Guild Wars 2

@Ghotistyx.6942
Aye, I was torn between WS or NM … but all those extra sources of Fury AND Condition Removal from WS is what really swung it for me … not to mention protection on dodge is quite excellent.

@LughLongArm.5460:

Just, as I explained earlier, I’d prefer to swap my weapon because I needed the other weapon for the current situation at hand. I don’t want to swap my weapon just to gain functionality from my sigils and traits.

I’m also not a fan of our shouts. Troll Unguent provides more healing than Heal As One. I find our Survival skills (Lightning Reflexes, Muddy Terrain, Sharpening Stone, Zephyr) to be better than our Shout skills (Sic’em, Guard, Protect Me, Search and Rescue).

I’d also prefer to have my heal, all 3 utilities, and my elite to each be a source of Fury as well as remove 2 conditions each instead of just one.

I also don’t want to feel locked into a particular Rune Set (in this case, Soldier) for my build to work. I think there are far better Runes to synergize with this … likely those that can give us even more Fury for more auto-crits (Pack comes to mind).

That combo you mentioned has an issue … Hilt Bash’s bonus does not stack with Moment of Clarity (nor Signet of the Wild). Please see the wiki page for it:

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hilt_Bash

Also, the Moment of Opportunity from Hilt Bash is for your pet … not you.

Another nice way to ensure you hit someone in the back of the head would be to take one of my “-or-” suggestions and take Beastly Warden instead of Zephyr’s Speed. I’m likely to stick with Zephyr’s unless Beastly Warden becomes extremely easy to land, but it is an option and from experience will likely work better for a melee Ranger than ranged Ranger.

I imagine they will buff it as part of moving it to a Grandmaster trait … but I watched the video so that might have some influence on my opinion :-p

Let’s look at this trait as it currently is if we just take Strength runes:

• +45% Might duration
• +5% damage when you have Might

6s * 1.45 = 8.7s duration on the Might that you gain every 3s.

Start … 3x Might Total … 3x Might(8.7s)
3s …. 6x Might Total … 3x Might(5.7 s) + 3x Might(8.7)
6s … 9x Might Total … 3x Might(2.7) + 3x Might(5.7) + 3xMight(8.7)

So you’ll have 9 stacks of Might except for a brief 0.3 seconds

9 Stacks of Might constantly replenishing itself regardless of what weapon you have is quite nice. It’s even nicer when its shared with your pet via Nature Magic and supplemented by the abundance of other sources of Might we now have as well.

It’s also nice in that Might affects both Power and Condition Damage. I’m not sure how many of you have noticed, but many Ranger weapons do both Power and Condition damage.

Now, if your build also includes Nature Magic, on top of sharing the Might with your pet you’ll gain another +20% Boon Duration which will push your Might Duration from +45% to +65%

6s * 1.65 = 9.9s duration on the Might that you gain every 3s.

Start … 3x Might Total … 3x Might(9.9s)
3s …. 6x Might Total … 3x Might(6.9 s) + 3x Might(9.9)
6s … 9x Might Total … 3x Might(3.9) + 3x Might(6.9) + 3xMight(9.9)
9s … 12x Might Total … 3x Might (0.9) + 3x Might(3.9) + 3x Might (6.9) + 3x Might (9.9)

So you’ll briefly have 12 stacks of Might for almost a second and then safely revert back to a solid 9 stacks of Might.

Good points.

The counters come from a zergball being smart enough to combine their stability, etc..

I think a group of Mesmers could still get this off given a combination of Null Fields, Chaos Storms, and Mantras of Distraction.

This isn’t to say that a group of Mesmers is going to be able to take on a zergball all by their selves, but instead that a group of Mesmers could potentially have a new role to play in the meta.

In combat, it is beneficial to break your opponents’ formation (even a crude one like zergball). We may be able to do this quite well with these traits.

I guess we’ll still have to wait and see, eh?

They could rain on this parade in another way … SoI simply not sharing Quickness.

That being said, the other part of what I was saying still stands and is much less of a “wait and see”:
Classes are getting far more access to boons … Mesmers are top of the food-chain at removing boons.

@Warlord of Chaos:
I agree.

Mesmer has been compensated for Illusionary Membrane being given an ICD … and in a way that is more skill-based so I’m actually happier with this than I would have been if they had removed that ICD.

Now a Mesmer can actually be somewhat tanky … not completely depend on active defenses … we do eventually get hit after all :-p

Let’s not forget that:

• Illusionary Elasticity is now baseline
• Burning / Poison look like they are going to stack like bleeding/torment do.

