Guild Wars 2

Carighan.6758:

Whirlpool.9410:

Don’t underestimate the prestige’s role as a blast finisher! This can actually be very useful, and having fun with combos is one of the only reasons I use the torch in PVE myself.

Is this actually fixed now?
After a brief moment where it worked (“Collects” the blast finisher when disappearing if you’re inside a field, fires it off when you re-appear) it was broken again last time I checked and you had to stand in the exact same field both when disappearing and reappearing for it to work.

Which is… well… yeah.

Nah, it’s still broke.

Esplen.3940:

That would work. Remember, I am a solo player, so my thoughts were more towards X/Focus + Staff for AoE interrupts. You’d probably want to roam in small groups and then just control as much as possible. You could even go solo, but the build would be terrible vs 1vX, it’s only really even fights that it’ll work out (my way, that is).

He is looking for PvE build, going by the post.

Generally veil isn’t worth it for proccing prismatic understanding. It has such a long cooldown that you’ll usually be better off with a different utility—especially when you don’t trait the cooldown. It is great for the PU procs….it’s just that you’ll get far more mileage out of feedback or something else appropriate to the encounter.

Well, here are my thoughts. You really did a number on yourself since even pve condie builds use rabid gear for sharper images. Since carrion has no crit, that won’t work well. Essentially you’ve crippled yourself from a damage perspective. The logical step, therefor, is to make a build for which damage is not the highest priority.

I’m thinking you’ll want to run a version of jportell’s protection master. Take sword+torch and staff. 10/20/30/0/5—put the last 5 points wherever you want. You could even take 5 out of illusions or domination to inspiration for vigor on shatter.

The way this build works is you are a boon dispenser with prismatic understanding and signet of inspiration. You can actually trait for signet cooldowns to increase the frequency of the share. Most of your damage will come from staff clones and debilitating dissipation, which gives you a chance for a 3 stack aoe bleed when a clone dies. Your damage won’t be great, but your support will be very strong.

This isn’t really a tough question. 10/30/0/25/5 with full berserker gear is the most damage you can do with phantasms.

@Lue: Phantasm builds end up better than shatter at high content simply because it allows you to multitask into support.

The swiftness is primarily an open world pve thing. Having that easy access to permanent swiftness just makes exploring so much smoother. Having it in wvw isn’t a bad thing, but you’ll definitely be better off with something else.

For pve, the choice is clear: scepter is horrible. It has clone generation slower than dodge rolling, and nearly as slow as purely using traited mirror blade. It does low damage, has no utility (sword has 2 leap combos, vuln stacking, immobilize, cripple, and boon stripping) and poor active defense, where sword has invulnerability.

For wvw, scepter becomes a somewhat viable choice depending on your play style. However, to use shatter effectively in large groups, you have to be up close and personal or your clones will die too fast to get an effective shatter. For this, you need sword, both for the gap close of illusionary leap and the defense of blurred frenzy.

There is 0 reason to use the torch in pve unless you are combining it with boon stacking from prismatic understanding. Without that trait, the prestige is more or less useless in pve, and the Mage is completely useless. Don’t use it.

Clumsy.6257:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Clumsy.6257:

Kusa.6438:

That’s my point exactly, it only works when YOU’RE INSIDE IT.
So why are we casting it ON TOP of the mob?
That’s why I say it doesn’t work on tall mobs.
Maybe I should rephrase it “it doesn’t work, as the skill is intended to work, on taller mobs”.

technically you dont have to be inside of it, you just have to have the bubble between you and the projectile, but it seems like being inside of it with a mob that uses projectiles also negates it? (correct me if im wrong)

you should probably read my post before you say im wrong

You are in fact wrong. The feedback is not just a shell, all area inside of the feedback will reflect projectiles as well.

Ah, I linked your ‘it’ pronoun to the feedback instead of to the mob and its projectiles. My mistake.

In pve, I would absolutely stick to centaur or air runes. Having reliable access to swiftness without using a focus is really nice, and since it’s only pve, you aren’t going to need to worry about the small amount of stats you sacrifice to get it. Having that you swiftness uptime just makes a world of difference in how your general mobility feels.

