Guild Wars 2

EasymodeX.4062:

I had an sPvP hybrid shatter spam build (Carrion) with Torch and Decoy.

It was fun. I even slotted the cooldown reduction on Torch when I didn’t want boon strips (well, this was rare). Fun times.

Were you able to do any significant damage with that build? The condition damage scaling for confusion inside of sPvP is just abysmal.

Just a shout-out to all of you awesome maguumans and the couple of brave FAs that participated in the massive dueling club in south FA borderlands this past night. That was a load of fun, and I enjoyed testing out my build against some truly skilled players.

Zileve.2089:

Hey, just wanted to chime in on the support PvE twist I threw on this build. I -finally- got enough PTV (still not quite optimized as best I could hope) to have a solid shot at it.

Stats:
Power: 1,716
Precis: 1,173
Tough: 1,780
Vit: 1,672

Armor: 2,700 HP: 22,642 Cond Damage: 379 Healing Pow: 465

Traits: 0/0/20/30/20

Chaos V, X Inspiration I or IV, VIII, X Illusions II, VII

Runes: Superior Runes of Altruism

Overall it plays pretty well. 100% uptime on Retal and Protection, lots of Chaos Armor, my mantras AoE heal and Mantra of Recovery provides a 100% uptime on 3x might + ~50% uptime on Fury, mitigating the overall lack of precision in the build. I’ve done a few dungeons with it and felt useful.

I’m using a Rabid staff (Bifrost) cause it would feel a shame to not use the rainbows when I can. If I get higher in Fracts I’d probably use a PTV staff to fully optimize and working on PTV amulet + backpiece.

Thanks again for the awesome build Pyro, it’s made my supporting really entertaining.

Good to see your adaptation is working well. A rabid staff isn’t the worst thing in the world. I’ve actually been using the ascended vassar’s ring, which has condition damage as a major stat, and a mix of toughness, vitality, power, and a bit of precision as minor stats just to put a bit more kick on my confusion.

Hookerjack.4798:

Hi Pyro. This build is a blast in dungeons! Am toying around with changing the staff for sword/pistol or sword/sword. Which would you think is more viable?

In dungeons, sword/pistol will be a bit better because the phantasms stay at range more consistently. However, I would highly advise against that change, and here’s why:

No phantasm aside from the iwarden in perfect conditions will outdamage the warlocks. This is even more true in a team with a lot of conditions where I regularly see 8k+ crits from it. This means you will be losing damage from the phantasm. This build has rather low damage on normal non-phantasm attacks because of the massive focus on phantasm damage as opposed to raw damage. This means that your dps would be sub-par with blurred frenzy and the sword autoattacks. Additionally, sword means you have to get up close and personal with mobs, and that is not always a good idea.

As Leshay mentioned, I did put together a support build with staff and greatsword designed specifically for PvE. It focuses on damage through phantasms, and party support from aoe healing and regen.

The build can be found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Supporting-Phantasm-Build/first#post1384283

Centaur runes are horrible. However, they (or air) are absolutely essential in any build that doesn’t use the focus in combat. Without some sort of reliable swiftness, fights become far more difficult in terms of mobility, chasing, and escaping. Even in my tank build with a focus, I still really hurt for reliable swiftness, as temporal curtain simply isn’t enough, and sometimes I have swiftness up from chaos storm/armor which of course means temporal curtain won’t work.

There is a stickied thread that contains every build in this forum. You should go there and have a look at them.

eleven.3170:

Thank you very much for the fast reply.
I was wondering if you tried knight armor (soldier runes) and valkyrie accessories.
Would that work?

There would be no point to it. Knight armor has precision as a minor stat. Even with a full set of knight gear, my crit chance would still be very low. Valkyrie has no precision, just crit damage. Because the crit chance would still be abysmal, there wouldn’t really be any point to the crit damage that valkyrie offers.

eleven.3170:

Hey Pyroatheist, do you mind posting your character screen (H) so I can check your stats?
PM would be good as well if you don’t want it to be public.
TIA!

Here you go.

If up close and personal dps is your goal, as you said with “Jumping into the middle of 10 people and going to town” then the sword is infinitely better than the scepter. You have more mobility, more damage, more combo finishers, and more defense. With that sort of playing, there is literally nothing the scepter does better than the sword.

@Grimms et al: My personal opinion would be to use neither the scepter nor the greatsword. I prefer my weapons to be a bit more balanced in terms of offense and defense (and I’m not talking from my tank build right now). I would use a staff instead, simply because it has high damage potential from the warlock scaling nicely, and also has great defense from chaos storm, chaos armor, and phase retreat.

However, if I had to choose between greatsword and scepter+offhand, greatsword would win every time. It does more damage, it has longer range, and it has more utility in terms of boon stripping/knockbacks.

LordArrgh.8073:

sometimes …and evidently it doesn’t work against AoE or seige

Retaliation most definitely works against aoes. Siege is an interesting one, and I don’t quite know the answer. I’ll need to run some tests for that actually. I advise practicing the temporal curtain leap combos on the target golems in HotM to get the timing and placement down properly.

LordArrgh.8073:

OK so I think Ive found why I’m dieing so fast my stats are … power 1594 attack 2428 1513 toughness 2328 armor 1662 Vitality 22524 health

Those stats are quite reasonable. Are you able to apply retaliation yet?

