Guild Wars 2

This is something that has bugged me for ages. The fact that high level pvp/wvw/anykind of pvp situation relies on a player looking at the other player and analysing his/her animations to see when to interupt means that the BIGGER the character, the easier it is to see, the smaller the character the harder it is to see! Now this is coming from a guy who has learned every class and played them all extensively in sPvP (250+ games on each of them) just to learn what every weapon skill, trait, and utility in the game does – and it does me wonders when im versing anyone who is actually tall enough for me to see whats going on.

Asurans are tiny, their animations are abysmally un-suggestive and unnecessarily (i hope?) hard to spot and interupt

Take this in wvw… slap on some lemon grass poultry food buff.

Would it actually be possible to die?

Interesting stuff :P either way, im definitely picking PU. I mean come on, these boons now proc once every second? the trait was amazing before.

In any case much testing must be done once the patch comes out!

Assuming these highly detailed ‘leaked’ patch notes are legit, I quickly theory crafted a trait setup for gaining maximum boons while maintaining decent damage (and ofcourse the extremely high survivability with so many boonz).

Domination: 15 -> take: Halting strike (II)
Duelling: 20 -> take: Blade Training (IV) and Deceptive Evasion (X)
Chaos: 30 -> take: Master of Manipulation (III), Bountiful Interuption (I don’t know what number this will be since it is being moved to the adept tier) and Prismatic Understanding (XII, this is apparently being buffed, now applies boons every 1 second in stealth)
Inspiration: 0 -> Additionally you can swap the 20 in duelling over here and get the focus reflect projectiles, but you will lose significant clone summoning capabilities and dps.
Illusions: 5 -> this if for Illusionists Celerity

Weapons are Staff and Sword/Focus.

Utilities are Blink, Decoy and Signet of Inspiration.

General practice for the build: Use phantasms to deal most of your your damage along with Sword 3 and 2 combo’s.

Remember to maximise your chaos armour (boons) by phase retreating out of chaos storm etc. Chain your f3 daze (that applies 15 stacks of vulnerability and interrupt damage) into a focus pull (AOE interrupt damage) along with Sword 3 and 2 combo along with f1 shatter to finish someone off.

I would go ahead and explain the theory behind taking all the trait, however i’ll leave that till after the patch when we get confirmation.

Actually here’s an idea, buff illusion of life and make it an elite. Then replace that lost skill spot with your spell idea

Haha that sound bloody awesome Shriketalon. But as always I can see too many people crying about it

I guess people need to l2p and just teleport out? cleanse conditions and use stability when that happens. Seems like a good cooldown forcer.

OMG I cannot wait to make a killer interupt build!!!!

Especially with having BOUNTIFUL INTERUPTION and a buffed PRISMATIC UNDERSTADING at the same time!

I really don’t think anyone here understands the magnitude of all that.
That is literally more boon up time then any other class.

You guys pose some pretty good points, even better than mine

I like Mastruq’s especially except, depending on how good this condition is, that really could be too strong (not that I wouldn’t like that) and cause a lot of people to complain.

And well, you know anet. If enough people complain about something, they might listen.

First off, I personally think it is a great idea to give Mesmers and Thieves.

Why?

Because nobody runs condition spec’s on them anymore. After the confusion nerf the condition damage Mesmer disappeared. Condition damage Thief conditions builds are fairly horrible unless you run P/D in which case it is quite strong, however it is easy to counter with -40% condition duration food buff and melandru runes (if you happen to be using them). They also have poor chasing power or burst damage.

Anyway, the main reason for this post was to address the Mesmer.

1. This skill should not be implemented into traits.

Why?

Because any mechanic that relies SOLELY on traits to even have access to it limits the freedom that players can have with it. The only reason it would be in traits is if it was insanely powerful or something, but I find that highly unlikely.

2. It needs to be put on the Scepter or the Torch.

Why?

The scepter and torch are widely regarded as the most underused/useless (maybe not useless but definitely under powered) weapons that the Mesmer has access to. Introducing a new aspect to these weapons could be very interesting and make them more useful for new condition damage builds (I think it is wise to assume this new CONDITION will scale with CONDITION DAMAGE).

There are many ways it could be implemented but this is the way I believe it should be done:

Scepter: remove the clone generation at the end of the chain and replace it with this condition.

Scepter clones are by far the most useless clones the Mesmer has access to as they don’t do ANYTHING AT ALL. At least the staff ones apply conditions and the sword ones stack vulnerability and strip boons. Oh and don’t give me that “If the scepter doesn’t make clones how am I going to fuel my shatters?” crap. TAKE THE kittenING CLONE ON DODGE TRAIT/MIRROR IMAGES AND YOUR GOOD.