As far kittenter vs phantasm goes, shatter is not appropriate for most high level content because it is bursty with little sustained damage. That makes it extremely good in pvp, but not good in dungeons/high fractals. For those, you want a phantasm build.

However, for open world pve, a shatter build works quite fine, and it also works very well in wvw. For just open world pve, go even more offensive than Osi’s standard shattercat: take greatsword +sword/pistol with the option of taking offhand sword instead of pistol. You don’t need any defense in open world pve. You can simply mow through mobs in an offensive build like this.

As an aside, the scepter is a flaming pile of sh*t, completely worthless. There is absolutely no situation (pve) where the scepter is not worse than either the sword, greatsword, or staff. It is slow, low damage, and has clone generation almost slower than your clone on dodge rolls. Do not use it.

@Dopzor: As I said in my original post, you appear to play pretty well, it’s simply difficult to tell because the opponents you were fighting were so bad. Many times they would just stand there or chase after your clones.

As for phantasm hybrid, you had (at various points) many points in the illusions trait line which is primarily geared towards shatter, especially illusionary persona. No full phantasm build would go that deep into illusions, and that is why I called it a hybrid build.

Signet of inspiration has a meh passive but an amazing active. That being said, the active isn’t always useful. I’ll take it if I know that my party members will be providing me with long lasting or powerful boons that I can double, or if I’ll be stealing long lasting or powerful boons from mobs we fight.

Clumsy.6257:

Kusa.6438:

That’s my point exactly, it only works when YOU’RE INSIDE IT.
So why are we casting it ON TOP of the mob?
That’s why I say it doesn’t work on tall mobs.
Maybe I should rephrase it “it doesn’t work, as the skill is intended to work, on taller mobs”.

technically you dont have to be inside of it, you just have to have the bubble between you and the projectile, but it seems like being inside of it with a mob that uses projectiles also negates it? (correct me if im wrong)

You are in fact wrong. The feedback is not just a shell, all area inside of the feedback will reflect projectiles as well.

On lupi it only works if you are in the bubble. It will not prevent him from shooting his attack.

It works on the effigy because his attack flows down to the floor, through feedback, then out, so it will reflect.

What do you want to use this build for?

@MysticHLE: That is accurate, he was running more of a phantasm hybrid, which is all the more reason his opponents should have been able to beat him; phantasmhybrids are weak in groups.

Nothing too special. They seem to play well, but nearly every single person they show fighting appears to be at least partially brain-dead or afk, so it’s rather hard to tell.

I don’t know any boss where I would rather use scepter over greatsword, staff, or mainhand sword. If I really can’t be in melee, it probably means I need a lot of mobility, so I’ll take staff and set up warlocks in safe places to do my damage. Otherwise, I’ll do more damage with greatsword at like 600-900 range iirc, or just use sword.

Somehow I think the devs have better things to do than spend hours a week playing on random wvw servers.

Unless you’re standing directly on top of the curtain, one dodge is enough to put you out of its pull range.

What the one second delay does is gives you the chance to see the curtain and dodge out of range. As it is now, there is no possible counter play because it can be detonated before the visual effect even shows up.

trooper.2650:

Excuse me for the noob question. Why isn’t Phantasmal Haste worth in a Phantasmal build? Wouldn’t it be a straight dps increase?

Phantasmal haste doesn’t work with swordsmen, so that’s one reason. Also, in larger fights it’s rare to have a phantasm survive long enough to attack twice, so phantasmal haste becomes unimportant.

Looks an awful lot like mine: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Supporting-Phantasm-Build/first

Take a look at that thread. It’ll have a lot of the answers you’re looking for.

LordByron.8369:

Iavra.8510:

Try not to get downed in the first place Bad comment i know, but we mesmers are all about damage avoidance. That’s what we are good in and we should make use of it.

its IMPOSSIBLE to avoid being downed.

Boss arent fair, they haven t cd and their aggro system leads them to ignore illusions.

