In my opinion phant mesmer tends to be pretty low dps compared to some other classes, it seems like it is really good damage until you realize that many other classes are capable of getting 4K+ on their auto attack with each swing, yes even a ranger using a 1h sword can hit that hard there is a screen shot showing one ranger that was doing 5-6k with each auto swing, factor in that each of those attacks is on a 1/2 second that is giving you low end 15k every 1 and a half seconds give or take for aftercast/animation time. Even with three phants up they simply don’t attack often enough for the damage they do to balance out against this. However if whatever you are fighting can have it’s damage reflected then mesmer can reaaaallly out pace some other classes. There are times when I wish there was a actual program to measure dps just so people could use real numbers instead of going on gut feeling like what I am doing. That being said, I don’t play mesmer for it’s personal damage…I play it for it’s flavor and all around badassery (yes that’s a word I promise!)
edit: I want to clarify that dps does not mean damage in general, mesmer is definitely able to burst with the best of them, I use this term for exactly what it stands for damage per second. On large hp pool mobs consistent damage will almost always beat burst followed by periods of lower damage it’s pretty much a mmo staple, burst is useful for trash and consistent damage for bosses.
I use the same setup as Phin with dodge bound to my middle mouse button, ain’t nobody got time for double tap! You can simply strafe with mouse 2 and camera rotation. I use mouse 4 for about face to quickly change directions, I don’t really have a gaming mouse but it does have 2 additional buttons over top of a standard three button mouse so it helps having movment controls mapped to it so I never have to move my left hand out of a very small area. W A S D are still your direction keys but when mouse 2 is depressed it turns A and D into strafe. Not sure I am explaining this well enough but yeah it works quite well.
I have to agree that the skill is by no means mediocre, even in pve where blind immunity and stun breaks are not really needed, the instant 10 stacks of vuln and fury are great for setting up bursts on a sd rifle build.
Rangers also now have a blast finisher on offhand horn in addition to drakes, may want to reword it to something like it is our only blast finishing pet.
I just started playing engineer. After having many other classes, it feels like engineer doesnt have a whole lot of combos and when a combo should be appropriate i.e. Flamethrower flameBLAST, it’s not even a finisher? What? Bomb kit has a couple fields, grenades too, no finishers aside from f skills though… what gives?
Let’s see, a typical ft/eg build can have 3 blast finishers to work with 1 if using shield, 1 from acid bomb, 1 from rocket boots and two different fields fire and light. This is probably the lowest blast finisher amount for a kit engi. If you use a bomb kit and any of the turrets especially healing turret you can get significantly more off, there are people that are more than capable of doing 5 blasts in the short waterfield duration from overcharging the healing turret, or 5 in the fire field so on and so forth….that’s right 5 blasts in a very short time frame.
Thanks very much for the input, all. As to grenades – I leveled to 80 with them at release and played a decent amount of WvW with them and I ended up switching to FT months ago because I was tired of the 1 spam, as some other people stated in this thread. I’m kind of happy with FT right now and don’t much feel like switching to bombs or grenades.
@ Shadowpuppet: That’s interesting. I wouldn’t have thought of giving up juggernaut since I felt like it was a really good trait for FT. I’ll look into that, since I know people have said good things about acid bomb elsewhere.
@ Blood: Thanks for the rune advice. I’ll take a look at that as well.
I’m curious as to what is so great about modified ammunition though. Is this primarily for WvW where everyone is running around with like 5+ conditions on them in group fights? I feel like at least for normal dungeons or group play the 2% per condition would not be as useful as the stacks of might from juggernaut.
Also, as to SD: What’s the damage and the range like? I really wish Anet would be more specific with traits that do extra effects like this. I’ve actually been using SD for a while but have honestly never noticed it doing anything.
Don’t drop juggernaut, drop the vuln on crit. Even with kit swapping if you do it fast enough you don’t lose the might stacks, flame jet is ten hits even if you had 100% crit chance that is still only five vuln stacks and it requires you to use the AA to maintain it effectively, if you want to vuln stack there is no substitute for a grenade build. Jugg got moved the last patch to be a master tier trait, so it is possible that the build calc you are using is outdated. As for the static discharge range, I believe it is 600-900 not home to test it right now, but it really is a bit of a non issue anyways since the majority of rifle damage is up close. Certain toolbelt skills don’t play nice with sd, as others have stated typical sd utilities are toolkit, rifle turret and possibly utility goggles or rocket boots or pbr. Elixirs don’t work nor do any of the toolbelt skills that don’t require you to have a target, ie the eg toolbelt and sadly even BoB and barrage don’t really target the enemy so they just sorta shoot the SD in a random direction. Also because of the nature of rifle being such a close range weapon I never saw the point in taking the trait for increased rifle range, since the autoattack is the only real long distance damaging ability it has and quite frankly if someone is trying to autoattack a enemy to death on a sd build they are doing it wrong heh.
