Guild Wars 2

You build for dungeons the same way you’d build for anything else. Just make sure you have the basic utilities: blink and feedback for kohler, a focus and feedback and possibly null field for path 2 trap building, a focus for path 1 (important) and make sure you know the glitches spot so that path 3 is possible.

elkirin.8534:

snipped good advice ribuld

Servers are comprised of people. People play when they want to. Enjoyment is the key factor.

SoS did not really “crumble” last week we are still here, “DB played well and put in the hours.” Please try to stay positive and apply praise where praise is due. Great effort DB!

DB won first in our tier, SoS won 8th overall GW2 NA servers weekly, Yaks won 9th overall GW2 NA servers weekly, we are all still top ten finishers!

(Grats Mag for rounding out the top ten )

Some good fights are being had, concentrate on those please.

The reason I made the judgement call that SoS crumbled is based on relative strength. Their strength at the end of the week relative to the beginning of that week (weekdays, the weekend is never predictable) was significantly lower. While I wasn’t in wvw 24/7 past week, I was in it enough to recognize that the SoS map presence was strangely and massively absent in the last couple of days, significantly less than that of yaks. I don’t know why that happened, I don’t know how that happened, but it most certainly did happen. DB didn’t suddenly acquire massive transfers. We were 30k points below SoS for a very good reason, they were outdoing us with superior coverage, particularly in NA prime times. Something big changed, and that’s undeniable.

@ribuld: We’re all armchair warriors here…this is a video game after all.

kerona.3465:

They never said they were increasing gs and scepter damage. Or did I miss it?

Cuz adding a straight line AoE is not really increasing damage…

Increasing maximum damage potential is increasing damage for all intents and purposes. That is a silly semantic argument to make.

Other people have given most of the info you need, I just want to clarify one thing about when you’re in the brazier cage. I really dislike staff here because phase retreat will easily send you out of the cage, even if you try to line it up properly. Just for that, I stay with greatsword for the knockback alone in case it gets a bit hairy, and then stay with MH sword as much as possible since that ultimately is your best close combat defense through blurred frenzy.

As much as I would love to see the ileap cooldown problem fixed, and I don’t understand what is so difficult about fixing cooldowns problems given a halfway sensible coding protocol, but I’m willing to give anet the benefit of the doubt on this one….anet has stated they are aware of the problem and will sorta try to fix it eventually. Making or bumping threads about a known and recognized issue really isn’t going to help anything.

Unfortunately, you’re asking for a build that really doesn’t exist in this game for any class. You want high uptime on boons, you want good healing, and you want nice damage. You get to pick 2 of those 3, but not all 3 at once.

The strongest pure support Mesmer build currently is the chaos maestro build, found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Chaos-Maestro-Boon-Support-Tank/

It has very high boon uptime and sharing combined with strong aoe healing capability. It does, however, lack strong damage.

In high level fotm, damage is an important aspect. If your team lacks the ability to output strong damage, you obviously need to abandon a support build in favor of a damage build. However, if you have plenty of damage and need more auxiliary support and buffing, this type of build is great.

Quite honestly, it’s looking like SoS is in a worse way than anticipated. Their performance this weekend compared to last is astonishingly different. SoS was totally dominating over reset night/weekend fielding large zergs on almost every map, and it was only in the last 3 days did they totally crumble and DB steamrolled to victory. From the looks of it, SoS is at the same performance level right now that they were at the end of last week, and that is not a good thing for them.

Kazhiel.8194:

On another note, there’s a mesmer in BS who runs what he calls a shatter/daze build, he’s got the boon strip on shatter trait, wonder how that would fare against this build since as long as he could land his shatters he could keep retaliation off you?

When I notice a sharp boon removal, such as on shatter, there’s a few steps I’ll take. First thing is mitigation. Shatters are dodgeable, by various means, so dodging them as much as possible is healthy (for more reasons than one). You do have to be more careful though, that’s for sure. It’s a good idea to try and use leap/swap over temporal curtain to keep retal up as much as possible, that way you can burst up instant retaliation +confusion with a cry at the right moment.

It also depends on what weapons that Mesmer is using. When I run a shatter build, I tend to use staff and sword/sword. I always run with boon strip on shatter in a shatter build—it would be foolish not to, even if you have a greatsword. However, if they seem to be nuking with the greatsword a lot, keeping retal and chaos armor up is really important because the greatsword does lots of small hits. Staying at range and dodging shatters as they come is a good strategy here.

If they use a staff, they will be doing a faster, close range game. This is a bit tougher, as well done close range shatters are almost impossible to dodge. You have to try to control this fight from the start. Eat their opening burst combo with a blurred frenzy or well timed dodges, and then put the pressure on hard. Blow any cooldowns you can, between chaos storm with a few 3 clone shatters if you can. Putting the shatter Mesmer on defensive means they can’t control the timing, and that means you can anticipate and nullify their shatters.

