Guild Wars 2

Skoteinos.4213:

Pyroathiest.4168:

/facepalm

..thanks for being polite.

Rune of the Traveler gives a faster gameplay plus bonus to all stats and condition duration.

Care to address the part of my post that math happened in?

hendo.1940:

PvE Condition Damage

NO

What colesy said.

You claim targets melt. I say you’re wrong. I’ve done this math once, I’ll do it again. Assuming 2100 condition damage, 100% burning and 25 stacks of bleed on a target (which you won’t ever possibly have ever ever), you’ll do 4540 damage per second.

You’ll do roughly 4500 damage per second in a standard power build autoattacking with 2 swordsmen up.

It’s literally not possible for whatever wacky condition damage build you come up with to outdamage power build. Not possible. This isn’t opinion, this is fact. Arguing with numbers is generally futile.

Edit: Just looked at your build. You only have 1771 condition damage, nowhere even close to the 2100 that I assumed you’d have…since that’s what you should have in a full conditions pve/wvw build. No chance of even coming close with that sort of stat setup.

Edit 2: Traveler’s runes in PvE. /facepalm

Fixing the thread.

I sorta like this might meta. I’m thinking that it potentially might end up seeing more use of mesmers in the future, as mesmers are the one class that can easily rip apart might stacking from every person in every fight. Whether through boon strip on shatter, null field, pDisenchanter, or some combination of the above, mesmers are able to effectively neuter might stacking.

The reason this stacking is so effective right now is that very few of the meta builds have any strong access to boon stripping. I think this is going to change.

Chaos.3579:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Also, lest everyone forget, iZerker hits an infinite amount of targets. It just has a strange hit pattern, but it hits much more than 5 people.

Just to nip this falsehood in the bud. The iZerker does 4 hits of damage, each being a 5 target aoe. The potential maximum number of targets it can hit is 20, but this will be incredibly rare as usually there’s a lot of overlap.

Actually I believe its 3 target Cleve aoe for each of the 4 hits

That could definitely be the case.

Just a quite note. Rage sigils are a horrific choice. You can’t control when the quickness procs, and so the vast majority of the time you won’t be able to utilize it to actually charge a mantra. On top of that, your’e sacrificing any number of useful effects from sigils by taking those.

Good options include battle sigils for extra damage, doom sigils for extra pressure, ice sigils for some nice chill on crit, or really anything other than rage sigils.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Also, lest everyone forget, iZerker hits an infinite amount of targets. It just has a strange hit pattern, but it hits much more than 5 people.

Just to nip this falsehood in the bud. The iZerker does 4 hits of damage, each being a 5 target aoe. The potential maximum number of targets it can hit is 20, but this will be incredibly rare as usually there’s a lot of overlap.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Just wondering if anyone’s got any powerful GS + Staff builds still out there. I know they were super popular back in the day, but not sure what changed to make them not as good. Back from a year-ish vacation.

Looking for something offensively focused still. Maybe a good might stacking GS/Staff build? Doesn’t have to be Shatter-based.

For WvW there’s definitely a reasonable selection of builds that GS/staff works for. PvE, not so much. You want sword/focus + sword/sword in PvE, with few exceptions.

Hyung.6140:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Secondly, taking the heal signet is a horrid choice in this build, just as it is in any pvp build, even phantasm builds which have the best chance of using it properly.

Off-topic I know but what makes you say this… purely the longer cooldown? I’ve found the heal signet to be a mostly-straight upgrade over Ether Feast in my phantasm build. Interested to know if I’m missing something foolish!

A couple reasons. Firstly, the healing is far lower. Assuming you just leave it ticking, you’re going to get less healing than ether feast even in a best case scenario of 3 illusions every single tick. That won’t happen ever, whereas it’s easy to put up 3 illusions real fast for an ether feast cast.

The type of healing is also worse. Phantasm builds are generally fairly glassy. If a thief jumps on you and bursts you down to 20% hp, you don’t want to be hobbling around waiting for some ticks to heal you up, you want health now. Ether feast can provide that, the signet not so much.

Lastly, the cooldown is simply too long to be workable. Casting the signet is an enormous risk, and for what gain? If you’re casting it because your opponent just ripped your phantasms apart, they can just do it again. If you’re casting it to burst someone down faster, you can probably manage it pretty well without that cast. In either situation, you’ve either already got a fight pretty much under control…or it’s absolutely not under control. In neither situation is using the signet a deciding factor in the fight, which means it’s not worth using.

