Guild Wars 2

Recent and not-so-recent updates pushed staff to defence and gimmick melee condition spam even harder than before.
I personally use GS all the way from 2 to 80 and found no issues besides zergball events and that nasty phantasm attack delay bug.

GS is ok, mind stab is not that ok with ground target, but other skills are definitely better than they were before. Couple of bugs, but hey, all our weapons are bugged in some way or another.

I cry each time I log in my ele just to farm plinx chain and get more loots solo than my mesmer with IP gets in full-packed prohardcore grind party .

why are you still using the staff.

Why because of aoe aegis and chaos armor! :P

Why just don’t summon any clone when 3 phantasms are up? Both phantasm army and shatter players will be happy without obvious op of 4th clone.

Well, if that’s true, without this bug we can pretty much respec confusion nodps leechers and dance. Naked.

Teleportalia doors are close to us now

Don’t worry! The doors will open for those, who wield swords in their main hand.

PvE-wise mesmer was a joke even before 10/7. Now it’s not even funny. I still see mesmers trying to PvE sometimes and it’s just sad. They spend like 30 sec on every mob. Even on my thief I kill stuff faster.

The only problem we have in pve is any zerged event. Single target damage is fine.
(and if you see mesmer who wastes 30 seconds to kill mob, this mesmer is either undergeared, sleepy, wrong builded)

What build do you use to get locks to crit that high berserker gea with stacked fury?

I’m running full berserker and legion-like build. Find champion with high count of conditions and little to no aoe(like that abomination in the end of plinx chain) and watch huge numbers. Not so huge numbers in the long run now, I guess, but you’ll never know since we don’t have dps meters.

Nerf knockdown in water, auto-loose, drops transforms off. :C

It’s not even spvp.
Berserker exotics, truffle… thing, power\precision stack on kill, orbs, mightstack from group, vulnerability stack. Numbers can go wild really fast with these in mind.

Someone gone jelly about our glorious all-mighty 12000-14000-critting warlocks stacked on champions. :P

And where is in GW2 1v1 battles? It’s very rare situation even in spvp.

Any tournaments.

Well, last time my zerker failed to los-drop on some catapults behind gates on eternal bg for around 60% of attempts. I saw those catapults, no protective aoe on them.

Player without swiftness in WvW = sitting duck. Dead one.

I can’t express my hatred, when I’m running with sword\sword and need switching from swiftness focus to off-hand sword.
But all that pales in comparison to running through new curtain with at least 1 seconds of previous swiftness.

I got working link.
Phantasmal haste is nearly worthless right now if you aren’t focusing your build around long-scale fights, and even then your phantasms have big chance to die due to aoe and occasional aggros from most of bosses\champions. Better suggestion would be use their first attack, then shatter.

Now, we still have that filthy bug with first attack delay on iBerserker, so if you plan to use GS, you’ll have to spend at least 5 points in Inspiration, otherwise iBerserker will die right after spawn a lot before even managing to pull it’s whirl.

Mantras. Using them as empowering is fine, however you’ll deprive yourself from variety of more useful utilities; and that’s something you don’t want to get most of the time in dungeons: where other builds just switch utilities to more appropriate before encounters, mantra build will stick with charged mantras, or lose damage. Obviously, that will cripple survivability and usefulness of player.
I’d use mantra build only in www and pug spvp for that extra damage press, but that’s my personal opinion.

As for melee and clothie survivability, either staff or hit’n’run blurred frenzy\distortion sword works miracles here.

juno.1840:

How’d u do that? I thought the transmutation stones were appearance only. I’m working towards my first mystic wep now and thought I was locked into the stats…

When you use transmutation stone, you can choose appearance(and name), stats, and sigil(rune) of outcome. So you can have mystic sword with berserker stats. :]

I’d rather drop it under my own feet to get free aoe aegis then pretend I’m nodps wannabe elementalist with one aoe.
Each time mesmer uses storm as offensive aoe, ONE KITTEN DIES.

Swap between burn and blind is needed.

It will become unusable in pve.