So our Staff clones will be double-tapping our target and getting several burning from the RNG on WoC will hurt … quite a bit :-)

I’m very excited about that.

@LughLongArm:
There are several reason not taking both Skirmishing and Beastmastery in this build and they revolve around having Wilderness Survival.

Wilderness Survival is going you a good bit more survivability.
More importantly, it is also improving all your Survival Skills which will have reduced cooldowns, give Fury, remove 2 conditions each, and gain Sharpening Stone for a little bleed damage.

That’s great that every 10s I can swap away from my Greatsword to gain Opening Strike with the Fury on weapon swap … but what weapon am I going to want to switch to for that OPening Strike? I’m in melee range with the Greatsword so Longbow isn’t a good choice. Rapid Fire won’t benefit very well because it will only affect the first hit of that chain which is much weaker than having Opening Strike on something like Maul.

The only weapon I can think I’d want to swap to from Greatsword for an OPening Strike is OH Axe Path of Scars.

I don’t want to be swapping weapons just for a single auto-crit. I want to swap weapons because the current situation calls for me to swap weapons.

Bold added by me…

Because Remorseless refreshes Opening Strike on fury. Precise strike grants 100% crits with opening strikes. Greatsword give has 50% to grant fury on crits, you’re gonna need precision if you want consistent fury and Opening strikes from GS.

Your cleric GS and S/D build is irrelevant to this build discussion since they are both fundamentally different.

Please re-read that trait.
It is on-hit … it is not on-crit. I have stated this multiple times.

As such, you have zero need for crit for it.

If you want to crit more often, go for it and sacrifice some of your tanky stats for some precision. I personally feel I have enough ways to auto-crit on the attacks I really want critting that I’d prefer to be tankier … not to mention you’d have +20% crit chance from all the Fury.

My Greatsword build isn’t a negligible point since it has shown that Greatsword can do more than fine without any crits at all.

Yes.

While running fractals last night, some of my friends and I were talking about this a bit more about this. Each of us feels like several items from our class’s subforum’s “wishlist(s)” have been answered by the new traits. Now, we’ll have to wait and see how the various numbers get tweaked, but mechanically it looks like they’ve been listening and incorporating it in the plans they’ve been quiet about until now.

While there are still the naysayers (always are, always will be), all of the class forums are abuzz with positivity.

We’ll have to wait and see how it all truly pans out, but the current look appears nice … like we have been listened to.

They were just quietly handling it … which I can’t blame given how horrid the community seems to be to any ANet employee that so much as shows their tag.

Domination

• Adept: Confounding Suggestions – Daze will Stun. +25% Daze duration.
• Grandmaster: Power Block – Interrupts deal damage, apply Weakness, and increased cooldowns by 15s.

Chaos

• Grandmaster: Chaotic Interruption – On interrupt, you Gain Might + Random Boon and your target gains Immobilize + Blind/Chill/Cripple.

Dueling

• Grandmaster: Mistrust – On interrupt, apply 2x Confusion (6.25) in a 240 radius around your target.

The current zerg meta is to stack tight.

To hit that hard, we can throw down a Chaos Storm as they around about to auto-attack their way through a location. You can hit up to 5 people per pulse of Chaos Storm. That’s up to 5 Interrupts each time the RNG Dazes. That’s 2x Confusion times up to 5 targets … also known as 10 Confusion. On top of that, if they were interrupted, you just gained up to 5 * 5 = 25 Might (make everything really hurt now!) and are now immobilized so more likely to be eat some more Chaos Storm. On top of that, the COnfusion is now protected by Immobilize, Weakness, and Chill/Cripple/Blind … possibly even some other conditions courtesy of any Sigils/Runes you have and/or from your allies.

Also take Mantra of Distraction which can hit up to 5 targets within a 180 radius of your target. Same possible effect against a stacked zergball.

Mesmer may be able to get the meta to stop being “stack tight”. Will have to see how effective it truly is though in practice … still that 5 person limit that favors tightly packed zergs.

If nothing else, I could see people being even more wary of Chaos Storm

I didn’t say we needed it :-p
It would be darn nice though ;-)
Sword Leap through it so you can then chain it with an iLeap through another field right after .. mwa ha ha.

I don’t see how “Greatsword is largely dependent on precision”. I disagree … especially since I’ve very successfully run a full Cleric Greatsword / Sword+Dagger build in PvP on multiple occasions over the years.