See lava shaman doing in rapid succession on the same target Arrow/aoe/Arrow/aoe because they don t share cooldown.

try to not get downed….

I don’t get downed on the boss fight. I stay in melee range and protect myself using reflects and blurred frenzy. Alternatively, at long range you can simply strafe and the arrow will always miss.

It is very easy to not get downed on boss fights. You just have to be good enough.

Nikaido.3457:

trolololo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0B3ua0GEq8&feature=youtu.be

lolololo.

We feed on all the QQ, blood and tears.

[edit, just saw this gem :]

Zenith.7301:

They should perhaps reduce the groups a bit, but for once it’s nice to see an encounter in an explorable where you just can’t sit and melee the boss to death.

lolololo.

Ahhh yes, the time honored method of ‘stack and dps’. Gotta love it.

Please use the search function before reposting stale threads. This topic has been beaten to death many times, this is 100% unnecessary. Requesting a lock to this thread.

@DuckDuckBoom: The reason I call your changes op is simply because they are. Look at it this way.

Your change retains the original functionality of blurred frenzy. If you get hit while channeling, it turns into the normal blurred frenzy. That is unchanged.

However, it ALSO provides the ability to have a mobile 2 second invulnerability which has the potential to chain into the normal blurred frenzy.

You are effectively doubling the invulnerability uptime.

On top of that, you’re also giving a option to sacrifice invulnerability for large spike.

Blurred frenzy is already one of the best skills in the game. Your changes would double the invulnerability uptime and provide the option to turn it into massive spike. If you somehow think that people wouldn’t complain about this 3x as much, you’re completely off your rocker.

stof.9341:

Meh, I think they should instead transform the whole losing team into Moa for the rest of the round and prevent them from respawning at all. And reduce their movement speed by 50% too

Sounds like the little after-match critfest that happens in TF2

ronpierce.2760:

Evade destroys the point of skill shots/timing abilities, Boon hate destroys the idea of defensive(or otherwise) Boons, it’s to even the play field for the have-nots without making everything the same. I’m not saying make all of our auto attacks just go right through. Just some abilities that would be more powerful against high evade targets. If Characters and Necros can’t have high evasion/invuln, then why not at least be better at attacking those who do in little ways, not just every ability. I think you’re taking my suggestion to be too extreme.

Actually, no. Evade destroys the skill-less use of skill shots and poorly timed abilities, as well it should. If you can’t time your abilities to avoid them being evaded, then you shouldn’t be landing them, as per mechanics working as intended.

I’m unclear of how anything that you proposed would have a reason to be changed. Let me unclutter your wall of text for you.

Current blurred frenzy: 2.5 second invulnerable + conal cleave, mesmer is rooted.

Your changes: 2 seconds invulnerable with the ability to proc another 2 seconds invulnerable conal cleave if hit with the ability to alternatively have <2 seconds invulnerable to get high spike damage.

What exactly about this isn’t massively overpowered?

Broadicea.8294:

Dutch Master.7208:

obal.3218:

Your group should be grouping up mobs and cleaving them. Rangers have single target dps which adds little value in that scenario which consists of half or more of a dungeon.

Thats so wrong…
Piercing shots trait is the most important ranger trait, bar none.

also longbow 5, greatsword 1 2 3.
I wont comment on other ranger weapons because I havent used them in a long time.

My ranger does excellent aoe damage. I prefer when mobs get clumped up. All those numbers from a quickening zephyr + rapid fire through a crowd… so nice.

“My ranger does excellent damage” is the mark of an ignorant player who has no idea what numbers real DPS classes are capable of. You can tell by the lack of qualitative data, and the over-reliance on feels for the measure of damage output.

And misuse of the terms ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ are also the mark of an ignorant player.

Rangers can output quite high dps, as can most classes. They can’t match a full glass cannon warrior—no-one can do that other than by using projectile reflects—but they can still provide a very appreciable amount of damage while remaining safer at a large range than warriors can do.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

And one last time.

No.

