Guild Wars 2

The hammer has a much stronger place in sky hammer than the trebuchet in Kyhlo. I rarely see people using trebuchet in Kyhlo while I rarely see Skyhammer not being used or fought over.
Also, you can destroy the trebuchets, not the hammer.

Also, as said, You often get thrown out of the map or immobilized on the glass etc…

So basically, it is a map where the mechanics takes completely over the fight. It is not fun. In general, the fights which have the least amount of mechanics (Forest/Foefire) are the favorite. Yes, they do have creatures/lord, but that does not prevent or disturb the fight, this just makes it one more objective (and I would actually prefer Foefire without the lord).

Condi reaper will save you!

Robert Gee clearly admitted the reason for the low speed of the AA is the clone generation. The problem is that there are places (PvE) where the clone generation is actually a bad thing, therefore being a double punishment. What would you feel if the AA was made faster by default (without malicious sorcery) and that malicious sorcery would be “reduce CD on scepter, scepter AA produces a clone”. If the devs think it will still create too many clones, “malicious sorcery” could be exchanged with “mistrust” thereby competing with “deceptive evasion”, but I don’t think it is needed to change that.

So defensive:

• shield, though before they changed it to a channeled block, it wasn’t such a great defensive weapon
• wells: a few good defensive wells + support wells necessarily mean more “static” hence tanky. Finally, the old well trait used to clean conditions
• slow: slow is probably as bad as weakness (if not worse) to reduce the damage output of enemies. And there is a full slow line, but it depends a lot on crits.

So my idea is that chronomancer was not meant to be a bunker, but a team fighter. Someone that thrives on a point with other allies, very supportive, but still more offensive than defensive. It just happens that bunkering seem to work well too. I don’t think the meta chronomancer will end up being a bunker but an offensive team fighter.

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Silverkey.2078:

Is her whole album mesmer-themed? :p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg7L0OQiN78

I’d say no.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sf6LD2B_kDQ

I wonder if this contradicts the point or proves it further? :p

In PvP it works fine. It may not be meta, but condi shatter it’s a perfectly viable build and it uses scepter. Note that “currently” in PvP, mesmer is not so much used in groups but rather in single-target fights. With chronomancer, things will change, but I feel like power chronomancer will be better in terms of support/survivability.

We need more votes for the decision I guess. Someone???

MUDse.7623:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

4 Wells With Recall (11-13s Alacrity)

Untraited: 0.66 * 11 = 7.333
Traited: 0.66 * 13 = 8.667
Untraited “Gained” Cooldown = 7.33 seconds
Traited “Gained” Cooldown = 8.67 seconds
New Untraited Cooldown Time = 20 – 7.33 = 12.67 seconds
New Traited Cooldown Time = 20 – 8.67 = 11.33 seconds

if u need to wait 13s to get the cd to 11,33s then the actual cd is in between 13s and 11,33s. or do i get that math wrong ?

That is exactly why a few people mentioned that you gain 0.66s CD reduction for each second of alacrity BUT you cannot reduce the cooldowns by more than 40%. So for the traited cooldown, the time is actually 12s cooldown, using 12s alacrity which indeed corresponds to 8s cooldown reduction (the extra second of alacrity is wasted on this skill).

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Ross Biddle.2367:

nearlight.3064:

This is very very nitpicky, but why do so many people, especially on the mesmer forums spell “condi” as “condie”? Its just jarring to read and makes me think it sounds like con-die, or con-di-eh. Like what law of the english language what let you take on an e to the end of an abbreviated game mechanic term? Whats its purpose, is it supposed to be a bizarrely cuter looking spelling for the abbreviation?

Yeah, and while we’re at it, why don’t the United States, Liberia, and Burma use the metric system?

Because hell, I can’t think of any better way of measuring temperature than to base it on the temperature of the human body and really really cold salt water. Can you?

I guess measuring distance based on 1/40.000.000 of the earth circumference sounds less intuitive than a foot or an inch… But c’m’on isn’t it easier for americans to figure that out than having to learn the conversion between foot, inch, yard, miles and others I’m not aware of?

(yes this is very much related to the bunker condi mesmer)

Rishnock.6230:

Your input is greatly appreciated!

