Guild Wars 2

OriOri.8724:

Xyonon.3987:

Just gonna leave this here …

If mesmers are so great at solo PvE content then why don’t you post a video showing us how "easy"it is for a mesmer to solo the new story instances and still receive the achievements?

Can do, the day I can record again. Reinstalled my computer and on my laptop I have no recording programm.

But what I actually wanted to show here is the dps you can deal as condi Mesmer with realistic buffs. It’s top dps against VG (green fields), Sabetha (ranged) and Matthias in general.

Just gonna leave this here …

Same behavior as engi turrets then :o Still a bit weird – but I’m not complaining!

We can’t have everything. We have ultra support OR great single target dps. Our cleave dps is only okish in solo situations but in team play utterly garbage but when do you need that? :P

You don’t need any commander gear at all if you have a Rev.

You should get almost full Berserker gear. One ring and one accessory should be Assassin.

It was a terribad weapon a very long time ago. They buffed every singe skill it has, especially 2 and 3 got huge buffs in terms of damage and cast time.

Ok tested it today, and the Berserker Rune indeed works with the phantasms condition damage. So I was wondering and yes – GotL does aswell.

So there must be an anomaly that phantasms copy condition modifiers, but not power ones, since the power modifier of gotl didn’t work for example.

So the 6th bonus of the Berserker rune does work … half of it at least >_>

Grace of the Land and Superior Rune of the Berserker are modifiers, not stat increases. Imo ANet were very sloppy with their english:

Normally “Increases condition damage by 6%” aka Bursting is fine.
But GotL and Zerker Rune should be “Increases outgoing condition damage by X%”.

Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXhYp4xIjiY&list=PL4QnNhTXYiNICr4tXaR5rajA-xVNByXMG&index=4

So I would have to test if it works or not, I doubt it tough.

CptAurellian.9537:

Get a berserker sword first (for your mainhand), that will be something you can also transfer to your guard if you want to. Focus next and then maybe a second sword for your offhand, as long as you plan to get the class shield via the collection. With those weapons, you’re mostly fine for fractals.

^ This.

Sword with Shield / Focus (/ Sword) is what you must have. There are some specific situation where you can make use of different weapons though.

CptAurellian.9537:

I recommend having a ranged weapon (GS or maybe staff) as backup in your inventory, since there are some bosses where meleeing isn’t the most glorious idea unless you have a really well-coordinated team.

I do not recommend using a Staff for anything else but fights with tons of conditions aka open world world bosses. However there, a staff is absolutely insane in terms of dps (look at the image in the attachements <3).

I also do not recommend to use GS at all. It’s a rather bad weapon in general. Especially in Raids, Fractals and Dungeons you shouldn’t be surprised if you get immediately kicked after using one.

Instead the most powerful ranged weapon is currently the scepter. If correctly used it’s even a dps increase together with a sword instead of using a sword all on it’s own. And no the scepter is not a condition only weapon. :P

Scepter #3 is our strongest power skill and even tough the auto attacks are only average, they are still better than those of the GS or staff. But most importantly, you can use Sword + Shield with Scepter + Sword, so you still have the shield AND the strongest dps phantasm we have.

When you fight a boss where you require a ranged weapon, your allies are most likely unable to stay melee either, so you can setup 3 iSwordsmen instead of iAvengers to increase your dps.

I guess noone can help you without knowing the reason for your zerker dislike. So lets wait for him to answer that question first ^^

… or the players playing it.

Phantasms are affected by ALL raw stats such as power, precision, ferocity, condition damage, condition duration, boon duration, healing power, vitality and toughness.

However they are not affected by modifiers we get, like from fury, runes, sigils, grace of the land, frost spirit, food (on movment), etc.

The issue here is that profession X gets 100% boosted by any of those modifiers. If we get fury, only parts of our attacks truly get affeced by fury. Superior Sigil of Force? +2.5% dmg. 5 stacks Grace of the Land? +7.5% dmg. Stuff like that hurts us since ages, and it’s not fair it works like this.

Phantasmal Fury shouldn’t be a triat – it should be baseline and make room for another trait we could use.

Fay.2357:

Mesmer dps needs to be fixed for Mesmer, not for a specific elite spec of Mesmer.

That’s exactly the problem we have. The core Mes is utterly garbage in it’s current state. There should be a combination of 3 trait lines that allows us to deal good dps, while specing Chrono makes this impossible for the cost of being a uber support.

I’d welcome a trait in chaos or duelling, that makes modifiers that affect us, be shared with the phantasms. This would be great as baseline, and only fair, but I’d expect it to not chance the Chrono, Mesmer situation we currently have. Maybe this trait should also share the 20% crit chance from fury or sigil procs? Maybe too much, but it’s only a concept.

^ agreed. It’s not like concentration, 20% food and a rev wouldn’t already cap our boon duration.

Heya!

Condi Mes with Scepter + Shield / + Pistol is one of the fastest 1v1 killers in solo open world. So it’s top tier for Hero Points and Champs in general.

However – big however – at the same time it’s one of the slowest trash mobs killers due to the miserable aoe capabilities. Power is much better in that area, while a power staff also is better in large scale fights v1, like world bosses, due to the huge amounts of conditions. Those iWarlock crits <3

Condi build for open world:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAr6OnsIiNoBWoBEgilcjqMAStWD9HWiZoeVr1bF-TByCQBOT5390LMhTAALVCOj9HAwBBAZPAAmp+DpAUUaE-e

1 Utility slot to swap accoring to the situation. Normally I’d use well of Recall and try to hit as many illusions as you can. Signet of Inspiration is fine too to share some fury, but I doubt it’ will stack up much withtout any boon duration.