Fay.2735:

I like scepters but I think they’d be better if they’d hit multiple targets (kind of like the guardian’s underwater trident).

The staffs auto-attack is too slow by the time the bolt reaches the enemy in wvw zerg on zerg they’re already dead and it usually takes a couple of hits as well before I actually get credit despite using a condi/power/crit build (been playing around with builds a bit last couple of days out of boredom). Unless I use chaos storm but that has a pretty long CD nr 5 ability.

I’d say increase staff auto-attack speed and make scepter bounce between targets.

Well, aside from winds of chaos having a pretty slow travel time, condition damage is generally worse for tagging in a group just because it takes time to do its damage. Added to the fact that winds of chaos has a really low base damage, and you’ll have quite an issue with tagging things.

As for having the scepter attack hit multiple targets, that’s an interesting idea. Would you still have it be a chain/have the clone spawn on the first target hit? Also, would the multiple target be a result of bouncing, piercing, or some sort of explosions (magic version of engie pistol might be interesting).

Kazhiel.8194:

Weird my post isn’t displaying right….. was trying to say if scepter and torch are so bad maybe someone should tell Flimpy and Seven o_O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv6tSfNpWs0

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

If you actually watch Flimpy, you’ll notice that he spends at least 80% of his time in staff. The only times he goes into scepter/torch are to use the prestige basically. His usages of confusing images just show how weak the skill is, where he rarely lets the skill channel the entire time, because he is forced to dodge halfway through. I suspect he uses the scepter simply because he wanted another ranged weapon to go with the staff, but it is obscenely obvious that his build works with the staff, not the scepter.

As for seven, he is running a power build with a scepter. This works largely due to the fact that he is running in a team, which also explains the use of veil as a utility. However, his build would be more effective if he dropped the scepter and torch, put the swords together on 1 weapon swap, and took the greatsword, because the greatsword has almost everything the scepter and torch have.

LordArrgh.8073:

the yellows you buy in WvW for karma are pvt

Invaders gear ..is what they are called

Ok, lets try to troubleshoot a bit. Firstly, are you taking Illusions II, and then using cry of frustration? Secondly, did you read and follow my instructions to the letter on how to use the double leap combo with temporal curtain? Both of these things should give you retaliation in a very straightforward and simple manner. Dying in 3.2 seconds is a bit more complicated, but we can get to that later.

LordArrgh.8073:

this build does not work for me :| retaliation never comes up and I die in like 3.2 seconds

Are you level 80? Do you have the right gear? Did you actually read anything in any of the posts in this entire thread?

@dank: The problem is, that in your build, for example, mainhand sword would be a better choice than scepter. It would do more damage, have more defense, and have more utility. The only thing it lacks is the range, and that is made up for by illusionary leap being 600 range + cripple + immobilize. I have no doubt that you make use of the scepter well, the problem is that it is simply worse than the sword, even in a situation where you want ranged damage.

Ross Biddle.2367:

All these responses are fail. I guess it’s just time to make a video displaying how wrong you sorry excuses for mesmers are

By all means do so. I highly doubt you will be able to have anything more than limited success compared with any other build a mesmer can use, but go for it. It does say something that no matter how much myself and others squabble over things like mantras, and torch, and traits, the one thing that is agreed to almost entirely across the board is that the scepter is a horrible idea, and the devs that made it should feel ashamed of themselves.

jportell.2197:

Pyroatheist.9031:

jportell.2197:

Bunker build is by far a superior thing here. If you don’t believe pyro. Take the build to WvW or HOTM follow the guidelines and you will see so many classes kill themselves. The main weakness in his build (sorry pyro) is the power output that I have found. I am on Dragonbrand and since us and Mag our getting our rears kicked by Kaineng we have decided to have a fight club. Warrior told me that he wanted to fight me I says okay. We do a couple bouts he downs himself from a frenzy while I am just standing there twirling my staff. Then he switches it up. He doesn’t attack me just watches what I do and we literally just run around in circles for 10 min while he tries to spot the weakness and then that was it. My damage is low. Now I may not have the same accessories as pyros wvw build but I can imagine that against a warrior class that just runs away the damage kinda sucks.

Quite honestly, if they completely refuse to fight/engage, then it’s mission accomplished. In tPvP, that is obviously a quite satisfactory situation. In WvW, depending on the situation, it can be quite fine, if perhaps slightly aggravating. However, I have never encountered a situation where I wasn’t able to kill someone that didn’t actually run away, as in your experience. Generally, you can play offensively enough to take people down over time, especially if you force them to make the occasional attack.

jportell.2197:

If they are out to fight you yeah you can out bunker guardians easy.

If they don’t fight you, you never die, and so you out-bunker guardians no matter what. The difference between a bunker guardian and my build is that you can actually kill things, and a bunker guardian does absolutely nothing except stay alive.

As a side note, send a pm to me the next time you make a fight club, I’d love to make an appearance.

Will do man! What server are you on because I heard with guesting you can’t join in the WvW of the server you guest on. I’m on DragonBrand

Dragonbrand of course. You could probably have figured that out from the videos if you payed close enough attention.

Jester.1236:

Fay does great with her build. I do well with mine. We know you have a “unkillable” build. But thats not the way everyone wants to play. Fays build is stellar at healing. And does great damage. You just put statements out there, that are incorect. We get it, you like your gimmicky retaliation build. Not everyone does.