Then don’t use them, sweety!
(I will, because Iberserker+wrack from 3orb full glass mesmer is only compared to 3 dancing norns in pink)

But if we don’t go glassy, we get no bags.

Nice burst from wrack, 3 stacks of confusion, chaindaze for up to 2-2.5 seconds and not to mention invulnerability. Wait, not fun? Don’t use them then.
Shatters are okay as long as you know where and when.
They definitely need some AI tweaks tho, but that’s true to any pet AI.

noot.8641:

if no1 can hit me there except the mesmer, isnt it placed good then?

If even other sieges can’t hit it then I guess your arrow cart is something similar to underwater flaming ram in the wilderness. :]

Kryogenic.5139:

The OP is brain dead. I witnessed this morning, on 4 separate occasions, my Phant Zerker was killed before he even rendered into the environment… meaning he never got off his damage… meaning I have to wait for that long cooldown before I can even attempt to pull him out again.

Get Vengeful Images to “fix” IBerserker’s attack delay.

1. Hide under carpet.
2. IBerserker
3. Shatter

(this is actually viable siege weapon destroying guide)

Get berserker gear, greatsword, sigil of fire.
Works charm for me at least.

My warlocks still crit for 8000-12000 each and my GS1 still crits for 2000-2500(last hit), so it’s kinda funny reading all this rant about mesmer’s dps.

I have no idea how you can say that with confidence.

Outside of maybe stripping boons or ease of dazing, any class will do the Mesmer’s job (or, rather, the Mesmer’s desired role) better. And I mean dang near ANY class, save maybe certain Elementalist builds. Anyone with PvP experience will tell you Mesmers have insane survivability, but the class is a joke in PvE.

This isn’t entirely correct.
Unfortunately, I really don’t have patience to write insane tldr with orichalcproof evidences, so I will leave the joy of true mesmer’s pve for you to discover. Sorry!

I wish we could stack it with scepter like our pro trident clones stack it underwater. 20-25 stacks under time warp?
No problem, sweetheart!

Rhyno.7084:

iWarden wen’t from a great skill keeping Mesmers viable in dungeons to another underperformer. For ****s sake, it stands still.

We still have tons of damage, utility and survival.

That attack delay has nothing to do with recent fixes, I’m afraid. Absence of 5-point inspiration minor trait “Vengeful Images” cause this and after quick test looks like anet haven’t fixed it yet.

I even wrote mouse macro for focus switch, because right now I’m using gs and staff. Hope anet will understand our illusionary burden and won’t ban me for that!

You forgot about chaos storm!

You got just same problem is mine. That delay bug is present when you don’t have 5-point minor trait in Inspiration, called Vengeful Images.
Try it in Mists.

I think he is disguised thief.

That ettin stuff! You no touch!
Butterflies! That’s the reason some people play mesmers in the first place.

I found what was causing this. And it kills me.
Looks like when I hit 40, I bought trait book, but haven’t applied Vengeful Images for some time, therefore saw the difference.

First screenshot is untraited IBerserker(no traits at all).

Second screenshot is 5 point in Inspiration with Vengeful Images in work(don’t mind guild chat if you’re german! guys are just throwing some irony there).

I disagree, prestige in it current state is near perfect for pve stealth runs, but swap burn with blind and we’ll have serious problems.
Mirroring it mechanics with illusionary counter however…

Pay close attention to the damage numbers and (if you have Sharper Images traited) bleed stacks. When the Zerker spawns, its first hits tend to appear before it does.

Well, no. He actually does nothing, no stacks, just sits there. and chills.

How does not attacking for a second make him broken?

I thought it was self-explanatory for any mesmer out there.
You see, most if not all(excluding special mechanics like annoying light wearer loving golem bosses) enemies tend to switch on whatever is closer, hits hardest and is squishiest on the first aggro and mid-fight.
So for example if you open on your monster with phantasm first, he will go after it and try to kill it.
So, in our situation we have IBerserker, that spawns right next to their face, hits moderately hard, and is extremely squishy. Obviously mob will go after it first.
When this skill work “properly”(because no one really knows if that behavior was intended or not, but I assume it was), phantasm starts it’s spin2win move just right after spawn, breaking distance between it and target and dealing damage.
In my case, phantasmal slug stands there doing nothing while still being squishiest and closest, effectively destroying itself right after spawn with one monster attack.
Thats why I call it broken.