98 views, no replies. Incouraging…. I’ll make a Mesmer instead lol.
If you want to be competitive in every aspects of the game, you would be better serve as a mesmer to be honest, it is no sarcasm. They do better pve, pvp and wvw.
no offense but you come here asking alot of different build where the main page of the ranger forum is covered with and have a sticky about them.
Define being competitve in a game mode like pve. If you mean because you won’t get sought after for speed clears then sure I suppose ranger is a poor choice because of community bias even though the current fastest cof p1 clear had a ranger in the group. If spotter and frost spirit is the Ranger’s niche then so be it, it’s no different than people bringing mesmer along solely for their utility because it surely isn’t for their personal damage. These forums are filled with people that proclaim how their profession is useless at this or that and how every other class has it so much better, case in point go to the mesmer forum and see what they are saying over there about their lack of presence in high level tPvP at the moment due to condi damage being all the rage. I suppose my point is, every single class in this game is “competitive” with one another in some aspects and the “grass is greener” attitude really should be avoided.
I’m sure you are getting 25 stacks of bleed….but I can’t get the math to support it.
In the first build 43% chance to crit = every 10 shots, 4 will crit (roughly)
Sharpened Edges = 66%.
4 crits x 66% = 2.5 bleeds every 10 attacks.
Sharpened stone gives another 5 bleeds every 45 seconds.
Splitblade is 1-5 bleeds depending on range.
Apparently I am missing something
Different gear sets, Xsorsus says he has 60% crit chance put on top of that fury. Still would like to see the 25 stacks in action though, but my ranger is still a baby so no way for me to attempt to replicate it.
I also use focus for condi removal, drop a warden then drop curtain on top of the warden and voila! Basically drop the warden on the ranged enemy and run to him bringing all the melee mobs with you, blurred frenzy the whole group and profit. Obviously this only really works in pve with mob ai as any player in pvp is not going to just stand next to the warden.
If you don’t plan to pvp, dropping 5 points out of firearms to put down in the tools line for 10% dmg on full endurance is probably the way to go. Combine ft with eg and rocket boots for quick disengage reengage to save your dodges (plus acid bomb hits like a truck with zerker stats and you get 2 blast finishers from your ft firefield). I swear I don’t know why people hate on the ft so much, yes the auto is relatively low damage compared to other auto attacks in the game but with the low cooldowns on the #2 skill and all the utility that a setup like that can provide, the damage is more than sufficient for anything other than possibly a cof speed clear group which a engi is rarely going to get the invite for anyways due to community bias. All this being said Zerker stats even for a ft build are hardly a waste of time and it is how I run 90% of the time mostly because of my hatred for having to spam 1 with grenades.
Mesmer
Mesmers are magical duelists who wield deception as a weapon. Using powerful illusions, clones, and phantasmal magic to confuse and distract their foes, mesmers make sure every fight is balanced in their favor and their opponents can’t believe their eyes. ( copy paste from class description )
From what i know duelist means they pretty good at 1vs1 , but WE SUCK BAD ! We can’t win vs any good player of other class out there !
I think one of two things is happening here, you have fought players that are better than you and you simply got outplayed, or you are fighting a build that your particular build is weak against IE, not having enough condi cleanse/lockdown tools against a necro because of the build you are running.
This is true.
You got 5k achievs in 1 year what can i say for you ?
Let me try again, I was not personally attacking you or saying you are a bad player, because how the hell would I know what kind of player you are? The point I was trying to make is that there are always players that can outclass you, and yes like it or not some particular builds don’t match up well against other particular builds. This is what balance for this game really means, you simply can not make every class spec viable against every other class spec without turning them all into a homogeneous clone of one another because it has be stated time and time again that this game is not balanced around 1v1. Is mesmer as strong as it once was? Absolutely not, because of the pvp whiners that would rather kitten and moan when “their” build does not work to instantly kill “our” build, instead of actually trying to adapt and learn a way to counter. I have seen the argument made that no one build should force someone to build a specific way for dealing with it but I simply can’t agree, if the current Necro fotm build is giving you fits then build a different way and adapt, we do have the tools to beat them but yes it will leave us weak against other classes/builds.
