Guild Wars 2

EnRohbi.2187:

Nuka Cola.8520:

ODB.6891:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Yes. I don’t want another power based weapon tho, make it so the weapon is useful on condi builds. Skill 3 Chaos Bullet: Inflicts Burning 1sec, Poison 2sec, Chill 3sec, one stack of Confusion 4sec, 1 stack of bleeding 5sec and 15sec CD on the skill. Boom that’s ‘chaos’ stuff, not give 1 stack of useless vulnerability cough WoC cough.

What you are asking for is a buff to scepter then, since it already applies confusion with scepter #3. Scepter is already the 1h condition ranged weapon for mesmer. It makes no sense to add a second ranged 1h condition weapon for mesmer instead of adding a ranged 1h power weapon…when there is no ranged 1h power weapon and there already is a ranged 1h condition weapon.

For me to care about scepter they need to change all three skills it has and that won’t happen. What i really want for mesmer is some kind of spammable skill with poison/burning, this is what i want. I want these two conditions on one skill. We have way too many power weapon on mesmer and not a single real condi wep (staff isn’t one). Scepter deals much more damage in a power build that in a full rabid set. Sword in main and offhand is for power builds. GS is for power builds. Staff is a defensive weapon than anything else (if vulnerability is removed from WOC it could become a great condi wep). Pistol is okay for condi builds but then you have no main hand. Focus is a Swiftness weapon lolz. Torch is laughable for any builds so yeaaaah.

Just because you had not had success using weapons does not mean they can be disregarded.
The fact you consider Focus to be a swiftness weapon is demonstrative of this, as the pull on Temporal Curtain is one of the most useful CC skills in the entire game, especially traited. The phantasm is less useful but still has a purpose if you pay enough attention and position yourself and it accordingly.

I have also had success using the torch in a stealth/confusion heavy build.

We won’t even discuss whether the Staff is a condition weapon or not. It’s certainly defensive, yes, but all 5 skills are condition oriented. (With the arguable exception of Phase Retreat, which still spawns a clone for more WoC which many condition mesmers use)

All 5 skills are most certainly not condition oriented. 4 are, sure, but not the warlock. There is a massive difference between scaling with number of unique conditions on the target and scaling through condition damage. The warlock is a power/crit scaling skill, and that isn’t really up for discussion. The other problem with the staff as a condition weapon is that WoC has vulnerability on it. If it didn’t have vuln, then the staff would be far better at condition damage. As is, 30% of your attacks will do practically 0 damage in a condition damage build.

As far as scepter goes, it USED to be a viable condition damage weapon, back when the autoattack applied confusion. However, only 1 out of its 3 skill apply a damaging condition, and even confusing images scales quite well with power. Unfortunately, the auto-attack chain the scepter is so mind-numbingly slow that it is highly ineffective as a power weapon, and since it only has the 1 attack of questionable utility that applies a condition, it is ineffective as a condition damage weapon. We need a main-hand pistol to actually be a power weapon, and we need scepter at least partially retooled to be a condition, or at the very least, a confusion weapon.

Master of Timespace.2548:

EasymodeX.4062:

Light armor doesn’t make much of a difference.

Hmh, yeah, not really. But the point is that you can’t “tank” a shatter burst mesmer in WvW setting.

Sure you can. Blurred frenzy through it. Mesmer has more active damage mitigation than any other class in the game, and that is what allows you to tank. Tanking doesn’t mean the same thing in gw2 as it does in other games. Not all tanking is standing with your hands off the keyboard and seeing how much damage you can soak up.

SlimChance.6593:

I played around with a retaliation, but it wasn’t obvious to me what damage came from the retaliation?

Confusion damage numbers have the purple target/confusion symbol around them when they appear. I’ve also seen a red “pow” balloon on some damage numbers, is that damage from retaliation?

Retaliation damage will show up as normal white numbers over your target. It will generally be in the 200-350 range at level 80.