If you want to go instances, stick to the Quickness / Alacrity bot Chronomancer. As Fay mentioned.

Fay.2357:

Most groups want a chrono that supports them, not one that struggles to dps a bit.

He’s more than correct with that statement. While there are some minor niches where you could go dps, it’s most likely not optimal in a team setup, and if, then only if there is another boon-bot-Chrono.

Go for this in parties:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fiFoBmfCUrhlljq+Qj0J9sBCgIDdDOhLD-TBSBQB/b/BzoEEAnEAKp+DZUqcFlV4RvwEfAABAOAo6VPSBE4wI-e

Replace Well of Recall for other useful skills if required. Against lots of trash, Gravity Well and Calamity or Precognition are excellent choices.

Greez!

Fay.2357:

Trailblazer is utter garbage for condie Mesmer, you should never use that. PvE condie Mesmer relies so heavily on crits proccing sharper images that any non-crit set is worthless.

Basically the options are vipers and sinister for hybrid or rabid for pure condie. Since we’re talking PvE, there’s really no reason to get tanky gear like rabid (or trailblazer’s for that matter). The issue of viper duration not mattering vs small mobs is definitely relevant, but I feel that it’s better to optimize your gear for harder fights (bigger mobs that take longer to kill) since weaker mobs will die fairly quickly regardless of using sinister or viper.

My thoughts exactly. You need precision to proc your bleed on crit traits. I would also focus on champions more than trash. Makes you shine more in soloing stuff like Hero Points or Champs in general. Condi has a lack of aoe anyway, so it’s nothing wrong with setting up a phantasm per mob you fight where the duration already comes in handy again. However there’s not much viper gear required if you use the right runes.

Fay.2357:

For runes I’d recommend probably berserker runes. They’re generally the best hybrid damage set available. For sigils you can take the sigil of earth for bleed on crit.

While I know the +5% damage do not work with phantasms, I’m not sure if the +5% condition damage do either. It’s a modifier and they normally don’t work with phants.

If you use pistol and focus, I’d totally stick to Krait Runes, otherwise 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper or 5 Nightmare + 1 Black Diamond / Coral Orb.

Sigils I’d use in open world ofc Corruption. Geomancy has the highest condi dps of all damaging sigils, earth and bursting are approximately equal. If you don’t cap condi duration yet, Malice is also an excellent choice.

Heya!

It greatly depends on the area you will be playing. Ascended gear is only really required in fractals and raids but it’s important to know wich parts are important and wich are not.

Trinkets give a huge boost to raw stats if you got them ascended. You can get those rather easily trough fractals or raid, both as loot or via tokens.

The newest two maps both also have a merchant that sells trinkets for map currencies. However this takes a lot of time.

The back item only gives you little stats, so it’s the least important to have ascended. The rest should be ascended asap.

The Armor only gives a 5% stat boost for each part wich sums up to be around 1.5% more damage. Nothing you need to rush, unless you want to go high level fractals, where you need the slots to put in agony resistance. However ascended rings provide up to 3 slots so focus on those first.

If you are rich, you can put +5 power infusions in those slots, for up to 2% bonus damage (when filled in all 18 slots).

Now about those Weapons. It’s important to know wich weapons are good weapons and how ascended gear affects your damage output.

Ascended weapons are considered a big dps boost, that’s not because of the 5% more raw stats they provide wich is only a miniscule difference to exotic, it’s because the weapon damage itself gets a 5% boost aswell wich is flat out 5% more damage.

If you wear an ascended mainhand, you’ll have those 5% more damage on skill 1-3, if you wear an ascended offhand, it’ll affect skill 4-5. Utility skills have their own weapon damage and therefore do not scale with the weapon damage boost of an ascended weapon, yet do with the minor boost of the raw stat increase.

So this means it’s most important to have an ascended sword first. Phantasms also deal 5% more damage when the weapon they’re linked to is ascended, so you want to have at least the damaging phantasms of the Focus and Sword offhand boosted aswell. The shield phantasms dps is rather low, so you don’t need to rush it. As tobascodagama.2961 mentioned – get it by completing Horologicus, the elite-spec weapon collection. It’s cheap and also fun if you ask me.

So let’s sum up:

1. Sword (mainhand)
2. Sword (offhand) / Focus
3. Shield

As a mesmer you shouldn’t be using staff and greatsword at all. Staff can be used as an open world weapon while fighting vs a event boss, where plenty of players add tons of conditions on the enemy, so the iWarlock deals a huge amount of damage. The gs however is a weapon I’d recommend leaving to the pvp players.

In PvE, neither Necro, nor Guard use a staff in any content that isn’t open world.
Pistol can be used for Thief aswell, since the best ranged dps option is pistol/pistol. However the Mesmer doesn’t really make use of a pistol in pve anymore, unless for condi builds.

As for Stats, just go full Berserker. Most professions go full or almost full berserk. As Mesmer you want to invest a tiny bit in Assassin gear, just to reach the magical 63.76% crit chance wich makes it exactly 100% in a full buffed setup.