Ultimately, any really well played Mesmer build (other than pure confusion, sorry Kylia, that ain’t gonna fly in a 1v1) is a tough fight with a lot of nuances that you really have to learn by trial and error. Play a shatter build, get good with it. You’ll see how a shatter Mesmer usually controls a fight through timing and kiting, and you’ll see ways to break that rhythm.

pinkbunnies.4620:

I dont think it would be so bad if the burst from shatter specs were toned down. People say its our only “viable” spec but i think what they should say is that its our most powerful. A shift in the meta of mesmer build optimization couldnt hurt if it led to a diversity of more equally viable options.

As multiple people including myself have shown quite effectively, an offensive shatter build is far from being the only viable spec that mesmers are able to run. However, if anet goes overboard on nerfing shatters, not only will they quite possible remove one of the most fun types of mesmer to play, they also will catch up almost every single mesmer build in the collateral damage.

lawlezz.5307:

its probably alot more trouble but it would be nice to have the date the guide was made attached or shown next to the guide

Not really necessary or important. In the past, Fay has been prepared to note out of date guides with a mark based on the contents of a patch, and that is more than enough.

Glad to hear the QQ is rolling on in, always fun to have that. If I recall correctly, our last meeting with yaks people (no offense Kazhiel) ended with them killing me once, and then getting promptly getting smeared across the grass for the next 30 minutes or so by jportell, myself, and a few other talented individuals.

I don’t know if you’ve fought any condition heavy thieves since you switched to the -condie duration runeset and food, but theyre honestly a snoozefest with it. They can be sorta annoying to kill (P/D) but they really pose absolutely 0 threat in any way. For the most part, the small and fast hits that apply the conditions (pistol stealth skill, death blossom, caltrops) will absolutely destroy a thief via retaliation damage.

I will say this about phantasm builds though. Since my first encounter with that guy, I’ve fought several other phantasm build mesmers, and none have really given me any trouble at all. I’m starting to think that he was just uncommonly talented with that one particular build. He also used a weird incarnation of it, being sword/pistol and sword/sword.

@Aberrant: Then you have a discussion about glamour traits, not portal. You of course know this, and just chose to point out a useless bit of info for no apparent reason.

Aside from that, while portal does cause lag/culling, it’s main uses actually don’t depend on that at all:

Use 1: Rapid transport of siege golems. This really doesn’t have anything to do with the limits on portal and does justify a discussion on its own if whether rapid transport of an inherently slow siege weapon should be possible.

Use 2: Manouverability. This is a broad term, mainly because the uses of portal in this regard are only limited by your ingenuity. Portal is used to flank an enemy, surprise them by coming from a different direction suddenly, escape from an ambush, create an ambush, etc. None of that relies on lag and culling to be effective.

Geikamir.6329:

jportell.2197:

Portal used to be infinite on a 60s CD…. Be happy it’s 20 now on a 90s CD. That is all.

Horrible justification. ‘It was even MORE OP before, be thankful now that it’s slightly less.’

Pyroatheist.9031:

Geikamir.6329:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Geikamir.6329:

I’m new to the Mesmer, so I haven’t played a one for long but I have played with/agains’t them plenty ofc.

The OP is right that it’s imbalanced to let more than 5 people be affected by any of these skills since that’s the limiting factor for everyone else (and for good reason).

The thing is, this is in the Mesmer sub-forum. No one wants ‘their profession’ nerfed. Ofc nobody is going to agree with these changes here. The natural tendency is to use what’s the most effective as long/often as possible while it’s still available. Balance is not what the players care about unless it’s someone else besides them that is too strong.

Actually, you’re wrong. Portal is a skill that facilitates movement, not buffing or other status effects. As such, the 5 target limit is meaningless for it. Portal is perfectl balanced because it’s a pure utility and tactics skill with multiple counters and workarounds, many of which were actually presented in this very thread.

There’s a reason that people are mocking the op, and it has nothing to do with a misguided attempt to keep portal. If you actually read his post, you’d notice that he’s just complaining about how a Mesmer turned the tables on his party when they tried to 5v1 him. It’s the most absurd premise for a complaint I’ve ever come across, and is a large part of the reason why almost no one is taking this seriously.

My argument is about the skill limits themselves and how Mesmer gets to defy the rules.

General AoE healing and damage- 5 limit
Warrior’s warhorn/banner speed boosts- 5 limit
Ele’s numerous speed boosts- 5 limit
Thief stealths- 5 limit
Everyone else’s everything- 5 or less limit

Mesmers- 20 or infinite.

As I explained in my previous post, portal is an entirely different type of skill, and bears absolutely no relation to normal skills that obey a 5 target aoe limit.

The infinite skills you refer to are, I presume, temporal curtain for swiftness and veil for stealth. The thing is that these skills are deficient in other ways, namely not stacking with any other buffs. Whether this makes them balanced, I’m not sure, but regardless of that fact, if you wish to debate the merits of line buffing aoe skills, I suggest you make a thread for them, instead of hijacking this portal thread.

How am I hijacking? I am talking about portal. I put that in there because it’s an important item of information that strengthens my point, which is primarily towards portal and mesmer as a whole.