Mesmer
Mesmers are magical duelists who wield deception as a weapon. Using powerful illusions, clones, and phantasmal magic to confuse and distract their foes, mesmers make sure every fight is balanced in their favor and their opponents can’t believe their eyes. ( copy paste from class description )
From what i know duelist means they pretty good at 1vs1 , but WE SUCK BAD ! We can’t win vs any good player of other class out there !
I am sure Osi and many many others would disagree with your assertion. I think one of two things is happening here, you have fought players that are better than you and you simply got outplayed, or you are fighting a build that your particular build is weak against IE, not having enough condi cleanse/lockdown tools against a necro because of the build you are running.
Lots of classes rely on their AA for doing damage with certain weapon sets, why is this such a surprise for people? The downside is yes it makes the game a bit monotonous, but the upside is it saves your skills (In this case your 2 evades) for when you need them, it also allows you to concentrate more on positioning and watching what is happening with the fight to know if you need to avoid that big damage spike.
Edit: Pressing buttons just for the sake of pressing buttons does not always mean that there is more skill involved
LOL, all I could think in my mind was HALP I WANT OFF THIS RIDE!…. now if you will excuse me I need to go find something to stop the motion sickness like whiskey!
Personally, and this is just my opinion I wouldn’t run a SD rifle build for zerging. As far as condi removal goes there really is just no “good” option on a rifle SD build that does not make you give up another important aspect of your build. Melandru runes and lemongrass soup are probably your best bet for this, though losing out on the crit damage from using a different runeset is not exactly ideal since really SD burst is all about hitting hard and fast and hoping like hell that whatever you just attacked is dead. You could try running a rifle hgh build but the burst is going to be significantly lower but with the added might stacks it may make up for it in sustain damage, I should emphasize may, but at least then you can run 409 and not worry about condi’s. As a side note I don’t think the extra range on the rifle skills is really the optimal choice for SD since most of your attacks are close range anyhow, maybe something like sitting duck or even modified ammo if running with a small group or even dropping 10 points out of firearms for 10 in inventions to get something like stabilized armor, cloaking device, protective shield to increase surviveability a bit. Admittedly I am certainly not some uber leet player, but I have had decent success running a build similar to that.
Yeah, temporal curtain is a short vertical reflect. It’s best used on your location not at the location of the target and even then if there is a elevation difference sometimes it can be shot over, but I don’t think it really is all that bad for a skill that can do so many different things. I still say they should give us the ability to just “place” iWarden where we want through a ground targeting option somehow.
Interesting idea, to replace a SD rifle build for a HGH rifle build. I think it will need testing to see if the might stacks outweigh the loss of SD in the damage department, my gut feeling is it won’t but at least you have decent condition removal with this build so it may actually work out for you.
Thank you for feedback.
In order to take back SD we can put 10 points from explosives to tools but i don’t know if SD damage > 100more power + 5%damage + bombs damage on roll.
The problems is that SD in a general rifle build comes togheter with 10/20 points in explosives…
so the question is:
HGH’s might spam > SD and in particular:
is 4x SD damage > than 10 perma might stacks? (10 at first elixirs rotation… more at second etc)
but that’s not all… infact if we plan to sobstitute HGH for SD there is another important minor trait to consider, so now the formula is:
(4xSD damages)x2 (if 2 enemies) > 11might stacks + 1%damage per boon (a min of 3 boons: fury, might and swiftness) + 4migh stacks (after 20sec by reusing 2 elixirs) ?
i don’t know… but the buils is based on elixirs… so do you think is a good idea to sobstitute 10 point in alchemy with 10 points in tools?
ps: also that chance mean: -1000hp -10%boon duration +10%crit damage +10%reduced recharge on toolbelt skill
edit: added 2 might stacks from trait “hidden flask” and removed 1 might stack (because you can use elixir S and get 1 might stack also without HGH) from the final formula.
As far as burst damage goes, which is what the SD rifle build is intended to do, get in blow all your skills and hope that whatever you attacked is dead at that point, you really need to go further into the tools line for better cooldown reduction on toolbelt skills and the higher crit damage bonus. You don’t normally run SD with elixirs as your utilities because they don’t target the mobs for the SD burst. It is a case of one or the other, I think the build you have come up with will yield better sustained damage over a longer period of time but it will lack the burst that a SD build can produce. Typically when running SD I will opt for something like 0/30/0/10/30 or 0/30/0/20/20 depending on whether I need more surviveability at the expense of max theoretical damage. Going at least 25 into tools gets you a 10% damage increase on full endurance for that initial opening burst. All in all as I said before the build you have come up with may yield higher sustained damage over a longer period of time, but it will definitely lack the burst ability that a normal SD build will obtain.
