Guild Wars 2

Raunchy.6891:

I’m wondering why you mentioned healing signet when it has literally nothing to do with the build a warrior could be running. Just like a majority of mesmers run ether feast, or how most necros run consume conditions, a majority (if not all) warriors run healing signet because it’s the superior heal, it’s not the sign of some specific build.

Yeah, it’s not exactly the most sensible argument. I’m just too tired to write up another detailed response to his gibberish.

To my knowledge, IoL has never worked on dead npcs.

Chaos.3579:

PU in terms of survivability is just as strong in dueling as it is in every other PVP apsect of the game that players can participate in. wvw, small scale fights, gvg, 1v?, roaming, ect.

Which is why we see tons of mesmers in all these aspects of pvp right? Oh wait…

Chaos.3579:

there are no counters or tactics that even half of the class’s can use to counter PU survivability,

Aside from things like boon strip or aoe?

Chaos.3579:

no way to counter disengagement potential,

PU gives no boost to disengagement potential. 1 second of stealth duration means nothing for a disengage. All disengagement potential for mesmer comes from other tools appropriately used.

Chaos.3579:

and no way to counter sustained dps potential through illusions while remaining undetectable and untargetable through a long and extended chain of stealths

Sustained dps potential through illusions? Don’t make me laugh. You’ve got at best 1 high damage phantasm (since a PU build will be using torch). It takes a second or two of dpsing to kill a phantasm from a PU build, so care to enlighten us as to where this sustained dps potential is coming from?

Chaos.3579:

thus why would someone use something thats less effective and takes more skill?

Less effective at what exactly? PU builds are horrible at active application of burst damage, PU phantasm builds are just as bad as normal phantasm builds in 1vX, they just die slower, PU builds are locked 30 points into a selfish trait line and so offer little utility to groups, where’s all this effectiveness coming from?

Chaos.3579:

so in order to preserve viable diversity among the users of the Mesmer profession this trait needs a nerf/major functionality change or we will watch as the majoirty of mesmer builds are devolved in to a meta based on utilizing the survivability staple that stealth combined with this trait provides….oops seems this has already happened.

Cute. The lack of build diversity stems from the fact that almost no mesmer builds are viable at anything currently, not from the existence of a single trait as you seem to think.

One trait/set of builds has absolutely no significance on the potential diversity of a class, arguments otherwise make absolutely no sense. Different mesmer builds are good at different things, and people choose them for those reasons. The existence of builds that are good at surviving (PU builds) has absolutely no relevance on the viability of builds that are good at aoe burst damage (shatter) or aoe condition damage (glamour), single target damage (phantasm), lockdown (lockdown) or any others that I’m not thinking of right now. All of those builds are non-viable for separate and distinct reasons. Your attempt to conflate their non-viability with the existence of PU falls flat as a poor guise for your odd hatred of the trait.

There’s nothing wrong with the PU trait, some people just need to get over themselves.

Scizzor.8137:

SlimChance.6593:

Back in GW1, Mesmer’s were the Kings of Hex’s. No other profession had so many different hex spells. As a player, you had to learn all these different spell icons to know what was what. For GW2, ANet didn’t want the player to keep looking at the UI, so they made our hex spells into physical manifestations.

We players need to stop thinking that illusions are pets/minions. Like a hex, Mesmer’s require line of sight/target to land a illusion cast.

When the target dies, so does the hex/illusion. If we are blinded at cast, we miss. If the target dodges, blocks,etc., then our hex/illusion casts fail. Nothing more.

I don’t mean to rant, but these forums are constantly comparing the Mesmer’s Illusions to minions and ranger pets. “Why do ranger pets do this, when illusions do that? Why do illusions do this when minions do that?” They are not the same. Illusions = Hex spell.

Now if they could just fix the pets err I mean “hexes” AI…

Illusion ai is top notch. No complaints about it at all, with the exception of the broken iWarden, but that’s a little different.

Due to how illusions function, they don’t have AI issues where all other pets do, that’s the thing.

It’s pretty simple. People don’t like to lose 1v1 fights. PU builds happen to be very strong in 1v1 fights. Therefor, people love to complain about PU.

tetrodoxin.2134:

Hey, at least no incredibly short-sighted, random nerfs to fundamental traits like last time! We’re making progress here!

Seriously Anet, you want a constructive discussion. Work with us. Give us something.
Or just fix the ever-growing bug list. Something. Anything?

You say this now, which means you obviously haven’t seen the leaked patch notes. Anet is apparently of the opinion that despite Mesmer being barely or nonviable in most game types we still need more nerfs.