And yes, portal is a different type of skill than just speed. But so is aura-sharing for ele’s or venom-sharing for thieves. Both of those have a 5 limit. Warrior banners are a different type of skill since they are stationary boosters, but still those have a limit.

It’s painfully obvious that portal needs a lower cap than 20. It’s extremely biased and overpowered like this. It breaks the rules that everything else goes by.

You keep saying that portal is OP and needs to be nerfed, but you always neglect to actually say why. I’d love to hear your reasoning on this.

To clear up any confusion before you try to explain yourself, let me start you off by fully explaining the difference between portal and skills that have a 5 target aoe limit. Portal is not an aoe. That is the basic difference. A 5 target aoe limit makes no sense because it isn’t an aoe. The skill is a utility transport, and no precedent exists in the game for a target limit on that type of skill.

With that in mind, go ahead and attempt to justify why portal is op, so that I can show you why it isn’t.

Geikamir.6329:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Geikamir.6329:

I’m new to the Mesmer, so I haven’t played a one for long but I have played with/agains’t them plenty ofc.

The OP is right that it’s imbalanced to let more than 5 people be affected by any of these skills since that’s the limiting factor for everyone else (and for good reason).

The thing is, this is in the Mesmer sub-forum. No one wants ‘their profession’ nerfed. Ofc nobody is going to agree with these changes here. The natural tendency is to use what’s the most effective as long/often as possible while it’s still available. Balance is not what the players care about unless it’s someone else besides them that is too strong.

Actually, you’re wrong. Portal is a skill that facilitates movement, not buffing or other status effects. As such, the 5 target limit is meaningless for it. Portal is perfectl balanced because it’s a pure utility and tactics skill with multiple counters and workarounds, many of which were actually presented in this very thread.

There’s a reason that people are mocking the op, and it has nothing to do with a misguided attempt to keep portal. If you actually read his post, you’d notice that he’s just complaining about how a Mesmer turned the tables on his party when they tried to 5v1 him. It’s the most absurd premise for a complaint I’ve ever come across, and is a large part of the reason why almost no one is taking this seriously.

My argument is about the skill limits themselves and how Mesmer gets to defy the rules.

General AoE healing and damage- 5 limit
Warrior’s warhorn/banner speed boosts- 5 limit
Ele’s numerous speed boosts- 5 limit
Thief stealths- 5 limit
Everyone else’s everything- 5 or less limit

Mesmers- 20 or infinite.

As I explained in my previous post, portal is an entirely different type of skill, and bears absolutely no relation to normal skills that obey a 5 target aoe limit.

The infinite skills you refer to are, I presume, temporal curtain for swiftness and veil for stealth. The thing is that these skills are deficient in other ways, namely not stacking with any other buffs. Whether this makes them balanced, I’m not sure, but regardless of that fact, if you wish to debate the merits of line buffing aoe skills, I suggest you make a thread for them, instead of hijacking this portal thread.

Geikamir.6329:

I’m new to the Mesmer, so I haven’t played a one for long but I have played with/agains’t them plenty ofc.

The OP is right that it’s imbalanced to let more than 5 people be affected by any of these skills since that’s the limiting factor for everyone else (and for good reason).

The thing is, this is in the Mesmer sub-forum. No one wants ‘their profession’ nerfed. Ofc nobody is going to agree with these changes here. The natural tendency is to use what’s the most effective as long/often as possible while it’s still available. Balance is not what the players care about unless it’s someone else besides them that is too strong.

Actually, you’re wrong. Portal is a skill that facilitates movement, not buffing or other status effects. As such, the 5 target limit is meaningless for it. Portal is perfectl balanced because it’s a pure utility and tactics skill with multiple counters and workarounds, many of which were actually presented in this very thread.

There’s a reason that people are mocking the op, and it has nothing to do with a misguided attempt to keep portal. If you actually read his post, you’d notice that he’s just complaining about how a Mesmer turned the tables on his party when they tried to 5v1 him. It’s the most absurd premise for a complaint I’ve ever come across, and is a large part of the reason why almost no one is taking this seriously.

thetarot.8246:

Iruwen.3164:

thetarot.8246:

I can see only one situation where Mantra heals are viable, and that’s a WvW Zerg standoff, requiring both sides to simply shoot at eacher, and not pushing.

And to trigger runes of the centaur

Nonsense! There is a better way to do that! Just get any transform item and use the heal button. For example Endless Griffon Tonic. You use the 6 ability to end the transformation at the same time, triggering the swiftness from Runes of Air/Centaur, without consuming your heal!

Heck, you can even grant yourself Swiftness from said runes when there isn’t actually a skill available in the slot! (Hit your heal skill underwater, in Dolphin form in the Underwater fractal for example) (You’ll need 7 runes of the centaur for it though, as helm is replaced by breathing mask underwater)

Now that is a nifty trick. Thanks for sharing that with us.