Ultimately, there’s incredibly few situations where using the active will really change the outcome of a fight. This means that using the active is rarely a good choice, and simply ends up robbing you of any healing it can provide. However, if you’re looking at it purely from a healing perspective, then ether feast is the clear better choice. This ends up making the signet just a poor choice overall.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Hmm… I wanna try something like this then maybe, which is basically the build posted on your first post with a slight modification in weapon/1-2 traits…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWl0npVtlpxPNcrNSphY6fHndynXJZgDA-TVyCABAcEAwR9njPFApoJop9HyS5HFPAA90DMmSQRBpRA-w

I really don’t know how I’m going to get used to not having Clones on Dodge though, haha.

How’s that look?

Yeah, that’s definitely workable.

As far as clone on dodge goes…you won’t miss it. Not in a zerg. It really does almost nothing when zerging because of the sheer amount of aoe pressure you’ll have. Since this build takes you up right at the frontline, nothing you spawn will survive more than a fraction of a second.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Pyro. You’ve been replying to a lot of my threads about trying to find a build I like, and someone mentioned this one as a good Condition Damage WvW one. I read through it, and while I didn’t really understand it at first… after sitting here reading and researching, this sounds like an AMAZINGLY fun build. However, I also really like a Suicide Clone style build… so I decided to try and merge them.

Here’s what I came up with:

http://tinyurl.com/k48y7ag

It’s got the same premise, with the added bonus that you can play in the middle of the Zerg (after Mimic is on CD) and spread AOE Bleeds/Vuln/Confusion with clone spam tactics. I know the clone generation isn’t as quick as a “spam” build, due to no reduced cooldowns, but with Scepters auto attack, Dodge clones and the staffs generally low CD on Phase Retreat anyways… I think it sounds viable.

Any thoughts? Does the build still work in similar fashion? What’s the general “rotation” when WvW’ing?

Cheers. I like fresh builds I’ve never played the style of.

Yeah, as Ross said, you are losing glamour confusions.

I’ve tried doing clone-deaths in zergs. It works okish, but the main issue that I kept running into was that it just didn’t actually tag things. You’ve got a tiny amount of aoe confusion and then a random chance to apply bleed, 1 in 3. That’s not a lot of reliable damage. On top of that, I found that you simply can’t supply enough clones to actually make it work. Even dodging and spamming clone skills like mad, you’re only going to get one or 2 clones every 5 seconds or so. That’s really not a whole lot considering how many people are often in a zerg, and how much condition cleansing is rolling around.

The reason the burns work for tagging is that it’s a high intensity condition, so even 1 tick counts. A couple stacks of bleed…not so much. A couple stacks of vuln or weakness…not at all.

KingZmaN.6473:

All the things you say are valid in the context you present, but, is void of what I shared in my extra text file, as well as, in my previous posts on this topic.

Your text file is 40% explaning why you took moa, 40% laying out skill rotations in pre-crafted fight scenarios, and 20% this is how and why you made the build.

Which part of that is supposed to explain how you avoid all the valid problems that we’ve brought up and you’ve failed to explain?

KingZmaN.6473:

Wow guy, just wow.

Just so you know, you just presented damage scenarios stated UNAVOIDABLE BY ANY CLASS and try to put it in context of my post… REALLY?!? REALLY?!?

Ok, I now deam you, CAPTAIN TROLL OF ALL TROLLS!!!!

Not really. The only one of those scenarios that will kill any glassy build is the mesmer one. Thief ones are reliant on stuns and lack of active defense. Since your build has no stunbreaks, you’ll just crumble. The mesmer one can be avoided with more passive defense and/or not painting an enormous target on your back.

See, while many classes might drop to these sort of combos, your build is specially designed to scream to the enemy team that you definitely will drop to that combo, and so they’ll do it to you over and over, because easy targets are good to kill.

The other thing that makes this build worse is that it’s just…not as useful. While any glassy build might drop to these combos, those glassy builds can also put out. Shatter mesmer can instakill people. Thieves can instakill people, etc etc. This build..can do reasonably high sustained damage. A good tradeoff? Not really.

