Moving celerity to 25: IMO this should not affect weapon skills and its plainly obvious to anyone who pays attention to this game that the ‘rule of thumb’ on traits like this is tbat all classes have an option to reduce 4 utility skills by % 20.
Now the problem I have with it is that IF maintaining phantasms is a desired option you are forced to invest 25 in line which has limited non-shatter major traits, a minor and master trait that are shatter-centric, and devotion to condition specs which the defender and……other guy do not specifically favor.
The sceptre change is a nice one. It has become clear to me that scepter 1 needs to be a multi-target attack. Scepter is the only weapon we posses that does not have a multi-target attack. I imagine it should be a bounce attack as that seems to be the theme of the class. With the new scepter trait you can achieve 1900+ con damage in spvp. It doesn’t blow yoh away but its servicable and I imagine with tweaking and practice could turn into something.
Moving the confusion on shatter to 5 was a nice change. This changes a ‘true’ shatter spec immensely, providing many options. Considering the consensus on confusion however its likely an unrealized nice change.
The condition on interrupt is not worthy of GM to me. I attempted to realize its full potential last night by going 20-20-30 s/p s/f soldiers and beserkers. I did not experience a noticable change in keeping up with my target, or at least I wasn’t impressed. I feel if this trait is to ‘work’ it is going to be in a support build, and thats only if there is no internal cooldown to hamper multi-target cc’ing.
As a sidenote I tried shattering but perhaps it would work better with sig of illusions and just keeping your clones out to stack invule (cripple too?). Perhaps more testing on that one
Gaining more buff through PU is great for living but what else? I was chasing a ranger around in a pub and couldn’t melt her with 3 staff clones and elasticity. So if I have the abilty to stack buffs where am I killing people? I’m not tanking points because I’m always invis and staff 2 will constantly throw me off point. I don’t think this will turn out to be great in spvp outside of a power or group-confusion shatter build. Perhaps a 10-20-30-0-10 phantasm build with the two invis’ s and sig of illusions.
400 toughness while casting a mantra may be really nice i’m eager to test it.
Less health on phantasms: lets just wait and see. Perhaps it’s tricky to balance 4 sources of retal from one profession? Not sure about that being a feature though, didn’t make me into a god when I tried it, but then thats outside of what I normally do as a mesmer.
I’m sure mesmers are just fine. Not sure why everyone gets so emotional.
is there a cooldown on bountiful interruption? I was not able to test it last night.
i.e. can you get more than one boon when interrupting more than one person in a single instance.
TIA
for spvp, its too bad that we can be so tanky only at the sacrifice of being an inefficient point-holder due to the amount of invis required.
In this vein I have not decided if I like it yet.
Certainly these changes are a precursor to the apocalypse. I encourage everyone to quit and reroll doomsday-prepper profession.
Can I has your bottled water?
Maybe we’re supposed to be slow. Can’t have it all, other people get to be special too.
In general watch their arms. Your arms ‘rest’ at a standard position when not doing anything and always move when you are casting.
I’m a little bummed I couldn’t do this. I’m rank 40 as I haven’t done much other than pvp since launch but I’ve never been on a team and I doubt I’m ‘pro’. I work two jobs and my children are at ages where they still want my attention. This would have been a nice opportunity to have the experience. 26th is my bday so I had that card to play ;-)
May it rain purple. Go mesmers!
Is all you want to do is kill? No ones mentioned a bunker build.
10-0-25-30-0 (5) heal turret/bomb/egun/e-s with pis/shield will do you fine
I’d like an elite illusion that looks like exactly like my avatar (boons, conditions, etc. Included) and mirrors my every move. That would be kind of neat. A little blink with myself and my copy equidistant from the point of the blink.
If you’re switching from centaur to divinity you will see the difference. Also it was likely on a clothie.
I like confusion, but there seems to be confusion about confusion.
Everyone seems to really love mesmer’s 1v1 capability to the point of it being the identity of the profession. Maybe that’s reality, maybe that’s perception.
Confusion functions akittens worst in a 1v1 confrontation and gets better outside of it. You’ll rarely ever kick donkey with it 1v1 unless you’re faced with a “fast” profession.
In a multiple player environment there is no waiting around for confusion to clear. Tbis is what makes confusion kind of cool, it shifts the function of the mesmer.
The other part of it is that confusion does not exist in a vacuum. Mesmers are not designed to only kill this way. There is no such thing as a “confusion mesmer”. There are people who do confusion witb power, or confusion with other conditions.
Confusion on blind is not a way of life, its merely supplemental damage for a defensive build. The primary source is shattering.