The problem is simply that the mantra builds are worse than other builds designed to do the same thing. A phantasm build that spams MoP has just as good healing, but does higher and more reliable damage from a safer distance. Your build uses mantras AND torch, which basically means you’re compounding all the underpowered mechanics a mesmer has into 1 build. The builds can do fine, if you are good enough to play them. The issue is not how well you can do use the builds, the issue is that the builds are inferior on a basic level to ones that don’t use mantras as a main mechanic, or torch for that matter.

Gaiawolf.8261:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Gaiawolf.8261:

Master of Timespace.2548:

… Considering scepter is only useful if you are running a condition spec, the damage it deals is also very low…

Actually I’d argue the scepter is better in a power build than a condition build. The power scaling for skills 2 and 3 are pretty good and can do some decent damage in a power build while offering some defense and confusion as a control against better players. Now that is not to say other weapons aren’t better, but scepter does have a place in a tanky power spec if it’s other issues can be worked out (mainly the auto chain and cast time for #3).

That’s actually a good point. Scepter can’t decide if it wants to do conditions or power, and it just ends up being really really bad at everything. Another problem with scepter is really a problem with confusion, where confusion is useless by itself. It can’t be used as a stand-alone condition unless you are fighting an idiot. Condition is reay powerful when you force people to take hits, either from power shatters or from other conditions and pressure you apply.

Scepter only can apply confusion. It can’t put any damage pressure on an opponent. I is just all around useless.

Pretty much. Personally I think every weapon should be useful in both power and conditions builds. Not just one or the other. Staff, MH sword, and focus do that well. The others, not so much. Maybe pistol.

Nah, look at other classes. The vast majority of them have pretty well defined weapons for condition damage and weapons for direct damage. This prevents the weapons from getting too weak or too overpowered, as a strong combination of condition damage and power damage would end up being.

Mainhand sword is useful in condition damage builds just because mainhand sword is great, it has nothing to do with conditions.

Focus is good in a condition damage build for the same way…

Hold up. What condition damage build? If you are talking confusion bombing, it’s horrible in pve, and underwhelming in pvp, I’ve tried it extensively in wvw with a full rabid set. I’d kill the noobs, but I do that anyway. If you mean the staff + staff clones condition damage build, that’s not great either. Mesmers are simply not very good with condition damage because we have no effective ways to apply conditions quickly (except trident now). Scepter could be the fix to this if there were any devs without their heads stuck far, far up their kitten and mainhand pistol would be the obvious ranged mainhand power weapon.

Gaiawolf.8261:

Master of Timespace.2548:

… Considering scepter is only useful if you are running a condition spec, the damage it deals is also very low…

Actually I’d argue the scepter is better in a power build than a condition build. The power scaling for skills 2 and 3 are pretty good and can do some decent damage in a power build while offering some defense and confusion as a control against better players. Now that is not to say other weapons aren’t better, but scepter does have a place in a tanky power spec if it’s other issues can be worked out (mainly the auto chain and cast time for #3).

That’s actually a good point. Scepter can’t decide if it wants to do conditions or power, and it just ends up being really really bad at everything. Another problem with scepter is really a problem with confusion, where confusion is useless by itself. It can’t be used as a stand-alone condition unless you are fighting an idiot. Condition is reay powerful when you force people to take hits, either from power shatters or from other conditions and pressure you apply.

Scepter only can apply confusion. It can’t put any damage pressure on an opponent. I is just all around useless.

@Fay: I agree with you about veil, I was just summarizing that thread in a sentence. It has a super long cooldown, but stealthing unlimited numbers of people has ridiculous potential.

The problem is that a non-full glass cannon mantra build is worse than another build designed to do the same thing. Your build seems to be a mix of damage and healing, but is stellar at neither in a sustained fight. The shattercat builds are far better at doing damage, and have more survivability from staff and defensive shattering. My build suffers from damage, but effectively has no direct counters or weaknesses aside from other people refusing to engage.

With the exception of that 1 situation, mantras are simply worse, and that needs fixing.

Scepter isn’t even useful when melee is a bad idea. If you need ranged conditions, staff does that better than scepter.

Spawning ones on target means they die fast. Not useful for shatters, but does have som synergy with on-death traits. Unfortunately you need 2 seconds of autoattacking with an attack that does nothing to get that clone.

At any rate, scepter either needs to be reworked from the ground up, or massively buffed. Double the damage and speed of the autoattack, make confusing images a 1.5 second channel, and I might think about using it.

Now about the torch. People say that the prestige is great for escaping or w/e. They are right. The problem is that if you are escaping, you are escaping FROM something, and you were fighting that something with a torch. As an in-combat stealth, the prestige is bad. You have to channel it. If you dodge, you lose both your stealth and the burn. Why they didn’t keep it how it was in beta is beyond me.

Masteroftimespace is right on the money as well. Torch 5 summons a clone on a 30s cooldown.

Gaiawolf.8261:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Ok, there’s a couple of conversations going on here. Easiest first.

@Fay: you seem to be getting hung up on the difference between harder and better. It is harder to play a Mesmer better, but a Mesmer can be better than any other class if you are good enough.

You keep mentioning traits that are poorly placed, or utilities that are bad. Other than 1 signet, mantras, and mantra traits, I’m curious as to what these traits and utilities are.