Yeah, I don’t think you fully understand how fast things can kill you in this build. I’ll upload a couple screenshots. The first one is the cnd mug backstab thief combo (which I’ve been seeing more of lately for some reason). You can see the damage there. All all 22k damage was executed on a target golem: medium, which has more armor than you, and it occurred in less than 1.5 seconds….also known as the duration of basilisk venom, because you have no stunbreaks. Note that this combo starts from 1500 range.

Next up is a pistol whip combo. It did about 17k damage, starts at 1500 range, and took less than 1.5 seconds to execute.

Next up is the shatter combo I mentioned. You seem to think that you’ll see the clones appear, giving you time to avoid the burst. This is false. You can do a point blank mirror blade toss for instantaneous 3 hits of mirror blade + a dodge as you toss it for 2 clones and IP for a 3 clone instant shatter…with the prestige for some extra damage. I’m not actually even running a full damage build with this one. It did about 16k damage in roughly .5 seconds

You really can’t avoid these bursts. I’ve been having fun instakilling glassy classes with a shatter build in hotjoins like this, it’s quite fun and easy to do. Mantra mesmers and glass thieves are my favorite targets.

Edit: Binding blade can’t be cleansed.

Eucalyptus.9784:

The problem I’ve found with Condi spec is that Scepter is super boring

Scepter is in general pretty boring. The amazing skill on it is the torment block. Land that and watch people melt.

Eucalyptus.9784:

and Staff’s auto is pretty slow/unreliable to hit things

Staff is a close range weapon. Fight and around your target, use your mobility to keep them disoriented. This way the auto hits easily.

Eucalyptus.9784:

and it just feels like less damage than a Shatter Power build.

Sure, most things are less burst damage than a power shatter build. However, power shatter isn’t always the best thing to play, or necessarily the most fun thing to play, and damage isn’t everything.

Eucalyptus.9784:

So in WvW situations, I never get tags on anything. Plus they’re pretty bad in general for PvE yeah?

Yeah, condition builds are abysmal in PvE. In WvW, you’re going to need more specialized builds to get tags. Normal builds just won’t do it, whether power or condie.

KingZmaN.6473:

Sorry guy, wasn’t here for launch, so, I had to figure how I wanted to play mantras after being convinced about their potential.

!TROLL!

And now I also know you don’t care to read what I really had to say based on your amended feedback.

Oh, I read it. I just don’t believe it’s even remotely accurate.

So, if you like playing a Mesmer and looking for a non-gimicky player-engaging fight style that some have labeled “do or die” (or something less flattering :-P ) that “as is” can remain decent against cheesy class builds, then, my mantra build you may want to try.

Remain decent against cheesy class builds? How exactly would you handle the situations that I laid out in my post? Lets look at them

Shatter Mesmer
I start at 1200 range in stealth. I blink next to you and do 15k-17k damage in less than 1 second. Then I cast a iZerker on what’s left of you. Unless you have superhuman reactions, you die.

Phantasm Mesmer
I start in stealth. I cast a duelist and a swordsman. Sometime in the next 15 seconds, you die, because the swordsman will do about 7k damage each hit, and the duelist not much less than that. You can try to kill them, but I’ll be stunning and immobing you, and since you have either 0 stunbreaks or 0 condition removals, you die.

Condition Mesmer
Yeah…this won’t go so well either. You’ll do some damage, you’ll get tagged with the whole smorgasbord of mesmer condie load and eventually die.

Glass Thief
Mug cnd backstab, with basilisk venom just for kicks. You’re dead.

Alternatively, shadowstep/stealth pistolwhip. You’re dead.

Alternatively, a couple of autos combined with flanking strike/larcenous strike. You have no stealths, and either no condition removal or no stunbreaks. You can’t escape the thief, and they evade too much to burn down since your build relies on mostly normal attacks instead of burst.

Hambow
Earthshaker hits you. Then you die. Alternatively pin down hits you, and you die (assuming the no condition removal but with stunbreak situation).

Stun-evisc warrior
You’ll get stunned eventually, eat an 8k evisc, and then die at some point.

Condition bomb necro
You only have 4 condition removals. These will be gone rapidly. Shatter builds can stand against necros like this because they can dodge in and out and land heavy burst combos. You don’t have that, you have to do sustained pressure, and the necro does it better, especially when you’re chilled, crippled, have weakness on you.

Minionmancer necro
These guys are fairly tanky, and they have incredible sustained damage. You don’t have enough heavy aoe to clean up the minions, and not enough defense to actually out-sustain them. You’ll die.