Saturn.6591:

I’ve just read a pastebin containing supposedly leaked patchnotes. I won’t link them here since I don’t want to risk an infraction, but the link was posted in another class-subforum. Some interesting changes are coming, if they are real.

If by ‘interesting’ you mean making PU builds even tankier and even less able to do active damage, then sure….

Edit: And screws with our swiftness application, that too
Edit: Aaaaaaaand kills mimic maybe

Xyonon.3987:

Dawdler.8521:

24 silver each? At 2-3 hours of playing WvW during the evening that’s only 1-1.5 gold… IE its cheaper to get travelers after a month or two if you plan on constantly buying this oil. And that’s just WvW. Traveller give you +25% all the hours in PvE too.

Yea but travelers got extremly shi**y stats for pve.

Don’t forget that using that oil removes significant stats as well, up to maybe 250ish of a main combat stat.

Now, you could swap it out for a combat utility buff the moment you got into a fight, but now you’re talking a cost of 24s every time you enter combat…

Blink does not remove immobilize, that’s one thing you should know. It simply moves you, and it won’t interrupt channeled casts, stomps, or anything like that. Not sure what you mean by choosing the target spot in the middle of a fight.

Now, Supcutie’s blink guide is a great reference for where you can and can not blink, but if you actually want to understand why these things work, I highly recommend watching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ozCg25--E

That’s a video from wooden potatoes where he goes over the exact mechanics of blinks, and why they work or not.

Yeah, Curunen got it right with scepter. You really don’t want to trait that,it won’t help you at all.

In terms of high priority traiting, the focus is almost always number 1. If you can trait the focus, do so. After focus would be sword, and then lastly pistol.

ledriel.5814:

Hello Pyro! I’m new to the game and really excited. I was planning my build even before I start playing but found out that confusion’s build are kind of a waste.
So i saw your build the other day and I really loved how it looks.
I made some changes, though, but can’t really test if it is worthy (since I’m lvl 40 and completely inexperienced) so I desperately need your opinion. Even it is completely theoretical.
Here’s the link for the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAra8clwzaoXUTmGbNJxZGQP6oUgdvTqgqLfA3A-TEALKA

So (theoretically speaking):
Cons:
Cooldowns are almost the same except the magic bullet (loosing 2 sec on blurred frenzy and gaining 2 sec for illusionary counter)
-150 precision (200 when sword is on)
-50 vitality
-30% move speed speed (when got 3 illusions)
Pros:
+20% att speed on phantasm attacks (more stacks of bleed?)
+200 malice (stronger bleed no? Or almost zero difference?)
+9% increase dmg to myself (with 3 illusions)

So I got 2 questions:
1) Will -200 precision destroy the build? Will the illusions be able to land criticals and stack more bleed than before?
2) Compare to this guide’s build, is mine worthy at all? I mean, am I throwing away much more than what I’m gaining?

So that particular variation isn’t very good, but it’s very close to another variation that’s definitely competitive.

The trait phantasmal haste is pretty broken. It doesn’t work at all on most phantasms, including swordsmen, and works less than it’s supposed to on the ones that it does affect, including the duelist. So, you’re basically wasting 5 points in that line to get phantasmal haste. You can go ahead and spend those 5 points elsewhere.

However, the notable trait in that line that’s worth getting is illusionist’s celerity, the 15 point minor. That trait provides you with 20% cooldown reduction on every illusion skill you have, so both phantasms, iLeap, decoy, both blocks. It’s a very strong trait, and the other worthwhile variation takes it at 10/20/0/25/15. With that change, you’ll have to choose between traiting sword and traiting pistol, and that’s the main downside.

Malakin.2809:

Pyroatheist.9031:

While I appreciate your in-depth testing, none of this is actually new. All of the info you’ve verified has been well-known for probably at least a year now.

Where is it documented that illusions are unaffected by might?

That’s simply a conclusion you can draw from how illusions work.

Illusions don’t have their own base stats. They take a copy of your own stats, which is why they benefit from might on yourself, but not might on them. Additionally, they do have their own secondary stats, which is why they benefit from fury on them, but not fury on yourself.

Bug thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Phantasms-look-like-blobs-with-zodiac-armor

See title. This bug was introduced about a year ago, making phantasms bug out severely when using armors with effects on them, but the zodiac armor is by far the worst, the phantasms just look like big misshapen blobs.

See this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/How-do-you-like-the-Zodiac-Armor/first#post3660024

Wow, such testing, many QA

Hollywood Votary.8914:

Ya’ll are just trying to QQ your ways to free things. Here’s what would be fair.

