Guild Wars 2

Escthiil.3210:

I’m not even sure if all of you are just trolling or genuinely just became aware of this.

Anyone who didn’t feel it was necessary to shell out exorbitantly high prices for the Khilbron’s et al armor sets would have never noticed this occurrence, including myself.

Yeah, I’d toss this over to the bug reports forums.

I wouldn’t, and haven’t, kicked based on scepter usage. Some people prefer to stay a bit farther away, and if it keeps them alive, I won’t worry about it.

Torch is a different issue. Bringing a torch means you are wasting your teams time, as it provides neither utility nor damage.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Pyroatheist.9031:

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Embolism.8106:

Even at medium range Spatial Surge is probably as effective as Ether Bolt, more so if you can hit multiple enemies with it. As Pyro said, at close range you really should be using the Sword, which does more significantly damage and can hit multiple targets.

I use Staff Sword and Torch. The use of the Scepter has been more of an experimental newbie form of play.

As of right now my mode of attack, when soloing in pve is, start with a long range attack via the Staff. I pop Clones, Phantasms, Chaos Storm, the Shield and use Mantra of Pain during this faze. When the combat gets close, I switch to Sword and Torch and use Blurred Frenzy, followed by Prestige ( the flame blast ) and Phantasmal Mage. With that combination I’m able to get quite a few kills.

This all is coming from a level 38 perspective.

Thanks for the reply.

The torch is a horrible weapon for pve. There’s literally no situation in pve where you should be using the torch.

Put on an offhand focus/sword/pistol. The torch is useless.

Torch seems to be a viable weapon in my opinion. You’ve got Prestige that gives an AOE blast that causes damage over time. I’m running a condition damage build so that’s a plus and Phantasmal Mage has high damage output.

Well, as a general rule of thumb, a condition damage build for a mesmer in pve is going to be drastically inferior to a power/crit build, simply because of how our weapon mechanics work.

Aside from that, the iMage provides 3 stacks of confusion for 3 seconds. Confusion is really really bad in pve. With very very very few exceptions (maybe 2 or 3 mobs in the game) a power phantasm will heavily outdamage the iMage. On top of that, the iMage is on an absolutely massive cooldown, has 0 utility, and the torch trait is in a really weird spot.

Phira.3970:

^ Seems to be working for 3 bounce w/o the trait.

And still needa edit my post… they changed the underwater phantom to do confusion instead of bleed…..

I tested it out, my original testing was correct.

Keep in mind, # of bounces = # of hits -1. When the bolt hits your target, BOUNCES to you, then BOUNCES to your target, that’s 3 hits, but 2 bounces.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Embolism.8106:

Even at medium range Spatial Surge is probably as effective as Ether Bolt, more so if you can hit multiple enemies with it. As Pyro said, at close range you really should be using the Sword, which does more significantly damage and can hit multiple targets.

I use Staff Sword and Torch. The use of the Scepter has been more of an experimental newbie form of play.

As of right now my mode of attack, when soloing in pve is, start with a long range attack via the Staff. I pop Clones, Phantasms, Chaos Storm, the Shield and use Mantra of Pain during this faze. When the combat gets close, I switch to Sword and Torch and use Blurred Frenzy, followed by Prestige ( the flame blast ) and Phantasmal Mage. With that combination I’m able to get quite a few kills.

This all is coming from a level 38 perspective.

Thanks for the reply.

The torch is a horrible weapon for pve. There’s literally no situation in pve where you should be using the torch.

Put on an offhand focus/sword/pistol. The torch is useless.

That’s interesting, I’ve always understood that on-weapon swap sigils had a separate timer from on-crit sigils, but I could certainly be mistaken. I’ll have to do some testing on that.

Phira.3970:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Siren%27s_Call

“The tooltip states that the skill bounces 3 times, but in fact only bounces 2 times without Illusionary Elasticity. The clones summoned that cast this are also affected by Illusionary Elasticity. "

^..

Can anyone confirm that?