Power of the person with the retaliation. That’s it.

I’m in the process of adding a fighting guide classified by profession. Should have it finished later tonight. I’ll also be adding a few new videos soon, one about zergball fighting, and the other with soloing supply camps.

ODB.6891:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Yes. I don’t want another power based weapon tho, make it so the weapon is useful on condi builds. Skill 3 Chaos Bullet: Inflicts Burning 1sec, Poison 2sec, Chill 3sec, one stack of Confusion 4sec, 1 stack of bleeding 5sec and 15sec CD on the skill. Boom that’s ‘chaos’ stuff, not give 1 stack of useless vulnerability cough WoC cough.

What you are asking for is a buff to scepter then, since it already applies confusion with scepter #3. Scepter is already the 1h condition ranged weapon for mesmer. It makes no sense to add a second ranged 1h condition weapon for mesmer instead of adding a ranged 1h power weapon…when there is no ranged 1h power weapon and there already is a ranged 1h condition weapon.

Unfortunately, that’s not quite accurate. Scepter seems like someone thought it should be a cd weapon, and then left the dev team halfway through and the new guy liked power weapons better. The resulting weapon, of course, being completely useless at doing either cd or power damage.

ButterOfDeath.2873:

Levitas.1953:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/beta-skills-being-used-right-now

look at this. it seems anet didnt pay attention to change those names. the description of your link seems spatial surge but i didnt play the beta so i cant tell you more.

I don’t think it was spatial surge: i was trying a full glass cannon build using berserker gear…spatial surge shouldn’t have done so little damage <.<

As jROON said, it was probably the clone version of spatial surge, somehow it ended up in your combat log. I don’t really know how that happened, but it seems the most likely solution.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Immortal-Mesmer-Build/first

You can take a look at my build in that thread.

I will say this, a shatter Mesmer is a hard fight, and if they catch you unprepared, it will hurt. However, given that they don’t surprise you, you should be able to beat them without too many problems once you get the hang of it. The only class that will consistently dismantle you is a full phantasm glass cannon Mesmer.

Healing power works, insofar as the only healing phantasms provide is aoe regen pulses.

Something to note. The scepter autoattack is distance dependent. You do not start the next chain of the attack until the bolt reaches the target. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but this means that somewhere around 700 range, the gs starts out damaging the scepter in autoattack damage.

That being said, a common tactic is to interrupt the scepter chain. 2 attacks and dodge. 2 attacks and double tap 2, etc. This allows you to still attack without overwriting a phantasm, and I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet.

What sort of bunker build are you running? I know that one of the only weaknesses of my build is a phantasm focused gc Mesmer. Perhaps it is a weakness for you as well.

Maestro.5376:

Whoa. Don’t know many DN players that play this as well, if you’re the same Pyroatheist on there.

One and the same. I actually have a couple of DN videos in my channel, one of my mystic at level 32 getting kicked from wall to wall by generalDan.

Its a majesty now though, and doesn’t take kitten from mercs any more, heheh.

Dasboba.1652:

I don’t even mess with p/d thieves. My first main was a p/d thief, that runs with 22k health, heals & cleanses in stealth, blinds everytime she stealths, can pretty much stealth at will, and can stack 15+ bleeds ticking for 130+ very easily. Since my mesmer has no reliable way to cleanse bleeds, it’s really silly for me to waste my time fighting them. Even in fights that I’m able to transfer conditions, the fights still take forever. I built my thief to be a troll in wvw, and I refuse to be trolled, hah!

Depends on the Mesmer build. My build destroys p/d thieves. Lots of small attacks that all proc retaliation and chaos armor? Yes please! Ever since I changed my runes and food, I’ll actually purposefully stand in caltrops for the retal and chaos armor hits, as it can’t stack more than 3 bleeds onto me.

EasymodeX.4062:

Pyroatheist.9031:

1. No clue
2. wat
3. I’m pretty sure its a 5 target aoe like everything else, but I don’t really know.

2. Does retaliation proc when you block an attack. Or does the block negate the combat step where retaliation is inflicted.

