The issue with this view is you don’t need to actually counter a skill with the block. You can just put up the block and walk through an aoe field or something, and that would be 100% guaranteed torment without a response time.

Ultimately, if the scepter block instantly applied 5 stacks of torment at 2000 range through blinds, blocks, dazes, invuln, evade, and was unremovable, sure, I’d love it.

Unfortunately for Ash, that will never happen because that would be imbalanced as kitten.

Ok, now that I’m on a computer, I can wade through this mess.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The problem with the range being that someone at 900+ range can hit you while you are suing the block and suffer nothing from it…

Yes, that’s the point of range. Someone with 1200 range beats someone with 900 range. I’m not entirely sure what part of this you don’t understand. You don’t get to have infinite range torment application just because you whine about it.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

How do you define spam? They can hit with it a MINIMUM 3 times, this is not even counting the initiative they can regain during the attacks so it could be 4 times. So that could be 8 stacks as well as the damage from the skills, damage from traits and possible sigils such as Earth AND it moves them AWAY…

So the thief skill applies torment, then shadowsteps them about 900 range away. There are 2 ways to do this more than once. One way is to have your back to a wall and spam it. This will never happen. The other way would be to burn cooldowns like steal, shadowstep, or that one signet to repeatedly shadowstep to the target in order to apply like 6 torment. This would be stupid, and the thief would be bad.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

They can hit you and damage you and they SHOULD be affected by it. I mean whats the point in it if they can hit yo and then dodge at the right time to then have damaged you and dodged the damaging condition – what have you gained from that?

Uh, dodging at the right time is called counterplay, or skilled play. That’s working as intended.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Lets see, the Necro one is an AoE that involves a Immobilize as well. Now at times the immobilze can be more valuable than the actual condition.

So the necro skill involves an additional condition that necessarily means the torment will do less damage? Ok. Also, the necro application is slow, and in death shroud, and has a 40s cooldown. You seemed to forget those bits.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Lets face it they have pretty much every other condition in the game so they DONT need it to be 5 stacks to still be a threat.

Unimportant.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mesmer = Block with a CHANCE to inflict it if you are not forced to dodge or if they dodge or stun you.

This isn’t something with a ‘chance’. Saying it like that implies RNG. It has a ‘chance’ in the same way eviscerate has a ‘chance’ to land if it isn’t dodged, blocked, stunned or blinded…aka how every single skill in the game works.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

No affect to classes that get to 900 range.

Been over this already.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Then you get onto the fact its a 2 second duration. Plenty easy to i dont know – stop attacking wait for the block to end and then continue attacking they are little threat when using the block anyway as they cant attack you.

Or, you know, use the block skillfully so that you’re blocking an attack or walking through aoe with it as opposed to kitten ing around with your arm in front of your face yelling ‘hit me!’.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Even if they attack, How many classes can just remove it/send it back in seconds? A possible counter tactic could be see them with scepter, swap in AT wait for them to shield take the damage and instantly send it back, Necros can do this as well or they could just use it for a bigger heal.

This contributes less than nothing to the discussion.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Having to WAIT after you have made the block for it to proc is just silly. It should be instant. They attack, you block they have torment. It should not be They attack, You block, You wait, they attack some more, then they get the condition.

The pause is tiny. It allows for very skilled counterplay. End of story.

@Dank: The warrior skill is pretty good, and I forgot about it. The ticking torment is interesting, as it ends up doing less burst, but longer duration. Both better and worse, depending on your source of removal. It’s also a projectile, so keep in mind it suffers the whole suite of vulnerabilities that all projectiles have.

@Ash: Don’t feel like going through your fail logic on my phone, so I won’t, but I will say one thing which is the thief torment shadow steps you away. In order to spam it, you must have your back to a wall.

@Dank: I think weaponskill blocks take priority over aegis, not 100% sure on that.

Ok, just put together a build that pushes it a bit higher.

Full dire, 0/0/25/20/25, runes of scavenging, with orrian truffle soup. Same sigils and whatnot, all the trinkets were the ascended mix dire/rabid.

This pushes it to 3085 on gw2buildcraft, but I’m using a chryscolla jewel instead of a major sigil of bursting there, so it should get a bit higher.

linky

Edit: For some reason the manual buffs didn’t link, so you have to go in and manually add 500 condition damage for guard leech, stacking sigil, and bloodlust buff.

So just as a reference, at 3000 condition damage, 5 stacks of bleed + 5 stacks of torment + burning = 3500 dps.