Here’s a start. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Underutilized-Utility-Skill-Survey/first

Of course everyone has their own opinion, and some examples are situational to certain builds/players, but this is a good place to start looking at which utilities people find underwhelming and why. Some of the reasons for lower general ratings/uses are pretty dead on. I haven’t seen a similar conversation for traits, yet.

I was in that thread. It boiled down to signet of midnight +veil+mantras, and that’s about it.

@Gaiawolfx: whooooooooshhhhh

Ok, interesting suggestions. I’ll take them 1 at a time.

Runes: I took a look at most of them. Dolyaks are a poor choice, this I know. I conciously chose soldier runes over dollars because they are very similar, except dolyaks focused on toughness, and soldiers focused on vitality.

Earth runes are poor as well. 2 of their special effects are random on-hits with long cooldowns. I don’t like that mechanic at all, and the 6 rune bonus is not useful for this build anyway.

That brings us to Melandru and orrian runes. Now these are interesting. The stun duration isnt too important, as I have more stunbreakers in this build than you can shake a stick at (also curious if it affects knockdowns/launches type skills). -25% condition duration, on the other hand, is very nice, and deserves some thourough testing in HotM.

Orrian runes are also interesting. The condition damage helps with confusion bursting, and that on-hit effect has a 10s cooldown, which is quite fine. Added to the fact that I build around getting hit, these runes also deserve some testing.

On to the other stuff. To start, blade training does not decrease the cooldown on leap/swap. Known bug, and quite annoying.

About IP. It is interesting that you view it as a crutch rather than a tool. Lets see if I can correct that view. Especially in a 1vmany situation, strong stomps are really important. IP is the tool that allows a Mesmer to successfully stomp most classes in the game, and there are definitely times when I don’t have clones around and need to stomp, as they were downed by a shatter. This build doesn’t have the clone generation of other builds, I can’t rely on them always being ready.
Additionally, it makes my mind wracks 30% more powerful, puts 30% more stacks of confusion on people, and allows for a more powerful and on-demand daze.

Aside from IP, 30 in illusions is important for the cooldown on cry, as that is the source of a lot of my retaliation.

Long story short, 30 illusions and 20 inspiration are the 2 parts of my build that are rock solid. Changing them would cause the entire build to start to fall apart. With that in mind, let’s look at your suggestions, remembering points would have to come out of chaos.

Debilitating dissipation can apply weakness, bleed, or vulnerability. Bleed and vuln are both not really great for this build, and I wouldn’t want to take a trait that is only 1/3 effective.

Crippling dissipation is more useful. The problem is that I don’t really have an issue with people running circles around me. You did see that problem though, and you are correct. I need them to get to me and hit me, and I have plenty of tools for restricting movement in this spec anyway. It also doesn’t help with chase downs, which is the one place it might be great.

Lastly, blade training. A low cd blurred frenzy would be awesome. Unfortunately, that is all I get out of that trait. The cd doesn’t work on leap, and the precision is useless for me. To get this, I would be losing 10% boon duration, 150 armor, and staff cooldowns, and I just don’t think that’s worth it.

Ok, there’s a couple of conversations going on here. Easiest first.

@Fay: you seem to be getting hung up on the difference between harder and better. It is harder to play a Mesmer better, but a Mesmer can be better than any other class if you are good enough.

You keep mentioning traits that are poorly placed, or utilities that are bad. Other than 1 signet, mantras, and mantra traits, I’m curious as to what these traits and utilities are.

@EasymodeX: I’ve used mantras in a pure glass cannon ranged nuker build, and they work fine. The problem isn’t that mantras are completely useless, it is that their usefulness diminishes sharply when put in other situations, where other utilities retain their value.

In my tank build, I have also tried mantras. I have not spent hundreds of hours with them, but I have spent enough time to know they are a poor match for my build, and I’ve already been through the reasoning on this.

Here is the thing. Every point I make, you rebut with how mantras can be used in a full glass cannon ranged nuker build. I know that. They work great like that. That is also the ONLY place they work great, and that is the problem. The fact that mantras are relegated to just one specific nuking build is the telling sign that they need buffs.

And come to think of it, mantras being underpowered could be the root of a lot of Fay’s issues regarding Mesmer utilities and traits, as the mantra traits are all over the place in dumb locations, and the mantras themselves are underpowered.

Whoosah.8106:

Great read. I’m still a baby, only lvl 15 right now and just bought the game couple of weeks ago, sadly the constant d/c making it hard for me to lvl on a constant basis. It’s been a blast playing the class, running staff, sword+focus or GS when the mobs are higher lvl and I can’t afford being hit.

I take it this is a more lvl 80 build rather than a lvln build?

Since i’m stubborn, could I lvl with this? If so where should I start putting points into for traits? Hopefully Anet can start w/some fixes w/these d/c’s b/c I really do enjoy this class.

And off-topic, does anyone know where to find the combo finisher list on what each field does when you apply a finisher? Thanks =)

Hi Whoosah, good to see you working on the best class in the game. You had a couple of questions here, so I’ll answer them 1 by 1.

First off, combo fields/finishers: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo
That page on the wiki should have all the information you need about them. As a general rule of thumb, for game mechanics questions the wiki is a great source of knowledge.

This build is definitely a level 80 build, and is very difficult to perform effectively without gear that has the proper stats, let alone the trait points. You could attempt to level with this build, but it does have rather low damage in PvE, and I highly recommend you not try to do that.