Most of the other healing options could potentially be involved in a trait. But the biggest point, I believe, is that there needs to be “Options.” Looking at the focus one, it already gives regeneration. It already is in that “heal allies” spectrum, so why not just add an instant heal to it? See, regeneration stacks time and not intensity. So if they already have regeneration on them, focus doesn’t seem like it would help as much.

Sure they don’t do “too bad,” but I would like them to be able to keep up with the Druid. Much like every offensive specced necro wants to keep up with engineers and the like. The offensive suggestions are being discussed across the board, but I wanted to bring to light the support side of things.

Focus is technically more of a burst weapon (vulnerability + good damage). To be fair, we don’t really have a support weapon. The initial concept of necro was “help your allies by debuffing your enemy”. A guardian gives protection, aegis and might to its teammates, a necro gives weakness, blind and vulnerability to its enemies. In principle both are as nearly equivalent and complementary. The result felt somewhat short for a few reasons, though the concept still holds: you can heavily support your team through control and debuff as a necro, and on top of that, you have decently good healing in blood magic.

So in summary, I am saying the situation is perfect, far from it. Necro needs more support option. I am just not sure healing is what it needs the most. We should not necessarily aim to beat druid for healing, because you have to see that druid only brings that! I think if you want to play a support build, the 2 main weaknesses of the necro are:

• lack of active defense, meaning if you get focused, you will have trouble
• lack of offensive support (might/fury or any unique ability to increase your allies strength)

maybe the next elite spec will fix that (necro totems?), or maybe changes to our core skills (blood is power for example) will make them more viable.

One reason I would be on your side is that I don’t like the teleport-downed-allies to come with the healing-on-shroud4. For example, playing melee reaper, I want to heal my allies, but not teleport them to me under full cleave pressure! The teleport only makes sense if you’re at range.

Else I do not think it’s such a good idea to give default healing on all skills. To be fair, necro does not too bad if traited on the healing-allies part. It mostly lacks offensive support.

I would not have used alacrity on the chronomancy rune because it is currently exclusive to the chronomancer, so the rune would work only if you’re a chronomancer or if you have one on your team. Synergy with quickness is better since this one is more likely.

I would rather see:
6. when you gain quickness, gain alacrity for 2s (10s iCD)
or
6. 10% damage while under the effect of quickness

something like that. In any case, fun suggestions.

I dislike the idea, the same way as I dislike the ESL banning 5 ele teams. This game is designed so that every class can “in principle” fulfill every role. That means that a team with 5 of the same class should be allowed and should actually be approximately as efficient as a class mix, as long as the 5 members use proper builds.

What was silly with the 5 elementalists team in ESL was that they all had the exact same build, used because of bad balance. If it was 1 fresh air, 1 staff and 3 D/D, assuming that D/D was more “balanced” than it was (and still is), I would have been fine with them competing and even winning.

Knighthonor.4061:

The heal is pretty much defiance stance which been in the game

It’s an improved version of defiance stance… and it’s only one of the 2 heals a rev can use in a same fight… To be balanced, it would need to be half the efficiency, not better.

Raizoul.8374:

Ross Biddle.2367:

…

Yea i can’t wait. TBH my question is why ppl use Chaos instead of Inspiration for Condie Mes, i did that as well but boy this spec has so much stronger defences without sacrificing offence. I’m always talking about Spvp.

Chaos does bring PU which is a very strong defense ability. You can also use bountiful disillusionment instead for boon support. Chaos also increases condi duration and improves staff.
Inspiration brings condi removal and some personal healing (rather weak outgoing healing). This is definitely a possible alternative (actually, it is used by one mesmer in NA tournaments on a power build with 2 mantras).

And my second query (i’m asking humbly) why the meta build for mesmer is what it is and not something like this. Bunker guard and elies don’t leave room for condies? Plus the boon removal right? Cause a spec like this has much more sustain and dmg.

Simple:

• power mesmer kills very fast, much faster than condi mesmer. In high level PvP, this is very valuable, in particular it allows to kill before reinforcements arrive. This makes it better than condi on small fights (1-2 v 1-2).
• condis do not survive in group fights because of AOE cleanse from ele, bunker guards/warriors etc…

So in those situations, power is better in all situations. Condi is meta in WvW since there is no “reinforcements” coming, so you can take the time you want to kill. On the opposite, the extra toughness (on top of stealth) allows you to survive if you’re caught by surprise by a small group.