Here is what your final setup should look like:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fiFoBmfCUrhlljq+Qj0J9sBCgIDdDOhLD-TBSBQB/b/BzoEEAnEAKp+DZUqcFlV4RvwEfAABAOAo6VPSBE4wI-e

If you have any questions, just ask Happy to help!

Greez!

:|

Wahoo and heya

I would change the build a little bit and also split and adapt it to the situations:

Open World
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhSsYfWwmKQ7FLbGEYxTeE/u9u794EKQAA-ThRBABA8AAua/R5Hlq/gnOgFuAAmpEkUACMMC-e

• Bloodlust is the perfect sigil for open world and will increase your dps drasticly (10%), aslong as you don’t die ofc.
• I’d pick No Scope over Skilled Marksman, since without it you won’t get a reliable Fury uptime. Skilled Marksman isn’t really a good trait unfortunately (miss the old days…). The attack speed increase is only “noticable” on the already weak auto attack, and has no effect on Jump Shot, while the cdr is neat but stands in no relation to Fury from No Scope.
• Reactive Lenses can be used as a safe stunbreak, but if you want to go full dps, Static Discharge it is.
• Adrenal Implant beacuse of Excessive Energy. Kinetic Battery is great on condi builds though, since Excessive Energy won’t affect condi dmg.
• Crit chance is fine as full zerker, due to 20% from fury (part time en solo), 10% from High Caliber and 10% from Hematic Focus (total +40% crit chance).
• Only cheap food for open world

Dungeons
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhSsYfWwmKQ7FLbG03t3dvHnw3DAYxPeEB-ThRBABmpE8hLAwV7PK/wTHAlq/AwDAgUADsMC-e

• You don’t need fury nor cdr for a rifle here, so Pinpoint Distribution will boost you the most. 10% of your damage is condi and in a party setup you will have over 1k condi damage with this.
• You won’t need movement speed unless your party has no Mes / Ele / Rev … unless your party has a bad comp, so you can focus on damage and go with Takedown Round.
• With Spotter from the Druid use power utility food and in general you should use damage on movement food for max dps.
• Air instead of Bloolust since there is nothing to stack and you’ll have over 100% crit chance anyway. Night for nighttime areas.

If you have any questions or want ingame help (EU), pm me anytime!

Greez!
- Ziggy

Joxer.6024:

I know there is no “set” rotation for Engi but can you walk me through a typical fight with say VG? Sorta like what you would open with and then go from there.
Granted, things are always changing and we need to adapt as needed but just curious as to a general feel for what skills and such. Kinda wondering if I am doing everything right, or as close to right as I can get.
Cheers!

Oh, and not the whole dang fight of course, just the basics and that.

First you can decide to start like everyone else and engage the enemy, or you can do a tryhard setup where you use Med Pack Drop, Supply Crate and Mine Field on the tanks position, then swap to the Flame Thrower and use Incendiary Ammo and then swap to the skills you want to have during the fight. You can swap Supply Crate to Mortar without killing the turrets, swapping back however puts it on a cd when the turrets are down.

But now for the fight. I assume power Engi/Scrapper for now, since this was the idea of the OP, ok? If you want condi too, just ask for it

First you should know where you will fight. Are you on green field duty or can you go full dps on melee?

I personally pick Engineer with rifle on melee, where you can completly focus on dps, and Scrapper with hammer on green field duty, since you can use gyros for super speed then. Faster movement = more damage, even though you personally will not win much since you lose a dps traitline, the others sure will.

In both cases, you will achieve the max dps while using all the skills that deal more damage than the aa as often as possible. However you will immediately lose dps if you interrupt your auto attack, or at least not gain much dps, depending on the skill used.

For example the bomb auto hit will deal around ~27k dps on Vale Guardian itself, due to its low armor. This is the result of the ~15k hits every 0.56s.
If you now want to cast a dps increasing skill like Big’Ol’Bomb wich deals ~32k damage in 0.56s, it would only be a 17k damage increase within the same time if you cast it withtout interrupting the bomb auto hit.
If you’d cast it in the middle of the bomb cast animation (50%) then you’d require 0.56s+50%=0.84s for those 32k damage, wich is equal to 27k → 5k damage lost in 0.56s.

So how can you prevent that from happening? By using skills you cannot interrupt (none auto attacks) after each other.
If you do "auto attack, other skill (dps increase), aa, os, aa, aa, os, aa, aa, and so on, you will have a much higher chance to interrupt an auto attack than when you do os, os, os, aa, aa, aa and so on.

So what I do are two major things:

• I try to chain as many skills that aren’t auto attacks after each other, so they cannot interrupt each other. Defensive / reactive skills yet still have a priority, like pistol #3, hammer #4, rifle #4 or heal skills in general, and are able to interrupt any skill.
• I never swap to another kit just for one skill, since you are unable to swap back to the bomb kit in time to continue auto attacking (1s cd on bomb kit swap), unless you have alacrity, therefore waiting even 0.5s is already a bomb that could have dealt 11-15k damage.

Besides that I obviously use nade / mortar (more range) auto hit when inside of green fields And protection to reduce the damage it deals

Joxer.6024:

Xyonon.3987:

Happy to help You can always pm me if you got questions.

Gl hf! Wahoo!

You NA or EU?

EU, but pm works globally

As already mentioned, it only removed conditions from the players you hit with, not yourself. Use Elixier Gun (short: EG) #5 to remove a condition on yourself, or when used in open world you normally trait into Alchemy instead of Explosives, where every Elixier skill will remove or even convert a condition, so EG #4 and it’s toolbelt will then also remove conditions from you AND your allies in the AoE.