1) Compensate players who have made glory booster gem purchases (like anet has done for many other items)

2) Allow trade-ins for based on actual value of boosters. (i.e. how much glory does it take to get, drop rate out of boxes)

Ya’ll are so spoiled. I have a lil over 2 stacks of them boosters and I couldn’t give less kittens about using them or getting something for them.

Just because you have made the (arguably poor) choice to ignore glory boosters doesn’t mean you speak for even the barest sliver of the population.

Alkaholic.3875:

Warriors can swap every 5 secs. Engineers can swap every second. Still confused.

Lets do some arithmetic

How many sigils can a warrior equip?
How many sigils can an engineer equip?

Not entirely sure where you got the idea that the iMage was supposed to attack whenever the enemy did.

Phantasms won’t ever be targetless. Don’t even bother. They’re better being tied to targets, it eliminates the AI goofs that rangers and necros have to deal with.

Osicat.4139:

Pyro, can just so I dont make a misstanke and insult a-net by strata thread about something bugged or not working with the class, could you pls tell us why you got a warning.

God save me but I think I posted in some thread that sword leap is not working as it should, and I even criticised the current sPvP meta another time, I kinda sure I might get banned soon if I not stop this.

/Osicat

The warning was because it advocated bumping of a thread, which is against the forum code of conduct. Believe me, if bad-mouthing Anet was against the forum CoC, I’d be permabanned, along with the rest of the sPvP forum.

gesho.9468:

Alissah.9281 I see. I’m thinking of situation, where both phantasms have just unloaded and their summoning spells are off cd. if shattered, one gets shatter damage and most likely their re-summoning and unload will happen sooner. if shatter (wrack or confusion) + expedience beats autoattack/alternatives i’m not sure.

Sorta depends on the situation. In most dungeons, phantasms are liable to be killed at any moment. This means that you shouldn’t waste them on a shatter.

Pwent.2639:

Did some section of anet see it and delete it sneaky style, or was it moved.

Deleted, and I got a warning for it.

Saturn.6591:

Peacemaker Xeranan.4508:

Bonus
Phantasms Trigger Confusing Combatants now

Are you sure? And I also really wonder how you’ve made that screenshot. The target golem has full health and you’ve got no illusions out. How did the phantasm die? Did you attack another target? But even then, if the phantasm died due to the target dying, it wouldn’t apply any on-death conditions anyway, even if it were a clone. At least I’ve always thought that to be the case… dying due to a dead target doesn’t count as “dying” for the purpose of those traits.

Looks to me as though the duelist was attacking the medium golem, which you can see dying in the background.

You’re wrong. If a clone dies for any reason, it triggers on -death traits.

Max Gladius.6930:

I have opened multiple threads on the “holding world item no spawns of clones” multiple times and I think people don’t understand what I was stating…

If you hold anything, other than the default Mesmer weapons you cannot spawn any clones.

This includes all of the following:
Reflection Crystal in Maw Fractal
Torch in Snow blind Fractal and other locations
Any Ele spawned weapon
Banners from warriors
Equipment (siege) boxes in WvW
Rocks / Boulders in random locations…

The spawn on dodge and utilities that should spawn clones will not, but the utilities sure do go into cool down….

The general term for all those is ‘bundle’.

The no clones with bundles bug was introduced with the bazaar of the 4 winds patch. It (obviously) hasn’t been fixed.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Pyro said to GTFO, so you best GTFO.

/jks ;D

That being said, the change to confusing combatants is very new for sure.

While I appreciate your in-depth testing, none of this is actually new. All of the info you’ve verified has been well-known for probably at least a year now.

excelsior.2168:

Name: Excelsior Longfello
Server: Magumma (sp?) and NA
Role: Ehhh, Scholar for now.
Playtime: When I can tbh. School and work and about graduate, so I’m a little busy.
Play: WvWvW, sPvP, and PvE (including dungeons)

Just think it would be fun and would help me learn to mesmer better.

P.S. I also think I have 5 guilds now and that’s the cap, right? I’ll have to see which one I want to delete.

Yep, you’ve got maximum guilds.

Carighan.6758:

Well, “made it buggy”. Not really.

Yes really. Aside from any arguments about moving vs non-moving, the warden is absolutely broken. When you spawn it sometimes doesn’t attack at all. Sometimes it runs off and chooses a new target. Sometimes it will spin after 10-15 seconds, sometimes it won’t, sometimes it’ll spin after it has to chase the target, sometimes it won’t, sometimes it’ll spin on summon, sometimes it’ll run in circles after the target…

It’s broken. They broke it.