You can do plenty of damage using the bomb kit, but having the option to effectively use nades when you need to attack from range is really handy.
I wouldn’t take Deadly Mixture if I wasn’t using the FT since most of the EG damage is condition based.
10 points in the firearms tree is worth 5% crit, but since your best damage gear options are rampager or rabid, you’ll probably have enough crit to be effective.
You mean most of the eg autoattack damage is condition based from bleeds, don’t forget about acid bomb and the #2 skill which both scale quite well with power, the poison cone is pretty terrible for damage either conditions or power.
Interesting idea, to replace a SD rifle build for a HGH rifle build. I think it will need testing to see if the might stacks outweigh the loss of SD in the damage department, my gut feeling is it won’t but at least you have decent condition removal with this build so it may actually work out for you.
I don’t want to sound snide, but you just hit 80 and have no idea about the class? My suggestion though would be to browse the forums to look for build ideas and then experiment with them to find what works for you. No one can tell you what build you will have success with because playstyle is different for most people, and you have given no information even as to what types of things you value for yours i.e. defense play offense play so on and so forth. The end result is you will always be strongest with a build that you are most comfortable with through experimentation and learning the class and what works for you and what does not, don’t rely on others.
I would recommend staying away from grenades until you can get the grandmaster trait for them. As for general tips on how to play your engi, the class and way to play varies so much depending on if you like to use kits or not (I feel kits is the way to go but it does require high APM to be competitive). Best advice I can give is to head to the mists and just play around with it. I primarily used ft/eg for leveling and still do to this day except when doing a dungeon and someone else wants me to go grenades for the vuln stacks. Get comfortable being in mid to close range because aside from grenade kit (and even grenade kit can be difficult at times to use from max range because of grenade flight time), and pistols the vast majority of an engineer’s damage is done at this distance, the nice thing is by the time you can spend 20 points in traits you can have permanent swiftness and vigor from said swiftness with 10 in tools and 10 in alchemy, simply by switching out your kits. The very best recommendation I can make though is to head to the mists and spend some time there testing out the different available builds and playstyles.
edit: never post when you have barely slept you start repeating yourself yourself!
Just got to say, Hunter’s Call has pretty much always been that powerful with its ability to apply lots of bleeds if you have the right traits (Sharpened Edges), gear (I recommend Rampager’s or Rabid though there are strengths and weaknesses in both sets of stats), and sigils (Earth). You should also use consumables that extend the duration of your condition damage. There is absolutely nothing new about this.
Also, Other useful skills with a sigil of Earth and Sharpened Edges is Rapid Fire, Barrage, or Whirling Defense. Barrage is by far the best skill to use with it….but Whirling Defense might be better now with the update though because of that Retaliation.
Only real difference now is the blast finisher, which is still on far too long of a cooldown in my opinion but it does help to be able to chain it with the drakes for might or healing or whatever field you wish to use it with.
What if I throw all my traps around me including healing spring and blow that horn?
Also it doesn’t matter how many fields there are, you will only get the one finisher, if fields are placed overtop of one another you get the finisher for the field that was the most recent.
I’m trying to better understand my profession and there are some details I think need better documentation. I’ve been lead to believe that some conditions are applied when you overwrite an illusion.
So I have to ask..
I get what ‘on shatter’ effects are.
I get what ‘on kill’ effects are.
But what is overwriting illusions considered? On kill? Certainly not a shatter and yet something i’m reading suggests overwritten illusions causes conditions (on certain builds).
Ideas?
Yes, overwriting is considered on kill for purposes of certain traits that take advantage of clone death IE. Crippling dissipation and Debilitating Dissipation.
For pve, I feel zerker is the better choice. The main reason is simply the same as any other condition type of build, condition caps. You can use use a hgh setup to get some good might stacks going which helps boost both power and condition damage, but you can’t really replace the crit damage loss from using rampager’s. I am sure there are pro’s and con’s to both setups though and I have no real math to quote which I am certain someone on this forum will have. Personal gut feeling from using both setups is that berserker’s is the way to go.
Is FT competitive for PvE at 80? Or should I more consider a SD build?
I don’t think you want to use a SD build for pve, or at least for dungeons in pve. But yes ft works fine for pve, it won’t top the damage charts compared to a nade build or the burstyness of a rifle sd build, however when you pair the ft with the eg it makes for a powerful and effective group build more than capable of putting out respectable damage.