DanH.5879:

Sevenn.3085:

DanH.5879:

Hi all. I want to complain that the portal allows too many to pass trough.
Out of nowhere we get rolled by 20+ ppl. AND on top of it the mass quickness without penalty to all is even more OP

all aoe (including portal and mass quickness should effect maximum 5 people ! not 9999 !!!) the stealth curtain is the same story… as other skills
and shadow refuge is only for 5 !

where is the balance in this game ?

and the range should be less than 9000km between the portals !!!!

lol at the thief QQ

You wrote the below in the thief forums recently:

“the only thing i care about is PvE, when this will be taken from me, i will move on to the next game. Grinding Wars 2 (roll a 2nd class) is just not my thing …”

So, why do you give a kitten about portals?

since other classes always comes to our forum begging for nerfs, i think i have the right to return the favour

and fyi i come in wvw for completing dailies (10 invaders killed/5 caravans etc)

Yes, but it would help your case if you came with a pretense that wasn’t so irrational you got laughed out of the forum without even provoking the beginnings of a thoughtful conversation.

Our prodigy op needs to learn a bit of fractions. Here’s how it works:

5 unsuspecting wvw players pick on one lonely Mesmer: 5:1 odds or 20%.

One lonely Mesmer portals 20 people in: 21:5 odds, or slightly under 25%

You should be thankful that this Mesmer actually deigned to give you better odds than you gave him.

Carighan.6758:

Eh, Revealed has nothing to do with stacking or renewing, AFAIK.

Revealed
If you break a stealth effect prematurely by using a direct damage ability (independent of whether it hits or not!) then you get a 3s cannot-stealth debuff.

Almost right. If you miss, you don’t get revealed, or even unstealthed. You are correct though, revealed is applied by using any damage skill out of stealth. This is not tied to any class in any way whatsoever.

Look folks. We all hate change, especially when we are satisfied what the status quo is. However, change isn’t always a bad thing. Let the patch come out, figure out what anet really changed, what new thing they broke, and only then should we mope around about what happened. No sense in needless doom and gloom before it is justified.

Niim.9260:

EnRohbi.2187:

Except everytime Maguuma gets into tier 3 they just throw the match so they can go back to easier battles.

I wouldn’t confuse smaller with easier. They prefer smaller zergs and lots of roaming play, that doesn’t mean they are looking for ‘easier’. Besides I do not think they actually threw the match so much as they just didn’t have the coverage.

It’s both smaller and easier. Maguuma is demolishing t4. They don’t belong there, not by a long shot. Yaks also doesn’t really belong there, but Maguuma is definitely a stronger server overall than yaks.

For those complaining about the bubbles, any ranged non-projectile attack will hit through the bubbles. I believe arrow carts might hit through them as well

Kazhiel.8194:

Oh lmao, didn’t even know there was supposed to be a protective bubble. The couple times we did it we didn’t have and tho the one run was a struggle we made it thru eventually. We found you can kinda stand in between those pillars to the left side in the little nook and not get knocked down so much/at all if you have someone that can give the group stability. Rumbles stops in one spot and stays there and you can just range him.

Yep, that’s a buggy spot that allows you to complete it, looks like you managed to find it real quick.

Kazhiel.8194:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Note: path 3 is bugged, the npc doesn’t work properly, so avoid that unless you are really experienced with it.

How is it bugging? I ran it right after they changed the dung and it was fine for me.

The ghost npc has an excruciatingly long charge up attack on his hammer that he spams. Because of that, more than 9/10 times, when rumbles starts his attack, the npc is charging up the hammer, gets knocked down and killed, and fails to ever provide the protective bubble.

pahldus.1678:

AC has been racheted up, and is no longer a cakewalk. HotW path 1 can be complete in 15-20 minutes with a decent group doing a speed run. If you have multiple level 80’s each can run the dungeon once to get the 60 tokens.

Ac is just as easy as before, and actually faster because every mob and boss has significantly less hp. It is more interesting with fun mechanics though. If any of you guys want a good run, just toss me a pm ingame at some point, and I can run you through it.

Note: path 3 is bugged, the npc doesn’t work properly, so avoid that unless you are really experienced with it.

Oh yeah, ever since the second beta weekend (when they enabled key mapping) shatters have been ctrl 1-4. The reason for this is that the f keys are farther away than any other key you normally press. Using ctrl as a modifier is natural, and adding 1-4 to it is natural as well.

For the same reason, every skill past 5 is bound to a key near wasd, for me going q e r t x from heal to elite.

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Iruwen.3164:

Fozzik.1742:

I tried out scepter with crippling dissipation and debilitating dissipation, and I just don’t feel like it’s worth the sacrifices you have to make. At least not with my play style. I was finding almost immediately that the enemy wasn’t close to the clones when they would be replaced… in fact it seemed like with my play style the clone getting replaced was always the farthest one away from the mob, which was kind of frustrating.

Broken anyway.

I remember seeing something similar for rangers before they increased projectile speed for arrows. Considering how mesmers are doing compared to rangers, I can see why this has been overlooked for mesmers, but this is still pretty ridiculous. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future.

I’m fairly certain this wouldn’t work against the Mesmer scepter. Since the chain advances regardless of being hit, and iirc, the last one only needs a target to spawn the clone on, it doesn’t have to make contact.

That doesn’t make much of a difference if the clone casts the same ability that misses the target.

