Guild Wars 2

Pwent.2639:

but its duration is a bit long especially with all the condi duration buffs.

Is this a joke? The vast majority of our confusion applications are 3 second base durations. Our confusion duration sucks massively.

shOOtstyle.8742:

Also the new consumable from LA, which gives you Swiftness for 30min sounds very good.

It is nice…but you’re going to want normal utility consumables for actual fights. So, if you feel comfortable eating a 20s consumable every time you want to move fast, then go for it. Personally, I won’t do that.

Ok, so here’s how the trait actually works. Illusionary persona causes shatters to also activate as if you were a clone. This creates an additional shatter effect centered on yourself. It does not actually increase the damage caused by each individual shatter.

There’s some other mechanic interactions with them that I’m not going to explain, but you can look into the wiki to get information them.

Do you know how the trait works? If not, I suggest you consult the wiki.

Could you be a bit more descriptive?

You can remove the one about confusing combatants, that was ninjafixed.

gesho.9468:

Overkillengine.6084:

So when you imply that power Necros are just spamming 1 ftw after that kind of posting setup, the one already crossing into incivility is you.

umm, no, not really. civility has many rules, but commenting on general playstyle or spells in a video game (as opposed to personal comments) is not one of them, not one that i am aware of anyway. i am no fun of dull care-bear conversation, but i try to be careful never to cross the line of offensive and rude language. while sometimes i fail, i don’t think it has happened in this thread (an please point to me if otherwise). and by the way, when i fail, i try to muster decency to apologize.

thread has digressed quite a bit from necro skills into ethics. frankly, i’d rather end it. i hope we’ll have a better communication next time around.

I think it’s rather telling that you still believe you’re right in your assessment of what happened, when you’ve managed the nigh-impossible feat of obtaining 100% consensus in the forums….that you’re wrong.

runeblade.7514:

condi mace/sword Warrior

What is this build?

Yeah, since when has condie mace/sword been a thing? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a warrior running that particular weapon combo…ever…for any reason in any build.

Also, phantasm mesmer should be somewhere in the top 3. It’s one of the few builds that can faceroll PU condie mesmer, and acts similarly with most everything else.

Alissah.9281:

The choice is obvious.

Currently on mobile, so I’ll just link some random pictures on the internet:
1
2
3
4
Not my best pictures, but it’s all i could find :P

character portrait sketch
Completed portrait

Awesome youtube banner Yes, my avatar blends in with the rest of the banner, atleast on PC.

Where’s that kitten one with the bullets

Edit: Found it, but it doesn’t show sylvari awesomeness, just a fat cat :p

Ok, so here’s the deal.

PvE: What works well in PvE is incredibly limited. It sucks, but it’s simply how the game goes currently until Anet figures out how to change it. What works well in PvE is a full zerker (can swap out pieces for cavaliers/knights if you want more defense) full phantasm build using mostly sword/focus + sword/sword. That’s really it. Anything else is less optimal, and hybrid builds like those using rampagers are really bad.

Now, a build like that can also work in WvW, it’s just less effective since you need more defense. It’s generally a much better idea to simply run the normal PvE build, and then play with your build to match your playstyle with regards to WvW.

Now, looking at the build you’ve got there, it’s going to be a bit weak. Rampagers is somewhat of a problematic stat distribution. You have the high crit and a bit of power, but the problem is that without high critical damage, your power attacks won’t hit very hard. Then you’ve got the bit of condition damage, but the problem is you don’t have the defense typical of condition specs in order to win an attrition fight, and you don’t have the full condition offense either. I’d recommend staying away from rampagers. If you really have your heart set on a hybrid, I’d recommend doing a mix and match of rabid and berserker gear.

Now for traits and weapons and theme. You mentioned in your post that you want a sort of phantasmy build, but the problem is that the iWarden is a really poor phantasm for actually doing damage in PvP due to its very slow attack. Then on your other set you have the torch phantasm….which does nothing at all. In your traits though, you’ve got phantasmal fury, and so that trait is being completely wasted because you don’t have any phantasms capable of good offense.