I thought that Siren’s Call hits enemy, bounces back to you, and hits enemy again. Then traiting for Illusionary Elasticity would only increase 1 bounce back to us for a boon.

Depending on what’s really happening with Siren’s Call, I’d have to edit my post again.

I’m pretty sure I wrote that particular wiki blurb. I do believe my testing was accurate, but feel free to test it yourself to doublecheck my work.

On-crit sigils and on-weapon swap sigils do not share internal cool downs.

@Ron: I’m not quite convinced yet that you’re quite as blindly idiotic as others that make posts here, so I’ll do my best to be civil in this response.

To make a long story short, almost everything you have said is factually wrong.

First, there was no change to clone mechanics. They do not display the boons of a Mesmer, or any things like that. Finding the real Mesmer is, and always has been, a trivial task. Clones don’t have offhands, they don’t display boons or signets or food buffs, they attack slower than the real Mesmer, and their ai pathing is rapidly recognized by someone paying attention.

With rare exceptions (staff/trident clones in a condition damage build) clones do not do damage. That sword clone won’t do more than maybe 5-10 damage on a zerker geared level 80.

Shatters have cool downs. Simply having clones or phantasms around does not mean you can shatter them.

Veil is on a 90 second cool down, and lasts 4 seconds. Decoy is on a 45 second cool down and lasts 3 seconds. Mass invisibility is on a 90 second cool down and lasts 5 seconds. Only 2 of those are aoe.

With 3300 armor, mind wrack won’t do more than 7k at the absolute maximum for a full zerker, illusionary persona, 4 clone wrack.

Unless the Mesmer is using scepter, quickness will not affect the clone generation rate, as a such skills have cool downs…and cool downs do not change. Additionally clones don’t do damage, so hasting them changes nothing. Phantasms do damage, but their skills have cool downs as well, so their overall dps will not change either.

So in conclusion, pretty much everything you thought you knew about Mesmer mechanics is extremely incorrect. Your complaining is amusing to us because you base it on absolutely false arguments. If you want to learn how mesmers play, then play a Mesmer, or make a post in these forums asking how particular mechanics work. However, if you make a massive whine thread like this base on completely false arguments, you’ll get exactly what you see: people trolling you because of the absurdity of your post.

ITT: People who understand a class poorly making unsubstantiated claims and offering poorly thought out, absurdly bad ideas.

I’d go into more specifics, but I’m sick and tired of this sort of idiocy appearing on our forums, and the result would just be this post getting removed along with an infraction point tacked on.

Never. Anet doesn’t balance around 1 vs 1 fights.

Daishi.6027:

I like almost any weapon other than axes so I’d be down with anything.

To bad shields are not part of A-nets design choice for scholars unless a they change their minds

Neither are greatswords.

That being said, I also don’t really see the shield as a dueling weapon, and so don’t really see it fitting on a mesmer.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Update of Great Sword use.

Yes the Great Sword is a better weapon than the Scepter when it comes to long range, in my opinion. I still haven’t seen where Great Sword out performs the Scepter when the fight goes mid range to close combat. Once again I am speaking from a level 35 perspective lol.

Mid range to close range is when you swap to mainhand sword and utilize the other abilities on the greatsword. Mirror blade actually increases in effectiveness as at mid range, it will bounce to you, doing 2 hits to your target and stacking you with 6 might. zerker is still just as (in)effective, and at that point you should be within range to close distance with illusionary leap/swap and blurred frenzy.

For the EBG jumping puzzle, asking for donations of siege is often rewarded. Most people are doing it for the badges, not for the siege, and so are more than happy to just dump all the siege they get at your feet.

Firstly, I just want to say that cast bars have no place in this game, and should never be put in.

The reason for this, is you need to be able to counter other skills and actions simply by their animation. However, as you brought up, due to character model disparities and the absolutely stupid amount of particle effects in this game, countering via animation becomes difficult even for seasoned pvpers.