Bear on the job.6273:

Pyroatheist.9031:

So, to maximize condie damage for real, you’ll need to go full dire 0/0/25/20/25

I don’t really know if you want to do that, but there you go.

Rabid and Dire gear both provide the same amount of condition damage, the difference being precision (rabid) vs vitality (dire) as a secondary stat. And with Sharper Images, rabid is the proper choice, not dire.

Tuning crystals scale off of vitality as well as toughness, making dire the maximum possible stat bonus for condition damage.

Edit: Undead runes also are required for utter maximum condition damage.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

1) You are Rooted

False.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

2) Dodge at wrong time its wasted

True, this one is annoying.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

3) They move out of range(900) and its wasted

Yes….I fail to see the problem here. You want your torment to have infinite range just cause?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

4) They dodge its wasted

Yes…I fail to see the problem here. You want your torment to be undodgeable just cause?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Its FAR harder to apply it with Mesmer than it is for any other class.

Wat. Lets see, necros get an aoe 3 stacks of torment with a slow obvious skill that can easily be dodged with a 40s cooldown. Thieves get 2 stacks of torment on a skill that literally can not be spammed, along with (at most if traited for it) 4 stacks of torment on a minimum 36s cooldown that can be easily avoided or nullified since they’re on-hit effects of a venom.

Lets see, easy ways to apply torment…Ooh, I’ve got one. How about a skill that applies 5 stacks of torment guaranteed for 8s base duration if it lands, that also blocks an attack, spawns a clone, does damage, and is on a 12 Second Cooldown.

If you think mesmers have it bad with torment application, you’re absolutely mad.

Continuing on…

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

It should have been made Aura

Wat.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Its range needs to be changed to 1200 to make it a threat to range classes as well

Or, you know, since the scepter is a 900 range weapon, 900 range makes actual sense?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Making it so that you cant move during it is stupid.

Again, this is not a thing.

Then you also get into the fact that it procs on clones, minions, pets and other summoned NPCs so it getting onto the right target can be very tough.

Or you could just play better and block the right attack. Sometimes I want to block an attack from a pet or summoned NPC. If I’m fighting a phantasm mesmer, I don’t care about blocking that random scepter auto, I care about blocking that swordsman about to chunk me for 5k damage.

This particular skill demands skilled play for effective use. If you can’t use it effectively, that means you’re not skilled enough.

@OP: I think your problem is dodging during the interval between the block and the application, that’s the only thing that could cause it to fail so often as you are describing.

So, to maximize condie damage for real, you’ll need to go full dire 0/0/25/20/25

I don’t really know if you want to do that, but there you go.

So there is a maximum range on the torment, it’s about 900 iirc.

Additionally, the skill takes a moment between the block and the time it applies the torment. It sorta phases you to one side, spawns a clone, and applies torment. If you dodge during the time before it applies the torment but after the block, you’ll interrupt the skill.

In general, applying the torment is more an issue of using the skill properly than anything else. There aren’t really any ‘tricks’ to it.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

UPDATED 10/9/13

Um, I think I got everyone divided between US and all you people with funny non-’Murican accents. =P

Ya missed me in NA for a few things actually :p

If anything, I’m not quite as available in EU for dungeons and wvw since my mesmer is still a baby, but I do have that account.

So there’s multiple issues with this build.

The biggest problem is that your traits are just completely unfocused. They don’t seem optimized to really do anything. You have a couple shattery traits, a couple weapon damage traits, a phantasm trait, and then 2 glamours without any glamour traiting.

It just doesn’t really make any sense.

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

Hey Lahel! As much as I respect you and your build making skills, too, you have no right to call someone a troll unless they directly engaged you and annoyed the kitten out of you. This person here told you that this was his first attempt at a build. So what if it looks funky right now. The weapons sets are solid. All he gotta do is change some armor stats and 1 or 2 utility skills and he is good to go. Again, like I said, I respect you too, but you shouldn’t try to down a player when it’s his first time posting a build he made up. It ridiculously discourages them.

wince

Yeah, going to have to agree with the general sentiment. This build looks like it would be able to annoy me. It wouldn’t kill me. It wouldn’t hold a point. It wouldn’t take a point. If it attempted to actually engage in direct combat, I would crush it.

Honestly, it’s a build designed to do nothing but be annoying, and that’s pretty much nothing.

So, the blackwater and related builds rely pretty heavily on clone-death traits. Without DE, those traits become close to useless.

You could swap the points out of domination, but you’d lose your only source of condition removal.