Heck, Durzlla saw me running the Cleric version and Settler’s Version (that uses Shortbow/Axe+Dagger) the other night playing around in a dueling arena and said something along the lines of:

It’s like watching Terminator.
They keep throwing damage at you, but it does nothing and you keep on coming.

The reasons I’m a big fan of Beastmastery for this are:

• +30% movespeed for pet helps your pet be where you need it. Your pet is part of you … damage, cc, etc. You don’t want this out of position
• You get buffed every time you pet swap. Reducing the cooldown on this allows you to be buffed more.
• 20% Cooldown reduction on your pet’s F2 is extremely helpful … more so with pets like Canines … even better when you’re also improving the duration of their conditions … longer fear more often for Wolf … longer immobilize more often for Drakehound … or longer bleeds/chills from birds if that is your preference.
• Quickening Zephyr provides the highest up-time on Quickness in the game. Now it is also giving you Might and pairing with another trait to give you more Might, Swiftness, and Fury (which gives you an Opening Strike again).
• I’d rather stay in my Greatsword and it give me fury 50% of my hits (not crits) once every 10s … while also having +5% damage and -20% cooldowns … this beats the heck out of Tail Wind in my mind especially since that requires me to swap weapons to gain the Fury instead of just continuing with the weapon I want to stick with.

I see what makes you think that … they have listed the cooldown on the ability. You may be right, but you could also be wrong.

Take a look at Beastmaster’s Bond here:

• http://i.imgur.com/TVN0V2u.jpg
  And take a look at Evasive Mirror here:
• http://i.imgur.com/fIH0J9L.jpg

If the cooldown isn’t on the trait itself, then the trait might not have an ICD. That cooldown you see is a copy & paste of the tooltip from the signet itself. Until we see the official tooltip for that trait, we won’t know for sure though.

I mentioned 2 Mesmers with 2 Timewarps for a reason. Even if it is pulsing 1s every 1s, if you have two of them you will accumulate 10s of Quickness on both Mesmers. Each Mesmer can then share that …

• 10s of Quickness on everyone (10, 10, 10, 10, 10)
• Mesmer #1 shares 10s with everyone but himself (10, 20, 20, 20, 20)
• Mesmer #2 shares his 20s with everyone but himself (30, 20, 40, 40, 40)

So that’s 10s from the two Time Warps being up so overall you had each party member affected by 30 to 50s of Quickness (40, 30, 50, 50, 50)

So that’s 50s for 3 members, 40s for one Mesmer and 30s for another Mesmer. Pretty darn nice.

… and that is if you can only share it once every 45 seconds …

Also, a lesson from having taken the Keen Edge trait and Sharpening Stone utility in the same build on my Ranger (Warriors have done the same with their Stances…)

If you let the trait proc first and go on its ICD, you are still free to follow it up with the actual utility … so, at worst, you’d have 2 Signets of Inspiration per Mesmer. So let’s revisit this situation again with that.

• 10s of Quickness on everyone (10, 10, 10, 10, 10)
• Mesmer #1 shares via trait … +10s to everyone except Mesmer #1 (10, 20, 20, 20, 20)
• Mesmer #2 shares via trait … + 20s to everyone except Mesmer #2 (30, 20, 40, 40, 40)
• Mesmer #1 shares via utility … + 30s to everyone except Mesmer #1 (30, 50, 70, 70, 70)
• Mesmer #2 shares via utility … + 50s to everyone except Mesmer #2 (80, 50, 120, 120, 120)

And we can’t forget that they had their initial 10s of Quickness from two TimeWarps which allowed them to stack up those 10s … (90, 60, 130, 130, 130)

That is 90s of Quickness on Mesmer #1, 60s of Quickness on Mesmer #2, and 130s of Quickness on the rest of the group … more than enough time for the 45 second ICD (if it exists) on the trait … and kitten base cooldown on the signet.

… anything else we’d like to say about the 45 second cooldown?

… I don’t see it as a problem

… heck, after kitten … even make that 50s to account for them clicking abilities and being super slow at it … that would have everyone in the group at: (40, 10, 80, 80, 80) … and we get to start sharing again from there …

• Mesmer #1 shares 40 via trait … (40, 50, 120, 120, 120)
• Mesmer #2 shares 50 via trait … (90, 50, 190, 190, 190)
• Mesmer #1 shares 90 via utility … (90, 140, 280, 280, 280)
• Mesmer #2 shares 140 via utility … (230, 140, 420, 420, 420)

Yeah … that just got even better.