I don’t think you can call yourself “bunker” with this build. You do have some sustain and some team support, but you are not an amazing point holder (in particular if you use stealth from torch or desperate decoy you loose a point).

Now I don’t pretend this build cannot work, I just say I would not call it “bunker”. In exchange, you have a fairly good offensive pressure.

Well each second of alacrity you give is 0.66s of CD reduction. That’s as simple as that. For example 1 well reduces your allies CD by 1.3s. Recall (7s) is 4.6s CD reduction. etc…

So during 1s, their CD recharges of 1.66s, hence the number Alpha gave:
1-1/1.66 = 40% CD reduction under perma alacrity.

You can run illusion over chaos to get the pledge which condi cleanses and also reduce the CD of torch skill which partly makes up for the loss of PU.
Or you run inspiration which has more condi cleanse and some additional healing.

Don’t forget the reason why PU is meta is because it is the main build used in competitive tournaments. But in those, conditions are rare, contrary to lower MMR.

With PU nerfed, chaos is less mandatory anyway.

Xyonon.3987:

• iSwordsman and iWarlock will outdamage every other phantasm / clone on a condition build (unless you fight a husk).

According to my calculations (may not be super accurate but I’m currently rewriting my code) :
iSwordsman: DPS = 3237 in ass/zerk
iDuelist: DPS = 3797 in rampager

I do agree with the rest of your statements though. But at least we should make it clear that condi is not worthless on mesmer, just somewhat below power.

Also, as soon as you will go away from the usual rotation (using chronomancer) it is again not clear what will win.

I still think that if a stealthed player hits an enemy currently blocking (aegis or block skill) he should get revealed.

I got some (polite) hate during the beta. Like a warrior saying “c’m’on you block more than me”.

I also got a very fun hate comment while playing the druid. I am a terrible ranger, and it was my first match as a druid, on stronghold (while I clearly asked no stronghold ), so needless to say I was awful. I was around a fight at some point where an enemy died. I don’t think I did anything to him except a couple of staff AA (on a cleric amulet, so really tickles), he got killed mostly by my teammates. Yet he insulted me saying “druid OP”…
The proof that people call OP anything they don’t understand.

I hardly call for a complete throw out, but clearly for minor improvements. The only thing which may require a large rework is the whole illusion mechanics, but that is not specific to this line.

For mantras, I agree it is currently clunky to use. The ideal thing (but not so straightforward) would be that you recharge the mantras in the background but only a max amount depending on how many charges you used (you can basically recharge 1/3 of the total CD after each charge). I don’t see it happening though…

When I did the calculations with rampager without shatters (iDuelist+iWarden+sword AA), I got similar results. I am surprised a shatter build works that well though…

Wryscher.1432:

Im actually mostly confused by what you wrote here. Usually zerg is a term used to define a mostly pug group of people loosely following someone and pretty much just beating people with numbers.

I dont see how any of the questions you asked really relate to a zerg. Since zerg doesnt care about comp, or meta, or certain classes. It mostly use brute force and numbers to achieve its goals. I dont see anything in any of the new classes that will change the way a zerg runs.

Or maybe people use zerg for different things i guess .

Sorry if my vocabulary is approximate. I am not aware of zerg being restricted to unorganized groups. My question was about any WvW group fights, and as you say, more relevant to the organized groups where team comps are optimized and where there is strong organization.

How do you think elite spec fit into the zerg?
Do you think reaper, scrapper and revenant will be part of the meta frontline?
Do you think druid and chronomancer will be part of the meta backline?
Will tempest, dragonhunter, berserker and daredevil see any zerg play?

And do you think these specs will majorly change the zerg mechanics?

Note that since the whole revenant is part of the expansion, I count it as an “elite spec”.

I am a bit surprised you do not include the shield in there… Isn’t the shield essential for the quickness?