I figure that standing in the middle of 50 people with Blurred Frenzy and Retaliation could either be epic on a scale unimaginable, or it could be a colossal waste of time.

Edit: Or more specifically, Blurred Frenzy followed by Mimic followed by Mirror followed by Blurred Frenzy followed by blurred inscriptions signet followed by Distortion followed by a dodge followed by Blurred Frenzy followed by another dodge etc.

Distortion/blur aren’t blocks. Hate to rain on your parade. It’s as if you were removed from the combat field.

Edit: Noticed you added a few things. First, veil is ethereal, tooltip is wrong.

No icd afaik.

I don’t think block procs retal, and as I said, distortion and blur are something else entirely.

EasymodeX.4062:

I solve the block issue by running into 47 Jade Quarry invaders.

WORKS EVERY TIME.

What I’m really curious about is:

1. Does ret proc while you are invuln.
2. Does it proc when you block.
3. Does Signet of Inspiration have a target limit. Because 31 teammates with 2 minutes of retaliation each would be lulzy.

1. No clue
2. wat
3. I’m pretty sure its a 5 target aoe like everything else, but I don’t really know.

Windwalker.7421:

Haven’t really had any issues with them using a variation of Pyro’s tank/retaliation build, it has so many counters to Rangers it’s usually almost kinda sad to watch them kill themselves so quickly.

Maybe I just haven’t run into a good regen Ranger yet, but I haven’t found many Rangers in general that were particularly hard to beat 1vs1 in sPvP with that build.

So maybe this is just a problem for a shatter-centric build. In that case I think you’ll find that there is always someone out there who has a build on some class that beautifully counters your own class/build combination.

My tank build eats tanky/regen rangers for several reasons. Straight damage shatter build can have a lot of trouble with them though.

@EasymodeX: It’s an interesting change. Even with the little catch of mimic, I still don’t like using that skill, especially to rely upon for the block → retaliation. It is a highly unreliable method of getting retaliation, because there is simply no guarantee someone is going to attack you during it. Another problem is that you’re now 20 points into dueling, giving you 20% crit damage, but you still only have 14% crit chance, they’re sorta wasted stats there.

Riven.4276:

Basic Question:

In your video, you phase retreat forward when running away from enemies. How are you doing this? See video below at 4:18.

For example, in this video at 4:18, you have the staff active as your weapon, and you are running away from enemies. Yet you teleport forward when you use staff 2 (phase retreat). I don’t notice any about face (turn 180 deg) and then staff 2 use… so I was just curious if you had to click any button in options to be able to do that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UWl92k63C9k#t=253s

With no target, phase retreat moves you backwards with relation to your character’s direction. With a target, phase retreat moves you directly away from your active target.

Kill the pet. With a ranger build like this, the pet is ultra important for condition removal. Burst the pet down fast. You’ll probably hit the ranger with some aoe too, which just makes it better. Once the pet is gone, you should have an easier time of it. Also, boon removal on shattering is an amazing trait in all sorts of situations and should absolutely be taken in a shatter build.

Kashaar.1529:

It’s also humorous that the first projectile coming at you will either damage you or not damage you (either way, you still capture) depending upon whether you’re equipping a 1h or 2h weapon at the time — at least, operates this way when karka farming. Perhaps the size of the weapon impacts whether mimic’s shield can cover your knees.;)

Care to elaborate a bit more on this?

Tricare.2946:

See that wasn’t so tough, gave me something to read in class. You wouldn’t happen to be on DB? I’d like to see how fair against your build.

I am in fact on dragonbrand.

Tricare.2946:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Tricare.2946:

Knox.8462

The iWarden would die in a zerg before it gets all of it’s dps out. The pull will yank a few people and then be on a long CD. I’d rather use the torch than the focus, at least I’d have another stealth that does aoe burn and is a combo blast finisher. The phantasm from torch (I don’t can’t remember what it’s called) will at least chase down it’s target and make an attempt to hit.