Can you beat people with this build? Sure. Can you beat good players? Probably not, unless you smack them with moa and they don’t think to use 5 and 2 to just run out of range until it expires…which would mean they’re not a good player.

Edit: Not sure why you thought I disliked the pictures. I actually didn’t even look at them, just read the .txt file and used the build link.

I’ll be blunt. There’s nothing new, unique, or otherwise interesting about this build. It’s just the standard mantra nuker build that’s been around since launch. It does decent damage, but doesn’t have the burst of shatter, doesn’t have the sustained dps of phantasm, and paints an enormous target on yourself via charged mantras saying ’I’m incredibly squishy with absolutely no way to escape. Kill me first!!’.

Basically, when I see someone with mantras like these, I know multiple things.

1. You have no stunbreak
2. You’re incredibly squishy
3. You’re focused on nonshatter/phantasm damage

My normal response to a build such as this depends on the build I’m playing. If shatter, I’ll instakill you in a normal burst starting from stealth at 1200 range. If phantasm, I’ll put a swordsmen on you and watch it kill you in 2 hits. If conditions, I’ll probably just not bother much, since you aren’t a huge threat. In any event, it’s not an effective build. If a thief jumps on you, you’re dead. A hambow, dead. An evisc/stun warrior, dead. Condition bomb necro, dead. Minionmancer, instantly dead. It just doesn’t work well.

A few notes.

Firstly, the sigil of fire is an aoe direct damage attack. It’s not aoe burning.

Secondly, taking the heal signet is a horrid choice in this build, just as it is in any pvp build, even phantasm builds which have the best chance of using it properly.

Overall, you’ll have a bit of trouble really applying any hard pressure. Yeah, clone explosions hurt a bit, but that’s not what really kills people. Generally what kills people in mesmer condition builds is the scepter torment, and you don’t have that here.

Jackums.3496:

Xaurniven.2065:

Jackums.3496:

If the Mesmer is competent and experienced with shatter themselves, they won’t lose to a shatter spec whilst running phantasm. The burst is too predictable and shatter lacks the sustain of phantasm builds. Plus, as a Mesmer you don’t have easy access to AoE or effective cleave to destroy the opposing Mesmer’s phantasms.

You’ll lose more often than not.

I tend to have Signet of Domination ready + pistol num# 5 skill so they have to take my damage whether they like it or not

Most Mesmers will run two stun-breaks, even in a phantasm build (in PvP modes), so I’d hardly consider this a solution. I run both Blink and Decoy when I play phantasm.

Not to mention iSwap as another breaker. What the signet and pistol allow you to do, though, is interrupt the casts and try to get burst in before they build up phantasms.

Confusing Enchantments is and has always been unlimited targets as it is a line aoe. This is why glamour builds were dominant in the first place.

Srolo.5208:

You ever tried running “through” a downed enemy? You just walk into their face unless you dodge roll through them.

This is because you have ‘melee attack assist’ on in your options. Turn it off for better gameplay.

keenlam.4753:

@Pyro: didn’t expect u got so caught up with my poor choice of word, anyway, i guess i should have made it more clear. Don’t you see this is a big issue in terms of limiting build diversity?

Limiting build diversity? Absolutely. However, you can theorycraft from now until iLeap is fixed and it won’t fix anything. It would take significant reworks of our entire traitset to make dueling a non-mandatory line in almost all builds.

keenlam.4753:

@Pyro, Osicat: sarcasm?

No.

Crutch? A crutch is something that’s used as a temporary measure until you get better.

Use of the dueling line is not a temporary measure until you get better. It is a requirement for almost any viable mesmer build.

• Phantasm builds need that line because of phantasmal fury.
• Shatter builds need the line because of deceptive evasion.
• Condition builds need the line because of sharper images.
• Power builds need the line because of crit chance and crit power
• Builds that like dodging need the line because of critical infusion
• Mantra builds need the line for mantra mastery and EM

It contains the cooldown trait for the most commonly used weapon: 1handed sword. It also contains the 1200 range manipulations trait, commonly thought of as all but necessary for effective use of blink. Lastly, it contains Triumphant Distortion and Furious interruption, because no mesmer traitline is complete without a couple unusable traits.

The Dueling line is not a crutch. It is a basic pillar of the mesmer class in almost every conceivable way.