Idk, I always tend to think of this:

gesho.9468:

i’ve been reading guides but still not sure.

phantasmal duelist: this guy stands where summoned and shoots at target, or whoever enters the range? if new enemy, will start shooting him instead?

illusionary swordsman: he leaps to the target and then what? stays there? what’s leap out (wiki mentioned leaping out)

So phantasms attack on a timer. Let’s say they attack every X seconds.

When you summon the phantasm, it instantly attacks. Once the attack is finished, the phantasm will remain where it is for X seconds. After that time, it will attempt to attack the target again. If it needs to move in order to attack the target, it will move at this time.

You can just do it by jumping.

Sins.4782:

A player in full ascended equipment has 179 more stat points from equipment than a player in full exotic (assuming 2h weapon), as well as ~5% higher weapon attack (yes, this means 5% higher damage, unless you’re using bundles for main damage) and ~5% higher defense on armor. A player using the maximum number of +stat infusions would have 249 more stat points than the player in full exotic. I would hardly call a 10% increase in stats from equipment ‘insignificant’.

Full ascended equipment is not particularly meaningful. Rings, backpiece, amulet, and earrings are all very easy to obtain and provide the vast majority of that 179 stat points. Weapons are also pretty easy, compared to a full set of armor, and once again provide more stat points than the armor.

So basically you have gear in order of increasing difficulty to obtain and decreasing gains. Sorta horrible design if you ask me.

Dawdler.8521:

I’m sure its a nice video, but all I can think of is the major legal issue of using that intro unless of course you have written permission from Disney.

Internet has damaged me.

As long as he isn’t making money off of it, it should be fine.

That being said, the intro made 0 sense imo.

saxmachine.6024:

Ok I need to find some better commanders or zergs then because I do this and almost every zerg I join gets wiped. Surely it’s not because of me!

Most larger WvW servers will have a server TS that the PUG commander will be on. Try and find that and use it to help with that sort of thing. Additionally as Ross said, if you really intend on just doing a lot of large group fighting you might want to find a WvW guild to run with.

Well, your first build is a condie leaning hybrid. Don’t do that. Hybrid and condition damage builds are really bad in PvE, and mesmer does them worse than almost any other class. Just use straight power damage, zerker/assassins gear.

Your 2nd build is pretty much just straight up blackwater. Go ahead on over to that thread for advice/information.

maxinion.8396:

It’s not quite clear what your build is trying to do.

Eh, it seems pretty clear to me, it’s just not a good build.

This topic has come up several times recently. The only builds that should be run in PvE are full damage builds. Now, if you can’t survive effectively with full zerker gear then feel free to swap some out for knights or cavaliers, but the first and foremost purpose of your build should be damage, with all other utility secondary and fitting in with it.

Diego Vargas.3058:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Diego Vargas.3058:

Boonstorm Mesmer is extremely powerful in any kind of dungeon setting.

It’s strong support. Unfortunately, that kind of support is more or less useless in a good dungeon group.

Why would this build be useless? I make overpowered DPS classes even stronger

How are you making them stronger? What mesmer can supply reliably in the form of boon support is protection, aegis, regen, vigor, swiftness, and retaliation. This seems like an awful lot at first glance.

Unfortunately, there’s 2 vital boons missing from that. Might and fury. The only 2 boons that are directly related to damage output. The 2 boons that matter more than all the other boons combined. Mesmer can’t supply them.

Now, mesmer does bring some things. Mesmer actually brings very strong damage in the form of phantasms if played properly. More importantly though, mesmer is able to bring the following things without losing damage. Mesmer brings strong aoe condition removal, rapid boon stripping, and most importantly high reflect uptime, and that last one is where massive mesmer dps comes from.

In an organized group, nobody cares if you’re applying protection and vigor and regen. None of that matters, because the only thing that matters is kill speed, and that is directly related to damage output. Players of a dungeon group are picked for what they can bring to the party in terms of damage. Supplemental dps is great, but that’s only valued if they bring damage.

Now, a full boon support mesmer brings incredible support capabilities. Unfortunately, it brings very little damage, and almost no damage support. It’s a strong build for WvW raiding or havok groups and such like that, but it has no place in a dungeon party.

Diego Vargas.3058:

Boonstorm Mesmer is extremely powerful in any kind of dungeon setting.

It’s strong support. Unfortunately, that kind of support is more or less useless in a good dungeon group.