Another neat trick I just recently discovered regarding flame wall and rocket boots, is you can still get area might from simply passing through it on a rocket boot. This allows you (when combined with acid bomb) to quickly disengage and then rocket boot back to the target to re-engage without losing much in terms of dps and still benefit from getting the area might. This is of course if you have space to do so and either miss the acid bomb animation cancel or just simply want to use it instead of a dodge.
Try to fight any decent ranger, necromancer, mesmer or engineer. See how they laugh at you and demolish you as soon as your retaliation ends. Guardians are one of the best classes overall (SPvP, WvW and PvE) but our significant weaknesses (low HP, low mobility, lack of range) makes us easy preys for any skilled player.
And FYI, most people in WvW are utter garbage. Once I was ganked by two thieves, and it took me symbol of wrath + whirling wrath to down both of them. Good job stealing when I had Aegis, thieves. I bet anyone that can play his class right and has a proper small-scale PvP build could handle such players.
P.s. I’ll get stoned for this, but I’ll give you that Stand Your Grand deserves some nerfing :P
It’s not SYG that’s broken. It’s the way other classes are lacking in certain areas. Right now there are a select few classes that bring “essential” buffs to a group. I would much rather see Anet add ways for other classes to obtain similar buffs, even if they had to make a sacrifice to do it.
To the OP I think you might be trolling, but just in case you aren’t WvW is not an accurate representation of skilled pvp play. It is a good representation of which server has better macro play though. It is possible to win wvw and never even engage in pvp. It has it’s own set of skills. That isn’t to say someone can’t be good at both, or because they are good at one they are good at the other.
he specifically said he won 1v3’s and 1v1’s in wvw, which means he’s participating in pvp.
edit
My comment sounded rude, so I will just start with the basics.
1. In WvW there is no guarantee that your enemy has the same level of gear.
2. In WvW you might be facing people that are much lower level
3. Certain buffs in WvW that are not in PvP
4. Certain skills in WvW have different durations, or just work differently in PvP
5. Certain items can be used in WvW that can’t be used in PvP
6. Buffs from keeps, or just WvW in general apply to one side or another. They do not in PvP
I will stop there, I hope that I have explained a few differences though in a way to doesn’t come off as me being an kitten .
There are differences between sPvP and WvW for sure, but WvW is still player versus player so by that definition alone it is still considered “PvP”
As I say all I have to compare it to up to now is Ranger.
Don’t mind TheGuy, I think he took you saying you are enjoying the class in WvW compared to your ranger as somehow you saying that warrior is op or something. There are people on these forums that simply can’t grasp how someone could have fun with this class in pvp because srsbsns tPvP is the only game mode don’t you know!
They used to be good, back in beta! But they were too good and flamethrower engineers ruled PvP (I’m not joking). Since then, if memory serves, literally every skill on the flamethrower has been changed in some way.
And that is why major changes made right at release are generally a bad idea.
It has changed considerably, however right now I feel like a standard ft/eg build is more than viable for any game mode. Granted none of the ft’s skills changed this last patch, but the trait changes and the animation changes for rifle’s jump shot as well as the rocket boots change has made me such a stick and move type of player that I can’t really see myself going back to nades. The only time I really would use nades now is if I want to zerg and stand in the back and lob nades and die from retal heh. I guess what I am getting at is, yeah a ft build won’t compare to a nade build in terms of raw damage…but ft is still in a fantastic spot right now and is more than capable of putting out some respectable burst dmg. when using your combos.
It’s pretty simple really, and I have seen it posted somewhere else. There are more people playing necro’s now and the spotlight is on you. Before it escaped scrutiny because there were relatively so few compared to other classes. I admit freely that after the change I wanted to revisit my necro, although for me it was mostly to check out the ds changes because that was what I originally wanted to play my necro as, a power DS build. Anyhow that was off topic, the point of all this is welcome to the spotlight!
While it is true that now the necromancer is more popular than ever, it is also true that it has the same weaknesses as it used to. For some reason, however, people now consider the necromancer overpowered in all kinds of specks, no matter whether they got buffed or not. I am mainly playing a powermancer, an the amount of people I encounter in-game that whine that I play an “Overpowered class with no counters” (lol) is mindbogling.
People seem to have lost their mind after the patch, and scream “nerf” for any kind of useful tool that the necro has. I will be sad to see the nerfbat being swung and hitting all necro specks because of mindless forum crying. The condipressure might be a bit high, but the rest of the builds are mediocre to good. Other than it, there are no exceptional must-have specks, and the necro is not a must-have class in tPvP, unlike the elementalist, guardian, the mesmer – often even the engie.