… just don’t let a Necromancer corrupt that Quickness … that’s a long amount of Slow :-p

What if you also took Null Field and Feedback. That’s 2 more Chaos Armors. We may also get access to another via the Shield.

• X+Shield
• throw down shield ability that has an Ethereal Combo Field
• swap to Staff
• Phase Retreat.

Korusef.3714:

So will Thieves get Quickness through Plasma now as well?

Given that they can trait to get two uses out of whatever they steal … I certainly hope not … I hope that Plasma exits the game. Getting two doses of every boon in the game every time they steal from me (~21s) doesn’t sound like a fun time … if you’re an interrupt build … even worse since they’d have stability … and becomes even worse if they take Acrobatics given that every 30s it will stunbreak them and refill endurance.

That could be a bigger pain in the butt than what we currently deal with.

Obviously all of the classes are getting “new shinies” with the new Specialization system … Mesmers included.

Regardless of how you feel about those, I’ve noticed a trend with them … every class is gaining considerably more access to boons

I see this is the first indirect buff to Mesmers as Mesmers are the kings/queens of removing boons. Sure, Necromancers can do it too, but not in nearly as many ways nor as often as many different Mesmer builds.

Additionally, all sorts of effects are becoming boons (like Quickness). Mesmers like to manipulate boons. Obviously, Mesmer can steal enemy quickness (or strip it) …

… but this means Mesmer can also share these effects … while the tooltip doesn’t include it yet (they just re-used the old tooltip), I imagine it will soon also include Quickness.

Yes, I do have Quickness … let me share it with everyone … casts a Phantasm.

Want some more of that Quickness? Let me weapon swap and share it some more.

Oh look, there is another Mesmer in the party … let’s keep sharing our Quickness by summoning phantasms as often as possible.

Looking at the complains, I guess the PvE folk hadn’t thought about this one since they keep saying they are “getting nothing for PvE” … oh well … some people always complain early and complain often

Let’s recap this …

• two Mesmers in a group.
• Both Mesmers drop Time Warp … it’s a boon now so it should stack in duration.
• Now each Mesmer is spec’d for Illusionary Inspiration so each time they summon a Phantasm, they share all their boons … likely including that Quickness … it is becoming a boon after all ;-)
• Constant Quickness anyone?

If you constantly apply weakness to a power-based build, you are largely crippling their damage.

Combine this weakness with weakness from Axe #3 when your pet hits.
Combine weakness with protection for extra fun.
If you then also have some decent self-healing … awesome.
If you have cleanses … welcome to tankiness.

Bran.7425:

We just need a honey badger pet.

/thread

@runeblade:
I don’t imagine this build being a “Zerk” build as the Precision is largely unnecessary given the large availability of auto-crits. Instead, replace that Precision with Toughness … or healing / vitality … or some mix.

I didn’t touch on Sigils, but Heimskarl brought up another good point … with Intelligence Sigils you can get even more auto-crits.

@Heimskarl:
That sounds quite solid as well. More access to Regen will help ensure you benefit from that Oakheart Salve even more.

I’ll have look again at the difference in healing between Heal As One and Troll Unguent, but I believe last time I compared the two that Troll Unguent won quite handily.

I was thinking I could possibly get that Regeneration from somewhere else instead of from my heal. Regeneration is nice, but Regeneration w/ Troll Unguent will pick anyone up

If they combined Search & Rescue with Guard, I’d be happy.

My pet goes to my friendly target to rez them, the pet gaining stealth and protection to help it survive standing on a downed player.

Think about using this trait when you are not running a glass cannon build … perhaps when you’re running something like Soldier’s gear.

Otherwise, yes, you likely won’t benefit from this trait much in a glass cannon spec.

Not every trait fits into every build. People need to recognize that and not judge every trait based on how it fits into their 1 or 2 builds.

Marksmanship

• Minor: Opening Strike – 5x Vulnerability(5s)
• Minor: Alpha Training – Pet has Opening Strike
• Minor: Precise Strike – Opening Strike always crits
• Adept: Beastmaster’s Bond – Cast Call of the Wild when you swap pets.
• Master: Moment of Clarity – +150% dmg (Ranger & Pet) when you Interrupt & +100% Daze Duration
• Grandmaster: Remorseless – Regain Opening Strike whenever you gain Fury. Opening Strike does +25% damage.