Another way that many have said (yes you, whoever found that patch notes leak) it could be implemented is the scepter 2 “doubletap” ability called ‘counterspell’. Lets be honest guys, the blind practically never hits and it useless for a (12 second?) cooldown. If it was replaced with this new ‘Torment’ condition it could become a lot more useful. By keeping the abilities core mechanics the same (having the damage/clone summon when successful block and the fact that the ‘counterspell’ is not homing) it would still be ‘balanced’.

Torch: this one is pretty simple, just add it to the godkitten phantasm. Maybe it will make it worth it for the LONGEST cooldown phantasm that is second only to the iZerker in bugs.

Please note that I haven’t spoken about how many “stacks” or how long the “intensity/duration” that each of the new scepter/torch skills will apply of this new condition.

The reason being is that we don’t know anything about it other than the fact that it deals more damage when you move.

And there you have it folks, the correct way to implement this new condition.

…the “leaked notes” that everyone is raging about is all just someone: http://www.epicgifs.net/en/tags/240/maximum-trolling/2

THAT SAID, it talks nothing about buffing conjure weapons, which are like useless right now besides the greatsword, which is godmode mobility and godmode instagib potential if your enemy is next to a wall.

The rest of them are meh. Pls do something about them Anet.

Pretty please with sugar on top?

This is my invisible elementalist.

Ujellyforum?

Wow you two sound too good to be perfect o.O

Anyway, I’m a rank 38 all rounded player who mains Elementalist but is working on shatter mesmer aswell. I played sPvP from launch until pretty much the start of this year when I stopped because sPvP wasn’t really going anywhere and I wanted to try out wvwvw. Anyway I’ve kinda been wanting to get back into it, but I can’t really say that I know all the tactics and stuff. I know all the maps like the back of my hand but thats about it XD

When I did play back in the day i rolled ele in a team of 2 guardians, 1 ele, 1 thief and a ranger. We didnt win all the time but it was pretty fun and my main role was roaming/close point defence.

I worked out that the time you play is roughly 12pm-5pm my time, which suits me pretty well although school tends to cut out 12-3:30pm, but in the holidays and weekends im all good.

I don’t consider myself pro, but im half decent i think so if i meet the criteria, hit me up I’m also a little shy with strangers but you guys seem nice so yeah

you will all bow before the sylvari and charr master races.

Hey Osicat,

First off I would like to say thanks for putting out awesome guides and videos. I recently started playing my 80 mesmer and you really helped me get into the swing of shatter.

I was wondering what your opinion of torch was, since you never seem to use it. I use it a lot instead of pistol (in the 10/30/0/0/30 build) and it works pretty well. I can stealth with torch 4 and then sword 3 while instealth so the enemy doesn’t see it coming, then while i burst with blurred frenzy the fire dmg procs from torch 4 too, adding a little bit more dmg. the phantasm is pretty meh but then again, since im running a shatter build my phantasms dont do much dmg anyway… so yeah.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Confusion is REALLY strong, because it literally makes channeled skills kill you, which is a direct counter for power Necromancers and alot of Guardian builds.

Have you actually played the game after the confusion nerfs? You can pretty much ignore it now its so kitten weak. I play both Elementalist and Mesmer and while all the ele’s were whining about the nerfs, I was rejoicing because now I never die to confusion anymore which was my number one killer.

I deleted my level 80 human mes to make a lvl 80 sylvari one with the same name, sooo i’d say your not crazy

I would really like to be able to do this. It could be a gem store item!

thank you that statement at the top was enough xD

Now im not sure where to post this because i couldnt find a “game mechanics” section.

Anyway, what i want to know is relevant to elementalists. The question is, how does power increase your damage and at lvl 80 how much would getting 1 additional power increase your overall direct damage?

i wanna know this because im stuck between getting an ascended celestial stats ascessory or the karka shell earing with a crit dmg gem on it.

lemme explain. with the karka shell earing, i can get 7% crit dmg, which with at least 50% crit chance, is technically equivalent to a 3.5% increase in dmg. The ascended celestial stat earrings only give 6% crit dmg which means i lose 0.5% direct dmg. however you get a bit more POWER from it and i wanna know how to calculate whether or not its worth it.

ty in advance for anyone who knows

Need NA server! anyone with info pls post

The stealth nerf isn’t really a nerf its more of a “side-effect” to “fixing culling” I think. And coming from someone who plays multiple classes, the stealth bug is pretty annoying. Anywho, if they are nerfing shatter that don’t affect my build horray! thanks for notifying me

So I was duelling this necro in Spvp a couple hours ago, we had about 15 fights and I won 2/3 of them. Near the end of our fights he said, well if I’m beating a mesmer now, then it should be much easier after the nerf. Now I don’t usually keep up to date on these things and I just spent 50 g’s crafting my mesmer to 80. If there really is a nerf coming I’m not mad nor do I expect any amount of ranting to change it.