It remains to be seen if once this build is toned down necromancer will still be a desirable class for tPvP, but we really do not have any other competitive specks.
This thread shows how far the hysteria over the necromancer have gone, and this is why I made it – to point out the kinds of complaints people have about the class. Some of them are far from reasonable, which only serves to demonstrate how much the community is unwilling to put any effort into learning how to combat a necromancer.
Like I said, since you see so many more of them now people will complain the loudest. I am not defending it, personally I have always disliked fighting good necros because my main is a mesmer and yeah had a hard time with you lot! But I don’t think even with the changes that they are “OP”. I was actually excited when I read the patch notes to dust off my necro to see how much of a difference the life force regen and having permanent crit in ds would make for me, and what I discovered was exactly what kept me from playing the class before still held me back this time. I feel more than capable of dishing out damage but I struggle with sustain, and lack of escape tools. Admittedly I am not a very good necro player and I imagine if I built around condi toughness it would help some but the lack of escape tools reaaaallly keeps me on a personal level from being able to make it work. I like my get out of jail free cards too much!. I really hope that when/if they take another look at balancing the necro they do it with more thought than they generally do when nerfing a class, but I suppose that is a wait and see game.
Skill 2 takes a bit of timing, but since you can detonate it whenever need be I find it isn’t that difficult. The push back is useful if you have a melee enemy to buy yourself some breathing room to close in with the ranged enemy so that way you can burn them down together (also if timed right it is a very short window ranged reflect). Skill 4 is a flame wall that can be used to stack might and proc burn (Flame jet get’s a 10% increase in dmg to burning targets). In order to use the flamethrower you really need to have the traits that lower it’s cd timers and increase it’s damage. Also build for power and crit, not condition damage. It pairs well with the eg since the traits are shared for both ft and eg (and yes the eg is a fantastic power weapon especially acid bomb, which also happens to be an additional blast finisher). All in all I find the FT to be a fantastic weapon kit, it was much improved over when the game first went live just by adding the ability to detonate flame blast. The trick to using flame blast is to let the initial hit happen then detonate it (at level 80 I easily get 6k + out of this attack and it’s on a short cooldown from the traits). Hope this helps, if you have any further ft/eg questions I recommend starting here http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/72009-a-comprehensive-look-at-the-flamethrower-and-elixir-gun/
It’s pretty simple really, and I have seen it posted somewhere else. There are more people playing necro’s now and the spotlight is on you. Before it escaped scrutiny because there were relatively so few compared to other classes. I admit freely that after the change I wanted to revisit my necro, although for me it was mostly to check out the ds changes because that was what I originally wanted to play my necro as, a power DS build. Anyhow that was off topic, the point of all this is welcome to the spotlight!
I think also, at least for me personally I find building for condition dmg and only applying one condition to be sort of counter productive since it can so easily be cleansed in pvp settings. If you run staff or scepter I can see it being more valid, but both of those weapons will actually stack bleeding slower (staff may actually stack just as fast with it’s clones because they cause bleeding inherintly but try keeping the clones alive in a setting where there is tons of aoe flying around). From a pve stand point it is perfectly viable for open world pve solo play, but will always run into the same issues that plague condition users in pve. Large events become a problem, and sometimes dungeons as well. Even phantasm builds should be shattering their illusions right before a mob dies at the very least and the extra power and crit damage really helps make mindwrack hit much harder than it would with rampager’s. I won’t say that it doesn’t work to use rampager’s just to me it feels less effective for the types of weapons I choose to use.
Since bleeds are capped, then couldn’t you rely on other players to build bleeds in a group setting, thus making 10/10/0/25/25 the better option?
I personally don’t meet many ppl who tend to build up condition dmg, even while running with rangers or necros, we mostly aren’t able to cap bleeding up at 25
While u cant count situations like world bosses ofc
The only issue I can see with the bleed vs phys dmg is on static objects like gates or burrows or what have you. I think ultimately both specs are more than viable, and if you have someone else stacking vuln along with yourself (since there is no easy way to get high vuln stacks without going 15 into dom) the phys dmg probably will pull ahead of the bleed.
What I have noticed is that it makes a great first impression. Then reality slowly sets in on people.
I watch how opinions of the game have changed over time, especially from posters who make topics like these. Not everyone stops gushing about it, but it seems most change their tune given ample time for the honeymoon phase to wear off.
Because it doesn’t have the same type of/degree of required grind that other games do. That’s all. And because it’s 10 months old.
I see the same thing in almost every MMO forum six months in, eight months in. People run out of content and get bored and start complaining.