Instead, I have created another build, purely designed for PvE. It can be found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Supporting-Phantasm-Build/first#post1384283

That forum post explains it for the most part. To make it into a leveling build, you assign your trait points as follows: 5 into illusions, 10 into domination, 10 into dueling, 20 into inspiration, 15 more into illusions, and the rest into inspiration.

If you have any more questions about my builds or anything else, just go ahead and post them in the threads, or send me a PM and I’ll do my best to help you out with them.

@Esplen: Eh, phantasms are generally useless against tons of people. However, in smaller (1vs up to 5 or so) the warden can be an extremely potent tool, and the iMage is still useless.

Esplen.3940:

Pyroatheist.9031:

The problem is that if you are using a torch to get away from a mob, you are in combat. That means you were using your torch in combat. That tends to be a problem, as the torch doesn’t do combat very well.

Secondly, if I am using a focus, that means I am already in a defensive setup. The focus is across-the-board better at all sorts of defense. The torch may be better in a few very specific situations due to the prestige invisibility, but that is completely outweighed by the overall defensive utility of the focus, even untraited.

Since when have we considered players mobs? As a PvP escape tactic, it works well and with the low cd it does it’s job. Additionally, you can mix it with shatter builds to make burst shatters while not getting hit. Spawn 3 clones and activate it on your 3rd clone spawn so it looks like the clone is you, then you run up to them and activate a shatter right as the invis ends. Boom.

And I rarely run Torch in PvE. I will occasionally run a Focus in PvE when I NEED NEED NEED the reflect, but that’s it. There is no other use for the Focus as a Staff is more than enough defensiveness.

Hrm, I sorta meant a mob of people, but if you’ve done a lot of wvw, you would know that describing players as mobs is more accurate than it should be.

And again, the prestige has some situational uses. The problem, again, is that you are using an offhand weapon with only 1 skill. 1 skill that is situationally great is not worth it compared to other weapons that have 2 full skills. The iMage isn’t even good kittenter fodder, because its cooldown is so long.

Esplen.3940:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Esplen.3940:

Torch is amazing in WvW due to the fact that most players in WvW run zergs and aren’t very well versed in 1v1’s. As a Mesmer, you should get used to fighting in 1v3’s at least (unfavorable for you). Torch comes VERY handy in these situations. If you mix it with Decoy you can put huge distances between you and your enemy. You can also use Mass Invisibility to help put yourself away from bad fights. Also note that Decoy doesn’t give or use the invisibility delay, but it does have a visual error if you use it while invisible.

If you use Decoy while Invisible (or Invis while Decoy’ed), when one of the Invis’ disappear, you will become visible and targetable.

I guarantee you that focus, especially traited, is much, MUCH better for evasion and survival than the torch. Not only does the phantasm block or reflect the projectiles of people chasing you when you put it down, you can drop temporal curtain. If the focus is traited, then the temporal curtain reflects everything that people are chasing you do as well. Additionally, temporal curtain gves you swiftness, gives everyone chasing you cripple, and can be detonated to pull people and further kitten pursuit.

The torch is simply not good. The prestige is situational at best, and the iMage is simply completely useless.

Woah woah woah, let me stop you.

I agree that it is better when traited, but I run 20/20/0/0/30 and have neither Torch nor Focus traiting. While I do enjoy running 20 in Inspiration, I do not feel like making Diversion useless in PvE as of yet. I also mix my PvE and PvP build, so that’s something to consider for me specifically.

Additionally, while Focus lets you get out some nice effects, like pulls, reflects, cripples, and pushes, Torch lets you get invis which can also be the difference between life and death. It’s really just a matter of preference, which is why I just stick with my standard Staff + Sword/Sword in both PvP and PvE (sPvP I use Staff + Sword/Pistol, but that’s a whole different discussion).

The problem is that if you are using a torch to get away from a mob, you are in combat. That means you were using your torch in combat. That tends to be a problem, as the torch doesn’t do combat very well.

Secondly, if I am using a focus, that means I am already in a defensive setup. The focus is across-the-board better at all sorts of defense. The torch may be better in a few very specific situations due to the prestige invisibility, but that is completely outweighed by the overall defensive utility of the focus, even untraited.

Esplen.3940:

Torch is amazing in WvW due to the fact that most players in WvW run zergs and aren’t very well versed in 1v1’s. As a Mesmer, you should get used to fighting in 1v3’s at least (unfavorable for you). Torch comes VERY handy in these situations. If you mix it with Decoy you can put huge distances between you and your enemy. You can also use Mass Invisibility to help put yourself away from bad fights. Also note that Decoy doesn’t give or use the invisibility delay, but it does have a visual error if you use it while invisible.

If you use Decoy while Invisible (or Invis while Decoy’ed), when one of the Invis’ disappear, you will become visible and targetable.

I guarantee you that focus, especially traited, is much, MUCH better for evasion and survival than the torch. Not only does the phantasm block or reflect the projectiles of people chasing you when you put it down, you can drop temporal curtain. If the focus is traited, then the temporal curtain reflects everything that people are chasing you do as well. Additionally, temporal curtain gves you swiftness, gives everyone chasing you cripple, and can be detonated to pull people and further kitten pursuit.

The torch is simply not good. The prestige is situational at best, and the iMage is simply completely useless.