Wasbunny.6531:

Pyroathiest.4168:

@wasbunny: I noticed that in a previous post you mentioned your condition damage is around 1580. That’s…pretty low. In a standard WvW condie build, I hold around 2050 fully buffed/stacked, and if you wanted to go for absolute maximum I believe the grand total was something near 3000.

Something else to note is that you’re using old confusion in your calculations. 450 per stack is 2000 condition damage pre-nerf. Now that’s 225 per stack. With your 1600ish condition damage, it’ll be 185 per stack.

Right right. That 1580 is without food or any might, and PvE only. Looks like it’s 1974 with food and tuning crystals and Sigil of Domination. Of course this is again without might. I think the beauty of that new GM trait is that Cry of Frustration adds 3 stacks of Torment, 6 stacks of Confusion & 3 stacks of might in one shatter with this build. And if the sigil procs another stack of Torment (56% crit chance so it usually does). Of course the staff is continually adding Might & Torment on it’s auto-attack (double bounce trait as well).

Honestly haven’t crunched the numbers to this extent but it seems like adding that much additional conditions outweighs the added condi damage.

Well, it doesn’t really. The torment shatter is actually a very weak trait. Any build with that trait could be done better as a standard clone-death build without shatters. The issue is that shatters are fairly easy to avoid. Dodgeable, blockable, blindable, etc. None of those apply with clone deaths. On top of that, 3 stacks of torment is just…eh. It honestly doesn’t do that much damage, and the confusion lasts 4 seconds at best. Your opponent will either straight cleanse all of it…or just stand still a few seconds using no skills and that whole shatter will do about 1500 damage.

Note that this isn’t something particular about your build itself. It’s inherent to the trait, it’s simply too weak to be a shatter trait. It doesn’t reward the sacrifice of so many resources well enough. Your big shatter is Cry in this build. It does 1500 damage if your opponent stands still and takes no actions. Compare this to a glassy shatter build where each clone (+ IP) will do 2000-2500 damage.

@wasbunny: I noticed that in a previous post you mentioned your condition damage is around 1580. That’s…pretty low. In a standard WvW condie build, I hold around 2050 fully buffed/stacked, and if you wanted to go for absolute maximum I believe the grand total was something near 3000.

Something else to note is that you’re using old confusion in your calculations. 450 per stack is 2000 condition damage pre-nerf. Now that’s 225 per stack. With your 1600ish condition damage, it’ll be 185 per stack.

Edit: Just ran the numbers for kicks. The absolute maximum condie build would be weighing in at 3212 condition damage with 0 stacks of might, but full corruption + both guard buffs.

Wasbunny.6531:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Wasbunny.6531:

Probably won’t help since I’ve been using a weird Mesmer condi build (of my own design) that is not officially sanctioned by anyone, anywhere but after calculating the highest condi damage I could this is where I’m at:

0/6/2/0/6 all Rabid. Staff & Scepter/Torch. Full Perplexity runes. Sigils of Torment in there as well.

This build that I call my ‘Mesmermancer’ will probably be scoffed at by all and feared by none, but the condi damage is truly impressive. Again, all Rabid is the key.

Why do you have 6 points in dueling if you’re aiming for maximum condition damage?

Well that’s a good point actually. I need to take 5 points to get Confusing Combatants, as well as DE and Phantasmal Fury.

I’m taking the new GM trait Maim the Disillusioned so I’m kind of stuck with that last extra point. I put it in Dueling to pick up another new GM trait Triumphant Distortion since I have no better place to put it (and because I like the way it looks and seriously because there is really no other option for a condi spec, and added suitability is always good for one.)

Well, I’m just remarking on the fact that if you’re going for maximum condition damage, your setup is all wrong. You’d need to be 0/0/5/4/5 for absolute maximum, or 0/4/5/0/5 for a more workable setup. Your setup sounds like it’ll cap at around 2100ish condition damage with full stacks of corruption and guard leech.

Wasbunny.6531:

Probably won’t help since I’ve been using a weird Mesmer condi build (of my own design) that is not officially sanctioned by anyone, anywhere but after calculating the highest condi damage I could this is where I’m at:

0/6/2/0/6 all Rabid. Staff & Scepter/Torch. Full Perplexity runes. Sigils of Torment in there as well.

This build that I call my ‘Mesmermancer’ will probably be scoffed at by all and feared by none, but the condi damage is truly impressive. Again, all Rabid is the key.

Why do you have 6 points in dueling if you’re aiming for maximum condition damage?