Dietzen.6127:

Psych.6527:

This is not a bug, the revealed debuff can also be procced from bouncing attacks.

Winds of Chaos and Mirror Blade are big culprits because of their distance and speed of the projectiles(i know WoC is not technically a projectile), even going stealth after the initial hit, if the “projectiles” hit again onto a enemy of a bounce the revealed debuff will proc.

No this has not happened to me on Sword/x(i dont run pistol, rather not derail by stating why), it could be possible that there was still a WoC bolt flying whilst you change to sword/x.

Suggestions, be aware of your projectiles and abilities used before going stealth,

Aye, as I also mentioned in the OP, I don’t believe it to be a bug, and I can hear that my suspicion has been confirmed that it must be staff bounces, or maybe pistol bounces… It may be best to just stop attacking for a few seconds before going invis.
And this is even though I don’t have the extra bounce trait and I am still being revealed a lot, kitten those winds of chaos orbs move slow!

Another option…do you have an on-swap sigil?

Yeah, this is going to be bounces getting you. Each individual WoC bolt exists for a pretty long time as it goes to a target, hits, bounces, hits bounces, hits. That’s a lot of time for you to get revealed with it so you have to be very careful.

Another thing that will unstealth you randomly will be reflects.

It does not remove a condition when the prestige ends, but all the other parts are correct.

This question is rather silly.

Theoretically, a flawless thief is not possible to beat, because you won’t be able to do enough damage to them. They will dodge your lock downs, cleanse your immobilizes, and disengage at will.

Theoretically, a flawless mesmer is not possible to beat. They will dodge your lockdowns, block your backstabs, and cleanse your bleed stacks.

I’m really not sure what you’re asking here.

To add my own impressions:

Evasive Signets

This build was definitely better than I thought it would be. I will agree with Chaos though in that it’s the most unique of the bunch. It actually has a very good amount of survivability and pretty good effectiveness in dueling. In PvE, however, it simply doesn’t do enough damage due to gear and traiting choices to be an optimal build. In WvW it does pretty well, but loses a bit of effectiveness in zerg fighting due to limited aoe options. In PvP, it does things decently, but the problem is that it fulfills no specific role. In PvP, every person on a team is taken for something specific that they can do, and this build doesn’t have anything that fits.

Bountiful Interruption

This build, although I’m highly biased against interrupt based builds, actually is pretty good. It has the best damage of the 3 builds, and so is the most effective in PvE because of it. In PvP, it does really well with aoe control and boon support for the party, while supplying pretty strong damage. The greatsword knockback combined with chaotic interruption actually provides some interestingly strong utility for decapping points. In WvW, it does quite well in small fights, but any strong solo roaming build will eat it, and it loses effectiveness in zerg fights due to it’s fragility and lack of strong aoe damage at range.

Blackwater Conditions

This build is the weakest in PvE of the three due to the fact that it’s condition based, among other reasons. No surprises here really. In PvP, it’s actually surprisingly strong, but you have to play it right. You use it as a highly offensive aoe condition pressure build as a mid point attacker. It combos very well with a necro if they are able to spread the torment, and just makes it very hard to stay on a point, since staying on a point means getting hit with all the clone explosions. In WvW, it’s incredibly strong. There are very few builds that can beat it in a 1v1 fight, making it an incredible solo roamer, as well as it being extremely surivivable and capable of taking on 5-10 or more people at the same time with smart play. It transitions smoothly into group fights, fulfilling a similar role as in PvP with the aoe condition pressure, and then can be easily modified with a couple trait and utility swaps into an effective zerg build. An all around incredible WvW choice.

Just as a head up, the way you are calculating damage based off of ‘attack’ and the % boosts is completely wrong. Go take a look at the damage page in the wiki for more information.

At any rate, something you mentioned is really the biggest reason the mantra offensive build simply isn’t good in pvp. You’ve filled your bar with mantras, and yet your damage depends on them not being used. Basically what you’ve done is you’ve sacrificed your heal skill and all 3 utilities for 16% damage, and that’s not a good trade.

Nice catch. I’ll test it out.

TooBz.3065:

Lahel.6381:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I"d like to help, but there isn’t any build listing or description in the video or in the description for the video. This is all I can tell:

Scepter/Focus, Sword/Torch, possibly perplexity runes. Ether Feast, Decoy, Blink, Arcane Thievery, Mass Invisibility.

I believe it is 20/20/30/0/0

Dom: V, IX
Dueling: I, X
Chaos: V, IV, XII

It’s not perplexity runes, and the condition damage is too low to be undead. I’m thinking travelers.

