Guild Wars 2

Nyel.1843:

Is something known about ANets will to add new skills?

Yeah, we believe they’re going to add new elites next.

Succinctly though, their approach to adding new skills is grudgingly and slow.

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.

Nyel.1843:

Hey there,

I just wanted to ask what the hag ANet wants to cause with our Mantras.

They don’t know. They’re bumbling around trying to get them to work.

Nyel.1843:

Are there any viable builds out there with at least using two or more Mantras? Is anybody using them?

2 Mantras? Sure. More than that? Questionable. 2 mantras still falls within my personal mantra use definition: as a spice to add that extra bit of ‘something’ to a build. So if I’m facing a condie engineer or necro or something, sometimes I’ll take mender’s purity + heal mantra + condition removal mantra.

Past 2 mantras though, and you’re really pigeonholing yourself into long charge times and inability to effectively fight once your charges are gone.

Edit: Sorry, this was a post based on PvP. For PvE, you basically go 30 into dueling and then stick in mantras as default utilities wherever you can to boost your damage.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Ever since it’s become an AoE, MoConcentration has been looking rather promising (it hits in a 240 range, which is about the distance of a side capture node in PvP). I knew it had gotten a lot of praise in dungeons, but recently I’ve been bringing it to PvP and it works very well.

While providing AoE stab is usually a Guardian thing, this mantra is glorious in teamfights for securing stomps. Has anyone else been using it extensively and found other good uses for it?

There’s 2 main issues with having it commonly used.

First issue is that you’re sacrificing a utility for it, and mesmers are a little bit cramped on utility options.

The main problem though, is that you have to be in range to get it to work, and that’s not always viable. If you’re running any sort of glassy build, hopping down onto a point in the midst of a teamfight is a great way to get yourself condie-loaded and killed.

Paul Kay.4891:

Well it appears I have to resign from using Greatsword(because of counterproductive 1 and 5) and Staff(because of 2 and insufficient illusion-making power) in dungeons.
That’s… saddening :/
Might go Scepter+X and Scepter+X/Staff, but supposedly condition damage is bad in PvE. I’m interested to hear more about this.

I don’t really like main-hand sword, all else goes really :s.

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.

So, what I’ve recommended to several people but never used myself is a shatter build. I’ve heard great things about it but again, I have no personal experience using it in a zerg.

Standard 20/20/0/0/30. GS+Sword/Focus. Standard traits as well, you’ll definitely want to take shattered concentration over gs cooldowns, then 1200 range manips and illusionary elasticity for the extra gs bounce.

The gear you’ll want is full knights armor/weapons, and full cavaliers trinkets. This gives you a ton of toughness, but good offensive stats. You’ll want to be taking blink, feedback, and something. Mirror images is potentially a good choice, or stab mantra perhaps.

The way you’ll want to play is really tight with the shatters. You obviously can’t let the clones sit around much, so you need to get in close, drop a clone from a skill, dodge, and shatter. What this allows you to do is pretty high pbaoe damage and boon stripping.

infantrydiv.1620:

Pyroatheist.9031:

infantrydiv.1620:

Soon all pve/pvp skins will be interchangeable, so just make the skin and hopefully in a few months you can wear it in pve

wat

You will be able to use your pve gear in pvp, and pvp gear in pve

I think you 100% missed every point OP was trying to make.

infantrydiv.1620:

Soon all pve/pvp skins will be interchangeable, so just make the skin and hopefully in a few months you can wear it in pve

wat

Paul Kay.4891:

After poking around the skill tree for a couple hours, I came up more or less with something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJARGGJMzo3IHNjrndSKadqB-zABBZmFRjt4qIas6aYKXER1iCIiA-e
Basically spawn illusions at a fast rate and alternate between F1 and F2 shatters and while you are not shattering, stack yourself and your allies on boons and enemies on debuffs(Winds of Chaos+ Mirrorblade+Chaos Storm). Instead of relying on crit, condition damage makes up for it.