The good thing is that if you maintain 100% quickness and alacrity uptime, you can easily estimate the DPS increase on the other party members:

• alacrity reduces cooldown by about 40%
• quickness reduces skill time by about 40% (reduces cast by 50% but not after cast, so approximately 40% sounds reasonable)

therefore, you simply execute all DPS rotations 40% faster and thus you increase the DPS of everyone by 40%. This is very gross approximation but still fairly illustrative.

Chronophantasma barely improves the power build since iSwordsman already attack very often. It may help condi build with iDuelist since there, the attack rate is slower.

Can you explain your rotation with the condi build?

How the hell did you get 16k DPS from sword AA??? When I compute it (including the recent 10% increase) I get around 7k DPS, and this is using dueling for the extra ferocity and mantras (old build).

16k sounds more like the value of one AA chain, which takes way more than 1s!

Mefiq.7039:

AND PLEASE! Dont try to deny that this build is totaly broken, I had arguments with burnguards that were saying “burnguard is just for fun and not rly effective(while stacking tons of burns)” they were so mad when i called thier trololo build broken and GUESS WHAT? Wheres medi guard? Not meta anymore? ooOooOoo Burnguard “so fun and not effective” build is meta now? They better kill this build before it grows.

So it is ok for a power build to be meta, but not a condi build? Also burn guard is basically a medi-guard with a torch and different traits. It’s not easier or more difficult to play, it’s the same build! And Carrion is barely more survivable than marauder.

About mesmer: as others said, play it and see if you can stack the amount you claim on anything else than a golem… Condi mesmer is not a very different gameplay to power mesmer, with the difference that you take twice as long (at best) to down someone.

Menaka.5092:

Just wanted to point out that while Engi’s Medical Dispersion Field has been reworked (from the patch notes: “Reworked this trait. The internal cooldown has been removed. This trait is now only triggered by your own healing, and the percentage has been increased from 12% to 20%”), we’re stuck with the current version of Healing Prism.

Why? Because they would not give two identical traits to different professions?
like “bolt to the heart”, “Executioner”, “Close to Death” or “Swift Termination”?

Shogun.7401:

I have a lvl 53 elementalist, since I am getting positive feedbacks I think I will start leveling it again. This will be my WvW character. What is better for WvW? Staff or DD.

Someone please post a build and bwe3 video.

For roaming, D/D. For zerg fights (backline) staff.

No, those are damage multipliers, so they only affect direct damage. So neither bleeds not burns nor poison are affected by neither of those traits.

I can tell you it does work (I often suffer from it). Do not forget that it has a fairly long iCD.

If they fixed the use of multipliers on phantasms (which they should) mesmer DPS may finally be more acceptable in PvE…

Spectral walk can somewhat trick people. Flesh wurm, but it needs to be setup in advance.

For reaper, yes, chill (with relentless pursuit to make sure you’re not CCed yourself) and RS2 reapercopter.

Let’s be clear, this is the reason why necro is not so good at roaming. It is a great dueler, it counters the roaming condi meta. But if you’re outnumbered, you can’t escape in stealth like so many…

Assuming you want to do raids, where conditions are needed… you would probably not take mesmer.
It’s not that mesmer condi DPS is particularly lower than power DPS “in principle”, but more the fact that confusion is not ideal in PvE, even with the new enemies. At least as far as we can see right now.

Or maybe make some (few) lines with tomes, some (more) lines with transmutes, this way you can decide what are your priorities (the tomes are great when you level, and then you get way too much of them even if you don’t need them…)

I am leveling up my elementalist and… I just don’t find any reason to unlock the arcane skills. They seem so boring. Sure gw2 has many ineffective skills but I can’t think of skills more dull than arcane…

• Arcane Brilliance is ok, blast + decent heal
• Arcane Shield: 75s CD for blocking 3 attacks?
• Arcane Wave: just a blast?
• Arcane Blast: does not even blast
• Arcane Power: kitten CD fo 5 critical hits?

I really don’t see any use for those skills except the heal. Am I missing something?

It could be made a glamour, therefore not having any CD change. But then it would need to have some ally support built in, which would overlap with well of eternity… Or you would need a unique added benefit, but then it is just a new skill.

Changing ether feast to an illusion is dangerous considering the amount of traits affecting illusions.