Sword/torch: Superior sigil of corruption/superior sigil of doom
Scepter/focus: Superior sigil of corruption/superior sigil of doom

Lots of crits, but they don’t hit super hard, along with pretty much base hp. I’m thinking full rampagers with possibly maintenance oil and rare veggie pizzas. Still not sure about runes though.

Looks really weird to me, cause even with travelers rune in a condition dmg based armor set, torment should hit for around 90~ and bleed around 100~

My own bleed tick for about 110 maybe a little more and torment 107 or something and I have perplexity, but perplexity shouldnt cause such a gap in condition damage.

I might be wrong, and if I am I stand corrected.

just realised you wrote rampagers, and if that is the case I can understand the low damage ticks

I don’t think its a sigil of corruption either, because the bleed ticks stay pretty constant whether there are 11 or 19 stacks. Maybe perception?

Yeah, you may be right, problem is it’s impossible to tell the level of orb buff he currently has, which screws things a lot.

At a glance Kai, it looks like a phantasm build lite, while taking PU for some boon support maybe.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I"d like to help, but there isn’t any build listing or description in the video or in the description for the video. This is all I can tell:

Scepter/Focus, Sword/Torch, possibly perplexity runes. Ether Feast, Decoy, Blink, Arcane Thievery, Mass Invisibility.

I believe it is 20/20/30/0/0

Dom: V, IX
Dueling: I, X
Chaos: V, IV, XII

It’s not perplexity runes, and the condition damage is too low to be undead. I’m thinking travelers.

Sword/torch: Superior sigil of corruption/superior sigil of doom
Scepter/focus: Superior sigil of corruption/superior sigil of doom

Lots of crits, but they don’t hit super hard, along with pretty much base hp. I’m thinking full rampagers with possibly maintenance oil and rare veggie pizzas. Still not sure about runes though.

Due to all of the 3 builds being PvP/WvW focused, we’ve weighted PvE performance at 50% the value of PvP and WvW performance.

Bountiful Interruption

WvW: 6/10
PvP: 8/10
PvE: 3.5/5

Total: 17.5

Blackwater Condition

WvW: 9/10
PvP: 7/10
PvE: 1.5/5

Total: 17.5

Evasive Signets

WvW: 7/10
PvP: 4/10
PvE: 2/5

Total: 13

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

colesy.8490:

How long is the auto chain’s duration? Is it 1.5s like the wiki suggests or longer? If it is, then fully buffed, 6k DPS from mesmer isn’t surprising.

2.5s like every other auto chain ever.

So you’re saying that mes does 15k damage in 2.5 seconds with their autoattack. Yeah, no.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Uh, wow. Please don’t just say random things if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Similarly, please stop listening to people who clearly have no idea what they’re talking about.

Unbuffed, no consumabkitten ons, or stacks, ruby orbs: 0/20/0/25/25 P/D:
Mesmer: 1700
3 Duelists: 2100 + 600 in bleed

Buffed, 25 vuln, might, fury, banners, Empower Allies, Curry Butternut + Potion:
Mesmer: 5300
3 Duelists: 4800 + 1400 bleed

Buffed, all of the above + Spotter + Frost Spirit:
Mesmer: 6000
3 Duelists: 5100 + 1500 bleed

So the split ranges between about 40/60 and 50/50 depending on the buffs you actually have. If you use Scholar, it pushes it more towards the mesmer, if you use ruby, more towards the phantasms. That’s with Duelists, if you use Wardens or Swordsmen your damage skews towards the mesmer a lot more since they don’t do as much.

Uhhhhhh where in the hell did you get those numbers for duelist damage? Idk what you’re fighting, but unless they have like 10k armor and protection, your duelists are goign to hit far harder than that.

DPS, not “the biggest number I see.”

Ok, but if it’s dps, then your mesmer numbers are 12 types of wrong. Mesmer isn’t going to be pulling 6k dps.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Uh, wow. Please don’t just say random things if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Similarly, please stop listening to people who clearly have no idea what they’re talking about.