Thoughts? Critique? Optimization? Thanks!

Honestly it looks pretty terrible.

Spawn illusions at a fast rate? You don’t have deceptive evasion, so the only illusion spawning you’ll be doing is from mirror blade and phase retreat, which won’t be a ‘fast rate’ by any definition.

You don’t have any damage in this build, crit or condition. You said that condition damage makes up for a lack of crit damage. What condition damage? The only condition you can reliably apply is confusion, and confusion blows chunks in PvE. As for power-based damage, you have no phantasm damage boosts and you don’t even have illusionary persona, so your shatter damage will be very low as well.

So to round it up. That build has no potential to do any damage of any form. It doesn’t apply boons effectively since all your boons are quite low base duration. It has no access to reflects, nor any damage modifiers to make those reflects do damage. Honestly, I’d kick your build from a party, because it would be utterly useless.

Sola.7250:

It’s sad Anet can’t seem to fix this, it been broken for how long now?

Too long.

I just tested right now. I’ll quote you and put in my notes.

skcamow.3527:

FWIW, here are my findings following the patch today:

Base Recharge is 10s

No CD traits taken

• Illusionary Counter untriggered: 10s
• Illusionary Counter triggered: 10s
• Counterspell: 10s
• Tootip: 10s

This is accurate. It is also accordingly accurate for the sword block.

Only Malicious Sorcery taken

• Illusionary Counter untriggered: 8s
• Illusionary Counter triggered: 10s (BUG)
• Counterspell: 8s
• Tooltip: 8s

This is accurate. For the sword block, it triggers for the correct cooldown.

Only Illusionist’s Celerity taken

• Illusionary Counter untriggered: 8s
• Illusionary Counter triggered: 9s (BUG)
• Counterspell: 8s
• Tootip: 8s

Again, accurate for counter, but the sword block has the proper cooldowns.

Malicious Sorcery and Illusionist’s Celerity taken

• Illusionary Counter untriggered: 6s
• Illusionary Counter triggered: 9s (BUG)
• Counterspell: 6s
• Tootip: 8s

This is accurate. For the sword block, the tooltip is bugged, but all the cooldowns are proper.

Anyone please feel free to validate. That 9s thing is odd, but pretty sure that’s what it is.

Oh, actually watching it, I was wrong before. The invulnerable spam was from a clone, not from him. Sometimes clones and such will go invulnerable for unknown reasons, probably the same mechanic that makes the harpies in the uncategorized fractal go invuln as well.

Paul Kay.4891:

Pyroatheist.9031:

This sorta depends on how you define viable. Will you be able to kill things and complete content? Yes. Will you be mostly a dead weight on your team? Also yes.

By viable I mean run ascended and dungeon content well and not be dead weight on the team.

Absolutely not. While the phantasms on both weapons are not bad, you’ll be sacrificing any possibility of good reflect utility, you’ll be doing very minimal damage outside of occasional phantasm attacks, the phantasms while decent are generally not as strong as a swordsman, and the cooldown traits for those weapons are in spots that are not taken in most good dungeon trait sets.

medohgeuh.4650:

I can’t even imagine that weapon combo being viable in any game mode.

It’s a good tanky phantasm build for pvp. Can also be a decent shatter setup and an aoe weaponset for Zerging.

This sorta depends on how you define viable. Will you be able to kill things and complete content? Yes. Will you be mostly a dead weight on your team? Also yes.

From my experience, I’m fairly certain that eso is going to have some enormous balance issues that don’t seem to be getting addressed at all. The entire combat system is built around high cost skills with no cooldowns, and a limited resource pool that prevents spamming. However, I believe that endgame builds will be able to gain enough regeneration bonuses that non-stop skill spam of powerful skills will become an enourmous problem. This could make any eso pvp just an unpleasant experience.

I’ve already tested and discussed this bug. See the ‘20 Mesmer bugged skills’ thread.