I mean, I have nothing against slow projectiles in game, but personally, making the basic small damage attacks so easily avoidable just doesn’t make for fun gameplay (my 2 cents).

The point of the dissipation traits is that when the clone dies/is overwritten, it explodes. That doesn’t rely on any sort of clone autoattacks in any way.

I don’t see how that really makes much of a difference when your auto attacks are missing, but ok.

As I said 3 posts ago…I don’t think Mesmer scepter has to hit in order to spawn a clone. All it needs is a target.

Yes, but that’s not the issue. Sure, it’s fine that you can spawn clones. You can get dps from the other abilities too, but that doesn’t justify having an auto attack that only lands on stationary targets.

If you are using the scepter with the intent of making the dissipation traits do your damage, you will be running a condition damage build. In a condition damage build, the scepter autoattacks are completely worthless with the exception of spawning clones. Whether or not they hit will not matter in your overall dps, only whether or not the clone explosion hits.

I think you’re missing the point…

But if you’re perfectly cool with your auto attacks airballing, more power to you I guess.

While it’s certainly a problem, if you’re using the scepter with the intent of doing damage via its autoattack chain, you’re gonna have a bad time. The chain is absurdly slow, and does absurdly low damage. The only saving grace of it is that it spawns a clone at the end of the third chain attack.

Mesmer has an interesting relationship with healing power.

On the one hand, with proper traiting you can easily have 100% uptime on regeneration while remaining fully mobile, even through highly aggressive boons stripping, and regeneration scales the highest of any heal in the game, at around 2.8 iirc.

Additionally, our strongest heal, ether feast, scales a minimum of 1.0 with healing power, and a maximum of 1.3. Those are extremely high scalings, and benefit hugely from healing power.

On the other hand, ether feast also happens to have an extraordinarily massive base heal. The traits restorative illusions (heal on shatter) and mantra healing both scale poorly with healing power, but have massive base heal amounts.

Really, it just comes down to personal preference. Mesmer has really powerful heals with no healing power. Healing power is definitely not necessary in a bunker build for mesmer. However, if you choose to build a lot of healing power, you will get more benefits from it than almost any other class in the game.

As for a bunker build, if you want to go for a tanky/dps build, I suggest seven mirror’s build. If you want more of a full tank feel, my immortal build accomplishes that (in the sig).

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Iruwen.3164:

Fozzik.1742:

I tried out scepter with crippling dissipation and debilitating dissipation, and I just don’t feel like it’s worth the sacrifices you have to make. At least not with my play style. I was finding almost immediately that the enemy wasn’t close to the clones when they would be replaced… in fact it seemed like with my play style the clone getting replaced was always the farthest one away from the mob, which was kind of frustrating.

Broken anyway.

I remember seeing something similar for rangers before they increased projectile speed for arrows. Considering how mesmers are doing compared to rangers, I can see why this has been overlooked for mesmers, but this is still pretty ridiculous. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future.

I’m fairly certain this wouldn’t work against the Mesmer scepter. Since the chain advances regardless of being hit, and iirc, the last one only needs a target to spawn the clone on, it doesn’t have to make contact.

That doesn’t make much of a difference if the clone casts the same ability that misses the target.

I mean, I have nothing against slow projectiles in game, but personally, making the basic small damage attacks so easily avoidable just doesn’t make for fun gameplay (my 2 cents).

The point of the dissipation traits is that when the clone dies/is overwritten, it explodes. That doesn’t rely on any sort of clone autoattacks in any way.

I don’t see how that really makes much of a difference when your auto attacks are missing, but ok.

As I said 3 posts ago…I don’t think Mesmer scepter has to hit in order to spawn a clone. All it needs is a target.

Yes, but that’s not the issue. Sure, it’s fine that you can spawn clones. You can get dps from the other abilities too, but that doesn’t justify having an auto attack that only lands on stationary targets.

If you are using the scepter with the intent of making the dissipation traits do your damage, you will be running a condition damage build. In a condition damage build, the scepter autoattacks are completely worthless with the exception of spawning clones. Whether or not they hit will not matter in your overall dps, only whether or not the clone explosion hits.

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Iruwen.3164:

Fozzik.1742:

I tried out scepter with crippling dissipation and debilitating dissipation, and I just don’t feel like it’s worth the sacrifices you have to make. At least not with my play style. I was finding almost immediately that the enemy wasn’t close to the clones when they would be replaced… in fact it seemed like with my play style the clone getting replaced was always the farthest one away from the mob, which was kind of frustrating.

Broken anyway.

I remember seeing something similar for rangers before they increased projectile speed for arrows. Considering how mesmers are doing compared to rangers, I can see why this has been overlooked for mesmers, but this is still pretty ridiculous. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future.

I’m fairly certain this wouldn’t work against the Mesmer scepter. Since the chain advances regardless of being hit, and iirc, the last one only needs a target to spawn the clone on, it doesn’t have to make contact.

That doesn’t make much of a difference if the clone casts the same ability that misses the target.