Character sizes absolutely need to be normalized, and particle effects absolutely need to be lowered, as well as being put on a player-controlled slider bar.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

However, for me, when it comes to pve questing, I prefer the staff.

For pve questing, in most situations using a sword+sword/focus/pistol will probably be the best choice in terms of kill speed, mobility, and defense. Your swap can either be greatsword or staff depending on preference. When I’m with someone else and using a focus offhand, I prefer the greatsword because it synergizes well with proper use of temporal curtain to group mobs effectively, as the izerker will hit reliably when you summon it near a wall.

Staff is a bit stronger on defense, as well as being definitively better against large single bosses where people stack up conditions, as the iWarlock scales 10% damage per unique condition, giving it ENORMOUS damage potential.

Arganthium.5638:

Call of the Wild Mesmer

Done. Make it happen Anet!

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

The Scepter is better than the Great Sword in my opinion, when it comes to pve play and events. I’m currently using Scepter Torch with Staff, of course, and am able to get more kills than when using the Great Sword and Staff.

You’re entitled to your own opinion, but that won’t make your opinion any less wrong.

The scepter auto attack is 900 range, compared to gs 1200
The scepter auto attack hits 1 target, compared to gs 3
The scepter auto attack is slow, and has a slow travel time, compared to the gs instant beam.
The scepter has no effective aoe capability with any of its skills, compared to the at least 20% reliable zerker.

The scepter is inferior to the greatsword in every way, with regards to pve farming.

Hexs.8015:

This was probably already asked, but why not use the pvp carrion amulet for condition, power and vitality. The build uses alot of confusion condition dmg

For sPvP, retaliation is bugged on phantasms. It does not scale properly with power. Instead, it deals a set amount of damage different for each phantasms. While this means that stacking power is no longer helpful, it also means that stacking power is no longer necessary.

I replace the soldier’s amulet with a cleric’s amulet. I lose vitality, but gain a massive amount of healing power. With that amulet, ether feast heals for an enormous amount, and regen ticks for 270. It’s quite fantastic.

No matter how good your computer, you will experience skill lag when 2 zergs collide. Fps lag is dependent on your computer, but skill lag is dependent on the server kittenting its pants.

To answer the op, yes, main hand sword is a great choice in wvw Zerg combat. The cleave allows you to hit multiple people, as well as aoe strip boons, blurred frenzy is an amazing defensive tool, and illusionary leap/swap is a great spammable stunbreaker and leap combo.

Website is back up now.

ShiftSide.3645:

TL;DR: My guild seems to think that mesmer sword #2, Blurred Frenzy, can shield siege from incoming projectiles- i.e. I can blurred frenzy in front of our trebuchet to protect it from incoming enemy trebuchet shots. I’ve tried a number of times, in front of and standing on our siege without luck. Is this possible?

I was actually thinking about that last night. I’ll be testing it as soon as I can.

Raijinn.9065:

Control Core.1079:

Shaorune.2347:

-thieves can stealth so you might not see them

That’s kitten weird, the kitten was standing right next to me, I could basically punch him in the sack. No one was around for like 500 kilometers, yes not miles, suck it americans, I hit my interrup button with the fury of 10 angry muslim prophets and he just proceeds to ram that spike through my guts anyway.

I’m sorry, but this post has me literally laughing out loud.

Btw idk If anyone is even taking you seriously, with the way your talking.

This guy is rather hilarious, not gonna lie. Taking him seriously would be nigh impossible at this point.

sephyranna.3095:

Saying necro plague stomp is awesome is pretty stupid. Do you really think a necro would use their awesome elite that is great for group fights to just stomp one person? That’s ridiculous. No one will do that. Shroud stomping is only to keep your HP high without risking anything for the stomp. You’re still able to be feared and interrupted. The only really cool method to stomp as a necro is to drop your well of darkness so they’re blinded plus anyone who gets near you gets blinded and stomp.

IIRC, you can trait for stability upon entering death shroud.