It could have been made a manipulation, and mirror changed to a glamour which reflects projectiles around you… but that would have basically replaced feedback…

I’m afraid its best place is exactly where it stands right now.

Precog > Eternity > Action > Gravity > Calamity > Recall
Recall is clearly outclassed by the AWtEW trait. Precog is probably too good right now. Calamity and gravity are not bad, but do not have a very unique role (though gravity does it with a unique style )

But then again, I prefer support to offense, so I guess my well choices reflect that.

Embolism.8106:

Silverkey.2078:

For example, I really think the restriction on weapons/utilities will be removed (ok maybe it’s more of a hope) and that elite specs will just be trait lines that also change the class mechanics.

Given that some weapons incorporate Elite mechanics (e.g. Alacrity on Mesmer Shield), I think that’s highly unlikely unless the weapons themselves receive changes (to remove said Elite mechanics).

Well I don’t think having alacrity out of chrono (honestly, you won’t get much alacrity from just shield and well of recall) is a problem. Also, the shield is a much needed weapon for mesmer (we do not have great defensive weapons outside of staff if you don’t count stealth), and I do not even mention Reaper and its greatsword (or maybe I just did). The weapons were often filling a strong gap in the core profession. Any future elite spec would always start at a disadvantage since they again start on a flawed core.

I know it is a PvE thread, but many shared their PvP build, so here it is:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArdWn0IC12gd2AW2A0bileBL+JWFziUfhxwxCqpVACAA-TZxHwABOEADeCAA3fwYZAAnAAA

It is very bursty and yet decently survivable. If you have enough LF, the idea is to set up the burst with vampirism signet, the 2 focus skills, scepter 2 and 3, staff 3. This generated some might on you + a lot of vulnerability on the enemy. Then you can go in RS and spin in the poison field of staff 3 for insane poison stacks, and continue with dhuumfire to finish the job if needed.
The tricky part is to build LF since you’re not very tanky with a carrion…

Daniel Handler.4816:

keenlam.4753:

When u want to run the following archetype spec instead?
1. PU Condi (Duel/Chaos/Illu)
2. Selfish Highest Burst Dmg (Dom/Duel/Illu)

I am among the minority thinking elite specs in the long-term are actually both horizontal and vertical (diagonal???) progression for the base class.

Say in the long run, we have 3-4 elite specs to choose from. Players will end up leveling as a mesmer, knowing enough about the core class but the end-game is to specialize.

I really like this answer. It made me worry less that chrono is forcing build diversity changes. Rather I just accepted that there will be more elite specializations that make the core look inadequate, and the true diversity will be in which elite you pick.

I am not convinced the elite spec system will remain the same with the next one. I think a-net will keep the elite specs as ways to add new content, but I think some of the concepts will change. For example, I really think the restriction on weapons/utilities will be removed (ok maybe it’s more of a hope) and that elite specs will just be trait lines that also change the class mechanics. Many weapons are very needed in many types of gameplay and it would be very restrictive not to have access to them in the future elite specs.

If this changes, elite specs will become a bit less mandatory. Sure, they synergies well with the weapons, but are not needed for it.

Dear Robert Gee, you have done a great job with blood magic for necromancer, making it feel like a unique support line for a class that has never been particularly known for its support. I would really love if you could apply the same magic on inspiration…

With the expansion and the availability of the chronomancer, there will probably be many more mesmer bunker/support builds, and this is of course great news for build diversity. Chronomancer on its own brings a lot of survivability thanks to the shield and wells, as well as good support thanks to the wells. But it is very natural to try to complement it with the 2 existing trait lines focusing on survivability and support: chaos and inspiration.

I have been playing myself bunker mesmer for some time now, and I am very familiar with those 2 lines. However, while I do love inspiration, I cannot prevent myself from feeling it is rather underwhelming, despite the great improvements you already brought with the specialization patch.