Doesn’t have anything to do with the game. This forum could be copy and pasted from any MMORPG forum I’ve ever been on.
It could have plenty to do with the game. I’m sure if you ask the posters it has plenty to do with the game. But let’s just ignore them shall we?
It’s much easier to ignore when you decide to chalk it up to the condition of MMO’s.
I have noticed your criticisms have also grown over time. They must not be valid though, just the MMO condition.
Same said on any game forum. If this reflects other game forums then obviously criticisms have to do with the game. So why does it take months. An MMO is sorta like a relationship.
You meet someone and you ignore their flaws because your’e madly in love. Everything is great. Then you move in together, spend time together and flaws emerge. Normal human psychology. Has to do with the other person sure. Has as much to do with individual expectations and also has something to do with individual tolerances.
I spend more time with the game, I notice more flaws in the game. It’s logical that would happen. But I’m still of the opinion that there’s not a better MMO out there for my play style now or in the forseeable future.
Those who look for the perfect relationship, without any tolerance at all, end up leaving for another relationship which also won’t be perfect. No one is saying the game is perfect. But also, every fault that everyone posts on a forum isn’t fault, but often an incompatibility.
The people who want uber-hard content with appropriate rewards in their eyes probably aren’t going to like this game as much as me, and they’re going to say that’s a fault in the game. But one man’s trash is another man’s jewels.
The stuff most people complain about isn’t a flaw in the game, it’s an incompatibility between the game and their play style. Which has just as much to do with the person as the game.
I’m not sure why people have so much trouble acknowledging this.
Acknowledging what? It’s the exact same thing I said, except it took you 6 paragraphs to say it.
After the newness wears off, the flaws present themselves.
Thanks for agreeing with me.
Thanks for ignoring my point. Maybe I needed more words to say something different from you.
Flaws are not flaws if they’re just a matter of taste. Every game has flaws. Every single one. No exceptions. Every person has flaws. If you focus on flaws you’ll never be in a relationship for any length of time, because all you’ll see if flaws.
But MORE importantly many things that are a flaw to ONE person, may not be a flaw at all. I talk a lot. Some people would hate it. My wife loves it. It’s not a flaw to her. I just have a niche audience.
The point is flaw is a lousy word to use for something that’s perfectly fine that some people don’t like. In some cases, as I’ve said, it’s not a flaw, but a compatibility issue. The flaw doesn’t necessarily lie in the game in those cases.
Yeah I get it, as long as you don’t mind it or it doesn’t affect your particular playstyle, it’s ok with you. You may even like it because it affects another’s play style you don’t agree with negatively.
Great attitude there.
No one should complain because someone else might like it. Let’s just hug.
It also has nothing at all to do with what I said. Time goes on, the same people who post these kind of threads will change their tune over time.
It seems to me you are being far too confrontational about this, I believe Vayne’s point is simply “different strokes for different folks”. I read nothing in his post to indicate that what he was saying equated to “I got mine forget everyone else” which you seem to be implying. Is there room for improvement in this game? Absolutely, but name me one mmorpg that has shipped absolutely perfect and able to satisfy literally everyone that played it. It can’t be done because people have different tastes and ideas for what is entertaining to them. In conclusion, quit trying to rain on the fun parade!……
You actually are not losing 200 power, you are losing 236 attack….it seems the weapon kits have a lower weapon strength than that of an exotic weapon.
edit: I am fairly certain it has always been this way, both before the sigil fix and after. They have a scaling weapon strength that changes as you level it just seems to fall short of the exotic weapon strength at 80. I am not sure how much potential damage is lost from 236 attack and perhaps they feel it is needed to balance the kits. At 80 and well geared it is certainly a loss, but replace even just the weapon with a rare and you actually pull ahead of attack value of the weapon by using the kits.
Not sure if i’m being an idiot or something, but when i try to put this into a build calculator to get juggernaut major trait i have to go 30 into firearms has this just been a recent update or something and build calculators haven’t changed yet?
I feel like 10/10/0/25/25 is giving me the best results right now, requires a bit more trait switching to decide between lower cooldown on sword skills or fury for the phantasms but all in all it isn’t so bad. At least phantasms don’t die when they get sneezed on in pve now so that has helped adjust to the slower pace.
Not to rain on anyone’s parade but, knockbacks are generally frowned upon in any kind of group activity except for when it will save from a wipe. The last thing people want is to have a group of mobs spread out so they can’t be aoed. When soloing sure this seems valid, I just doubt how useful it will be for group play.