Control Core.1079:

Shaorune.2347:

-thieves can stealth so you might not see them

That’s kitten weird, the kitten was standing right next to me, I could basically punch him in the sack. No one was around for like 500 kilometers, yes not miles, suck it americans, I hit my interrup button with the fury of 10 angry muslim prophets and he just proceeds to ram that spike through my guts anyway.

I’m afraid this is a learn to play issue.

Play more. Learn other classes skills. Don’t come whining on the forums when the smallest thing doesn’t go right for you.

I’ll give my opinion that using apothecary trinkets, unless you go fully ascended, is not worth it. They currently cost over 50 gold each. No one will ever utilize your build fully if you recommend apothecary trinkets in their current state.

Off the top of my head.

Mistform, elixir S, distorion, blind, stability, teleports, stealth.

jportell.2197:

well something needs to happen…Just got done with a match where we were down by five points and the player said we are gonna lose AFk and pfft that’s it… So lame

That lovely little anecdote really hits hard, because that attitude is precisely what ruins LoL for me. If Anet doesn’t change something, the tpvp community will over time evolve to become just as toxic as in LoL. Havin a full party to do tpvp is already mandatory.

Crossplay.2067:

I am ashamed of every single one of you that thinks bows can’t fit the mesmer MO just because we’re a mage class. And Pyro, you of ALL people, should know better! With all the builds you have created and perfected, I would have thought you’d understand that we revel in being completely unorthodox.

Shortbows would make awesome 2hand melee weapons. As I’ve stated time and time again, think Klingon battleth with the occasional arrow shot. We could also go the Quincy route with shotgun like auto attack similar to how guardians use a staff.

However, it’s pretty much a given that we are getting a mainhand pistol first. It’s the most requested weapon and would be a lot easier to implement, given that no trait work would need to be done.

While I personally don’t think bows fit the mesmer style at all, my main objection is that our first and only weapon we truly need is a mainhand pistol, to fulfill the role of mainhand ranged power (along with a rework to give scepter the true role of mainhand ranged condition). Any other weapons merely confuse this need.

Lucem Ferre.9205:

Hey !! I am running mesmer trait Mender’s purity in inspiration IV with Saffron-scented poultry soup as food… removes condition on heal .. Now other than buffs like regeneration, strictly speaking, say no buff is on, you have 2 conditions on you and the food is not on 10 seconds cool down.. and you heal.. will it remove one or both the conditions? ..
thanks a loads.
Lucem.

I believe that it will remove two conditions. However, lemongrass poultry soup is a better choice in very nearly every situation, because the -40% condition duration is far better than 1 condition removal every 10 seconds.

You make a Mesmer bow thread every 2 weeks, and the idea hasn’t gotten any less horrible since the first one. This will never happen. Please stop.

Honestly, they really have gone crazy with some of achievements/progressions. Just take a look at the wvw achievements, they’re even worse than this. Just look at the achievement for killing supply caravans. It takes 1 million kills to get it.

If you kill 6 caravans per hour (one every 10 minutes), 24/7, with absolutely no stopping, it will take you over 19 years to get that achievement.

@Hexxen: I’m not sure defender inherits your hp…in fact I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.

Other than that, yeah. I’m going to get a full set of sentinel’s as well, excluding trinkets. I’m now completely running ascended gear, 2 rings, ammy, back, 2 accessories, so I’m not going to change that. I’m thinking I might stick with Ptv for normal fighting and whatnot, and switch to Vtp for portalbombing/zerg situations, but I’ll have to just test it out.

Skyro.3108:

I thought clones had 3.2k base hp (and phantasms had 2.1k)?

The defender has more hp than other phantasms, though I don’t know exactly how much.

This smells like a latency issue on your end. I’ve never experienced a delay when using distortion, it always activates immediately and effectively for me.

Ground targeting with combat mode is horrific. Yes, it targets to the center of the screen, so what if you want to drop a ground target NOT in the center of your screen, while moving to the left? You’ll be kitten out of luck. Combat mod vastly decreases your mobility and visual options for playing the game.