I could go into a long explanation about how important the focus is in my build and playstyle, and the massive amount of utility and mobility and fight presence it gives me, but I’m sick and I’m tired and it would be lost on you. Instead I’m just going to sit back, point my finger, and laugh with everyone else that realizes how much you’re missing.

Meh just having a discussion here, no need to go saying “things would be lost on me” and my “wasn’t impressed” was talking about the focus use in your videos. I just felt that a pistol or GS would have worked better.

sigh go here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Immortal-Mesmer-Build/first

Read it. You’ll quickly see how the focus is used properly.

Edit: Just looked through the first video to make sure. I received swiftness from the focus at 3:44, 4:09, 4:32, and 6:02.

Not only does the temporal curtain give me swiftness, it also reflects projectiles, cripples them, and pulls them around, which is disorientating and can severely kitten pursuit.

GuardianOMS.8067:

EnRohbi.2187:

GuardianOMS.8067:

Edit: I’m not trying to sound mean but a mesmer surviving against any amount of people just isn’t a news break or something to gloat about. Been there, done that.

Well, if that’s the argument you want to make,
I would propose that none of the 1vX stories are anything to gloat about. o;
(I would agree with myself too)

Because really,
We’ve all heard far too many of them

We weren’t talking about any other “1vX stories”. We were talking about yours. There are 1vX stories that are funny, entertaining, impressive, and/or insightful. Yours was “I’m a mesmer in the water and I survived for x amount of time against x people. I am so good, they are so bad.” The most stereotypical story you can get.

You’re talking to the wrong person. Just thought I’d let you know.

Knox.8462:

- All depends on your phantasm placement
- pbaoe burn is useless in a zerg situation
- Torch phantasm is laughable unless specced for confusion.
- My focus reflects projectiles, which is extremely useful against zergs.

Torch phant is laughable even if specced for confusion.

The prestige can still be nice though, it’s an on-demand stealth. I still wouldn’t use the torch, but I won’t deny the utility of the prestige.

Tricare.2946:

Knox.8462

The iWarden would die in a zerg before it gets all of it’s dps out. The pull will yank a few people and then be on a long CD. I’d rather use the torch than the focus, at least I’d have another stealth that does aoe burn and is a combo blast finisher. The phantasm from torch (I don’t can’t remember what it’s called) will at least chase down it’s target and make an attempt to hit.

I could go into a long explanation about how important the focus is in my build and playstyle, and the massive amount of utility and mobility and fight presence it gives me, but I’m sick and I’m tired and it would be lost on you. Instead I’m just going to sit back, point my finger, and laugh with everyone else that realizes how much you’re missing.

Zeoli.3402:

Use or non-use of the Focus doesn’t determine a good Mesmer. Being valuable to your team does. I run GS + Staff in a shatter/condition build which I have made and use to great success. I buff others with might, fury, swiftness, debuff the target and also has a minimum of 10 stacks of bleeds. I also tend to focus more on indirect damage (4k confusion, retaliation, daze, feedback, ect) and therefore do not get upset when I don’t see less numbers. I just punish and deny damage to my party.

Use of the focus doesn’t determine a good mesmer, but someone who denies the massive utility of that weapon for 1000 hours can not have understood the class properly.

Tricare.2946:

The focus is a joke in any 1v1 to 1v3. You’ll be killed using it. The only use it has is for quick equips for the speed and pulling people off walls. You’re silly if you think otherwise.

chuckle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWl92k63C9k

doublechuckle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T--u3A25GI

How about 1v5s and 1v6s?

Kenage Achalarus.4276:

…and the guild mates need a good mesmer

Says the guy that brags about not using focus for 1000 hours. Don’t make me laugh.

wads.5730:

glamors are a category of utility skills, like how they categorize signets, mantras etc.

so the only glamours are utilities

Well, some elites are typed skills. For example, the ele glyph of elementals, or thief basilisk venom.