About EG #3, Fumigate, there is something rather complicated but very important to know. Lemme try explaining it:

When you have no target selected, Fumigate will always aim straight forward, or if you hold right click, the direction you face. Now the tricky part:

If you have selected a target and stand still, your whole character will rotate to the target and then use Fumigate into that direction.
If you have selected a target and move while holding right click, you will notice that the upper body will still rotate to the target to use Fumigate. However this is only a visual effect on your screen and is not visible for other players, nor does it have an impact on the game. You will still face straight forward with Fumigate. Therefore you can easily turn softly away from your target to use Fumigate and hit your allies. Just try to ignore the visuals and look directly at your allies while holding your right mouse button and moving!

A similiar behavior occures on a few more skills you have, that may completly miss if you don’t face your target or stand still while performing the attack. Those skills are:

• Fumigate (Elixier Gun #3)
• Flame Jet (Flamethrower #1)
• Blowtorch (Pistol #4)

Greez!
- Ziggs Ironeye

Exactly what *Krag*said. I would not invest too much into defense at all. It’s not wise to lose so much dps by letting the Engi tank, but if you really want to, I’d use something like this + a thoughness infusion:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoCFpi9ZBmcB0ehlRk67UWlWBsWulAg+LzytE-ThRBABXt/o8jS1fe4CAAwDAwMlg4pDgUADsMC-e

Wahhoo

must … resist … >.<

apharma.3741:

Awww, +1 for effort but as I and many others have pointed out, it has 0 cleave which means it’s bottom of the pack for any DPS build. It also took a long time to build up to maximum DPS looking at your log, for the first 2 mins it was under 20k which nearly every single DPS build will beat. Try again please.

You don’t want to get smarter, now do you?

1. I mentioned this build would be stronger if adapted to raids since I used the solo build in the raid enviorment.

2. The solo condi build is – as I mentioned myself multiple times now – only good for 1v1 solos aka hero points.

3. You wanted to know if it’s stronger than Condi Druid in terms of pure dps – that’s what I’ve clearly shown you, even with the weaker version of the build.

4. I never said I’d use condi Chrono in raids, that’s why I only have the solo setup. Don’t start making up stuff now please.

OriOri.8724:

Let me guess, your other weapon was a staff?

I didn’t.

OriOri.8724:

1 – Your phantasms never take damage, which means you only have to resummon them when you shatter.

They don’t die in raids and in solo 1v1 hp you can use 2 phants + block for the same dps.

OriOri.8724:

2 – You have SoI on your bar, which means that you used it

Ofc, I didn’t.

Fay.2357:

Xyonon.3987:

Again – 7k dps as power, 5.5k as cleave -> aoe. That’s just dps, not burst at all.
You’ve got MoP, MoD, MW and PB, aswell damage wells like WoC and GW. You can easily burst any trash ball in open world with those things.

7k solo dps as power, 5.5k solo dps cleave? I’ll believe that when you take a video of it, because I’ve never seen that sort of damage.

I just did a test on the 1 mill hp golem. Traiting domination, dueling, illusions boosting phantasms as much as possible, summoning 3 swordsmen and then autoattacking, I hit 5.3k dps. Now, I’m not 100% full zerk and I’m not using scholar runes, so this could theoretically be marginally higher…but not nearly high enough to hit 7k solo dps. That number is nothing but a lie.

5.5k solo dps cleave? So by cleave you’re presumably talking about the sword autoattack, since phantasms aren’t reliable cleave due to their target locking. I managed to hit a little under 2k autoattacking with sword. I’d love to know what sort of sorcery you’re using to hit 5.5k.

So just for kicks, I went and applied 25 might to myself with the console. I found your fabled 7k solo single target dps and 5.5k cleave! It’s possible with 25 might. Now you just need to show me maintaining 25 might solo in realistic situations and I’ll believe you!

• attachments 1 and 2 are single target dps with swordy
• attachment 3 is cleave with wardy / avengy

IWarden is reliable if you set up the pull, summon warden and pull in the end of the cast and then hold them with sword 3 before you shatter. I have no issues with my phantasms cleave the enemies at all.

Finally I would like to mention that for burst you can swap out Well of Action for Mantra of Distraction and Power Block, aswell use Mind Wrack wich all exceeds the dps shown in the Attachments.

That you only managed to get the same dps with the requirement of 25 stacks might is quite obvious without Chronomancer as a traitline.
Also spam Mantra of Pain and don’t interrupted the 3rd aa.

I have no problems with the Chrono dps whatsoever. Oh – and please stop calling me a liar thank you very much.

greez ~<3

apharma.3741:

I’ve still yet to see a credible source backing up your claimsabout mesmer DPS though which doesn’t have the aforementioned disclaimers. Most DPS tests I’ve seen usually say your actually DPS will be a lot lower than the number they show.

Then when everyone points out the flaws you dismiss it as inconsequential saying it doesn’t matter that it’s a single target build.

Here you go – 4m HP golem went up to 22k. To mention, you can get higher if you play core Mesmer and use Chaos for more condi duration, while also swapping out Viper gear for Sinister. I expect the dps to scratch the 25k, but I don’t know for sure. I use my Chrono version only for open world.

However this is just like the condi Ranger a dps focused build and if you would want to be able to do the Quickness rotation, the dps would be around 14k only and you would still only provide close enough Quickness for everyone – or rather, just not enough to be viable.