1. The legality of this mod is rather debateable, and I don’t recall seeing a definite Anet response on it.

2. No pvper worth the name would use combat mod. It is far too restrictive in targeting and mobility options.

Sebrent.3625:

Bas, will you guys be doing anything else with the information the coaches give? Those could make for some interesting reads, podcasts, etc. to many.

We don’t have any plans currently, but you do make a good point. It could jus be possibly difficult to arrange into a good listening format depending on how things go, but that’s definitely an idea we can look into.

I’ll probably be adapting one or both of my pvp builds to a fully optimized underwater version. It’s an interesting thing to do, especially since underwater combat is so often neglected.

@RedCobra: Full zergs are filled with aoe, that’s how they work. The zerker would die instantly.

The greatsword does ok long range damage, but it isn’t very powerful until you combine it with the mantra traits for enhanced base damage, which you don’t have.

Additionally, your build is so squishy, you would probably kill yourself on retaliation after about 4-5 seconds of greatsword autoattacking into a zerg.

On top of that, greatsword autoattacks are extremely limited in their usefulness. They won’t hit anything on top of a wall, they often won’t hit anything on the ground when shooting off of a wall. It’s basically only a good weapon in open field combat, which is becoming more and more rare.

Lastly, your build has extremely little survivability. You take multiple stealths, but that doesn’t help when you’re getting pounded by aoes. You’ll end up with probably around 16k hp in that build, and the lowest armor possible. You simply don’t have the mobility or defense to last in any sort of zerg battle.

kylia.4813:

kylia.4813:

Karmasutra.9351:

Good show as always, it was really positve and hopeful. I look forward to the next evolution of builds that will open up for us.

Since Kylia has access to a concentrated group of wvw mesmers, I’m wondering if it would be possible to make a request. Some night when you all are bored, maybe you could all try to run a mantra healing support build (along the lines of Fay’s Panacea build)as a large mesmer group? I’m curious how viable it is for a large group zerg situation and would love to see it in action. I’ve been thinking that with 5-10+ mesmers it might net some pretty interesting results. Video footage (good or bad) for analysis would be stellar!

Also isn’t it time to get Fay on the couch?

Might be a challenge for one of our Friday night’s

Ummm the Mantra thing, not the Fay on a couch thing! :p

And yes working on getting Fay on the couch…

Yeah, that’s been one of my main goals for a while…

If you expect the greatsword phantasm to work in a zerg at all, you’re going to be rudely surprised. It will die instantly and do no damage.

Basically what you’ve got here are glass cannon traits…without the major traits to really do damage, and without the weapons to support it. It will be an unbelievably fragile build that won’t really end up doing a lot of damage.

Amaterasu.6280:

How do you feel about the necessity of signet of illusions?

I’m starting to doubt it’s potency in spvp because of it’s variables (the time it takes for the actual health boost to occur) To me sometimes it could seem like I’m wasting a utility slot because the health boost would take too long to activate, thus the phantasm is crazy squishy…in a high-tier environment, I’m not sure if the gamble is worth it…I noticed the health boost almost ALWAYS comes in at least 4-10s after the phantasm spawns, typcially a few secs after its first burst.

Also, Moa seems to be extremely OP after this patch…but mass invis is a nice defense mechanism on a 50% faster cd…so it could be used more consistently. From playing a similar build, stealth is such a great defense mechanism for mesmers, so I don’t know if I should stick to moa or go mass invis.

It’s a shame the torch phantasm is utterly useless…I love torch #4!

Your thoughts?

I’ll use moa if I’m feeling particularly cruel, but I always end up feeling unclean afterwards…

Signet of illusions I will swap around depending on the situation. I primarily use this build for duels, not for bigger spvp situations, so I’ll swap it out for daze mantra, or condie removal mantra, or feedback, depending on what I’m dueling.

Arganthium.5638:

Pyroatheist.9031:

The only counter to a phantasm Mesmer in a 1v1 is another phantasm Mesmer.