However, time warp is far too strong of a skill to put a recharge lowering trait on it. Additionally, the 3 other glamour enhancing traits would apply to it, and that would make it REALLY overpowered.

Kenage Achalarus.4276:

ok guys my names Kenage a few days ago I decided to run a focus for the mesmer. I have clocked in 1000+ hours on this charater and I finally touched the focus. and I was wondering if anyone has beat me in that record if one exists lol.

and I got to say I’m glad I learned how to use it lol.

Congratulation’s, you went 1000 hours while completely ignoring a major gameplay mechanic of the mesmer that is one of the most useful party, pve, and pvp utility weapons in the game.

Do you want a medal?

Vanthian.9267:

Coldviper.6794:

…. but the self root ….

Hi, Warrior class here. Lets talk about self roots with only damage behind them and no utility.

In this case, it actually roots you. Hb requires no movement to work, but mind stab actually prevents you from moving.

Yeah, Mesmer is really lacking a ranged mainhand power weapon. As it happens, we also lack a ranged mainhand cd weapon, but that’s a different problem.

Daddydeath.9371:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Daddydeath.9371:

Crossplay.2067:

Be very weary of when you use daggerstorm. Some mesmers will pop out clones excessively, just to get you to use it. They are looking to cast Feedback on you (it’s the dome that forms around you and hums). This reflects all projectiles and WILL reflect every single dagger you toss out! If you can break the daggerstorm animation, do so. If not, find a way to use retaliation before Daggerstorm. Due to weird game mechanics, that will cause all the hits to hit the mesmer.
.

i wouldnt worry about feedback while in daggerstorm as daggerstorm reflects projectiles itselfs, having feedback on it would just mean that projectiles will keep bouncing. however confusion is what u need 2 worry about while in daggerstorm + condition dmg which will come from killing clones

This is not correct. Projectile reflects will not reflect reflected projectiles. A projectile can be reflected 1 time. After that 1 reflection, the projectiles can no longer be reflected again, and will simply ignore additional projectile reflections. Additionally, if the field that reflected them is a combo field, the reflected projectiles will take on the attributes of a finisher of that field.

I dont think ur correct, easiest way to test this is bonus frac which has mobs that reflect projectiles, shoot something at them it reflects back, have a reflect projectile on urself and u will see them bounce back, am not sure on the number of bounces but its more than one or two for sure, feel free to tests it.

I actually noticed this, and they are the single exception to the rule. However, you can still see my rule work even in that fractal. When they reflect the reflected projectile, you can not block it with another reflect. It will hit you no matter what. Those mobs are, to my knowledge, the only things in the game that can ignore that rule.

Daddydeath.9371:

Crossplay.2067:

Be very weary of when you use daggerstorm. Some mesmers will pop out clones excessively, just to get you to use it. They are looking to cast Feedback on you (it’s the dome that forms around you and hums). This reflects all projectiles and WILL reflect every single dagger you toss out! If you can break the daggerstorm animation, do so. If not, find a way to use retaliation before Daggerstorm. Due to weird game mechanics, that will cause all the hits to hit the mesmer.
.

i wouldnt worry about feedback while in daggerstorm as daggerstorm reflects projectiles itselfs, having feedback on it would just mean that projectiles will keep bouncing. however confusion is what u need 2 worry about while in daggerstorm + condition dmg which will come from killing clones

This is not correct. Projectile reflects will not reflect reflected projectiles. A projectile can be reflected 1 time. After that 1 reflection, the projectiles can no longer be reflected again, and will simply ignore additional projectile reflections. Additionally, if the field that reflected them is a combo field, the reflected projectiles will take on the attributes of a finisher of that field.

@RedSpectrum: I’m going to do a bit of a quick guide on the different aoe fields a mesmer can make, and what they do.