PvE, perfectly fine everywhere, but requires you to adapt build to the situation to keep up with other professions. Not the easiest starter, but sure a great pick for the current endgame.

That condi Mes is for teamplay though. You can focus more on damage if you are solo.

iAvenger deals damage aswell.

Still can’t believe it’s intended though.

Happy to help You can always pm me if you got questions.

Gl hf! Wahoo!

apharma.3741:

Xyonon you’re grossly misinformed, sure condi druid is 18k in a raid environment but condi ranger is significantly higher.

Source.

I have yet to see anyone credible post a decent mesmer damage number without disclaimers saying it’s either skewed in the mesmers favour or unrealistic.

I’m very well aware of the Rangers dps against completly immobile enemies, especially with perma Alacrity, however we talked about Condi Druid just now.

Levetty.1279:

The highest dps we can posibly achieve is about on par with Condi Druid …

Ross Biddle.2367:

messiah.1908:

Xyonon.3987:

I still wonder if this is intended or a bug, because to me it’s more like a bug that the shield #4 is the only phantasm that can be dodged. I hope they “fix” this eventually

bit its also the only phantasm which can proc twice

Yes, but it’s also the only phantasm that has no offensive ability.

If you remember when Robert (or whoever it was) was designing it, this was stated as such- “You get double, but it’s purpose is utility and not damage”. Thus two summons assuming you “land” it all.

Besides the utility phantasms, iMage and iWarden are arguably for utility and not damage aswell, hm. I mean the iAvenger does still deal okish damage, only the cd is long but can be skipped with a shatter, the damage is also aoe.

So I’d still consider it a bug then.

Shield is always the answer, you can barely afford to skip it if you want to be strong. But you could just throw away the GS. If you face a single enemy, the sword is better and if you need aoe, the focus is the answer.

You can use a pistol in a condi spec though, wich is great for soloing single enemies like Hero Points. It’s even better than power in that aspect, but it has no real aoe capabilities so it’s really only for that single purpose. You can also use it at Meta Events since the dps is fairly high, but so would a staff in a power spec due to the tons of conditions.

There’s a pic in the attachments that shows you all damage numbers including cast times for every skill (Power Scrapper, can be adapted to Power Engi, will update on next big balance patch).

They are done for Raids so the dps on the right includes Quickness. Quickness however isn’t essentially 100% up in fotm, especially if you fight many small fights. There are skills like Jump Shot or Acid Bomb (EG) that are unaffected by Quickness and therefore are stronger in the list if you wouldn’t have Quickness to begin with.

Rifle Turret is the best for pure damage on a single target. The EG is basicly the same thing just as AoE. The EG also provides plenty of good utility besides the damage. Fumigate cleanses all condis from other players, Super Elixier heals and cleanses a condition from everyone, and the toolbelt is a minor heal but also a stunbreak.

If you don’t want to swap too much, or rather stick to a core build, I’d go with Nades, Bombs and EG.

Fay.2357:

Xyonon.3987:

-snip-

So what you mean to say is ‘our dps is still bad, but other classes get brought back down to our level under perfectly ideal conditions’. Gosh, what a wonderful thing! And if you need to dps on 2 targets? Oops, guess you didn’t want to think about that one…

Again – 7k dps as power, 5.5k as cleave → aoe. That’s just dps, not burst at all.
You’ve got MoP, MoD, MW and PB, aswell damage wells like WoC and GW. You can easily burst any trash ball in open world with those things.

Fay.2357:

A world exists outside of soloing hero points. Story instances, all of the open world that isn’t hero points, various events, there’s so many things where this simply doesn’t hold true. Yeah, mesmer is great for soloing hero points. Have a gold star I guess…

Is the problem that you can’t just use auto attack and everything dies like a Thief or Engi?

You either fight many weak enemies or a single big one. Against many weak ones I’ve mentioned it above, a single strong one can be dealt with as condi or a bit weaker as power aswell and if you are in an event with other ppl, you’re as valuable as any Chrono in a team comp. Or you simple setup 3 iWarlocks and smile about those crits.

What is it exactly you want more?

Fay.2357:

Xyonon.3987:

-snip-

Ok, lets go over it again.

Heavies: Guard has great pulls, warrior has extremely powerful cleave and solid aoe, revenant has a decent pull, powerful and large aoe on hammer, and powerful cleave on sword.

Medium: Engie farts aoe, ranger has an ok pull with okish cleave, thief doesn’t do aoe too well, but their single target is excellent.

Light: Necro has great pulls and powerful cleave/aoe, elementalist has aoes big enough that pulls don’t matter at all, and mesmer has great pulls and then sits there looking at the pulled mobs hoping an elementalist comes by to kill them for us.

Not really.

• Guard has great pulls and aoes
• Warrior has just regular cleave and some 5 target aoes but no pulls
• Revenent has wanna-be stack / pulls and a single target hole in the aa chain (yes Rev can cleave in a very very veeery small aoe that isn’t really aoe at all)
• Engi has a small aoe pull and yes – farts aoes is a wonderful description
• Ranger has a mediocre pull as power and regardless of spec sinlge target holes in its attack pattern, no real aoe or cleave aswell
• Thief has no aoe?! Staff is an aoe machine, cleaves good, skills are 5 target, it’s one of the better aoe or cleave proffessions even, but no aoe pull
• Necro has a great pull as power and regardless of spec great aoe
• Ele has no pulls and great aoe on skills, regular cleave on auto
• And Chrono has multiple pulls and regular cleave with some 5 target aoes and does not have to hope for an ele to pass by if he isn’t a whiny baby … srsly why bring it up that way? =_=

Fay.2357:

I believe that the story instance has a debuff applied to the main boss, which means it takes more damage from all sources (including phantasms). Contrast that to the vale guardian-like boss which applies a buff to you, buffing your outgoing damage. That buff doesn’t transfer to the phantasms.