Edit: I am speaking specifically about using gs #5 for the interupt to build might stacks
I could be wrong, but I’m almost positive that the OP is referring to a WvW build
Could be, still it holds true…take a scenario where you have a blob of people and the aoe’s get dropped from say a necro, ele, ranger or any class that has gtaoe and you come along and knock the enemy out of it to stack your might. I am not saying it’s totally worthless by any stretch of the imagination, just it seems like using gs#5 to try and stack might is less than a optimal approach. It’s mostly my opinion and I wouldn’t try and discourage anyone from pursuing it, just wanted to offer something to think about. I apologize if it sounded like I was being one of “those” people that try and tell others how to play.
Not to rain on anyone’s parade but, knockbacks are generally frowned upon in any kind of group activity except for when it will save from a wipe. The last thing people want is to have a group of mobs spread out so they can’t be aoed. When soloing sure this seems valid, I just doubt how useful it will be for group play.
Edit: I am speaking specifically about using gs #5 for the interupt to build might stacks
To answer the question of the OP, simply we have no way of knowing what is coming tomorrow. Everything we have seen from the reddit and gw2hub posts is unofficial. Some things may be true some may not, but until tomorrow noone knows for sure.
You can go Power Crit with a 20/20/0/0/30 or 0/20/20/0/30 or 10/30/0/0/30
There you go, those are your options. Luckily though your zerker gear will work with all 3 since they’re all basically the same spec.
While the changes that are on gw2hub look concerning, they are also listed as just a preview and not official. I realize that if the changes are true it has some pretty terrible implications for build diversity but as of yet they are not confirmed or implemented. The sky may or may not be falling but there is not much use in the speculation until tomorrow.
Think of it like this, staff becomes your defensive weapon that also has a phantasm that benefits from power. The damage for iLock is based on number of unique conditions on the target plus your power and crit chance/critdmg. I tend to run Sword/x primarily focus, but switch to sword or pistol OH and then either GS or Staff as the situation warrants. I know it seems counter intuitive to run with a melee main hand weapon like sword when you are wearing light armor, but really it is something you should get used to. Typically I won’t stay in melee long, just long enough for a blurred frenzy (which is an amazing offensive and defensive skill). Granted I run a shatter build 90% of the time unless I need to trait for reflects for specific dungeons with a lot of ranged mobs so the being in melee range and having the quick shatters and iPersona (since the illusions don’t have to run to the target) is sorta required, your mileage may vary on a phantasm build. Condition builds outside of pvp just leave a lot to be desired in my opinion, of course I think the smartest thing to do right now is wait until the actual balance changes happen tomorrow. With the introduction of torment, and if they fix the bounce logic on staff condition damage builds could become more viable in pve depending on how torment is implemented, but condition damage builds will still suffer from the same problems as always in large events and dungeon runs with having your conditions overwritten. Having said all of this, ultimately it should be about what you like to play and if you want to play a condition based mesmer then by all means you should, just be prepared to be less effective in certain scenarios than others.
Plenty viable, I primarily run shatters…unless I need to trait for reflects and have very little in the way of issues in general pve (except the occasional biting off more than I should have and hating to have to run away heh). Mesmer is fairly slow until the level 40 mark when you can get your master traits unlocked, deceptive evasion is a huge + to clone generation for shatter fodder. Mesmer’s weak point in my opinion is good reliable aoe for tagging mobs in large zerg events (this is mostly due to mechanics with having to have a viable target to summon your illusions and not because they lack the damage, most of the time the engi’s, necro’s and ele’s well really any class that can place aoe without a target will have the mobs dead before you can get your illusions out). It is slow killing but the staff is an amazing defensive weapon with the ability to short distance teleport every 8 seconds 6 if traited and for chaos storm to blink or leap through. I personally favor sword/focus and staff (yes even on a power build) to give me a good mix of offensive and defensive play. If you have pvp’d at all you know mesmer’s biggest burst really comes from blurred frenzy/ mind wrack combo. At level 80 that combo alone is enough to drop normal mobs. As you level you will get a better feel for it, just don’t get discouraged by the slowness of the early levels it really does get amazingly strong after 40.
edit: I know a lot of people complain about the phantasmal warden being difficult to use but focus has so much synergy between temporal curtain and the iwarden, you can place your iwarden then drop curtain on top of it for a good whirling aoe cleanse (similar to the effect that whirling wrath does with the gs from guardian) which that is another area mesmer or at least shatter mesmer can be lacking is condition removal, though conditions are really not much of an issue pre orr in my opinion but it’s good to use ahead of time to get the feel for the timing of it all