I won’t go through all the things that you said because I don’t feel like it, but suffice to say, most of the points you’re trying to make are completely factually wrong.

In arah in particular, there’s very few fights where you’ll have an occasion to swap out of sword focus. Almost every single fight in that dungeon is trivialized with the skillful application of reflects. Additionally, swiftness shouldn’t be a problem at all in dungeons. Your party members should have enough group swiftness boons to keep it up most of the time while moving.

Lots of potential opportunities for griefing with fireworks unfortunately. Makes sense to not have them in there.

jadjay.8701:

I have been looking for a support build for a while now and this one looks promising but I have a few questions for you

-what is the radius on the mantra heal and the rune proc? ive looked around but no tool tips seem to show it.
-I know the regen will scale with healing power but does the restorative mantra trait scale with healing power?

that’s it for now, I might have some more once I get a chance to try it out a bit more

I believe the radius on the mantra heal and rune proc is in the range of 400-600.

All healing skills scale with healing power to some extent. Mantra heals only scale at .2, but they have a VERY high base value of 2600, making them inefficient to stacking healing power for while at the same time still very effective for healing.

Additionally, to those of you saying that this skill acts like the warrior whirlwind skill…it doesn’t. If you test it so that the target is against a wall and the phantasm is spinning into the wall, without moving, you will still see the same inconsistencies in hit numbers. I have tested this.

For those of you saying engies can do well with damaging/putting conditions on zergs, you would be correct if not for the effects of retaliation. An engie will kill themselves in just 1 or 2 seconds of throwing grenades. Due to retaliation, engies are 100% useless in zergs. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Moa is useless nowadays. It used to be good for evening odds in a fight, but then the Moa form got buffs and suddenly being a Moa was OP. Moa’s were nerfed sometime later but still, there’s very little advantage to turning someone into a Moa.

That said there is one excellent use for it. Mesmer targets Commander in enemy zerg. Mesmer turnd enemy Commander into Moa. Mesmer, or Mesmers Commander calls for all to target the Moa. Moa goes down to 60 men suddenly targeting his kitten . And you know what they say, cut the head off the beast….

Or, you know, just target the commander normally without wasting your elite slot.

Jasher.6580:

I can crush a Phantasm Mesmer with my Sword/Dagger Thief. Cake.

While an incredibly well played s/d thief does have a chance of beating a phantasm mesmer, I highly doubt that one as arrogant as you could do it effectively.

Maul.3284:

@garr. I’m in T1 and it gets used quite a bit in WvW and in PVP. Not sure what server you’re on.

LOL.

You really think people use moa in wvw? In T1?

‘guyzzz, I moaed one of the 60man zerg over there.’

’i’m helppinnggggg’

Maul.3284:

I don’t usually come on here or post on here but this needs to be addressed ASAP.

Moa needs to be nerfed it’s OP. Either give the victim a buff like immune to Stun/imbolize/slow etc or reduce the time to 2-4 seconds like every other stun/immobilize in the game. A buff to dmg while in moa state would give the victim a fighting chance because otherwise it’s GG when there’s more than 1 person attacking.

Moa > Stun > gg

How this has gone on for so long is beyond me. This is the most ridiculous ability in the game right now and needs to be removed or addressed ASAP.

At least look through one of the 12 other ‘ermagerd nerf moa guyzzzzzz’ threads before posting a new one…

Requesting deletion, quit making new threads for this topic please.

@DuckDuckBOOM&Daecollo: DDB is correct. The sigil of night doesn’t change anything but normal damage. There is absolutely nothing that can change condition damage and retaliation damage other than the actual stats Condition damage and power, respectively.

Daecollo.9578:

It lowers all outgoing damage, don’t be confused by “damage reduction.”

Its like this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_the_Night
It works on condition damage as well.

It also lowers the damage of retaliation as well, it lowers the damage of everything you do … except itself of course.

It would be rather silly quite honestly. Mesmers already bunker with the best of them, and giving another 10% passive reduction to damage taken + another damage return mechanism would be stupidly overpowered.