Yup but they get it if they stay inside of the field. At least the fractal tonic buffs work on us and the phantasms aswell.

Ok now Heya!

Going back to power Engi is probably also what I am gonna do. Equally strong as condi vs bosses but better against trash mobs. Power also suffers less from swapping out utilities than condi, so you’re free to use for example the Elixier Gun wich is fantastic in fotm.

These are the core builds I suggest you to use:

Power Scrapper

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhSsYfWwdLQ7FLvF14acjZBYH+hp13DOhBAA-ThRBABUq+zDXAAAeAA4pD4q9HlfmpEkUACMGA-e

Power Engi

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoClYh9ZB2UB0ehl3i67BnwAg+4D+kHsD/w0C-ThRBABLcBAMTJIe6Aua/R5Hlq/AwDAgUACMGA-e

Vanilla Engi deals more damage due to the Tools traitline, but there are quite a lot of situations where Scrapper easily outshines with its useful skills. Hammer stun into dazes, Sneak Gyro, Bulwark Gyro, to mention the main ones.

Sigils

In Raids you see Force and Air to be used. However Air is pure single target damage and makes literally no difference to having no sigil at all if you fight trash, wich is basicly 90% of each fractal.

Bloodlust on the other hand becomes quickly powerful and is a great sigil to use in almost every fractal. If you struggle against bosses, Energy can also be used.

Utilities

As for the Utilities, don’t hesitate to swap out to adapt to your situations. Yet always keep the Bomb Kit since it’s your main source of damage.

The Grenade Kit is the second highest dps kit you have. If you have Static Discharge traited, Surprise Shot (Rifle Turret) is approximately the same dps increase, but easier to use, yet only single target (Surprise Shot is single target, Static Discharge bounces).

Mentionable Utilities

The Elixier Gun is one of the best allrounder utilities we have. Strong aoe damage, plenty of condi cleanse, stun break, small heal, blast finisher.

Mine and it’s toolbelt Minefield are both able to strip boons wich may be handy in specific areas. The Mine is also unblockable and is able to break the defiance bar during channeled blocks like the Drege or Ooze. The Minefield is also a dps increase over the bomb aa and compareable to Grenade Barrage.

Elixier U and Bulwark Gyro have great uses as reflect skills. Aslong as you don’t use Elixier U directly you can swap it out after used. The Bulwark Gyro can be used though. If you want to swap it out, just untrait scrapper and it’s gone from your bar! ;D

The Rocket Turret has a toolbelt skill that deals massive damage, the same as a Big’Ol’Bom. The turret itself can be placed, overcharged, launches a rocket with a 3s knockdown (tooltip is wrong) on a large aoe (really large), and if you blow the turret up you have a knockback that deals another 150 defiance bar damage. This is our strongest cc per utility slot we’ve got.

The Tool Kit has dps increases with Pry Bar and Throw Wrench but truly shines with a long lasting block and an ublockable pull. Quite useful in specific areas like for example against the golems of Frizz.

In general try to find uses for all skills, like while skipping you could swap to Exlixier S just for the toolbelt and then swap back. Find niches and use your abilites! I frequently also use Blast Gyro or Flame Turret, there’s a time and place for everything!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

Wahoo and greez!
- Ziggy

Wahoo!

Will do shortly – have to do some stuff, after that I’ll give you a nice post

Greez!

It’s not like we need all of the suggestions at once :P But yea – better ask for too much so you are satisfied if they give you less ;D

…

On top of that, reaching those levels requires 10-15 seconds of setup on a pure single target while simultaneously ruining any aoe damage we have.

Yeah, sounds like great fun to use in almost any content ever, which is why nobody ever uses it. [/quote]

Is it not used? You think people who have no problems will complain in the forums? It’s hands-down the best way for soloing hero points as a Chrono. I agree, I wouldn’t use it for trash mobs or cleave / aoe in general either, you’re right with that. But the only thing you have to setup are 2-3 i duellists and that you’ve done within 10s for sure.

As mentioned above, almost the same dps as a thief that would be constantly attacking in melee wich is quite impossible against any of the new hero points. But to be fair the phantasms sometimes get attacked aswell so you’ll be more at 2 instead of 3. But hey, it’s not like our #2 block deals 10k damage every 4s without having any buffs, aye?

Post vids with your best 3 professions doing a specific hero point solo. I’ll be faster than at least one of them for sure. >:)

Fay.2357:

Xyonon.3987:

Then most professions can’t pull mobs together and cleave them right away.

I’m sort of confused as to why you would say this when it’s so hilariously wrong. Necro has a good pull on greatsword, guardian has greatsword yank, rev has offhand axe pull, ranger has offhand axe, and Elementalist has aoes that are bigger than our pulls, so it doesn’t even matter.

Well agreed, Necro and Guard have good pulls. The others are rather mediocre to stack mobs to cleave them later though. Especially since Rev and Druid both alsi lack in aoe and have semi cleave autos.