So phantasms have a general summoning point, and then it’s randomized around that location. Zerker and warden, for example, are centered on the target, while the duelist and warlock are centered on the Mesmer.

Well, the spit spam is reflectable. Not sure what else to say.

If he went invulnerable, he used distortion.

Eastcorn.5901:

From the perspective of someone who is not a mesmer. I play engineer.

When I see a mesmer roaming in WvW, and it’s a PU mes I automatically think “aww, a PU mesmer”, and rocket boot away to safety. My only gripe with PU mesmer is something that is true for all stealth. I can’t aggressively counter it. I just block, reflect and dodge and counter it passively.

I’d like a skill that lets me inflict revealed before they stealth, like what rangers have. Give all classes a way to inflict revealed on skills THAT ARE NOT WIDELY USED ALREADY that require a clicked target to work (that way you need to inflict revealed BEFORE they stealth). Which means don’t add it to an engineer’s grenade kit, kitten .

Unfortunately, some of the skills that would best reflect the type of ability that would reveal stealth (engineer’s analyze, warrior’s on my mark, thief scorpion wire) are, like, instant cast. Skills that reveal should be interruptable, because designing a counter to something should have its own counter. Although Ranger’s sic em does not have a cast time. Oddly enough. Also, at the moment guardians have no single-target ability that is niche that can be fit with this, unless they put it on a spirit weapon (HAHAHA no).

Also, I have a question. After reading some of these posts here, apparently some people run PU mesmers in sPvP. I’ve encountered only one so far (most mesmers I encounter use the shatter and old phantasm builds). It was quite easy to deal with as the typical rabid condi bunker engineer. They’d never hold the point that long because they kept stealthing. Even if I die I could just come back and recap. Is PU mesmer actually good in sPvP?

Yeah, having options for counter playable revealed is absolutely a good idea. Anet might have to change some things to make it work, but it’s definitely a good idea.

As far as PU in tPvP goes, it’s a strong build in solo queue and lower rank team queue, but I wouldn’t recommend using it in high level team queue. A good PU Mesmer can duel without relying on stealth. The stealth is basically a tool that allows the Mesmer to effectively control an outnumbered fight without dying, if necessary. If a team lets a PU Mesmer control a 2v1 on a point, then they’ve lost. Check the guide in my sig for more specifics.

Another reason why having the clone spawn directly on the target is a bad idea is that it separates the swap utility from the leap.

Currently, if the clone can reach your target, i.e. it can path to your target, the leap will be successful in moving you to your target. However, this is only the case if the clone actually paths to the target. If the clone simply gets summoned on target, then you’d be able to summon the clone on targets that you couldn’t leap to.

Additionally, if the clone simply summoned on target, having the skill be a leap finisher would make no sense, and I rather like having a double leap finisher on demand.

Lastly, just because mesmers aren’t in the meta right now doesn’t mean that adding overpowered skills is a good idea. No matter how viable any given class or build is, adding skills that lack counterplay is always a bad idea. The game should move as a whole towards more counterplay, not less.

Zaxares.5419:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Zaxares.5419:

I like the Scepter as a clone-generating machine

A weapon that generates clones almost slower than dodge rolling with vigor?

yeah…..

Not all of us go with Deceptive Evasion.

I understand that, but the fact that it generates at a comparable rate is a statement about how horrible it is for that purpose.

He revered metrics
To give a guide to the wuv
The metrics were wrong

Boonprot.6274:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Boonprot.6274:

pza.8024:

Mitsubishi Eclipsed.6732:

pza.8024:

edge no, soil yes. i can already see them war banners used for nothing

There’s something g that already does this. It’s called poison. If you are poisoned while in the downed state and someone tries to war banner you, you will remain at the downed state.

http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-more-you-know.png

sorry to say, but this is simply not true. poison does not prevent war banner rezzing. i couldn’t test myself but i let my guild test it and the result was negative.

It reduces the amount of health gained from bannering. So, if your health is sufficiently low and you’re poisoned, you will not rally from a banner. They’re partially right, but not completely.