Since you’re assuming a 1v1 scenario, that allows for specific counter utilities. If I’m going against a condition heavy class, I will take the heal mantra for rapid condition removal through mender’s purity as well as the condition removal mantra. Between the 2 of those, you can remove about 8 conditions every 20 seconds, which is far more than enough to deal with any condition class.

Other classes and builds have different counters. I will change my utilities to suit each individual 1v1. There is no counter to a phantasm Mesmer with utilities set up for your class. If you catch the Mesmer with poorly set up utilities, you have a chance, although the build is still immensely powerful.

Do you happen to have access to one of these allegedly “OP” phanta builds on you? Couldn’t find any on Fay’s guide.

…my guide is listed in Fay’s guide under the simple title of ‘Overpowered’

I’m going to desperately try to ignore the unbelievable narcissistic overtones of Hot Boy (the wonder that answers his own questions in the threads he makes) post to say that he does make a reasonable point.

Certain classes and builds can engage and/or distract a much larger group of enemies for some time. If they’re all trying to hunt down that annoying d/p thief, or working on taking down a fully build bunker guardian or d/d ele, they aren’t doing other things to contribute to their team. That one person doesn’t have to beat them all, they just need to slow them down enough to make their death worth what the rest of their team accomplished.

To those who say ‘just dodge them’, you can only dodge so much. Against a p/d thief, I’ll get 2 swordsmen and a duelist up eventually. Using heal mantra and cd removal mantra allows me to tank the unload then instantly remove all the conditions.

The thing about that unload is that it’s channeled. The thief has a choice: do the full channel, or dodge the phantasms. You can’t pick both. The swordsmen will both attack instantly and do about 5-6.5k damage each, with the duelist following with another 4k damage and 6 or 7 bleeds. Not dodging is a death sentence, and dodging means you fail your attack…with both swordsmen attacking a second time 3.5 seconds later, before you can restealth.

Tricare.2946:

bad link

/15 char

Manually copy and paste it. You should know this by now.

happynow.7190:

Hi Pyro,

Would like to ask is the “Immortal build” still viable after the patch? How would u say the advantages of this compared to the overpowered phantasm PvP Build.

Thanks.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Immortal-Mesmer-Build/page/9#post1932189

The phantasm build is a dueling build, that might get shoehorned into some tPvP. It is not great in group fights, and horrific in large fights where phantasms get killed.

drongas.4189:

Pyroatheist.9031:

drongas.4189:

Pyroatheist.9031:

There were no negative changes to this build from the patch. Using the mantra heal may now be a better choice in more situations, and when the situation demands, using the condition removal mantra will also be more effective. I’ll need to do some testing to determine the normally optimal healing skill now, but ether feast remains a great choice.

try this build a couple day. and start using heal mantra with trait mantra heal alies. its better choise becouse cast mantra give u 2.7+k hp and use just heal give me 2.7×2hp
so we got 8k+heal

btw still against s/d thief with daze hard to duel. 50/50 i can say

I’ve tried using mantra heals, but to get it, you have to untrait either mender’s purity or the phantasm hp. Mender’s purity is necessary for sure, and as it turns out, without the phantasm hp trait, they die so fast you wont even have anything to heal with the mantra.

It’s definitely an interesting thought, but ends up being far less effective in reality.

well explain then. i use signet for phatasm hp 200% and if trait on hp its 20%. so 20% from 3k pahntasmal hp or 3k+200% and then 20%? becouse if from just normal 3k its about 600hp. its 2 burning tick or just 1 auto atack.
but if 3k+200%=9k hp+20% its 1800. so then ofc trait is good

sry rly bad eng

Firstly, your math is faulty. If a phantasm has 3k base hp, with the 200% signet, it will have 6k hp, increased by a factor of 2. Secondly, the signet takes up to 10(12?) seconds to actually kick in. The 20% trait is there immediately.

Additionally, to even heal the phantasms, you have to be very close to them. This isn’t always optimal or possible, and so puts restrictions on how you move and play, which is a bad thing.