Hammerguard.9834:

skill 3 is amazing… but that’s it. Even then it’s horrible in PvE.

Skill 3 is useless against anyone paying attention. It has a long, flashy, noisy, slow windup before actually launching the skill. After that, just a single dodge will take off 2-3 of the 5 stacks of confusion, and 2 dodges will completely dodge it.

jportell.2197:

Bunker build is by far a superior thing here. If you don’t believe pyro. Take the build to WvW or HOTM follow the guidelines and you will see so many classes kill themselves. The main weakness in his build (sorry pyro) is the power output that I have found. I am on Dragonbrand and since us and Mag our getting our rears kicked by Kaineng we have decided to have a fight club. Warrior told me that he wanted to fight me I says okay. We do a couple bouts he downs himself from a frenzy while I am just standing there twirling my staff. Then he switches it up. He doesn’t attack me just watches what I do and we literally just run around in circles for 10 min while he tries to spot the weakness and then that was it. My damage is low. Now I may not have the same accessories as pyros wvw build but I can imagine that against a warrior class that just runs away the damage kinda sucks.

Quite honestly, if they completely refuse to fight/engage, then it’s mission accomplished. In tPvP, that is obviously a quite satisfactory situation. In WvW, depending on the situation, it can be quite fine, if perhaps slightly aggravating. However, I have never encountered a situation where I wasn’t able to kill someone that didn’t actually run away, as in your experience. Generally, you can play offensively enough to take people down over time, especially if you force them to make the occasional attack.

jportell.2197:

If they are out to fight you yeah you can out bunker guardians easy.

If they don’t fight you, you never die, and so you out-bunker guardians no matter what. The difference between a bunker guardian and my build is that you can actually kill things, and a bunker guardian does absolutely nothing except stay alive.

As a side note, send a pm to me the next time you make a fight club, I’d love to make an appearance.

Embolism.8106:

and iMage becomes just very bad instead of extremely bad.

>_< I’ll stick to weapons that aren’t half useless, if its all the same to you.

You hit the nail on the head with your assessment of the scepter: it isn’t really good at anything. If you ever find yourself using it or the torch, take a step back, and use weapons that aren’t horrible.

I’m not sure why this keeps coming up. Clones are not supposed to do damage. Clones have never done damage. Clones will never do damage. This has been asked and answered so many times its ridiculous. If you want your summons to do damage, you use phantasms, not clones.

@Fay: I completely disagree. Take, for example, my PvE build. In one single build, I have the utility of several different professions, and several different builds of those professions. My phantasms do huge damage, 3-5k hits from the berserker and 5k-9k on my warlocks. I can provide aegis from chaos storm. If necessary, I can remove conditions from the party with a disenchanter. I can keep regen up on every party member 100% of the time from the phantasm aoe pulses with smart placement. I can do 2.7k heals on a 4 second cooldown from spamming MoP. I can have 100% uptime on reflects between temporal curtain, iWardens, and feedback. I can strip up to 3 stacks of defiant instantly, and provide high speed reviving with feedback.
On top of all of that, I have 20k hp, 2k armor, reasonable uptime on protection, chaos armor, and retaliation.

Lets break that down. My damage with phantasms is extremely high. Not, perhaps, as high as a full glass cannon warrior, ele, or thief, but damage is quite literally the only place where the mesmer can’t quite match other classes. The difference is that other classes have to do things to do that damage, where my phantasm build simply uses phantasms, and now I can do other things.

If taking disenchanter, I can provide about 2 allies with condition removals every 12-15 seconds. That is about as fast as elementalist can do if they focus only on condition removals, though healing rain is better from the aoe perspective.

Through smart placement of phantasms, I can easily have 100% regen on every party member. A few other classes can do this as well, but requires them to be focused on that stat, such as banner warriors.

Spamming MoP provides 2.7-2.8k aoe heals every ~4 seconds. This is almost impossible to beat, especially considering that a lot of other powerful heals are ground targeted, and I can move around to where the healing is needed.

I can easily have 100% uptime on projectile reflects by tossing on a focus and feedback. Guardians can achieve 100% uptime on blocks if they significantly spec for it, but even they cant do reflects like mesmers can, and I lose almost nothing by making this change.

Additionally, I can strip boons no matter if I’m using greatsword or mainhand sword.

I do all of this with 20k hp and 2k armor. Some classes can do a couple of these. Some classes can have 20k hp and 2k armor while doing some of these. No classes can do all of these and have 20k hp and 2k armor.

Mesmer is simply superior at being able to do several things at the same time, and is able to do those things better at the same time if you are good enough. This is only one example, though I could use my tank build as an example of a mesmer bunkering better than almost anything else, or the shattercat build as an example of mesmers doing overall burst damage with survivability at the same time better than anything else.

As much as it sounds a silly statement, mesmers are just the best at pretty much everything.

@Fay: You are definitely right about mantras. They just simply aren’t competitive when you compare them to everything else a mesmer gets.

However, you are 100% wrong with respect to your other comment insofar as anything you can do on a mesmer can be done on another class with less difficulty and bugs. It is true that it is more difficult to do x on a mesmer than it is on most other classes. The kicker is that if you are really good at doing it, you can do x better than those other classes at the same time you do y better than another class and z better than a third class, all in the same build.

Mesmers are more versatile, have a higher skill cap, and consequently have a higher ability cap than any other profession in the game, hands down.