Two professions with good pulls simply are not “most of them” though. It’s not like it’s our only quality.

Fay.2357:

Are the Mesmer forums too whiny? Maybe, but this isn’t one of those cases, and trying to argue with blatant lies won’t get us anywhere.

Those are some rather hard accusations. :/ But I’m pretty sure everyone here has done more than just use the raid builds in open world before wallowing in self-pity. :x

Jokes aside … the truth is I’m just disappointed all the Mesmer players here try to hug each other and tell them “it’s ok to be bad, we are designed to be bad” rather than finding another way, a solution with the possibilities given – like DuckDuckBOOM.4097 did.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

In solo situations with 20% boon duration, it’s still better than the 2-3% that sigil of force effectively brings.

Exactly this. However if you aren’t getting downed all the time, Bloodlust will still be better than both of them with 250 power. I would always pick a stacking sigil in open world, unless you are still inexpirienced with the enviorment / the profession.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Sigil of draining takes TD tokens and having a pistol. It’s not necessary but the 1k lifesteal per interrupt with no ICD is really nice for that build.

I didn’t know that it has no icd, wich makes it way better than I thought. 1k heal per interrupt can be quite good with Tides of Times.

I wouldn’t underestimate Concentration aswell. Quickness is a very strong boon, especially if you use Mantra of Pain and autos.

Levetty.1279:

Xyonon.3987:

we win compared to other professions in solo situations. If you have a condi set you even have top tier single target dps.

The highest dps we can posibly achieve is about on par with Condi Druid and thats a support build and the second weakest in terms of DPS numbers. Thats before you take into account ramp up times and mechanic problems and condi druid isn’t single target. Not exactly top tier and is useless for these instances.

If you are going to insult people at least know what you are talking about.

Haven’t insulted anyone here.

Sounds like you’re talking about full buffed stats (raids)? In a raid enviorment you’ll get up to around 24k dps with a condi build, including Chronomancer as a traitline. Condi Druid gets up to 18k.

Yet this threat is about open world and soloing stuff. My words were: “If you have a condi set you even have top tier single target dps”.

You can post me vids of your 3 best professions doing any maguuma hero point completly solo. I’ll do it on my Chrono and I’m certain that I’ll be faster than at least one of them. Just not the Mushroom Queen please! Q_Q xD

I suggest you make yourself a good condi gear, go to the test golem and compare it to all other profession soloing an 1 mil hp golem. I was surprised aswell how “not terrible” we are.

Fay.2357:

Xyonon.3987:

We are lower in aoe dps than other professions, but the difference isn’t like in teams where we deal 10k and the full dps professions around 30k, we win compared to other professions in solo situations.

Since when do we win vs other classes in solo? Maybe if we’re soloing a champ that can’t be meleed, so we kite around with staff for an hour letting clones kill it, but literally all other situations our solo damage is just as miserable as our team damage.

I didn’t say “we win vs other classes in solo”. I said “we win compared to other professions”.

What I meant is that for example a Thief loses more damage in % than a Chrono if you pick both out of the team enviorment. And this applies to basicly all none-supporters with huge damage modifier boons or quickness independent dps like we have. That’s simply a fact.

A Thief deals around 30k dps against the golem with the commonly used raid buffs (qT uses).
If you now solo a 1m golem without any buffs, you’ll deal around 9k damage, with food around 10k. So you lose 67% dmg as a Thief in solo compared to a team enviorment. Most of it due to Quickness wich increases the dps by 50% already.

A solo Chrono with Rev deals around 10-12k dps in Raids. If he lacks a Rev and goes Commander, he’s at around 8k. Let’s just say 11k dps as a Chrono in Raids, ok?
If you now solo the 1m golem with no buffs but food as the thief, oh magic happens! 7k dps as power (5.5 is cleave) and 9.5k as condi (single target). So we lose 15-40% dmg.

That’s what I mean. We aren’t winning directly in terms of dps, but we are winning in “losing less dps in solo”.

Fay.2357:

Xyonon.3987:

If you have a condi set you even have top tier single target dps.

This is sort of a 2-for-1 special. Mesmer single target dps with a condie build is competitive, but it’s far from top tier, so that’s a lie.

We are talking about solo dps. Don’t accuse me of lying with that statement just because I’ve made expiriences with the setup. I’d rather encourage you to give it a shot too, but seriously, not with the “it’s gonna be worse anyway-attitude” :P

…

I still wonder if this is intended or a bug, because to me it’s more like a bug that the shield #4 is the only phantasm that can be dodged. I hope they “fix” this eventually

Condi engi hasn’t become weaker. Infact it has become stronger too since 20% of the damage is power, so it’s like a +6% damage boost. However all none condi professions gained a ~30% damage boost.

Engi is now viable in all it’s variations. Thinking about trash mobs and the ability to swap freely between kits to adapt to situations without suffering great dps losses, I’d rather start playing power Engi in fractals rather than condi again, just like the old days.

The problem with the whole armor thing is that ANet didn’t implement any really tough mobs in any fractals. I mean look at silver wastes for example. All power professions are fine but struggle with husks since they have 9000 armor. Fractals need some mobs in some areas that have high toughness, to make everything more interesting!

imo

F1 would be great with 600 range already. And maybe a shorter cast time aswell. An offensive usable heal skill would be a great idea.