There are many reasons I see for that:

• the problem of survivability of phantasms. Inspiration has very many phantasm-related traits (Persisting Images, Protected Phantasms, Illusionary Inspiration, Mental Defense and to some extent Warden’s Feedback), aiming at making illusions more survivable. But this is really an uphill battle, considering how fragile phantasms are in most situations. Investing in phantasm has a very high cost and yet very moderate outcome at best, making those traits not so attractive.
• Inspiration synergies very well with mantras: Restorative Mantras is basically our only source of outgoing healing and Mender’s Purity works best when used with the mantra heal. However, this is counterintuitive seeing as mantras are very clumsy in a team fight as you often need to LoS if you want to safely recharge them. Also, our only outgoing heal linked to a skill which takes 2.75s to cast is really not ideal (our allies are probably dead by now).
• Many inspiration traits are actually not focused on support but on self (or illusion) survivability (Persisting Images, Protected Phantasms, Restorative Illusions). In particular, I find it very sad that restorative illusion does not apply its effect in an AOE.

I do not have a solution to all these problems (in particular the question of phantasm survivability, which is I believe a general problem of pets/minions in gw2). But I do have a few ideas (many of those were already mentioned in a precedent post )

• what about adding “whenever you dodge, your phantasms evade attacks for 1s” to one of the phantasm survivability trait? It won’t solve the problem of illusions standing in AOE, but at least you would have some control over their survivability and in particular, if you dodge big bursts, they will too.
• what about an “aura/presence” trait like most classes (except engineer) have. For example “chaotic presence: nearby allies gain a random boon every 5s”. It may be a bit underwhelming, but it’s just an idea.
• Restorative Illusions should be AOE (even if it means being moved to GM)
• Healing Prism would be better as “allies are healed for % of your own healing”. I think 20% is a good start, but more may be good.
• In general (but true for all classes), I think the scaling with healing power should be improved to justify using it.
• Temporal Enchanter does not work well on most glamours: you need to stand on them at cast for it to work which is counterintuitive for veil or portal for example. For those 2, the effect should apply when crossing.

As I said, I already love inspiration, and I really don’t think it needs much changes to reach its full potential, but it needs some.

Maybe the only place where pets are viable in gw2 :p

For PvE, you have to understand that chrono won’t boost YOUR damage. But it is very good at boosting the damage of your allies.

I did play rune of the guardian with shield, and it was fairly fun. I was enjoying every time I saw “block” pop. Does that make shield a condi weapon…? I guess not. But it’s fun

tobascodagama.2961:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

A lot of the chrono’s new survivability is in that shield block, and shield does very little for condi atm.

Yeah, but what off-hand does offer anything for condi? Torch burn application is a joke, even in condi builds it’s used for defences more than anything. And Shield covers that even better.

Well pistol with duelist’s dis… never mind…

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Silverkey.2078:

I think there is no doubt the channeled block is needed. It makes the shield stand out as a defensive weapon. It was only excessive because of its duration. 2.25s is fine, but x2 is too much. Reducing to 1.75s for each block should be enough.

Baby steps. Maybe try 2s first :P

Well I considered 1.75s a small step
I played bunker the whole week-end, I felt the blocks were just exaggerated. With blurred frenzy and precognition, you’re near-invulnerable for a bug chunk of time…
1.75s still makes it 3.5s in total which is one of the best block of the game considering we also produce 2 phantasms and have already other invuln. The trade of is that there is counterplay (not attack the first block). I think 1.75s is a very reasonable number.

feight.2704:

i would much rather that the block gives distortion or something, not every block has to be channelled, and we have a blocking mechanism IN the profession, that allows us to use skill while blocking attacks. way better iteration than just a 2 sec block twice.

If you’re referring to “distorsion”, the problem is it prevents capping. This is a great panic button, but not something you want to use on CD when bunkering. I think a block makes a lot of sense on a shield, and believe me, a channeled block is needed to make bunker mesmer viable (and many of us want it to be viable). We are light armor profession with awful sustained damage. We have great supportive skills (though inspiration is a bit weak) but we need (non-kite) survivability.

I think there is no doubt the channeled block is needed. It makes the shield stand out as a defensive weapon. It was only excessive because of its duration. 2.25s is fine, but x2 is too much. Reducing to 1.75s for each block should be enough.

Poor inspiration, always trying to help, to be supportive, and yet there is always something a bit underwhelming about it… While I love the line, I do think it lacks “punch” (supportive punch that is)…

Anyway, I wish to read more stories about “me” and the 6 different mesmer lines in the future.