The rest of the traits are fairly standard for a defensive (PU) phantasm build other than that one random interrupt trait, but overall I just don’t think the builds going to do what you want it to.

@Calavel: Since you’re a little confused, I’m going to copy/paste a post I wrote up a while ago explaining how a lot of skills interact.

So…..

• Blowout
• Launch
• Knockdown
• Pull
• Knockback

These are all control effects. They are not affected by any type of duration increase. They can be broken with a stun breaking skill.

• Daze
• Stun

These are control effects. They are affected by various duration increases. They are broken with a stun breaking skill.

• Fear

This is a control effect and a condition. It is affected only by condition duration, but can be broken with a stun breaking skill, as well as removed with a condition removal skill.

• Bleed
• Burn
• Poison
• Torment
• Immobilize
• Cripple
• Chill
• Weakness
• Blindness
• Confusion
• Vulnerability

These are all conditions. They are affected only by condition duration. They can only be removed by a condition removal skill.

Hope that clears things up.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

gesho.9468:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I help people that ask for help, not those that complain without cause and refuse to listen. Such people deserve no help.

and to what kind of people are you rude and condescending?

The ones who complain without cause and refuse to listen…

This guy gets it.

gesho.9468:

Pyroatheist.9031:

And then you check their posting history and see they’ve been around for at least 8 months.
…
It’s a horrible build, he has no idea what he’s doing.

i have no idea pretty much of anyone of those who posted here and don’t care much about what flaws of their character gives them condescension or rudeness, i dont see any of these as my issue at slightest. apart from you. which is to say, i don’t know much about you either, but i have seen you active in mesmer community and helpful to many including myself on couple of occasions. pity you still came off like this.

ps: havent changed my opinion on topic.

I help people that ask for help, not those that complain without cause and refuse to listen. Such people deserve no help.

calavel.6249:

AFAIK it is the only skill in the game that will never be locked out/lose benefits by anything except daze.

I’m confused, why is it the only skill that doesn’t lose benefits, and why is daze an exception?

Blink is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but that statement makes little sense.

Dalanor.5387:

gesho.9468:

the build i was playing is full mantra phanta mesmer and only thief is allowed to kill me (working on that one too).

Hooooooly skritt … XD

edit: Now i can breathe again … Jeez … xD Khmm. So … Can a more experienced Mesmer comment on his build? It doesn’t look good to me.

It’s a horrible build, he has no idea what he’s doing.

skcamow.3527:

Mek.2947:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Mek.2947:

The only thing I’ve found helpful with focus is pulling people off walls, and sometimes dropping a warden in the middle of a group of people.

Focus offers

• High dps
• AoE
• Area denial
• Projectile destruction/reflects
• Swiftness
• AoE Pull/interrupt
• Condition cleansing
• Cripple

I was speaking to things you can do reliably.

Getting all those benefits in open WvW are extremely difficult. You have to be standing near the warden, ie near the enemy to get things like the reflects. In open WvW there’s a vast amount of space for people to avoid the warden and to avoid your temporal curtain. If you’re in a choke point then yes those skills are awesome, but it’s pretty situational. The GS is way more reliable for damage and cripple when chasing in open WvW.

I don’t know – from my personal experience, all of those things listed can be done reliably and without much difficulty, but it takes practice like everything else. It’s another reason mesmer is difficult to master (not saying I’m fully there). IMO focus is one of the strongest off-hand defensive juking weapon we have, paired with either sword or scepter main hand. Beauty is you can take the focus into those chokes or other larger fight and it does really well (especially if traited and unbugged).

Those can all be done reliably with the exception of high damage. The warden really isn’t high damage unless you’ve got someone in 1 spot for a good 7-8 seconds, and that simply isn’t possible to do reliably.

Sylvari. Definitely sylvari.

Benjifu.8451:

Instead of being offensive towards what I’m trying to explain barrage can destroy an Ac in 3 uses, and to those people questioning my AC placement I know good spots.. But like I said the AoE red ring of damage hits misses where I’m standing but still damages the AC, I dont see how any of you havent experienced this before.. The fact walls are a no go when a tower or keep is being attacked to me is ridiculous..

When a full thread of people are ridiculing your concerns, one would think you’d get the hint.