I mean, I have nothing against slow projectiles in game, but personally, making the basic small damage attacks so easily avoidable just doesn’t make for fun gameplay (my 2 cents).

The point of the dissipation traits is that when the clone dies/is overwritten, it explodes. That doesn’t rely on any sort of clone autoattacks in any way.

I don’t see how that really makes much of a difference when your auto attacks are missing, but ok.

As I said 3 posts ago…I don’t think Mesmer scepter has to hit in order to spawn a clone. All it needs is a target.

Lots of good info here, but there’s a bit missing, particularly with fractals.

On even numbered difficulty levels in fractals, you get a 4th bonus fractal with the jade maw. After this fractal, you’ll get a daily chest containing extra relics, and a chance at a ring or a fractal weapon skin depending on the difficulty. This chest is linked to the 10 level fractal tier system, so you can get a chest for each 1-9, 10-19, 20-29, etc. all in the same day. You can run as many fractals as you want consecutively with no diminishing returns, you just won’t get the daily chest again.

With exp mode dungeons, you get a base reward of 20 tokens. If it is your first run of that path that day, you get 40 bonus tokens for a total of 60 tokens. This first run of the day thing is tied to your character, not the account, so you can get on an alt and achieve the 60 tokens again for a path you already ran.

Dahkeus.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Dahkeus.8243:

Iruwen.3164:

Fozzik.1742:

I tried out scepter with crippling dissipation and debilitating dissipation, and I just don’t feel like it’s worth the sacrifices you have to make. At least not with my play style. I was finding almost immediately that the enemy wasn’t close to the clones when they would be replaced… in fact it seemed like with my play style the clone getting replaced was always the farthest one away from the mob, which was kind of frustrating.

Broken anyway.

I remember seeing something similar for rangers before they increased projectile speed for arrows. Considering how mesmers are doing compared to rangers, I can see why this has been overlooked for mesmers, but this is still pretty ridiculous. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future.

I’m fairly certain this wouldn’t work against the Mesmer scepter. Since the chain advances regardless of being hit, and iirc, the last one only needs a target to spawn the clone on, it doesn’t have to make contact.

That doesn’t make much of a difference if the clone casts the same ability that misses the target.

I mean, I have nothing against slow projectiles in game, but personally, making the basic small damage attacks so easily avoidable just doesn’t make for fun gameplay (my 2 cents).

The point of the dissipation traits is that when the clone dies/is overwritten, it explodes. That doesn’t rely on any sort of clone autoattacks in any way.

EasymodeX.4062:

Dungeons suck.

Get a good guild and do them with friends. Particularly as a Mesmer, because having a good Mesmer in a party makes things easier like no other class can.

Dahkeus.8243:

Iruwen.3164:

Fozzik.1742:

I tried out scepter with crippling dissipation and debilitating dissipation, and I just don’t feel like it’s worth the sacrifices you have to make. At least not with my play style. I was finding almost immediately that the enemy wasn’t close to the clones when they would be replaced… in fact it seemed like with my play style the clone getting replaced was always the farthest one away from the mob, which was kind of frustrating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSJ0pqRwjuU

Broken anyway.

I remember seeing something similar for rangers before they increased projectile speed for arrows. Considering how mesmers are doing compared to rangers, I can see why this has been overlooked for mesmers, but this is still pretty ridiculous. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future.

I’m fairly certain this wouldn’t work against the Mesmer scepter. Since the chain advances regardless of being hit, and iirc, the last one only needs a target to spawn the clone on, it doesn’t have to make contact.

Kazhiel.8194:

Saturn.6591:

Kazhiel.8194:

if I miss a dodge I can cure agony instantly between torch and cure condition on heal, and do high lvl fractals with no agony resistance. Those traits seem to cure ouchiest condition first which is definately agony lol

…just that agony can’t be removed/cured with any condition removal.

Seems to remove with both traits. Did a high lvl fractal once with a different build that didn’t have the removal and agony kicked my kitten up one side and down the other.

A lot of agony doesn’t last very long. Go to the jade maw fractal and try to remove it there. If it works, now we’ve got something interesting.

Daemonne.5018:

Pyro, what leggings did you take? I grabbed all the Karma Exotics I could with soldier stats, which consists of 5/6 armor pieces. Currently there are no Karma Exotics with soldier stats that I can see listed, unless there’s a typo somewhere. I have been slowly farming up Badges of Honor to obtain my Invaders Leggings, UNLESS you can suggest another option.
I am currently at 5/6 Melandru, which until I can pull that 6th, I’m not lasting as long as this build should :-)

Soldiers stats are actually the easiest to get. They come from hotw(ugh), se(ugh), but also from ac. A few quick runs of ac will get you a full set in no time, then I just bought the runes off the trading post.

I noticed in your most recent videos that you actually slow down a lot of the action. I never really thought of doing that, but it makes a whole lot of sense, especially since mesmer is so absurdly fast paced at times.

…I also noticed that people play with screen shake on. Holy kitten that makes me nauseous. Have you ever tried turning it off? I think I turned it off a while ago when some guardians were trolling at the trading post or something.