What you described sounds like chaos storm, staff 5. It is a purplish area with lightning in it, and has a really distinctive sound, ask a mesmer to cast one for you. It causes random conditions on enemies in it and random boons on allies. However, it will not cause confusion unless combined with a projectile finisher.
Poison: 2 s (168 damage)
Weakness: 2 s
Chilled: 1 s
Daze: 1 s

Another set of aoes are called glamours. This includes feedback (purple dome reflecting projectiles), veil (line aoe), and null field. Null field is a circular aoe on the ground that has a purple wall around the edge of it that pulses on and off. Null field removes conditions/boons from allies/enemies with every pulse.

Now, glamours can be traited so that you gain a stack of confusion every time you enter or exit the area. If you seem to be getting confusion when you walk over the area, they probably have that trait and you need to avoid crossing the boundary of the glamours.

When push comes to shove, however, it is extremely difficult to really understand what a mesmer is doing without having played a mesmer. I strongly advise you to grab a mesmer and go play it in sPvP. This will give you a chance to recognize what the skills look like, what they do, and how they are used.

kandolo.2574:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I was going to make a post pointing you to the phantasmal haste table on the wiki. I have updated and re-updated that table with highly accurate values on the effects of phantasmal haste. Unfortunately, some morons keep undoing my changes.

Therefor, I will simply post the correct information right here, and I will add it to some of my build threads as well.

The data in the attached chart is the most accurate possible, obtained by counting frames in adobe premier. The numbers are the time delay in seconds from the end of one skill to the beginning of the next, as the cooldown on skills won’t start until the cast time is completed.

I have also re-updated the chart on the wiki to reflect this data.

Your image says “between start and start,” but these values are for end and start, correct?

I can see people getting the wrong idea from this chart. 10k DPS over ~13 seconds is very different from 10k DPS over ~8 seconds. Swordsman and hasted Duelist also look like they have similar activation times (3.2 vs 4.4) but if you add the time spent channeling the skill the difference becomes a lot greater (3.2 vs. ~6).

Sorry, you are correct. The updated numbers show the actual skill recharge values, and the recharge of a skill is calculated from the final moment of the cast to the first moment of the next cast.

The skill recharge values are useful for determining whether or not phantasmal haste works. Unfortunately, they aren’t actually very useful for anything other than that, such as damage per second. I can post the values that I have for time between activations of the skill, and those values are the useful ones for dps calculations.

Ok, the block is a weapon ability on the scepter. Offhand sword also has a block. They knew what they were doing, that’s for sure, because it takes a lot of practice to do what you described.

The cycle of a thief goes stealth, pause, attack. A good Mesmer will use the scepter or sword block during that pause, that way the thief is forced to attack into the block. To counter this, try changing your rhythm. Attack way faster after stealthing, or even don’t attack until you see the block (only lasts a second or 2) go back down.

The clones were exploding when you killed them. There are 3 different ‘on clone death’ traits. This means when you kill the clones, it hurts. To avoid this, try to cnd off of either the real player or phantasms, as the phantasms won’t explode.

If all the clones start running at you, it’s a shatter. Dodge into the clones, not away from them.

Don’t attack the purple bubble, that’s chaos armor. Look it up on the wiki to see the effects.

Don’t worry about the moa elite too much. No good Mesmer will actually run with that, not even for a 1v1, it’s just dumb and op.

As someone mentioned, shortbow from range is your friend. The bouncing projectile will rapidly kill illusions. Just make sure you stay far enough away that they don’t explode on you.

Edit: the aoe you mentioned. What did it look like?

Wobels.1679:

Ok so first off i love the build its amazing i personally play a support guardian so in the support builds i love them. my guild loves bringing me along, even speed runs lol. anyways my only comment would be an correct me if im wrong but healing power scales horribly with regen. wouldnt you do better in say knights gear or soldiers? im still learning memsers but i know with a warrior when i run banner builds for 100%regen i dont use healing power cause it just scales bad its better used in another area but when i run shout heals ill use a lot of healing power cause its not so bad for the burst.