Unbuffed, no consumabkitten ons, or stacks, ruby orbs: 0/20/0/25/25 P/D:
Mesmer: 1700
3 Duelists: 2100 + 600 in bleed

Buffed, 25 vuln, might, fury, banners, Empower Allies, Curry Butternut + Potion:
Mesmer: 5300
3 Duelists: 4800 + 1400 bleed

Buffed, all of the above + Spotter + Frost Spirit:
Mesmer: 6000
3 Duelists: 5100 + 1500 bleed

So the split ranges between about 40/60 and 50/50 depending on the buffs you actually have. If you use Scholar, it pushes it more towards the mesmer, if you use ruby, more towards the phantasms. That’s with Duelists, if you use Wardens or Swordsmen your damage skews towards the mesmer a lot more since they don’t do as much.

Uhhhhhh where in the hell did you get those numbers for duelist damage? Idk what you’re fighting, but unless they have like 10k armor and protection, your duelists are goign to hit far harder than that.

Ok, lets see here.

Alpha.1308:

clone attack speed

Since when has that been an issue?

Alpha.1308:

stealth stacking

Not sure what you’re referring to.

Alpha.1308:

swiftness stacking on focus 4

This was changed back in the betas so you couldn’t dodge back and forth over the curtain for infinite swiftness. A clunky fix, but that’s why they changed it.

Alpha.1308:

illusionary elasticity on (SOME) clones

Yes, staff clones. This is an issue.

Alpha.1308:

various other issues like clone offhand,downed state big HIT ME I’M HERE mark

This was obviously done by design.

Well, bunker builds are specifically designed to not die. That being said, the bunker buster build we have is phantasm 10/30/0/30/0. That’s probably the fastest way to kill a bunker of any type.

Realistically though, you should never be facing off a 1v1 vs a bunker. If they stuck a bunker at their home point, just leave it and go mid. If they stuck a bunker at mid, you shouldn’t be trying to solo it.

Ansau.7326:

If you’re attacking only with sword autoattack, then I think the % from phantasms goes down to 60% more or less.
Doing something else, like summoning a phantasm, healing… will make your phantasms to have the % Pyro said.

I’m thinking even just straight autoattack will be at least 80%.

Assume each autoattack chain is roughly the same duration as a swordsman attack. 1k 1k 2k gets you 4k for an auto chain, and 6.5k for a swordsman attack. That rounds out to around 4/23 for yourself or about 17/83 split.

Probably well over 90%

EnderzShadow.2506:

First I want to say, what a great community and thank you for the replies.

Because of the build that was mentioned by seventh and an ensuing conversation about the Blackwater build that included you (Pyro) and a few others in another thread, I decided to try it out.

The build being 20/20/30/0/0
Scepter/Torch Staff
Rabid Gear with Runes of Perplexity

The gear I have isn’t all exotic, just playing in green gear, rare weapons and exotic runes to get a feel for how the build plays before I commit to buying expensive gear.

The first thing I notice, is the feeling that I have repeatedly had anytime I take a condition build,

….how do I say this, they feel like ‘counterpunching’. They don’t feel very offensively inclined. They are not aggressive. My first reaction is to go after people. My natural inclination is to not not go after people halfheartedly, drop a couple clones and “react” by blocking or interrupting ….bleh.

I want to go after them, put a boot in their @$$, and then run/stealth/kite, to be able to reopen on them. Or stun them and reopen. (almost sounds like a thief)

And here is where I feel conflicted…. please correct me if I am wrong. But condi builds can set it and forget it—-and that makes for a little extra time, and not having to constantly focus on burning their target down, they can play more creatively and help the group.

And just the opposite with the Power builds, they need to focus on that one person, and if they let off to help a team mate , then they have just effectively wasted their build and the time they put into taking out their opponent.

Would love to hear your opinion on this Pyro as well as anyone else who wants to chip in.

Mesmer condition builds in particular, more so than any other class, really do rely on the countering style of play. A lot of your condition pressure revolves around either your clones dying or landing the torment block. It’s definitely not very easy to actually chase someone down in a mesmer condition build.

So instead, you have to play it in such a way that people chase YOU down. I personally like to go zerg tickling, or do a lot of roaming in the ruins, where people are actively trying to kill you. In this situation, you don’t have to worry about getting someone to attack you, that’s already taken care of. Those situations allow you to really maximize the use of the mesmer condition builds.

Your impression of ‘set it and forget it’ for condie builds is pretty incorrect though. The closest any builds comes to that is probably either a phantasm build or a ranger beastmaster build, but not really. You can’t really just load someone up on conditions and hope they die, you have to continually reapply the conditions, keep the pressure up, etc.

Similarly with power builds, focusing on one person then letting up to go help a teammate isn’t wasting their time, it’s simply changing focus. In the greatsword phantasm build, you have a lot of aoe pressure, and that allows you to spread out your focus without really trying too much. In the more offensive version, you have 2 high damaging phantasms, and that allows you to either concentrate both on 1 target, or split your focus between 2 easily and effectively.