WIlderness Survival

• Minor: Natural Vigor – +25% Endurance Regeneration
• Minor: Companion’s Defense – You and Pet gain Protection(2.5s) when You Dodge Roll.
• Minor: Barkskin – Take 50% less damage while above 90% health.
• Adept: Expertise Training – Pet gains +350% condition damage and +20% condition duration.
• Master: Oakheart Salve – Gain Regeneration when poison/bleeding/burning applied to you. 5% Damage Reduction when you have Regeneration
• Grandmaster: Wilderness Knowledge – Survival Skills cleanse 2 conditions and give Fury(6s). Survival Skill Cd Reduction 20%. Gain Sharpening Stone when you hit a foe below the 75% threshold.

Beastmastery

• Minor: Instinctual Bond – Pet gains Quickness(5s) when you are downed.
• Minor: Loud Whistle – Pet skills recharge 20% faster. Pet swap recharges 20% faster.
• Minor: Pet’s Prowess – Pet gains +450 Ferocity. Pet gains +30% Movespeed.
• Adept: Companion’s Might – Your critical hits give your pet Might(5s)
  -or-
  Adept: Rending Attacks – Your pets critical hits apply Bleeding(6s)
• Two-handed Training – +5% Greatsword damage. 50% Chance on-hit to gain Fury (3s). 20% Greatsword Cd Reduction
• Grandmaster: Beastly Warden – Your pet taunts when executing F2 ability
  -or-
  Grandmaster: Zephyr’s Speed – You and Pet gain Quickness(3s) and 3x Might(15s) when you swap pets.

So, let’s go over what we have here.
Opening Strike is an automatic critical hit and gains +25% additional damage on top of the critical damage bonus from your Ferocity.

You will regain Opening Strike every time you gain Fury. You will regain fury when:

• You use any skill 6,7,8,9,10 as you will be taking all Survival Skills (they are awesome anyways!)
• You swap pets (16s cooldown thanks to Beastmastery)
• 50% of the time you hit w/ Greatsword … though a 10s ICD on this

That quite a bit of guaranteed critical hits AND vulnerability (5 Vuln per opening strike).

This frees you up from some precision on your gear so you can perhaps replace some armor pieces with, for instance Cavalier, to gain some more survivability.

You have plenty of condition removal just from having 5 survival skills.

Your pet is going to be monstrous as its conditions will last longer (more dmg or more CD based on pet) and it will have the much needed +30% movespeed needed to stick to targets.

On top of this, every 2nd time you pet swap (16s cooldown on pet swap, 30s ICD on trait), you will gain Fury, Might, and Swiftness.

Every time you pet swap you’ll gain Quickness and Might … as will your pet :-)

Lastly, you can get bonus damage from interrupting foes … and your dazes last twice as long. This combined with the reduced cooldown on Greatsword abilities makes Greatsword #5 a much bigger threat.

I know some people have expressed unhappiness with where Greatsword is in the Specializations, but I’m personally happy with it. Most people who have played melee ranger builds are well-aware that when you are a melee ranger, your pet is often right there with you as opposed to ranged builds where the pet has a gap between you and the target; particularly when you pet swap.

When you are in melee with someone and pet swap, your pet with all its Might, Fury, Swiftness, and Quickness is already right there on top of your opponent. With a canine, that gives your opponent less than a second to realize you swapped in a canine that is immediately casting its knockdown while under Quickness. Or for your opponent to crumple under the onslaught of a cat/bird … or whatever other wonderful critter you have running with you.

Even better is when you throw down Muddy Terrain that immobilizes your opponent while giving you Fury which gives you Opening Strike for a guaranteed crit with +25% dmg … Maul anyone?

How about you follow that with an Entangle which will do the same again.

Perhaps then Hilt Bash for a nice +150% damage.

Replacing clone-death with when-crit has a few nice bonuses:

Affects Ranged Opponents
Applying confusion when your opponent crits you/illusion can work against ranged opponents while the previous clone-death did not as the condition application was based on a 240 range PBAOE centered on the illusion killed.

Affects You and Illusions
Opponents are not only punished for critting on illusions but also for critting the real Mesmer.

Can Be Triggered Multiple Times
Clone-death traits could only trigger when a clone died. A clone could only die once. If an illusion survives the first critical hit it takes, then it can take another, hence you can get more than one proc of this effect per illusion.

Illusions, Not Clones
As it is currently written, the new trait affects both clones and phantasms as it specifies illusions as opposed to two of the previous clone-death traits that specified clones.