All I wanna know is: Is it coming, and if so does anyone know what Anet is looking to nerf.

Any input is appreciated, thanks guys.

how long do they stay uncontested for because i went in to Crystal desert and its contested now

^
I play elementalist and when im in fractals i switch between staff and d/d all the time depending on the situation. why? because 1 is long range and the other is close range!

EVERY OTHER CLASS CAN DO THIS. eg. warrior equips GS for melee and Rifle for long range!

To all the people whining about how giving this to elementalists will make them overpowered since they already have all these skills and abilities, HAVE ANY OF YOU EVEN PLAYED THE ELEMENTALIST TO A POINT WHERE YOU KNOW WHAT THE kitten YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT?!

Why can’t I bind my mouse scroll buttons?

On every other MMORPG, wait no EVERY OTHER COMPUTER GAME I have played, it was possible for me to do this. I think I speak for a huge amount of the player base when I say that these keybinds are really helpful and almost a neccesity, so please Anet. Its not that hard.

I agree my zerker is doing crap damage now.

If you want survivabiltiy, check out pyroaethiests immortal mesmer build, otherwise i think seven mirrors build is for you. It has high dps (70% crit dmg/50% crit chance) with 2.8k armour and its a shatter build

Hey man i really appreciate this, was looking for a new class to play and have fun with in WvWvW. I main elmentalist and its very fun but I play as a tanky build so I can’t really burst on demand, but I don’t wanna play a glass cannon xD… guess I’m leveling a mesmer now

Just 1 question about the gear, what stat allocations does the Karka Shell Earring give?

All this kitten aside, renewing stamina got buffed!

a buff?! WHAT IS THIS?!

1. Duelling.
2. Some way to check your latency.

These two things are like, possibly two of the most basic attributes to almost any fantasy MMORPG. I know guildwars 2 tried (and succeeded for that matter) in being different, but seriously, it needs these two things.

I heard the rewards are… well… lets just say “mediocre” doesn’t quite cut it.

We all know that the most expensive stuff on the tp right now are precursors and other mystic forge items (with the exception of legendaries… which shouldn’t be there in the first place – leads me to believe Anet allowed that so that people would be inclined to buy them with gems…). ANYWAY ALOT of people including myself are appauled at the prices of precursors, which are rising by the minute… SOOO why not make it so that after completing some sort of legendary task or event you will recieve an account bound precursor? Instead of throwing gold at the mystic forge and receiving nothing or banking on the 0.000000000001% chance it will drop off a mob – none of which are considered as “legendary tasks” in my book.

I mean come on legendary items are supposed to be legendary. If i walk up to someone and say “oh wow nice legendary, how did you get the precursor” and he says “oh i got it as a random drop” and them im like “-.-”. seriously.

Or at the very least if you ever plan on giving away precursors like you did with the november event again, make them account bound also so it doesn’t kitten with the TP…

Have you ever considered using that signet that give 50% extra health to all your illusions? Plus when activated it recharges all shatters. It would make sense i think because 50% more hp to Phantasmal defender means 50% more dmg you dont take.

Though i can only see anyone being able to swap decoy out for it… since the other two utilities are mandatory.

I was wondering whether or not new weapons would be available for each profession. It seems like, other than creating an entirely new class, that this is the best way to add new fresh gameplay to the game itself. Of course, on some classes like the warrior which can already use pretty much every weapon, don’t have much room for more since why the hell would a warrior carry a scepter or staff lmao. But for classes like elementalist and engineer who have rather limited access to weapons, it could be a great idea to implement.

So to end, does anyone know if Anet is planning to add new weapons for the professions? It doesn’t need to come right away since the game is still relatively new but rather as something to look forward to in the future.

Very very informative! I never really thought about this kind of stuff, I usually just do my rotations and spam kitten but thank you very much! I hope I can improve my gameplay with this!

Why? Just because there are a few very very good players out there that are exceptional, doesn’t mean we all are.

Just started playing it 2 weeks ago (am already 80) and I’ve been loving it! D/D is by far the funnest weapon set in any class for me (believe me I’ve played over 1400 games in sPvP hotjoin, using every class and build to try and find a play style I liked). I recently found out about dapheonix’s build and realised that the reason I never liked ele before was that I was always too glass cannon and never really delved into the class mechanics.

So please, please keep it the way it is.