That’s not a thing. Bannering doesn’t just add health to your downed bar, it rallies you. Poison is a significant counter to ‘Toss Elixir R’, not to bannering or other straight revive skills.

Just read your sig. It’s a mystery to me that someone who hosts a mesmer podcast and has a guide to solo queue doesn’t understand how banner works. Poison countering bannering has been a staple of GvG strategy for aeons.

I stand corrected. I’m curious as to whether that holds true for skills such as vengeance and Illusion of Life.

MailMail.6534:

skcamow.3527:

MailMail.6534:

Pyroatheist.9031:

MailMail.6534:

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

Because chaotic interruption isn’t particularly good?

On the contrary… In my experience it has been devastating in lockdown builds, especially in combination to Temporal Curtain. You can essentially trait it with many of the Mesmer weapons, but I like the focus pull the most.

Yeah CI is definitely good, but not as good as PU.

A good Lockdown Mesmer will be able to beat a good PU mesmer. All it takes is simply finding the right Mesmer (which is easy) and then you know… locking him down. Chill will kitten the CD of stealth, and most lockdowns “should” be able to keep the damage high & steady.

Yeah….that’s not true at all. PU mesmers don’t have many things that actually can even be interrupted, and it’s fairly easy to bait out a lot of the interrupts and just stunbreak them. Additionally, lockdown mesmers are forced to spend a lot of their build devoted to (obviously) lockdown, and are often very low on condition removal.

wolfpaq.7354:

Just curious, how else did they break the warden? Does he still reflect projectiles?

If he decides to attack, yeah. A large portion of the time it just spawns and then engages your target in a staring contest.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Ptolemy.5086:

Axel i have to disagree with you. Mesmers have an exellent cond management but 90% prefer to use other skills instead of cond removals.
Mendels purity if you use mantra of recovery as a heal removes 2+2 cond instantly or 2 every time with any other healing skill. Mantra of resolve removes another 4 instantly. Null field.
I always run mantra of resolve. Usually it is enough in 1v1 fights with almost every cond build. So far i have an issue only with good cond engis. They can melt me in seconds. Necros not so much and cond thieves are my favored type to fight. Fast glass cannons are much worst.

I was referring to the lack of condition cleanse in weapon skills.
Of course you should take a condition cleanse in your utilities, but that doesn’t suddenly make you a counter to condition Necromancers. It will help you deal with them, but any decent Necromancer will let the fight drag on till you can’t take it any more.

Depends on which cleanse you take. pDisenchanter is a defacto hard counter to condimancers.

Broken with the warden since they broke the warden back in December.

Boonprot.6274:

pza.8024:

Mitsubishi Eclipsed.6732:

pza.8024:

edge no, soil yes. i can already see them war banners used for nothing

There’s something g that already does this. It’s called poison. If you are poisoned while in the downed state and someone tries to war banner you, you will remain at the downed state.

http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-more-you-know.png

sorry to say, but this is simply not true. poison does not prevent war banner rezzing. i couldn’t test myself but i let my guild test it and the result was negative.

It reduces the amount of health gained from bannering. So, if your health is sufficiently low and you’re poisoned, you will not rally from a banner. They’re partially right, but not completely.

That’s not a thing. Bannering doesn’t just add health to your downed bar, it rallies you. Poison is a significant counter to ‘Toss Elixir R’, not to bannering or other straight revive skills.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Lishtenbird.2814:

• Added #26 (Halting Strike/Mirror of Anguish)

Just a note. It’s not a bug with halting strike. Halting strike and the other interrupt traits are basically just doing what they’re told to do. The bug is with the interaction between Mirror of Anguish and Shocking Aura.

Changed. So that also means all other on-interrupt mesmer traits trigger multiple times as well.