I can see this minor trait being quite powerful against opponents that like to spam cleaves/AOEs to wear you down as they will likely do several small crits that will load them up with confusion.

Think what this would do to a Guardian using Staff to clear your Illusions.

Think what this would do to an Engineer using Flamethrower/Grenades/Bombs to clear your illusions.

Think what this would do to another Mesmer if your illusions are getting hit by their Chaos Storm.

… and so on.

IP baseline
Elasticity baseline
Manipulation range baseline
Toughness channeling mantras baseline
+15% Phantasm damage baseline

I love it.

Increased Damage to enemies that are vulnerable … great with shatters, swords, staff, and greatsword … all inflict invuln.

The reason I’m not as big of a fan of Go for the Eyes is that it is random. I prefer a bit more control over when I use things.

• Example: Warrior coming at you with an a Burst Skill … on-demand blind will make it miss … can’t reliably do that with random blind.
• Example: Mesmer about to cast a Phantasm … on-demand blind makes the phantasm not even be summoned and go on full cooldown … can’t reliably do that with random blind

Now, if going a power build, I’d probably swap to having it since a power build is likely going to use Rifle (why would it use pistol, lol).

Otherwise, Pistol + Shield provides some nice utility, some extra condition pressure, and some extra defense (not only do I use blind and aegis but I block and refect! wha ha ha!).

Don’t do that, skcamow … gotta make him earn it :-p

Otherwise he’ll just sit around doing nothing because his life will be complete as soon as he’s been bestowed that title.

@Sorel:
Aye, I’m well aware the benefits of IP. Been around for while ;-)

The thing is, you see several people that prefer power builds (especially zerk) treating IP as an auto-include.

Obviously it is “more damage” … more Confusion … more Daze (and more reliable if in melee) … 1 more sec on Distortion.

The “more damage” is what I’m most curious about … I’ve never seen someone investigate “how much more” … just everyone nods their heads and says “it does more damage” … because it has electrolytes and electrolytes are what plants need :-p

Or sub in Chaos w/ Chaotic Interruption because the only thing worse than being stunned/dazed is being stunned/dazed AND immobilized … that’s often two separate cooldowns Combine it with the Might + Random Boon received from Bountiful Interruption so your shatters hurt even more

3 clone shatter with IP that interrupts will be 9 Might. Double-shatter Diversion -> Mind Wrack and you’ll have at least 13 Might. If you included Greatsword Mirror Blade you could get an additional 6 Might for a total of 19 Might.

So, in review … in the span of ~2 seconds you could

• Daze + Immobilize + Cripple/Chill/Blind the Target
• Stack tons of Vulnerability on Target (8+)
• Stack tons of Might on Yourself (from 0 to 19+ … yum).
• Blow them up with butterflies

If that isn’t sexy … you’re crazy.

I’m hoping for that Shield AOE …

When I’m running a dungeon and we stack … I’m stuck with Sword + Focus / +Offhand with no AOE damage … it’s aggravating. I could instead gear to switch to Greatsword, but after #2, #3, #4 I’m stuck with an attack that sucks as close range until my weapon swap cooldown is finished.

Norn Mesmers … we’re going to actually look good with a Shield … especially with HotW Armor on Take that tiny Mesmers :-p

Chaos, if you can make Disruptor’s Sustain “not suck”, you will receive the title “Grand Pooba”.

I’ve said this so many times, it’s gotten ridiculous …

Sword AA keeping its leap and being able to interrupt Sword AA with a dodge roll are NOT mutually exclusive … you could have both

The only issue with Sword AA is the fact that it animation locks you.

The fact that it does this makes little sense. There are several other abilities in the game that are leaps that you can interrupt mid-leap.

I don’t care if people go flying off cliffs, etc. because of bad control of their ability.

I care that I am not given full control of my character when I use this AA chain despite even removing it from auto-cast and manually pressing the button. If I press it and go into the animation, there is no way to interrupt it. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I leverage interrupting various skills all the time on my characters in a large assortment of scenarios that call for it.

I care that any time a Ranger is using sword AA their opponent knows that during AA 2/3 they will 100% land their attack as the Ranger can’t interrupt those to dodge.

Eurantien.4632:

Durzlla.6295:

BM does not provide the pet with ANY secondary stats (which is stupid), in other words it only gives Power, Toughness, Vitality, and Precision, if you want your pet to have any of the other stats you need to take the trait associated with them.