Whats going on?

I don’t know what happened, but this thing just sit there and do nothing for around 2 seconds after spawn which is highly annoying and 80% of the time leads to phantasm’s death in pve.
I haven’t changed any traits at all, so haste from illusions tree is not an issue here and just yesterday IBerserker was attacking as usual.
In pvp IBerserker works a usual, i.e. whirls right after spawn.
This issue is driving me nuts, because I can’t even tag events properly now.
Might just call it Illusionary Snail like disenchanter or mage phantasms, lol.

Why 80% light armor looks like mesmer’s favorite? :P

Bunzy.8674:

what was your username?

Does it really matter here?

I remember a guy named bunzy from RIFT, he was always making troll threads with one phrase on forums.

But you still can mystic forge it.

This is whine thread, I know. Feel ashamed for that. I don’t usually whine.
Sorry for bad language and kittens.

Yesterday I was in Orr, “doing” champion undead with random guardian and thief.
Staff, fire-water-arcane, standard event mob kicker build. Not so much single target dps compared to thief and guardian too. Sounds like easy trip, eh?
well
not really
That kitteny kittenish kitten was on me ALL the fight. I was downed like 15-20 times, but thanks to those kind heroes of circumstance, that were ressing me fast enough, I didn’t die that day. Was close enough tho.
Even running away was not an option because that champion was ranged, chop-chopping with his necromancer’ish teeth like a rain of trucks, and all that on my poor 15000 hp. And other undeads around showed some love only for me too.
Easy trip for guardian and thief, yea.

Now how could this happen? Guardian aggroed him first, I actually damaged him for like 1 minute, and then just tried to survive for like 5-6 minutes. I also remember sorrow embrace storymode golem boss which preferred elementalists above anyone else.

So, my question is: how this obscure aggro mechanic works and why am I and any other elementalists out there being forced into toughness-vitality zero damage nonsense every time we aren’t doing events or www? Wasting 3 silver for retrait every time you’d like to www or event sinks money faster than you could say “mr. champion loves squishies”.
I really don’t understand why he keep sticking on mostly harmless me, when he has BIG BADKITTEN NORN and SNEAKY INYAFACE DIRTY FIGHTER right under his nose dealing all damage.

Any worthwhile aura builds will if not need focus, but could just consider this: focus utility is great and allows you to survive, destroy projectiles and interrupt which is almost necessary in dungeons. Fire shield is just another oomph which makes it more appealing for dagger-mainhand aura build.

I’m not sure if someone has already pointed this annoying thing, but if something immobilizes elementalist with staff, all “1” skills stop working at all.

Superior rune of divinity, no? You could also consider getting superior bloodlust or air sigils.
And cooking stuff helps alot, I’ve seen some really crazy +100 stat food.

OneBloke.7264:

Haha I’ve already written this on the suggestions forum. They really handicapped the elementalist with this skill, it’s perhaps the most useless skill in the entire game…..I so much hope Anet will get rid of this skill and put something useful there

Honestly, get at least 10 points in air, grab Zephyr’s Boon and suddenly this useless skill will grant you fury and swiftness.

Moocow.2415:

This awful, awful skill is a large reason as to why I don’t take the focus seriously. It’s a complete waste of a weapon skill. The damage done is pitiful, it lasts for a very short time, and it offers no defensive bonuses. I’d rather spend my time trying to not get hit than waste it casting this.

You never played as signet auramancer then.

This “pull” stuff sounds just like doubled mesmer’s infamous Into the Void @ WvWvW keep assaults.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Usually the best thing to do as an ele is just stick with the elemental summon. Nothing else compares.

I recall something around 2000-3000 damage from each hound of balthazar.