Aaaaaaaand a bump.

I tend to gravitate towards slightly tankier gear (cavalier and knights) for wvw roaming just to stay alive in slightly nastier situations. Full zerk isn’t quite as necessary for optimal performance as it is in PvE; PvP is always a bit more flexible.

In general, crit chance is better to stack on a Mesmer, but you say you had 80%? How did you reach that?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

short

I think your definition of short must be different than mine.

Regardless, top notch guide.

Retal could never be dodged, you are mistaken.

Renny.6571:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Not at all. Defiant stance is not invuln. Invuln is a very specific status effect with very specific implications, and defiant stance is not invuln.

I’d be so bold as to say it’s even better than an invuln. All the damage you take would’ve taken instead heals you, including preexisting conditions, for 3-4 seconds. The only thing it doesn’t do is let you walk through a ring of warding.

That’s neither here nor there, it’s not invuln.

Renny.6571:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Endure pain is not invuln. Warriors have precisely 0 access to invuln.

Defiant Stance determined that this is a lie.. soft of.

Not at all. Defiant stance is not invuln. Invuln is a very specific status effect with very specific implications, and defiant stance is not invuln.

Alchemist.3692:

Invul targets don’t summon phantasms… they just put it on full cd – which does suck against warriors particularly since you cant see their take no pain come on as any sort of animation or cue. I think that should be adjusted – though it hasnt caused me any real pain… just have to resort to other ways of dealing dmg

Endure pain is not invuln. Warriors have precisely 0 access to invuln.

2 new things I remembered today:

Both underwater phantasm skills can be activated without a target, causing the skill to go on cooldown while doing nothing.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

8h ago, OP created this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/do-all-profs-have-same-speed/first#post3679182

I think it is a L2P issue here, new player is new.

And then you check their posting history and see they’ve been around for at least 8 months.

/facepalm.

General info:

Clones are mainly just for shattering. They don’t do damage by themselves without trait support, and even then it’s indirect damage.

Phantasms are your damage, and PvE builds focus on phantasms to provide dps, as they attain a far higher sustained dps than shatter builds, where shatter builds are all about burst.

All illusions inherit your basic stats directly. They have their own secondary stats though. What this means is that direct stat modifiers like precision buffs or might will affect the damage they do, but fury (crit rate is secondary to precision) will not. Fury on the phantasms themselves will work though.

The one exception is vitality. Illusions all have a static amount of health that can be modified only with 1 trait or 1 signet.

Illusions (general term) are target locked. When you summon them, you summon them on a target, and when that target dies, they will die as well. You can help this by summonin them on different targets, or killing groups of mobs rapidly with aoe phantasms.

This makes them different from other types of pets. While it can be annoying sometimes, it ultimately makes playing much better due to how the AI works. With pets, the AI is complicated and doesn’t work very well. With illusions, the AI is simple and flawless: kill the target. They don’t run around aggroing random mobs, they don’t sit around not attacking (well, the warden does, but that’s a big bug that is getting fixed) and they always kill their target.

Xaylin.1860:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Just did some testing with Illusionary Counter (scepter 2). It’s bugged pretty badly.

Base Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Behavior with either Illusionist’s Celerity or Malicious Sorcery: 8 second cooldown if untriggered, if used for the active, or if the block is triggered.

Behavior with both Illusionist’s Celerity and Malicious Sorcery: 6 second cooldown if untriggered or used for the active, but a 10 second cooldown if the block is triggered.

Urgh…

Did you test Illusionary Riposte, too?

I didn’t. I also mistyped there, it’s an 8 second cooldown with both, it doesn’t go back up to 10 thankfully.

I’d love for it to be fixed, but I don’t have any faith left in the balance devs of this game, so I’m going to go ahead and say I’ll be surprised if it’s fixed by 2015.

Chaos.3579:

PU is not only amazing in 1v1 or small scale. it is just as amazing in large group fights and many other aspects of the game. i know this because i have used and tested PU before and after PU buff

You keep saying this, but everyone else says you’re wrong. What use is PU in a Zerg fight? You’ll stay alive, congrats I guess? You’ll still be useless. Other aspects of the game? Like what? PvE? Lol. The only other place for PU is in solo queue, or maybe lower ranked (less than top 1000) team queue, and it’s not stellar there either. You’re simply wrong.