StickerHappy.8052:

Vengeful Images: Just Revert it back to the Original One

Yes please. They won’t do it though.

BlackDevil.9268:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Ok, this’ll be real quick because I don’t have a lot of time atm.

Domination Line

• Empowering Mantras is now the Grandmaster Minor trait
• Wastrel’s Punishment is now a Grandmaster Major trait
• Wastrel’s Punishment: On interrupt, refresh the cooldown of the skill that caused the interrupt.

This will heavily promote both lockdown and skilled play in the same trait, and is one of the only possible ways I can see an interrupt build ever really becoming a lockdown build instead of a ‘spam interrupts on downed players’ build.

I drop chaos storm in a zerg, what will happen? Exactly, this will not really work, sorry pyro.
This trait would only be balanced with single target cc’s.

So put icd of 15 seconds per skill on it. This way you can’t constantly spam chaos storm into a Zerg, and you’d be forced to use a skill rotation for a full lockdown.

StickerHappy.8052:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Ok, this’ll be real quick because I don’t have a lot of time atm.

Domination Line

• Empowering Mantras is now the Grandmaster Minor trait
• Wastrel’s Punishment is now a Grandmaster Major trait
• Wastrel’s Punishment: On interrupt, refresh the cooldown of the skill that caused the interrupt.

This will heavily promote both lockdown and skilled play in the same trait, and is one of the only possible ways I can see an interrupt build ever really becoming a lockdown build instead of a ‘spam interrupts on downed players’ build.

Wow, this is really good.

But how would it affect Mantra of Distraction if I still have a charge left after interrupting?

MoD has a 5 second cooldown between charge uses in addition to its main cooldown.

Ok, this’ll be real quick because I don’t have a lot of time atm.

Domination Line

• Empowering Mantras is now the Grandmaster Minor trait
• Wastrel’s Punishment is now a Grandmaster Major trait
• Wastrel’s Punishment: On interrupt, refresh the cooldown of the skill that caused the interrupt.

This will heavily promote both lockdown and skilled play in the same trait, and is one of the only possible ways I can see an interrupt build ever really becoming a lockdown build instead of a ‘spam interrupts on downed players’ build.

The reason you can’t do enough damage to down anyone is that you don’t actually have any way of applying conditions.

You’re using sword/pistol and greatsword. The only one of these that is even remotely good at conditions is the pistol. The sword and greatsword are both horrible at it. Now, pistol is only good through crits, but with full dire your crit chance is really low, so your pistol is also bad at applying conditions. You’ve got clone deaths for conditions, and that’ll do a little bit, but not enough to kill anyone.

Your traits are a bit questionable as well you’re taking empowered illusions in a condition build, and that doesn’t make much sense. As I said before, your pistol isn’t good in a dire build, so both phantasmal fury and the pistol cooldown trait are wasted.

In order to do any damage in a dire build, you need condition application without crits. This means scepter/torch and staff. You don’t really have any other options.

adelaide made a lot of good points. Ultimately, phantasm builds are significantly superior to shatter builds in a dueling scenario. In order to beat them, you need to seriously outplay them. The best way to do this is to get a fast kill.

Use any interrupts that you have to stop the phantasm casts. If you use a torch or scepter, you can actually blind the casts, and that’s even more effective. These are only temporary measures though…if you don’t kill them rapidly, they’ll have their cooldowns back up and you’ll be hosed. You need to keep pressure on them and make sure your burst lands.

None of the new grandmasters are actually viable. You don’t need to get any of them.

That being said, maim is a fun trait, and torment shatter builds are fun to play. They’re not strong/viable, but they are fun.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I actually quite like it. Having 3 iMages up on a thief insures that whenever they reappear they cant burst.

…what?

Having 3 iMages up on a thief ensures that whenever they reappear…nothing happens.

Having 3 iSwordsmen up on a thief ensures that whenever they reappear…they die.

See the difference?

Xyonon.3987:

you never used the torch in pvp or pve as a cleanser right?

PvP? Yes. PvE? Lolno. You can use it to help expedite skips in certain bits of dungeons.

Go to pvp and get level up tomes. You can also use crafting for experience. I’ve heard the eotm karma train is quite good as well.

Leveling a Mesmer the normal way is no longer fun. Until you hit 60, you’re completely useless, so just don’t bother. Use alternative ways of leveling to get to 60.