@Gaiawolf: You make some interesting points about stealth. Unfortunately, they don’t quite hold up.

If you are running a full mantra buil, you won’t have 30 points in chaos, so no stealth duration increase. This means that the decoy and veil both don’t quite last long enough to charge even a single mantra. The prestige is useless for this as well. Also, a mantra build wont have more than 1 non-mantra utility most likely, meaning that every 30-40 seconds you will have the stealth to almost charge up one mantra. Seems a bit underwhelming.

Not needing 4 mantras at all times is a reasonable point, and I suppose if you need to burn them to get the hell out of dodge, you don’t need to worry about your damage potential temporarily suffering.

As for the heal calculation, you are using a fairly low healing power, but I won’t quibble about that. The real problem with those calculations is that it assumes continuous spamming of the mantra, leaving 0 time for anything else. First of all, the only build that could pull off this kind of spam without major punishment is my tank build.

I did, however, try MoR on it due to the very calculations you have here, and because it procs mender’s purity 3 times. However, I ditched it for a few reasons. Firstly, I have no room for either HM or RM in my build, so it loses effectiveness from that.
The real kicker, though, is the time spent working with the mantra. With ether feast, I hit it once every 20 seconds for a large heal, and that’s it. With MoR, so much of my time was spent charging it back up, my combat ability and mobility suffered, and that really turned me off from it.
One more problem with it is a little more complicated. MoR dispenses its heal in small packets compared to normal heals. At face value, this is not a problem. The issue is that if you don’t need all of the packets, you now have the choice of either wasting some and putting it on recharge, or holding them and effectively having a heal skill that is 50% or 30% as powerful as it was before. With a 1shot heal, it always has maximum effectiveness (ignoring the per illusion boost) and (in my tank build anyway) you can simply rely on regeneration for healing until the full heal is necessary.

If MoR had no recharge like MoP, then the packets of healing would be a bonus. Because of the recharge, each use decreases the additional effectiveness of the skill, making it a detriment to the skill instead.

@EasymodeX: The identity crisis persists through mantra management. The problem is that by burning any mantra other than MoP, you have stuck yourself with at least a 20ish second recharge on 4% of your damage. Additionally, mantra management is not always appropriate or possible when using the defensive mantras. If you need to burn stability or condition removal, you burn it without regard to cooldowns out of necessity.

As far as MoR goes, it requires both HM and RM to stomp ether feast, especially if you have a lot of healing power, as RM scales poorly as well.

Another problem is that mantras do just 1 thing, and require traits to do it well. Blink, feedback, decoy, mirror images, these all have multiple different utilities, and in the case of decoy and mirror images, their cooldown trait is a 5 point minor trait. Mantras are just lackluster compared to everything else.

@EasymodeX: Ok, long post, lets try to tackle this bit by bit.

First, you made a really good point in your edit. Mesmer utilities/heals are significantly more powerful and useful than most of the other utilities in the game. This makes mantras underwhelming by comparison. For example, MoR would be a great heal for most classes. However, you compare it to ether feast which has a massive base healing + a maximum of 1.3 scaling per healing power, and MoR suddenly becomes a bit wimpier.

The problem with MoResolve is that it is not generally possible to refresh it during an intense fight. It is great as a 1-off condition removal, and that is it. The other condition removals I mentioned are sustained and repeatable, and will end up removing more conditions, while giving utility at the same time. Note that I didn’t include null field, as that is entirely different. Null field is team utility, which MoResolve also lacks, but I wouldn’t use it to replace anything else as a self condition removal.

The 2 shots of daze from MoD are decent, but are just worse than, say, mirror images, which has the potential of providing that same daze, or confusion, or invulnerability, or damage due to the shatter mechanic, as well as being effectively repeatable given a long enough fight, where MoD is extremely difficult to recharge during a fight.

The problem with HM/EM is that they give mantras an identity crisis. The one encourages more use of mantras, and the other encourages leaving the mantras there as a passive damage boost. Additionally, HM provides what mantras should either have as a base value, or NOT in a grandmaster trait.

As I said before, there are a couple of niche builds for mantras, and most revolve around keeping them as a passive damage boost, long range nuking, and never actually engaging in a fight, because mantras are unbelievably bad for anything that involves a skirmish.

Fay.2735:

Pyroatheist.9031:

But that is exactly it right there. It is great for restorative mantras because of the low cooldown it has. However, by using restorative mantras, you are now tacking on utility to the skill. Without restorative mantras, it has no utility, and has no place on a utility bar. Every utility should have utility by itself, you shouldn’t need to trait for that particular skill in order to actually give it ANY utility.

The only way it would be better is if the heal is added to the damage mantra by default so you heal without having to trait it and in stead have a trait to in crease the damage done by mantra of pain (Kind of like there is one for Mind Wrack). One that is in Mastery rather than Grand mastery.

That’s an interesting idea. The problem is that it would be a waste of a trait, due to it affecting only 1 utility instead of the entire class of traits. Better would be to add the heal to MoP, and then put the trait that allows 3 uses into a master slot somewhere, and replacing the grandmaster in domination with something more fitting.

Fay.2735:

Pyroatheist.9031:

In my opinion, the problem with mantra of pain isn’t the damage it does. The problem is that it only does damage. You are sacrificing a utility slot for a utility that (untraited) simply does a bit more damage. In order for mantra of pain to be worth anything, it needs another effect, or preferably just a completely different effect. If it applied some conditions, that would be better, or (I just thought of this, would be really cool) applied a damage amplification effect (separate from vulnerability) on the target.