Healing power actually scales very powerfully with regen. What you have to remember is that regen is a long duration heal over time. It scales with healing power at a rate of .125 per second. Over 20 seconds, you gain a total scaling of 2.5, which is far higher than any other heals. Each individual tick has low scaling, but all those ticks add up.

Gaiawolf.8261:

Yeah, I’m having a hard time following his format as well, but what he seems to be saying is that using a sword/pistol with 3 duelists (and not auto-attacking due to range?) yields roughly 137 less DPS than using a scepter/pistol with 2 duelists plus auto-attacking with a scepter.

I didn’t bother to check if his calcs were correct b/c even if they are, there is much more to using the weapon than just static attacks w/o weapon swaps, utilities, shatters, etc, so the situation isn’t representative of anything outside autopilot PVE content.

That seems like a plausible situation. It would be nice to know what he was actually talking about though.

Seetoo.9316:

Pyroatheist.9031:

There’s a few glaring mistakes in your calculations. First, you have the scepter clone attacking at a rate of 2 attacks per second. This should be slower by at least a factor of 3.

Additionally, you appear to be going off of the tooltip as to the damage of the iDuelist. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the damage per shot is significantly higher than 200. 200 may be the value with steady weapons, but when you get real weapons, the iDuelist damage skyrockets, while the scepter clone damage doesn’t change at all.

I’m basing everything on wiki and my actual damage. Wiki says the clone uses the actual ether bolt, which has a 0.5 attack speed. I would like to know a clones actual attack speed.

I just timed it to 1 attack every 2 sec (i get 3 attacks in before the clone attacks). It still favors scepter by 137 dps.

Your calculations are extremely unclear. What is favoring scepter by 137 dps, and what is it being favored over? The duelist does far far far more damage than the scepter clones. It does more bleeds per second, and it also does heft damage, while the clone does absolutely nothing.

There’s a few glaring mistakes in your calculations. First, you have the scepter clone attacking at a rate of 2 attacks per second. This should be slower by at least a factor of 3.

Additionally, you appear to be going off of the tooltip as to the damage of the iDuelist. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the damage per shot is significantly higher than 200. 200 may be the value with steady weapons, but when you get real weapons, the iDuelist damage skyrockets, while the scepter clone damage doesn’t change at all.

@Esplen: I’m gonna have to be really brutal with your build here. It is horrible, and here is why.

Your build can do one thing, and one thing only: Apply boons to yourself and your party. That isn’t enough to make a build viable.

Your build can’t do damage. You don’t have the traits or weapons to properly do damage. Your build can’t heal your party. Your phantasms don’t do aoe regen, and you don’t have the ability to trait into mantra heals. Your build can’t do any sort of reliable damage mitigation or condition removal, because it lacks the traits mender’s purity and warden’s feedback, both of which do both of those things.

You take 10 points into domination, an otherwise worthless trait line, to get a trait that is only useful for one of your 3 utilities. You waste a trait in dueling to get retaliatory shield, when you will only get 1 or 2 blocks once every 35 seconds from chaos storm. You take debilitating dissipation, yet you have very low condition damage and condition duration, and therefore the conditions applied from that trait will do almost nothing.

Quite honestly, your build is able to do almost nothing. The trait setup is schizophrenic, being unable to decide whether it wants to do condition application or boon application, and ends up being pretty bad at both. There are really almost no saving graces to your build.

Normally I’m not this blunt and brutal, but you’re comparing it to the build in the OP, which not only has the ability to actually apply boons faster and more effectively than your build, but also has the ability to provide massive party healing, massive aoe damage mitigation, and much more reliable aoe condition removal from the warden combo on a much lower cooldown timer.