Xaurniven.2065:

Maybe make it so that Mesmers would be able to be with the Mele Train in a ZvZ just for the fun of it ^^

You can. See my Zergmower build.

Sanderinoa.8065:

It may have more to do with the maximum scaling of lupi’s projectile attack, more than a cap on feedback.

That makes a lot more sense.

a t s e.9614:

When you have the perfect understanding of the prismatic.

And I do.

Swish.2463:

As nice as it is to see discussion taking place, a new topic is more suiting for Mesmer Burst/DPS as this thread is a question regarding what role players feel the Mesmer class should be more opened to.

Trouble is that the burst damage discussion happened in the context of PvE. In PvE, fgs into a wall exists. This is what one would refer to as an outlier. Nothing can measure up to fgs into a wall because it’s a broken and silly mechanic. Remove that, and everything else looks a bit more balanced.

Then, when you look at mesmer burst in PvP it becomes very evident that you have to be incredibly cautious about buffing it. Running a standard glassy shatter build, I can do about 14k burst damage in <1 second starting in stealth at 1200 range. This is strong. There are many reasons why mesmer isn’t really viable at top level PvP right now, but raw burst output is not one of them.

oZii.2864:

Rom from TCG addressed hambow and double war comps from the NA ToL and why they didn’t run double War comps. The game for top teams has always been about team work, rotations, and skilled players and less about the builds. Conditions are what pushed mesmer out before, but since almost everything is power now and conditions for necros are nerfed I can’t see why Mesmer’s wouldn’t be viable. Most top engineers are running power anyway not conditions.

You’re not correct here. Conditions is not what pushed mesmer out. Conditions have always been a problem for shatter builds, but there have also always been ways of dealing with them. What pushed mesmers out is thieves. A shatter mesmer has incredibly few ways to deal with a very skilled s/d or s/p thief. This means that they end up relying on their team to peel for them.

Now, this is where the skill level comes in. You need a highly skilled mesmer to not just flop over and die when assaulted by a good thief. You also need a highly skilled team to know when peeling is necessary, and to execute it effectively.

Conditions have always been dealt with through positioning. You keep the mesmer out of the middle of the skirmish and your condition class has to choose between chasing a mesmer (futile) or actually being useful by pumping conditions into a fight. This isn’t the same case with a thief. You bring a thief specifically to chase down dangerous targets like mesmers. They’re not making a choice between greater effectiveness or chasing a mesmer, that’s the whole reason they are on the team. On top of that, a thief chases effectively, unlike a condition class. Where a mesmer can avoid a condition build indefinitely, a thief will catch the mesmer rapidly and absolutely requires teams to peel.

Sanderinoa.8065:

guanlongwucaii.3162:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Something Sanderinoa forgot to elaborate on. Lupi targets everyone in the area with projectiles. This is why you should have 3 clones out, but this applies to other classes as well. Rangers can take a hyena for the extra pet and spirits, elementalists can pop elementals, necros can take minions, and everyone can use ogre pet whistles and elemental powders to increase the number of reflected projectiles.

isn’t there some cap (~20?) for number of projectiles you can reflect?

yup, the cap is at approximately 24 reflects, but more targets will always make this easier to achieve

Assuming that there even is a cap, think about the numbers a bit. 5 people in a party. Assuming the part is mes, ele, ele, warr, ranger. You’ve got an absolute maximum of 6 targets with the mesmer, 5 from each ele, and 3 from the warrior to get 19. The ranger can provide an absolute maximum of 10, so I guess theoretically you could get to 29…but that would require the ranger to use the hyena and all 5 spirits at the same time.

when you make a topic like this. Stop procrastinating and get back to work!

jefferson.8317:

Don’t mistake the skill of the player with the viability of the class.

Even more than this. In order to effectively run a mesmer, a team needs both an extremely skilled mesmer and the entire team needs to be highly skilled and coordinated. You can have the best mesmer in the game, but if you don’t make use of how they play, if you don’t give them opportunities for burst or make good usage of their portals, you’ll still be better off just grabbing another hambow.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

maxinion.8396:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Mesmer is currently THE sustained DPS class, I dunno what you’re on about. Where they fail currently is burst, which is why no one wants them in a speedclear. Takes too long to ramp up to high sustain (3-4 seconds) and burst is crap meanwhile.

What? Mesmer has incredible burst. If you wanted burst, you’d bring a shatter mesmer. No class is capable of the same massive aoe burst that a shatter mesmer can do. However, burst is entirely useless in PvE, so nobody brings shatter mesmers.