That’s correct. I was pulling 25 might instantly from bountiful.

eldenbri.1059:

One observation around pve and melee range – the Molten Alliance protectors seem to be designed to counter this. Maybe this mechanic has been in the game for a while, but I had never noticed it before. If you haven’t seen it, the protectors make a ring of fire on the ground. Everything inside that ring gets a fire shield that negates damage. You have to pull the mobs out of the ring to damage them.

So greatsword is handy for that. Maybe Anet will use this approach in other places to reduce the “stacking is the best tactic” advantage that melee has today

I mean, sure. Focus still does the job better. If you’re talking open world events…then greatsword has always been a strong weapon.

Lishtenbird.2814:

• Added #26 (Halting Strike/Mirror of Anguish)

Just a note. It’s not a bug with halting strike. Halting strike and the other interrupt traits are basically just doing what they’re told to do. The bug is with the interaction between Mirror of Anguish and Shocking Aura.

MailMail.6534:

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

Because chaotic interruption isn’t particularly good?

Zaxares.5419:

I like the Scepter as a clone-generating machine

A weapon that generates clones almost slower than dodge rolling with vigor?

yeah…..

Yep, nailed it. Basically it’s some sort of odd interaction between shocking aura and mirror of anguish. When you interrupt the ele with the mirror of anguish proc that procced due to a shocking aura stun, it somehow tricks your interrupt traits into thinking they need to go crazy. I’ve gotten it to proc up to 8 times at once in my short amount of testing.

Edit: Just got 9 times.

Reesha.7901:

Halting Strike bug?

All though this works in our favor and all though I have never ever had this happen to me:
Take a look at this

I would guess the bug is related to a particular Elementalist spell and Halting Strike.
Regardless: fun to watch, not working as intended and a perfect opportunity to bump this topic right back to top of the list where it belongs.

I think I see what it is. I’ll test it out in just a minute.

dimyzuka.7051:

Thief > mesmer is one of the hardest counters in the meta atm.

Sorta. Thief counters the standard meta builds that are capable of being particularly useful in a tPvP situation. There are other builds that can rip thieves apart, but they aren’t viable in an organized team for other reasons.

FLiP.7680:

CptAurellian.9537:

Every time I see a mesmer use GS #5 in PvE, I wish there was friendly fire in this game …

Yeah sure, mesmers… because engineer and rangers with 15s knockback are not annoying at all.

Well, if a ranger is using pbs, that means they’re using longbow….so the problem is sorta pre-empted.

Rengaru.4730:

Ok, so I’ve done a few more games, with an updated build and recieved better personal results (guess I outplayed myself the hardest with an outdated build ).

However im still getting matched up with players of a way higher rank than me, this makes me wonder if the matchmaking system completely ignores the rank (I dont think it should).

Here are some screenshots of a few recent games, I’ve calculated the avereage rank to be ~50, while my own rank is 35…

Ranks mean absolutely nothing about personal skill. This is why the leaderboards ignore rank. The leaderboards function on a hidden MMR value that will increase if you win and decrease if you lose. If you lose enough games, you’ll eventually get matched up against worse opponents.

Note that worse opponents doesn’t necessarily mean lower ranked opponents, just worse ones.

Mitsubishi Eclipsed.6732:

pza.8024:

edge no, soil yes. i can already see them war banners used for nothing

There’s something g that already does this. It’s called poison. If you are poisoned while in the downed state and someone tries to war banner you, you will remain at the downed state.

http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-more-you-know.png

Yeah…you’re just completely wrong. Hate to break it to ya.

Vague Memory.2817:

If I see a thief first it’s more of a fair fight. Most of the time they surprise me from behind and I’m pretty much dead.

So this is a bit of a learn to play issue is the thing. Thieves, contrary to popular belief, don’t roam around in stealth constantly. If you keep your camera moving, keep aware of your surroundings, you will almost always see thieves before they engage on you.

NinjaEd.3946:

You guys seem to get the free ride when it comes to stealth. Nothing but slander for thief due to stealth… I rarely see a “nerf X” post in this forum. Care to trade places? ; ;

You conveniently seem to forget that mesmer is unviable at top level pvp, thieves aren’t.