That’s so dumb. I hope the expansion fixes things…

Here’s to hoping … been wanting it to be all stats for a while (like Celestial is for us).

If you look in the pet management window, they have added two new stats.

We currently don’t know what they do, but there is speculation that they are Condi and Boon Duration.

Hybrid with precision has always been nice due to sharper images … better with some weapon sets than other weapon sets.

Otherwise hybrid has needed Staff and Scepter as they are our most “hybrid-ized” weapons.

I guess you could argue that always having a power shatter (Mind Wrack) and condition shatter (CoF) allows us to leverage hybrid stats … but I prefer more than one skill that uses a stat. “More bang for your buck” … that sort of thng.

<3 Sword/Focus.

I’ve honestly been running around lately under the concept of “Let’s assume IP is overrated … let’s not use it and see what we can do”.

This has freed me up for other builds that leverage a traited focus which is probably one of the most underrated weapons in the game due to its phantasm.

Amusingly, I’ve been inducing rage in even dual melee warriors with it.

The use of IP for the other shatters is pretty obvious, but has anyone ever actually done the math for how much extra damage we get from IP? The damage per clone is less and less for Mind Wrack as you go from 1 to 2 to 3 clones. IP just makes you the +1 clone up to 4. Going with that trend, it’s an even worse damage per clone than a 3 clone shatter … obviously doing more, but going from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 would be a larger increase.

You may be right and they weren’t using word play.
You may be wrong and they were using word play.

What proof does anyone have for either? :-p

That’s the point ;-)

@Zania:
Well-written way to express your concerns. Some others could learn from you.

I think even those of us having some fun theorycrafting have the same concerns you do. We’re not oblivious to the various “bad” changes that we don’t agree with. I’m sure if you’ve seen some of my other posts you’re aware of this :-p

I think the “more trait points” points is moot moving to the Specialization system. I don’t believe that is the case any more with it. At most, I believe it becomes “freed up Master versus Grandmaster”

Your heal is Troll Unguent.

I was talking about Dwayna Runes

(1): +25 Healing.png Healing
(2): +10% Regeneration Duration
(3): +50 Healing.png Healing
(4): 25% chance when struck to gain Regeneration for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: kitten
(5): +100 Healing.png Healing
(6): +20% Regeneration duration; when you use a heal skill , you and all nearby allies gain Regeneration for 5 seconds. (Cooldown: 10s)

Between that and Oakheart Salve, you should have plenty of Regeneration.

I’m a Norn… I don’t have those filthy Human skills either ;-)

… but how do you measure that “power” …

I’ve actually been playing around on my Mesmer under the pretense that Illusionary Persona is overrated (despite using it for years). Had some pretty darn good successes so far without it so far. One has done so well that one friend last night asked that I not use it. She was in no mood to fight it again after the whoopings the other night.

I think the Mesmer community has some people even more vocal than me (which is crazy, right?!) that have established some dogma. It can be seen in some of the discussions on diverging from that dogma that quickly devolved into unintelligent personal spats.

I’d also probably take MM over Skirmishing, but I’m personally a bigger fan of Piercing Arrows for reasons I’ve stated in this thread multiple times before.

Last I checked, Beastmastery only gives Power, Precision, Toughness, and Vitality. You should be able to see this in the pet menu. Clear it to 0 Beastmastery, check the values, put in 6 points, check again.

Lol, I’m glad it appeals to you. Just realize that it:

• Has 0 Power
• Has 0 Precision
• Has 0 Ferocity

So your personal direct damage is going to be very poor.
Most direct damage will come from your pet.
Your personal damage will be primarily conditions.

My buddies hate fighting it 1v1 because of the tankiness, but they can win a 2v1 if they can CC me long enough and/or keep poison on me … hence why I’m looking at the 2 alternative builds.

Keep track of your pet. If you don’t know where your pet is, you’re playing a beastmaster build horribly wrong.

A buddy of mine is awesome at controlling her pet. When we fight, her pet seems to somehow always be pressuring me but also quite close to her … and she favors longbow. Very good pet control and positioning.

That’s a good point UmbraNoctis … I should have been more specific when I said what I did about pets and bleeds … Eagle and Hawk bleed on their F2. The only conditions that Owl and Raven inflict are Vulnerability and Chill/Blind which you don’t have to worry about any issues with.