There is really no comparison between these two builds.

lupercaleb.6041:

i made a gif because i was confused

and now i’m more confused

http://i.minus.com/irmn55eqBpKLW.gif

only the norn mesmer (right) has phantasmal haste

at first it seems the charr is faster (no phantasmal haste) and then it seems like the norn catches up? it is so inconsistent

That can simply be explained with a tad-bit of network lag. You only need a small amount to cause a test like the one you made the gif of to become really crazy really fast. The only reliable way to test this sort of thing is what I did: fraps it and count the frames.

Additionally, swordsmen happen to be one of the 2 phantasms that are completely uneffected by phantasmal haste.

I was going to make a post pointing you to the phantasmal haste table on the wiki. I have updated and re-updated that table with highly accurate values on the effects of phantasmal haste. Unfortunately, some morons keep undoing my changes.

Therefor, I will simply post the correct information right here, and I will add it to some of my build threads as well.

The data in the attached chart is the most accurate possible, obtained by counting frames in adobe premier. The numbers are the time delay in seconds from the end of one skill to the beginning of the next, as the cooldown on skills won’t start until the cast time is completed.

I have also re-updated the chart on the wiki to reflect this data.

Pyrial.2917:

While we’re at it, let’s talk meteor shower. Someone can be static and only be hit once with the aoe.

That’s by design. Meteor shower is a unique large imprecise aoe not designed to be used against normal targets, but against very large targets or large groups of targets. Bursting Someone down with meteor shower makes very little sense.

This occurs with any persistent aoe field. I first noticed this on my thief when using the throw gunk skill, and later on my Mesmer. Whether this is working as intended or simply an oversight, I can’t really say.

Edit: should have said any persistent damaging aoe field.

Every aoe mentioned here with the exception of feedback and time warp has properly colored rings. However, there are a few others that also lack indicators. Veil has no colored indicator, and neither does temporal curtain. I completely agree that these 4 abilities need to have the rings added to them, there is really no reason for the rings to be left off, it just causes unnecessary confusion.

Windwalker actually made a really good point that bears repeating. Start with a really tanky build like mine, and then work your way back down. What this allows you to do is to learn the rhythms and patterns of a thief without dying instantly to the first one.

You’ll come to notice a few certain things. First, there are usually about 2-3 moments between the cnd and the following backstab. If you have a staff, use phase retreat, or just dodge roll. With dual swords you can put up the counter. You can also toss up decoy to really mess with them, then leap/swap into a daze+wrack+bf combo that will 100% any glass cannon thief, and seriously chunk even tanky ones.

Well, this build has more of a traditional group utility role, that of the main tank that takes punishment without doing a lot of damage. For that reason, I don’t really use this build in pve ever, as I feel a Mesmer can contribute more to a party in other ways.

That being said, this build is one of the absolute best builds to engage on the frontline of zerg v zerg combat. It has the defense and hp to survive, the condition duration allows it to shrug off disables, the retaliation to punish anyone attacking, and the inherent tools of the Mesmer to guarantee stomps when you need them the most.

It really has a massive amount of stopping power. If I am running ahead if a zerg, I think nothing of charging into a contested supply camp to 1v10 the enemy zerg, because I know I’ll survive for my backup to arrive. The limits of this build are really only what you can think to do with a massively mobile juggernaut.

I also tend to take blink for the zvz combat, as the defender grows useless in zergballs, and that extra mobility is really killer.

@bhagwad: The thing is, the phantasm mesmer is the only counter to this build, and even then you still have the option to simply disengage. Most builds have a general counter, condition damage, straight damage, spike damage, damage over time, sustain, etc. This build has 0 weaknesses with the exception of a phantasm mesmer, and I’ll take those odds any day.

Wow, you put a lot of posts out. This is a really fantastic support build, probably one of the best possible to make in the game, and I appreciate the effort you put into forming this. Just don’t forget about my previous post. You really need to take 5 (10) points out of chaos and put 5 into illusions, because 20% cooldown reduction on ~50% of your total skills is simply not an optional trait.