Halcyon.7352:

Osicat.4139:

@Cufufalating: but that change would make Torch with its weak phantasm extremly weak for any no PU build. Cant baance a wep aroun a trait that not al build use. A shatter build with torch atm is perfectly fine (even if I not agree with al this doom talk about PU eather).

/Osicat

Except Arenanet does exactly that routinely.

Despite the given track record, I still agree though – they likely won’t change Torch too much, or probably at all. I could definitely see them giving the Prestige a cast time and a visual tell eventually though.

It actually has both a cast time and a visual tell. You can’t cast it while disabled, so it has some cast time, even if very small.

The visual tell for it is pretty subtle, but it does exist. There is sorta a sudden burp of air distortion, and that’s the activation effect of the prestige. I think there’s a sound effect that goes with it too. I’m not 100% on how to describe it atm, but I know that I can always distinguish it from say, decoy, and be ready to receive the aoe blast in a couple seconds.

Halcyon.7352:

I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned, but Critical Infusion is apparently slated to be nerfed, as mentioned in a livestream some time ago. That will possibly result in a hit to the PU build’s vigor and dodging uptime, depending on what’s changed.

They’re probably going to move it up to either master or grandmaster.

They’re increasing the cooldown to 10 seconds, that’s the change. As far as things go, that nerf will hit PU builds less hard than others, such as ‘s’ h a t t e r , since they have access to other defenses.

Edit: Bloody hell, the hoops I have to jump through to write normal words on this forum is mind-boggling.

Full mantras absolutely isn’t viable. No blink, no access to stealth, you’re just a sitting duck for thieves basically.

In general though, mantras just are too clunky to make effective builds based around them. You’ll try them for a while, but ultimately you’re going to end up realizing that you’re putting in more work for less results than almost anything else. It sucks, but until the devs rework mantras that’s the way it is.

Revelations.3154:

As a Mesmer who’s been playing since beta and has played every style. My achievements my skill that I have gained is getting glory hogged by one trait!? That’s where my ire comes from… I’m not trying to pick on players who use it…

You’ve trolled the forums since beta, and you get laughed out of them every time you show your face again….are those the achievements you’re talking about? You’re not doing any better this time.

See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-Theory-of-Everything/first#post2837815

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-A-Matter-of-Perspective/first#post2828003

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Discussion-Comparing-Between-Sword-Scepter/first#post2343997

Edit: Ooh this one too: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PSA-A-Scepter-s-Message-to-Mesmers/first#post2364061

Crossplay.2067:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Crossplay.2067:

The problem is our illusions sit in this weird limbo between abilities and pets. They can’t be treated fully like one or the other. If we are truly to accept this nerf then they should revert the “block” one. Let the summon come out and knock themselves silly against a shield.

Block has no effect on phantasm casts.

Are you sure? Granted I’ve been out of the loop for months but last time I used the zerker on a blocking npc, the “blocked” prompt appeared and my skill went on full cooldown. Since then I have been reading every patch update and have yet to see this change reverted.

I’m sure. It never has, and it doesn’t now.

Crossplay.2067:

Dhampyr.2104:

Wait, I’m confused… we’re supposed to wait until the game is unplayable and broken before we speak up?

My nonsense-o-meter just pegged.

Your statement’s ludicrous level of hyperbole is bad enough but Nonsense-o-meter? I’m just going to sigh heavily and move on.

There is an extreme difference between, “Hey Anet, this is broken,” even for the 15th time and… well… this thread. Truth be told, I’m likely going soft on them, for this particular issue at least, because I’ve been in this situation. I once spent 6 hours looking for one misplaced period within few hundred lines of code spread across several modules that caused my program to have 17 bugs yet still run. What really took so long is I didn’t even have the luxury of knowing that it was a period messing everything up.

Now imagine that same scenario but with the offending issue being among millions of lines spread across the hundreds of modules needed for this game to run. Now imagine that fixing it in one section causes a bug 17 other sections. A wise man once told me that programming is 10% coding and 90% debugging. I would usually follow this with, “truer words were never spoken,” but I feel he was being way too generous on coding’s behalf.