While pahldus’ analysis is spot on, it doesn’t actually answer the question posed, mainly because the question posed makes absolutely no sense.

You ask about dropping confusing cry for chaotic transference. However, chaotic transference is the 25 minor trait in chaos, a line that this build already has 20 points in. Therefor, you would only need to take 5 points out of either inspiration or illusions to get chaotic transference.

Unfortunately, this is where we run into problems. 20 points in inspiration provides warden’s feedback, which is responsible for a massive amount of the utility and defense in my build. 30 points in illusions is illusionary persona, which is arguably even more important than warden’s feedback. Neither of these traits are possible to remove and still have this build be at all functional.

That being said, what pahldus mentioned is extremely accurate. This is primarily a retaliation build, with confusion only functioning as a burst finisher once someone has been adequately scared into spamming skills. Also, since confusion stacks intensity sharply, no large amounts of condition damage are necessary to make it highly effective.

Kazhiel.8194:

I’ve generally been running 0/20/20/25/5, sword/torch, scepter/sword. Taking de and phant fury, 3% less damage, mirrored anguish, cure cond on heal, and then I vary between glamour recharge and compounding celerity. If I’m running with a guild group I will usually use portal and then either veil or null field, and then third utility blink which normally never leaves my bar. If I’m running solo in wvw I might use phant defender. I’ve not really found the 20% hp for phant trait to be very useful, it doesn’t really seem to add enough to make much difference in wvw, it might be better in pve.

Alternatively I’ll go 20/20/0/25/5 taking 15% damage and torch trait. Conditions can’t touch me lol.

Wait, you use torch in a phantasm focused build for pve?

Kazhiel.8194:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I haven’t actually used it in wvw at all, because its just so inferior to my tank build in the vast majority of fights you’ll find yourself in in wvw. I’ve only run it in sPvP just as a bit of a proof of concept build, using the zerker amulet, runes of air, a crit stacking sigil, and I can’t actually remember the other ones. Maybe sigil of air on a few of them.

Yeah, a phantasm setup isn’t as versatile in a lot of ways. I like running phantasm a lot when I’m picking off yaks and roaming with a small guild group. It also works really well in most dungeons and fractals, pve in general.

Yeah, in pve I do use a phantasm build, but my build is less focused on the damage output and goes 30 points into inspiration for the massive choices of utility there, and less in duelin because I switch weapons so much depending on the situation.

Kazhiel.8194:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I use scepter in one build only: a pure phantasm based power build. This is because having 2 offhands is essential, and due to the phantasm focus of the build, the scepter autoattack doesn’t matter.

I use scepter/sword and sword/pistol going 10.30.0.25.5, taking illusion damage in domination, phantasm fury, sword, and pistol cooldowns, condition removal on heal and increased phantasm hp.

This build basically runs around in circles casting phantasms on a target, using the 2 blocks and blurred frenzy as defensive skills that happen to hit hard. It is a really really powerful 1v1/small fight build, but really starts to suck in any larger fight (wvw) due to phantasms dying really fast.

I run something similar for small fight roaming, and I agree it sadly sucks in big fights. What gear are you using in you setup? I generally run my knights set because it has rune of the centaur to make up for not using a focus lol

I haven’t actually used it in wvw at all, because its just so inferior to my tank build in the vast majority of fights you’ll find yourself in in wvw. I’ve only run it in sPvP just as a bit of a proof of concept build, using the zerker amulet, runes of air, a crit stacking sigil, and I can’t actually remember the other ones. Maybe sigil of air on a few of them.

I use scepter in one build only: a pure phantasm based power build. This is because having 2 offhands is essential, and due to the phantasm focus of the build, the scepter autoattack doesn’t matter.

I use scepter/sword and sword/pistol going 10.30.0.25.5, taking illusion damage in domination, phantasm fury, sword, and pistol cooldowns, condition removal on heal and increased phantasm hp.

This build basically runs around in circles casting phantasms on a target, using the 2 blocks and blurred frenzy as defensive skills that happen to hit hard. It is a really really powerful 1v1/small fight build, but really starts to suck in any larger fight (wvw) due to phantasms dying really fast.

I’m thinking sword pistol and either greatsword or staff. Staff gives burning, and greatsword clones give more bleeding.

I’m thinking it would be a phantasm focused build as opposed to a shatter build. The most potent one would be the iDuelist for bleed stacking.

I’m thinking something like 10.30.0.10.20 or 20.30.0.0.20 or perhaps 10.20.0.20.20

pahldus.1678:

Just a question about the iLeap with TC.

Do you ever have problems landing this against a kiting build as it has a short range?

Nearly have all the gear, and will be taking my new Immortal build into W3 this weekend.

Never have problems, because of a nifty effect that you might have missed the explanation for. You can detonate the curtain, and the combo field will still be there. This allows you to get the interrupt/cc on a slippery person, and also get that combo field finisher.

Suzut.4905:

Right, I can see how Great Sword would want the 10 Domination instead. But being able to summon iDuelist every 12 seconds, as well as a stun, from outside most enemy AoE is pretty useful.