As far as being THE sustained dps class…no? I mean maybe if you’re able to maintain 3 phantasms, which happens incredibly rarely. The sustained DPS class would probably have to be the lords of autoattack…axe warriors.

Mesmer shatter burst < FGS into wall burst. Since that’s how most bosses end up dying, and mes has low percentage modifiers and low DPS without phants, and even shatter takes a few seconds to setup, the burst is considered low. I’d be interested in seeing whether a burst/shatter mesmer could contribute a bit more to FGS’ing speed runs. Obviously this only applies to PvE, as burst works very differently in PvP and WvW.

If two/three swordsman are up, than mesmer is competitive with or better than Warrior DPS. Warrior is still probably better in most situations because of banners + FGJ + EA.

Shatter is like nothing. How much is it even worth again? Like 1k base damage I think? That’s like one Jump Shot or half an HB and then you do pretty much nothing for the rest of the fight.

It does so little I usually don’t even bother pressing the button to kill a boss since it doesn’t even take off a sliver in most cases.

A fully traited mind wrack will do about 65% of a hundred blades and 136% of a jump shot. Note that this mind wrack is on half the cooldown of jump shot, though slightly longer than hundred blades.

Edit: Actually, if you consider the channel time of hundred blades, that puts mind wrack on a slightly lower cooldown than that as well.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Mesmer is currently THE sustained DPS class, I dunno what you’re on about. Where they fail currently is burst, which is why no one wants them in a speedclear. Takes too long to ramp up to high sustain (3-4 seconds) and burst is crap meanwhile.

What? Mesmer has incredible burst. If you wanted burst, you’d bring a shatter mesmer. No class is capable of the same massive aoe burst that a shatter mesmer can do. However, burst is entirely useless in PvE, so nobody brings shatter mesmers.

As far as being THE sustained dps class…no? I mean maybe if you’re able to maintain 3 phantasms, which happens incredibly rarely. The sustained DPS class would probably have to be the lords of autoattack…axe warriors.

Xaylin.1860:

While you’re right that there are several low cooldown blast finishers you should still consider the context. Earthshaker is used for the stun and not the blast. Everything else would be dumb.

Actually, earthshaker is used for both. You use it for both the blast and stun when engaging, and then you use it purely for the blast when blasting waters for regroup.

Xaylin.1860:

Mighty Blow is close combat and the Hammer lacks the offensive potential of a Mesmer GS which makes it way more balanced.

But the hammer has incredible defensive and utility potential. A long ranged aoe snare, aoe protection on the autoattack, a massive launch, and ring of warding. It’s not the same long range dps that GS is, but it’s an incredibly strong weapon.

Xaylin.1860:

Dragons Tooth has a cast delay and its cooldown is no way near 6s because of attunment cooldowns.

That’s fairly accurate, attunements do screw this up a bit.

Xaylin.1860:

Thieves have to be considerate because they will need their initiative for something else.

Not really. If you’re blasting fields, thieves absolutely can burn all their initiative on this. If you’re bringing a thief in a blasting group, then you’re mainly bringing them for that high blast finisher access.

Xaylin.1860:

The only comparable blast finisher would be Arcing Arrow and it would still not justify a blast finisher on GS#3. The overall well performance of the GS probably should be the main reason to not add a blast finisher.

What overall well performance? It’s almost never used in dungeons/fractals, it’s only used in open world PvE because you need that range for tagging mobs. It’s fairly strong offensively in a shatter build for tPvP…but that’s relative since shatter builds are hardly viable anyway. It’s used in large groups because it’s the best long range dps we have, but that’s not saying much. You can’t hit anything on a wall with it and the autoattack is wimpy compared to most other weapons.

Overall the greatsword is used because there’s nothing better, not because it’s particularly good at what it does.

Anton.1769:

It’s known PU builds not such successful at sPvP as at roaming. But with another weapons (never use tourch at power build!), skills and correct gameplay it has chance.
there are 3 games at SoloQ with comments: http://youtu.be/aKkhU6uhyG8 . To avoid factor of ‘enemie team are nubs’ only 1 game about win and 2 about loose. Build at description.

You have a very serious lack of condition removal in your build. Anything that applies a reasonable amount of conditions will absolutely trash you, and did. I’d recommend modifying your build to fix that.