But even if we take out the normal stress that comes with the job, we’re still faced with quite a dilemma. If you were in charge quality control and this is how your clientele reacted, would you be motivated to fix bugs?

Yeah, but it’s not like this is an isolated incident. Anet habitually fails to do the most basic bug and quality testing of any content they release. This is something that happens every single release, every 2 weeks. Maybe the time for going soft on them was a year ago, but they’ve long passed that point.

Just did some testing with Illusionary Counter (scepter 2). It’s bugged pretty badly.

Base Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Behavior with either Illusionist’s Celerity or Malicious Sorcery: 8 second cooldown if untriggered, if used for the active, or if the block is triggered.

Behavior with both Illusionist’s Celerity and Malicious Sorcery: 6 second cooldown if untriggered or used for the active, but a 8 second cooldown if the block is triggered.

Camiele.7932:

I’ve been messing around with this in sPvP but seem to be having trouble doing much positive this afternoon/evening (guess the players better than me are starting to log in). I went with nightmare runes but everything else is basically the same as the original build on the first page. Any suggestions on some tweaks to tailor it more toward sPvP?

Take a peek at the guide in my signature. I’ve got some specific tips and a few build tweaks that make it work better in tPvP.

kylwilson.9137:

and my personal favourite and an increasing occurence

- If an enemy team-mate in sPvP is running PU, the match is essentially a <5 vs 5 match, seeing as they have literally nothing to contribute in conquest modes which is; yes that’s right, the only mode available in PvP.

Eh, that’s not really accurate. A well played PU build can easily carry matches/swing games. Playing PU conditions almost exclusively is how I maintained top 200 leaderboards back when I still did tournaments.

Also out of curiosity, what exactly is it about the pistol cd trait that you find so fantastic? It’s just a range increaser and a cd reduction, nice for sure but nothing to call home about…

Winning an outnumbered fight is not a matter of build, but of skill. In order to beat 2 elite players, you yourself must be unbelievably skilled, and such a person would not need to make a thread asking this question.

Practice more, that’s the only thing that will help.

It would end up being a bad thing in a build overall I feel, making your performance worse. If you had this trait, now you’d be wary of switching to fire attunement before your opponent stealthed, otherwise you’d waste your reveal. This would hurt your dps significantly, as well as really cramp some of your rotations. Additionally, they could counterplay it with things like going stealth just to bait you into fire out of water or something, and then burst you down with burst they prepared with that in mind.

Overall just a poor idea.

When someone with the basilisk venom buff interrupts a skill with that venom, if the person they interrupted has anything that causes an effect on interrupt, (traits/runes/etc) those effects will be applied to the person interrupted as if they had interrupted themselves.

Azgarn.2145:

This thread is ridiculous. It’s plain and simple obvious that mesmers have always been powerful and PU is currently OP.

chuckles

Azgarn.2145:

PU allows mesmers to have every single mechanic the game has.

chuckles more

What Jackums said about chasing is pretty accurate. As a condie spec you stop people from running away with creative applications of torment, not by actually chasing them down.

Personally, I use Perplexity runes. That being said, you need to know that the confusion duration bonuses on perplexity runes are all broken, it adds no confusion duration. I use them because I feel that the other benefits they provide are worth it.

It affects NPCs the exact same way it affects players: Damage on skill use, aka nearly useless.

Crossplay.2067:

The problem is our illusions sit in this weird limbo between abilities and pets. They can’t be treated fully like one or the other. If we are truly to accept this nerf then they should revert the “block” one. Let the summon come out and knock themselves silly against a shield.

Block has no effect on phantasm casts.

skcamow.3527:

False alarm here, folks. Patch notes were confirmed earlier by Anet to be bogus.

Must say that I’m surprised. The notes had that hallmark incompetence that is characteristic of the GW2 balance team…

Joonks.7501:

Why do you care?

Let me rephrase that.. You shouldn’t care.

Pretty much. I just chuckle and revel in the stream of tears I leave in my wake…