You do still lose out on the CC from the dogs though … and I find that if you can keep your target slowed (Shortbow Cripple, Axe Chill, Dagger Cripple, Canine Cripple) that your pet doesn’t really need that swiftness in order to keep up.

Additionally, it can be quite frustrating when you want your bird to attack and they spend ~1s doing a long swoop to gain swiftness again. Then again, you may value that Swiftness more than I do.

I agree that birds are quite likely the best pets at landing their attacks unaided. They are also harder for opponents to notice given their small size so you can often expect opponents to be less likely to dodge Bird attacks than other pets’ attacks.

@Fay:
You could be right. You could be wrong. We’ll have to wait and see how it all comes together.

The math does give us a ceiling for the number of possibilities … which is substantial enough that we should hopefully have enough variety.

From there we can work on paring it down to what is “usable” and what is “backwards” :-p

… also, there are no guts in math … work the problem, sir! :-p

No DPS meter doesn’t mean I can’t eyeball the difference between your killing your respective mob versus everyone else killing theirs.

Sure, stack situations it is easier to hide, but not in those where each person has to spread out for a second.

I can also notice which skills you are/aren’t using … whether or not we’re getting much Might (i.e. don’t tell me you’re phalanx strength spec when we have 0 incoming Might during fights), etc.

Also, GW2 doesn’t have an add-on dps for in-game, but it’s not the first MMO to do that. To deal with games that make this decision, the truly competitive often use a separate application that sniffs their network traffic for GW2 and parses out the DPS information.

I think DE would work just fine in Phantasm builds if it simply did not create a clone on-dodge if you had 3 phantasms up.

Of the two, I’d prefer DE be baseline.

Illusionary Persona is much less useful (useless even) in a phantasm or clone-death build.

@tobascodagama:
Take a look again at the math, friend :-)

You get to pick:
1 of 3 Major Adept … 3 times (once per specialization)
1 of 3 Major Master … 3 times (once per specialization)
1 of 3 Major Grandmaster … 3 times (once per specialization)

That’s 1 of 3 that you pick 9 times.

You do them as a whole set because picking one set of 3 Specializations gives you a different set of 9 pick-3 choices to make.

There is a difference between:
Domination,Dueling,Chaos
– and -
Domination,Dueling,Inspiration.

In each set of 3 Specializations, you get to pick-3, 9 times. This is why it is 3^9.

It is 3^9 per set of 3 specializations.

You have 20 unique sets of 3 specializations.

So 20 * (3^9) = 20 * 19,683 = 393,660

Is that clearer?

Good point SpellOfInitquity.

Making use of Hunter’s Shot giving stealth to setup some burst from OH Axe and/or Sword is another favorite for others to look out for.

Example: Longbow Hunter’s Shot (Stealth) → Swap Greatsword with Sigil of Intelligence → Maul from stealth.

If their stunbreakers are on cooldown, Hilt Bash into Maul is even meaner. I’ve actually never done a Path of Scars from stealth … will have to try now that I think about it :-)

That quickness is also quite nice for stomping/rezzing. Most people wouldn’t waste their Quickness utility on such a thing, but a Ranger that is going to be swapping their pet anyways often doesn’t think much of it. Heck, it’s a 16s cooldown.

@Eurantien:
I understand what you’re saying Eurantien, and I could see builds getting dropped early if they completely flop during an early step … some builds are just “backwards”

I still think a build that doesn’t completely flop in the early steps requires some decent time investment… and to be tested with teammates.

Take a look at shatter mesmer. In 1v1 dueling, that build can get wrecked pretty badly; especially against condition builds. Why? Because it depends on teammates to help with conditions and its primary burst is pretty well telegraphed and quite well-known at this point in the game. It can also do poorly in PUGs due to having no teammates you can really depend on for what the build expects from teammates.

However, with a good team, that same build is quite good at providing some advantages via portal, boon-stripping, etc. and at +1-ing fights. Having good teammates amplifies the capabilities of that build considerably.

Now, if you haven’t already understood the build on paper and haven’t gotten comfortable enough to become fairly self-sufficient with it before testing it with teammates, you might not get to the point where this becomes quite apparent or how good it can be isn’t always as apparent.

So I randomly ran across this song while listening to music:

• Shatter Me featuring Lzzy Hale by Lindsey Stirling

I’ve seen some of you do awesome jobs matching your video clips with the music you picked. When I heard this song I could see in my head some of that editing some of you have done in your videos.

So that said, I figured I’d throw this song out there and see if anyone is up the challenge of using it well with a video.