Lilium.4270:

Mesmer is also very much pigeonholed into melee considering the lack of good ranged options. Its not that I dislike melee combat but I always pictured my mesmer to do ranged combat and attack from a distance.

Are you talking PvE or PvP here?

In PvE, everyone is pigeonholed into melee combat. That’s just the way PvE efficiency works.

In PvP, Greatsword is a fantastic weapon, no complaints.

Deax.1572:

My greatest concern is Dagger/Pistol thieves which just Black powder + Heart seeker all day long. If i catch them with Sword 3# and root them for a bit + 3 clones shatter it usually gets them low, however i’m now on CD and they just continue Black powder + Heart seeker.
I’m fine with stealth and d/d thieves but d/p perma stealth is getting absurd.

Are there any hard lockdowns that can help?

Just put up phantasms and wait. This works even if you’re in a shatter build. Try to avoid the backstab with dodges/blocks/blurred frenzy, but the idea is that once they pop out of stealth, all active phantasms will immediately attack them. So, get 2-3 phantasms out and wait. If you then follow that instant phantasm burst with a leap/swap shatter combo, that should kill them.

Another thing you can do is interrupt the heartseeker bit of the combo with something. Black powder is a very init intensive skill. If they are forced to use 2 black powders to get into stealth, they’re going to end up really low on initiative really fast.

Yeah, what build do you use, what game types are you playing in, and how much practice do you have? I rarely lose to thieves anymore, even in shatter builds.

Kiallendor.1064:

Pyroatheist.9031:

And all that being said, please don’t run condition builds in PvE. Your future teams will thank you.

Even though everyone expects people to play with full berserk and scholar runed gear, I would at least like to know my options with a free ascended weapon that I got about a month and a half ago instead of it being a waste of space :p

Could always take it into wvw/eotm. Condition builds are highly viable in PvP.

And all that being said, please don’t run condition builds in PvE. Your future teams will thank you.

Pwent.2639:

6 seconds is not something you can sit out in a fight unless you want to die.

Yes it is. If the build is applying confusion lasting that long, that’s literally the only thing the build will do effectively. So take your pick, counter with condition removal, counter with ignoring it and attacking through it, or counter it with /dance, but anything works.

Pwent.2639:

Yeh but with condi buffs and trait it sits around 6 seconds reduce those 3 second confusions to 2 seconds and but the damage by 30-40% or increase the stacks. It would make it way more fun to play.

6 seconds is a pretty low duration, and the only way to get that would be by using the 30% trait, the 40% food, and being traited 30 points into domination. In other words, you’d have a absolutely useless build that couldn’t do anything except apply still low duration confusion.

This problem you’re complaining about doesn’t exist. In fact, you’re so wrong you’re backwards. Most mesmer confusion skills need their duration and their intensity increased.

jarthur.3649:

/ptolemy ya forgot to mention the boons also forgot to mention flowers cause bleeding, and I agree that mass invis is better when your dealing with a group of people, only seen one group in wvw since i got back on everyone is in edge of mist now, as for an AOE attack killing them all in one go it would have to be an attack that does around 4500 damage and covers a pretty large area which i’m more than happy to let them waste on my flowers. and i agree for pve just use full zerk armor which is the reason I have a set sitting in my bank along with a great sword and pistol. as for iwarden mine doesn’t glitch that often and actually follows the enemy and attacks them which ya a smart person will move out of range when the attack start which is why i treat iwarden same as blurred frenzy and immobilize or stun so they get hit for the entire attack plus whatever else i hit them with

Take root is pretty useless against both 1 person and many. Mass invisibility is very useful against both 1 person and many.

If I see someone take root and I’m in a condition build, I just walk away…or ignore the flowers because they barely tickle. If I’m in a power build, I autoattack them a couple times and they die…or just walk away. It’s got a huge animation, you can’t catch anyone off-guard using it, it’s basically just wasting your elite slot.