I guess I’m just a little unsure of why you think changing targets results in a waste of the time and effort you’ve put in. It’s not like your previous target is able to instantly pop back up to full combat effectiveness. If you took chunks out of their hp, they’re either forced to back off and heal, burn cooldowns, or enter into a fight while severely vulnerable.

EnderzShadow.2506:

Question is simple, if I go for a mainly "ranged’ (greatsword) build, am I gimping myself?

Are mesmers meant for up close and dirty melee fights?

It feels contrary to how I want to play the class…like I am using a screwdriver like a hammer.

Mesmers can play ranged pretty effectively, as well as getting up close and personal. Fortunately, you can do both in the same build.

Greatsword is a fantastic weapon for wvw fighting. It allows you to have strong power damage from long range. There’s a number of different builds you can use though, and your best choice will depend on what type of fighting you would like to do.

You mentioned that you want to run small groups and roaming. Greatsword is a strong choice for small group play. In roaming situations though, it’ll be a bit less optimal. The reason for this is greatsword has strong offense, but limited options for defense. The greatsword really excels when you can stay a little bit out of the fight and just let your phantasms and ranged damage tear people apart. In a small fight, you’ll also probably want to have a sword/focus as your swapped set. This allows you to have aoe disruption as well as retaining the ability to skirmish well.

Once you drop your small group and go solo roaming, you’ll want to change your setup a little bit. You have a few options for solo roaming. You could toss on a staff for the strongest defense option, or you could go more for a high offense build that I prefer: sword/pistol +scepter/sword. Either way, you’ll lose some group fight ability, but drastically increase your 1v1 effectiveness.

The traits I recommend are either 10/30/0/30/0 or 20/20/0/30/0. Both of these options are phantasm specs and will do well. The 10/30 build is more optimized for the roaming route, and the 20/20 is more optimized for the greatsword and small group fights.

KOPPER.1458:

well im a noob can you explain to me?

Sure. This build has the potential for some of the strongest condition burst in the game. Multiple stacks of confusion, burning, high stacks of bleeding, high stacks of torment all within a couple seconds, on top of cripple, weakness, and vulnerability. A significant amount of this condition pressure is also aoe. These attributes make this build excel against multiple opponents, and it’s nearly impossible to actually attack someone running this build without getting killed rapidly (pretty much only phantasm builds can pull it off).

On top of this (when I run this build) you have a 1200 range traited blink, and of course the defensive utility from prismatic understanding, along with very high toughness and strong condition removal from torch, which makes it incredibly difficult to actually pin down someone running this build. It means it works very well in outnumbered situations, and the recurrent stealth allows you to disengage and reengage nearly as effectively as a thief.

Really the only single weakness this build has is that it can be difficult to stop some classes/builds from running away (also phantasm builds can kill it…but that’s more of an axiom of gw2 pvp).

Ross Biddle.2367:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Lahel.6381:

And that’s when you think, hey PU is really only a good trait for running away or against opponents stalling for time to get back-up or are confident in taking you on.

Ps: I know many PU specs can take on 1vX fairly easy

This build does suffer from chase down issues…but what else is new in the world of Mesmer…

Build better.

It’s not just chase, but also escape. Blackwater is as like toying with a flaccid kitten, and in the long run, nobody likes playing with those.

That’s amusingly insulting, and hilariously incorrect, but I don’t value your opinion enough to explain why.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Pfft. Kai as long as you’ve been on the forums helping people, you’re part of the guild (which is pretty much just an extension of the forum) whether you like it or not.

@Pyro: Should I mark you down for like.. everything? And am I free to use whatever snide descriptions I’d like? >=]

Go for it :p

It removes 1 condition per bounce, half of what the disenchanter does.

Lahel.6381:

And that’s when you think, hey PU is really only a good trait for running away or against opponents stalling for time to get back-up or are confident in taking you on.

Ps: I know many PU specs can take on 1vX fairly easy

PU is a strong trait for a lot of things, especially this spec. I use perplexity runes myself when I run my variation of this build, but I use them simply for the extra pressure they provide, not because I want to focus on confusion.

If you add on the normal 5-10 stacks of confusion you’ll get just playing normally to the rest of the condition pressure, you now have a far more potent tool than 25 stacks of confusion and nothing else.

This build does suffer from chase down issues…but what else is new in the world of Mesmer…