If I recall correctly, the change in stats was about 10-15 normal stats and 1% critical damage or something. If you actually calculate it out, the change is at or below 1% total increase in damage. This puts it so far below normal damage variation due to weapon damage spread that it is statistically insignificant. Anyone trying to argue that actually makes a difference is talking out of their kitten .

That being said, that’s just 1 more reason why ascended armor has been poorly implemented. The entire thing just reeks of incompetence.

- the opponent is blocking

You hit their block.

- the opponent has aegis on

You hit their aegis.

- the opponent is evading (e.g. blurred frenzy)

They evade it.

- the opponent has just gone into stealth (assuming you lose target – does it pick a new target if auto-target is on)

It will pick a new target. I don’t believe it needs a target though, so even with no target it will still waste a charge.

- the opponent is dodging

Dodge = evading

- you are in the middle of a dodge

It’ll activate fine.

I’m assuming you can’t activate if stunned, dazed or feared.

All mantras can be activated at any time, under any conditon. You can be launched, feared, stunned, dazed, evading, knocked down, even falling off a cliff, and they will activate.

Ok, so first thing is a quick check of traits. Warden’s feedback is an awesome trait. It also only affects the skills on the focus, as specified in the trait facts, and so is a very poor choice if you’re using sword/sword.

You’ve got 20 illusions, and since you’re a phantasm build I’m assuming that you’ve taken phantasmal haste. Unfortunately, that trait doesn’t work. It only affects the staff, pistol, and phantasmal disenchanter phantasms, and it doesn’t even reduce them by 20% like it’s supposed to.

Now, you’ve also got a lot of odd stats. You’re using gear with condition damage as a minor stat, along with room sigils and a corruption sigil, which are all condition damage oriented. However, none of your weapons or traits are more than slightly passable at applying condition damage.

You need to sorta take a step back and try to figure out how you want to do damage with your build, and then try and have the build fit that idea so that it all functions cohesively.

calavel.6249:

What is the problem with elementalists exactly? I have only played one a little, so I’m not really sure what the problem is with the class. Engineer seems like a fair choice, their base weapons are just… kinda boring and they seem to rely on kits a lot. I feel like they may also be lacking some trait synergy but I’m probably just noob at engineer.

If they don’t build full glass cannon, they’re completely ignorable and do nothing. When building full glass cannon, they can do good burst damage, but they’re incredibly fragile, and any decent thief will eat them, thus forcing them out of the meta. Similar problem with mesmers, but not quite as bad.

Are you…using warden’s feedback with sword/sword and gs?

Also, telling us the weapon names doesn’t actually give any information as to the stats on them. What stats are you using? Same with the armor. CM has 3 different armor stats you can get.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Did anyone try traiting Warden with pHaste? (I haven’t. Idea just hit me) Maybe a broken phantasm merged with a broken phantasm trait will make a bug out to make working phantasm!

/logic

I have. It does nothing but make you sad that you wasted trait points to get a trait that doesn’t work.

Pyriall.5027:

Justin ODell.9517:

… hambow is pretty OP, has nothing to do with him being better than me.

Ok, so what are you guys doing about it? I mean besides that 8% shave…

Read his name tag. He’s a server programmer, not a balance dev. The people that need to play pvp more are the balance devs, and in particular they need to play it on non-warriors

dimyzuka.7051:

Topher.7261:

I don’t know how this balance is working for WvW or PvE but, I main Mesmer and I love everything about it. If you guys seriously think our class needs help. Then I don’t know what to think. Yea we have some bugs and glitches but, so does every other class.

You’re joking right? Mesmers currently have NO place in the sPVP meta.

Well, that is caused more by thieves being over the top than mesmers being bad. Take a look at some of supcutie’s most recent posts, he puts it well.

Unfortunately, my only thought upon seeing that thread was: ‘great, more feedback for them to ignore…’

Regardless of that, mesmer doesn’t need help, it needs bug fixes.

Fix our warden please.

ack, we dropped off the first page

What builds are you using?

Murdurus.9182:

You could definitely run with GS and Scepter/Sword, however, the sword offhand doesn’t really provide you with anything that the pistol doesn’t. The block is sort of nice I suppose but you already have a block with the scepter if you need it and they shouldn’t be in your face most of the time since you’re staying ranged. As for the phantasm, the Duelist tends to stay alive longer since it doesn’t have to be in melee range whereas the Swordsman does. Also, if your crit is at a decent level (and if you’re using Dueling II which you should with 10/20/0/25/15), each crit shots the Duelist does will also apply a stack of bleed.

The advantages of sword offhand are significantly lower cooldowns on both skills, as well as the fact that the swordsman does slightly more damage than the duelist.