Also, iDuelist stacks bleed very efficiently with a high crit rate, and it bypasses defenses, so I would not underestimate how much damage it can do in a PvE situation. I remember someone actually did a mathcraft for it a few months ago.

Sharper images actually does increase the iDuelists damage by about 30%, but no other phantasm has that sort of increase, so it ends up being a net loss, especially with the iWarlock, which hits like a fully loaded truck in that build (7k+).

Suzut.4905:

@Pyroatheist
I looked that up… and it’s almost exactly what I use (a Power-based Phantasm build). Except I use Sword/Pistol instead of Great Sword, and thus, the 10 Domination goes into Dueling for Sharper Images and Duelist’s Discipline. XD

In that build, I’ll swap between any combination of staff, greatsword, sword/focus and sword/pistol as the situation demands, also changing the inspiration traits to best suit my current weaponset and utilities. Duelists discipline wasn’t worth it since I don’t always use the pistol, and sharper images is of course objectively worse than the 15% bonus damage from domination.

Suzut.4905:

@Pyroatheist
I see.

I meant that this is a Power-based build, so I found it confusing why I would need traits that are mostly for conditions.

You can never have too much reflect. Especially since reflect is stationary, but Magnetic Aura is not. But I can appreciate the Melandru setup for duels and PvP. Any alternatives to Rune of Melandru for when I am PvEing? Or is that the optimal choice there as well?

To say this is a power based build is a bit incorrect. While retaliation does scale off of power, a large component of my damage comes from well timed confusion bursting. Additionally, because the power component of this build is retaliation, none of the traits in domination synergize at all with it.

As for runes of earth, the 20% protection duration is nice. However, 4s of protection evey 30 seconds is completely worthless. Additionally, a 5 second shield on a 90s cooldown that only pops when you drop under 20% hp is completely worthless. If reflects are that important in a fight that they will matter when you drop under 20%, you should have been in sword/focus chaining reflects anyway.

Additionally, Melandru runes are absolutely amazing in every single fight and every single situation, not just duels and small fights. In big fights, having conditions just roll off you with no actions taken on your part is invaluable. In a 1 vs many situation, being essentially immune to crowd control is rather amazing.

As for pve, I don’t recommend this build for pve. While pve is rather easy with it, pve is rather easy with rather everything. This build is optimized towards the hyperdefensive counter attacking playstyle that is exceedingly effective in pvp, but completely unnecessary in pve. For a pve build, take a look at my supporting phantasm build instead.

There’s a few weird things I’m seeing.

First, you have regen ticking for 5 hp for at least 10 seconds in that video. That’s really weird, and we need to try to reproduce that.

Next, your regen is ticking for 227 sometimes and 277 other times. This is also weird, as healing power is not a stat that can fluctuate during a fight.

Lastly, of course, we have the large unexplained healing proc.

3 strange things. I have no clue what would cause any of them. I’m gonna watch the video again to see if I can see anything else.

Edit: The fluctuating regen from 227 to 277 looks like it could have been caused by hitting max hp, but it’s hard to tell from the video. Also, it is very difficult to tell if the strange heal is healing to full hp or otherwise. I’m going to try to reproduce these when I have the time.

@Suzut: You mention that 20 points in illusions isn’t worth it because it supplies condition damage, which is what confusion scales off of. This might have been a typo, because it certainly makes no sense as is.

At any rate illusionary persona is too good to pass up. It vastly increases the damage of your shatters. Also, it provides an on demand interrupt and an on demand distortion, which is invaluable for securing stomps in crazy situations. Illusionary persona is really not an optional trait for this build. Additionally, 30 points in illusions is a large cooldown decrease on my shatters, which is important for maintaining retaliation.

You mentioned putting 10 points in domination. The small power boost would add to retaliation damage, but only minimally. The vulnerability doesn’t really matter, because this build primarily does damage from confusion and retaliation, neither of which are affected by vulnerability.

Restorative illusions actually has no synergy with mender’s purity. The condition removal from that trait only works with your main heal. The heal mantra will proc it twice, but other than that, nothing else works with it. Restorative illusions is a nice heal certainly, but it’s not enough to justify taking traits out of somewhere else.

Lastly, you mention runes of earth. Magnetic shield is worthless in this build, because you already have 100% uptime on projectile reflects if necessary. The protection duration is nice, for sure, but you need to consider what you are losing. In this case, you are losing -25% condition AND stun duration for 20% extra protection? Not worth it. Not even close.

EasymodeX.4062:

you’d have to basically time a multiple confusion stack + ret into a flurry of their attacks on you after you’ve softened them a bit.

That right there is precisely what I do, and is how I can kill most classes. People usually have the ability to outheal my damage over time, but the key to playing this build is knowing when someone is going to go after you, and counterattacking into it. The way my build is created is such that you can absorb several rounds of burst from people without dying. This allows you to 100% facetank someone’s burst combo in order to do the necessary damage to kill them. A warrior is coming at you with a hasted 100b combo? Facetank it, but have a defender up and burst confusion as he comes in. It will hurt, but it won’t kill you, and he will leave that combo at <20% hp.