Point being, MoP isn’t a utility. It is a damage skill, and therefore has no real place on a utility bar.

Edit: No offense to your mantra build fay, but it simply isn’t as effective as other builds I could and have made to do the same thing. I appreciate you doing your best to make it work, but the bottom line is that it just isn’t as good as everything else.

Personally I think mantra of pain is fine the way it is apart from the amount of damage it does. It’s one of the more useful mantras in restorative mantra builds because of the lack of cooldown which is awesome.

But that is exactly it right there. It is great for restorative mantras because of the low cooldown it has. However, by using restorative mantras, you are now tacking on utility to the skill. Without restorative mantras, it has no utility, and has no place on a utility bar. Every utility should have utility by itself, you shouldn’t need to trait for that particular skill in order to actually give it ANY utility.

Fay.2735:

I very much agree that Mantra of Pain needs a buff. Mantra builds are arguably the hardest mesmer build I have ever played (any build on any profession I have personally ever tried for that matter). I feel the damage done versus the difficulty of the build are askew.

Mantra of pain needs to do more damage, not a huge amount but more. It feels more in line with a skill used by someone wearing blues or greens in effectiveness rather than someone in exotic/ascended gear. It doesn’t have enough oompf to combat enemies with vitality/toughness gear.

Seeing how mantra builds leave you pretty exposed in general we need more damage to balance this out.

As for spell effects, I think it’s fine. You can see on your opponents nameplate as to whether it worked or not.

In my opinion, the problem with mantra of pain isn’t the damage it does. The problem is that it only does damage. You are sacrificing a utility slot for a utility that (untraited) simply does a bit more damage. In order for mantra of pain to be worth anything, it needs another effect, or preferably just a completely different effect. If it applied some conditions, that would be better, or (I just thought of this, would be really cool) applied a damage amplification effect (separate from vulnerability) on the target.

Point being, MoP isn’t a utility. It is a damage skill, and therefore has no real place on a utility bar.

Edit: No offense to your mantra build fay, but it simply isn’t as effective as other builds I could and have made to do the same thing, at least in PvP, as in PvE you can trait mantras and cause them to have some more useful effects. I appreciate you doing your best to make it work, but the bottom line is that it just isn’t as good as everything else.

EasymodeX.4062:

Rofl.

You funny bro.

I’m serious, and I would love to be proven wrong, but I have yet to figure out a way to use mantras for their normal effects that can’t be done better by another build. I have certainly tried to use them. I ran with the condition removal mantra for a while on my tank build, but removed it because it simply wasn’t good enough, and condition removals can be accomplished with the warden whirl finisher, healing, and food. MoP is obviously crap except for proccing the mantra heals. The daze mantra could have use in a shutdown build…except that would be better accomplished through mirror images for diversion shattering. The stability mantra is horrific and unnecessary. The stability can be substituted out for any of the various i-frames that mesmers have access to, and the stunbreak is pointless when mesmers have so many AMAZING skills with stunbreaks.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’ll test it tonight and see for certain, but I’m farely sure the heal numbers will jump down if another person stacks on to the regen duration with lower healing power.

Good advice about iDisenchanter, thats another one that I havent given enough attention to. I’ma keep feedback to add to my reflection collection(Mirror/Feedback/Temp.Curtain/iWarden), but Null Field will be swapped depending on the situation.

I’d REALLY like to incorporate the iDefender into this build, but he dies so kitten fast. Since the buffs work for phantasms, I’m thinking of trying to drop Chaos Storm atop my defender and myself and popping Inspiration, but Swiftness/Aegis wouldn’t do him much good and protection doesn’t last very long..

I know the iDefender absorbs half damage from others (thus a good regeneration is crucial for its upkeep until shatter), and it’d be really nice if we could have more than one out at a time.. Has anyone had any productive use for this utility? It seems REALLY strong for a support build if used properly.

iDefender is amazing in my tank build, and that’s about it. There are 2 main problems with using it in a team situation, and even in my tank build I will use a different utility if I am in PvE. First off, it is a melee phantasm. It does have pretty high base hp…for a phantasm. In melee range, it will get killed from direct damage rather quickly. Additionally, because it soaks up damage from all of your surrounding allies, even a very mild aoe attack will instakill the defender due to all of that aoe damage adding up and transferring to it.

In short, there is no effective use for it in PvE unfortunately.

EasymodeX.4062:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Mantras don’t need that. If they had it, they would be even worse than they already are

How are Mantras bad?

=O

Because they have exceedingly long charge times and too few base uses. The traits that affect mantras are all over the place and in the wrong trees for their effects many times. The trait that allows the number of mantra uses to become anywhere near significant is 30 points into a tree with an absolutely and completely useless 25 minor trait bonus. The only viable uses for mantras are extremely specific and niche builds that don’t actually utilize the mantras for their normal purpose, such as the mantra heal build for the aoe heals, or using the heal mantra to proc healing rune skills rapidly, or using the 4% extra damage per mantra to make a pure long range glass cannon nuker that never actually uses the mantras.

In general, if you show me any build that has mantras that are supposed to actually be used for their normal intended purpose, I can make you a build that will do it better without mantras.