Sinaya.4201:

My thought was that if I could combine Cavalier armor (which I know has a somewhat poor stat:critical damage ratio compared to ascended jewelry, but hear me out) with a set of “of the Knight” (Major Precision, Minor Power / Toughness – stat combo does not exist on armor) Trinkets, I could get a decent mix of Toughness, Precision, Power and Critical Damage.

Mostly I was hoping someone new of some dungeon token or karma armor that had Cavalier stats that I’d missed, but apparently not. Pity! Will keep at it with Fractals and hope I get lucky!

If you’re trying to get a set of cavalier armor from fractals, you’re going to be very very disappointed. There are few things in this game that I would recommend against doing more than trying to farm cavalier armor in fractals. I can tell you right now, you will farm fractals for the next year, and probably not see more than 2 more pieces of cavalier armor. Use something else.

You can run that sort of build in wvw, I’ve done it. There are a few problems though.

• Illusions inherit our armor. This means your phantasms will have low armor, and they will likely die before even using 1 attack.
• This build has negligible defense and escapes. This means you can not roam successfully with this build.
• This build has again, very little defense. In zergs, you’ll find yourself downed waiting for a res just from stray aoes.
• This build has very low health, and attacks with a 3 target auto that does 3 hits at a time. This produces wicked retaliation damage, and that alone can down you quickly.

Exotic cavaliers gear is only found in fractals. Unfortunately, since all exotics found in fractals come account bound, there is no way to trade them.

Arganthium.5638:

“LOL you’re that one n00b theef that once made a post about mesmers dodge-rolling, rite? Water u doin in the mez 4ums?”

Now that that’s over with…

… How are mantra builds, in terms of competitive ability (tPvP)?

I want to start playing my mes a bit more, but I want to have a bit more of a unique build (that’s always been my thing, particularly among thieves). I’ve heard that Fay plays mantras, but I have yet to see any big talk about mantras anywhere on the forums.

Help would be much appreciated.

Mantra focused builds are poor.

That being said, mantras are great. I like to call them the ‘spices’ of our utility skills. Each one provides an interesting little bit of utility, and what they provide is extraordinarily potent. If your build needs a bit of potent condition removal, you can take the mantra for that. If you just need some on-demand interrupts, there’s a mantra for that. If you want to turbocharge mender’s purity for condition removals, you can take the mantra for that.

They are slow and the trait support for them is not (usually) great in PvP, but when added tastefully to a build that is lacking just that little something, they can really improve it.

Aneirin Cadwall.9126:

Let’s just have the Berserker use HB instead.

That would be interesting.

It’s really a matter of preference. The boon duration stacking is a nice build, but that’s also a really focused build. The centaur runes are easier to toss on to any build to get high swiftness uptime without requiring that the entire build be geared towards boon duration.

shyrith.3462:

You will likely get kicked from pug fracs if you are too lazy to change a utility slot. So I hope you have a static group you do everything with.

Your crediblity is rapidly deminishing when you make claims like that, and that 2 necros share bleeding. They just don’t. There must have been something else you weren’t taking into account. Which at this point wouldn’t surprise me.

My guess is that he had bleeds that ticked for …70 per tick, and the 2nd necro had bleeds that ticked for 130ish per tick, and the 2nd necro overwrote his ticks, and so you get a double kill speed. The third necro had lower bleeds than his, probably around 50 or 60, and overwrote some of the higher ones, resulting in a kill speed similar to the original one.

Chris.3290:

Can someone post, for comparison; a phantasm build and then the shatter build. I’m a relative SPvP noob and I could tell you real quick if the mechanics of the phantasm build is too noob friendly.

Shattercat Shatter Builds

Pick and choose one. I recommend the shattercat original if you just want to take a quick look at it.

Overpowered Phantasm Build

My personal take on the phantasm build. There is no known counter to it other than another phantasm build.

sorrychief.2563:

for hotjoin heroes and solo queue soliders

You’re pretty much completely wrong in everything you said in your post. However, for the amusement value of the quoted statement, I felt I had to recognize it somehow.