I’d also welcome a reduction of the cast time of AED rather than an extention of it’s effect duration. I mean AED isn’t essentially bad – it’s just … well HT is better and we know it :/ And I’m not even sure if anyone uses they gyro in pvp anymore now that it has a cast time.

Currently grenade auto hit deals 10331 dps on the raid buffed condi engi.
Mortar auto hit deals 6955 dps. So the projectile finisher would have to make up for 3376 dps. Mortar attack speed is 1 attack every 0.53s.

The best projectile finishers are burn (2s = 1502 damage), aswell confusion (8.35s = 1187 damage + 298 damage per skill used). But in both cases, they won’t make up for the 3376 dps. Burn will be at 2834 dps, confusion at 2801 dps (1 attack), 3364 dps (2 attacks), and finally beating nade auto with 3926 (3 attacks).

Projectile finisher itself need some help aswell. I mean seriously? Base burn duration of 1s? 2s poison? The only way we could use it is to cleanse condis and apply blind.

Cast some skills in the testing area and check how long the icons flash until the cd is there. You can easily reset the cds in the testing area, so I’d suggest you to test it there

You don’t need a full new armor etc. The only thing you have to do is retrait, if you are fancy get another weapon, that’s it.

If you are too lazy to do even that, then you shouldn’t complain about issues with your profession in a specific area you do not adapt to.

It doesn’t matter if other professions have to retrait, because some of them even can’t retrait to be stronger. You must only compare the optimal realisitc setups with each other.

It was intended to be – they said they’ll fix it – was released in july 14 …

But yea, you can hit stationary targets with it, but it’s rather hard to pull off and the finishers are barely worth it :/

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

TLDR: No mechanic in the story screws over the Mesmer they way past mechanics have done so. It’s not easy but if you bring proper self buffs and interrupts it’s not so bad as people are claiming.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

It’ also why I changed to focus a lot on interrupts and self buffs. Get that might, fury and quickness often enough to have auto-attacks comparable to an unbuffed thief auto. This avoids all the problems you mentioned above. Then I buffed my interrupts a ton to further add vulnerability, damage and sustain which also doesn’t require any illusions. Toss in MoP and wells too. Shatter illusions often. Don’t depend on the phantasms.

So much this!

We are lower in aoe dps than other professions, but the difference isn’t like in teams where we deal 10k and the full dps professions around 30k, we win compared to other professions in solo situations. If you have a condi set you even have top tier single target dps. Then most professions can’t pull mobs together and cleave them right away.

We have plenty of qualities but the Mesmer forum has always been the whiniest one …

apharma.3741:

So here is a fairly well known streamer playing mesmer in the final fight, judge for yourself how it is.

And this is good example of a Chrono who plays like in Raids in open world. And then pulls the GS Q_Q

That’s basicly how you do the common quickness rotation. You don’t cast CS before the first skill, you cast it during the aftercast of Time Warp / Well of Recall, so you extrend the CS duration by the cast time duration of said skill.

The full double heal is neat though.

Krag.6210:

How much damage is Takedown Round even?
It seems to do more than bomb 1 but how much dps is it really, how often does it proc in your calculations?

Takedown Round is I’d say approximately 1300 dps for the first 50% and 0 dps for the last 50%. So you gain ~600 dps for fighting adds for free wich is around 2% more damage.

1300 dps is just an estimate – after the 20th patch or maybe even after the next big balance path I will anyway update the skill priority lists, where I can give you the exact number then. From my expirience it crits between 12 and 15k and I would say it procs every 11.5s (10s + randomness due to 50% chance on hit).

Bast Bow.2958:

Thanks xyonon for posting this, and others as well. I also think engineers can fill a spot, in rare occasions I see it happening in one of my guilds and all seems ok. It’s just that other professions seem to be more favorite and engineers seem to be in last place for now, definitely in puggroups. Hoping to see more of you engineers in raids in the (near) future.

+

Joxer.6024:

Bast Bow.2958:

-snip-

Yes, thanks heaps and I too want to see more Engi’s get the nod. I have been able to do VG and Escort but not without a fight for my class!

It’s funny that DW Eles are still completly legit in pug groups, even though we deal more damage than them now. But hey many of them also prefer Eles over Thieves so I really don’t know what’s up with pugs sometimes xD

Or the preference of a Necro for the Wargs instead of an Engi. I mean you can royally mess up as Engi and still outdamage Necros easily. Necros scratch the 20k without their Elite while we are 40% higher, and even with the Lich minions, it takes ages to get on the Engis level and the same time again to actually start outdamaging us over the whole fight.

I’d understand it if they were for the normal adds (epidemic) but for the Wargs? People just don’t think and only mimic what they see – makes me sad.

I’m not sure if pugs know that a random Engi may fail it’s rotation more likely than an Ele, or if they actually think we are bad. I think it’s both of those cases. At least my legit stack of LI let’s me semi take over the lead and stay on Engi all the time :’D hurr durr.

Joxer.6024:

“Just makes sure you really know your rotation, so you won’t mess up and have noticable less dps than the alternatives. Most important for your dps: Never interrupt your bomb auto hit!”

Do we really have a rotation? Was always told its whats off CD but somehow never feels right.

DANG YOU GOT ME GUD SON! :< My exact words were always “we have no rotation, we have a priority list” Grrrr… must edit that!

Still, there are some connected skills to achieve greater dps. You cannot swap to a kit for only one skill most of the time, unless you time it really good it’s a dps loss due to the 1s icd kit swap has.