Torch isnt as awful as advertised but I agree it could use some streamling. It gives you five stacks of confusion (one image shot then shatter). And a defensive power witb stealth.
The sad thing about scepter is two-fold. First it functions better as a power/crit weapon. Secondly once you’ve exhausted your shatters your left with those kitten scep-clones. When you’re shattering for confusion damage you just hope that point in time falls on the staff.
You can perform very well with confusion, just not only confusion.
There is a passage of time between the block and the return strike. I’m happy its working for you with your setup. Gl and enjoy.
I’m speaking from practical experience.
Whatever works for you is cool and that’s fine. OH swords intention is certainly power orientated and you will get hit multiple times while waiting for your block to hit. The only proper time to use it with zerker is after you have created a hp advantage you can exploit. players who are trying to do significant amounts of damage tend to do it so fast that you are taking equal or more than you are dealing. Even if you land that big crit.
if you are waiting for a block then you are doing something wrong.
That block should trigger less than 1 second after you cast it. If its any longer than you are giving the opponent the advantage.
I’m speaking from practical experience.
Whatever works for you is cool and that’s fine. OH swords intention is certainly power orientated and you will get hit multiple times while waiting for your block to hit. The only proper time to use it with zerker is after you have created a hp advantage you can exploit. players who are trying to do significant amounts of damage tend to do it so fast that you are taking equal or more than you are dealing. Even if you land that big crit.
The blocks are likely to support soldiers or valkyrie type builds. If youre glass you end up getting pounded waiting for the block to go off.
@xavi, I dont think so. sword clones remove boons. sword phastasm is just a leap finisher and damage
What a cute little warden vs. Swordsman debate! /joke :-) and /respect
Traiting for both for max damage warden will end up doing the most damage most of the time (more on that later) because he generates more bleeds on top of his awesome p/c damage. HOWEVER its such a unreliable circus act to pull it off in the long run your swordsman will produce much, much more for you. The swordsman also is more reliable at generating retaliation damage. Wardens also a one time shot.
If the op is curious the way to most reliably create damage with your warden is to have signet of illusions in your utility bar. Use sword power 3, then cast warden, then use sword power 3, finish with more cc or sword 2. Do it for fun a few times but there are too many variables to make this anything close to consistent damage.
Wardens primary purpose is tanking.
Should have said condition memser not staff user. Editing on gs3 can be a kitten.
Getting vulnerability on interrupt is fine as is. If you’ve committed yourself to all that you’ve created a net of vul stacking methods that keeps your target at a high vul stack. Any problem with that has more to do with slowing down your target so you can get your melee attacks off. Thats a sword issue.
The boon/condition on interrupt is all garbage. The duration times are a joke. Even if you were to use staff and trait for aoe diversion shatters (which is what these traits have to be balanced against) you are not seeing any real “juice” out of that purpose (which would be to Interrupt a group then spread the boons to your team via the signet). Maye his has some viability in wvwvw but I don’t play that so I cannot comment from experience. Still you diversion at every 30-some seconds at that point.
Off all the trait lines domination is the most messed up due to it trying the hardest to cater to two different playstyles. A small and very welcome change would be taking the chance for vul on clone death from dom trait 5 and swapping it with the cripple in the power line. A staff user can accept loss of damage for cripple, even if that isn’t helping % 100 of the time (I.e. ranged opponent).
The conditions caused via interruption require longer durations and need to be: chill, poison, or weakness. These are all universally useful conditions (the viability of weakness withstanding however the premise of the condition is what we are considering).
The boons gained via interruption need to be longer duration. Also it needs to be (at least) 3 stacks of might instead of one. It would also be nice if fury and regen were not available as they are not universally ‘useful’ but thats much more in the realm of opinion.
I suppose with full mantra and that weaponset you’re pretty much rabid or shamans amulet as you need the toughness to handle getting spanked on when you’re recharging.
Some people use staff with power amulets but personally I don’t see it. You’ll lose more from your staff doing that then you will off your sword going condition. Carrion will work until your mantras are expended then you’re in trouble.
Oh on the mantra thing:
If you are using soldiers I reckon youre all around solid and can block whenever.
I was using zerker and traited for stuns or three mantras. Either way you’re damage is obscene however with the loss of stealth you shift toward a team spec as you lack the ability to survive outside a 1v1. You will still do well but if you are identified as a prime target you get ganged on and handled easily.
Supported and you laser down everything.
No due to swords inherent distortion and pistols stun. Putting the blocks together also nets you two clones to use as required. But again this is only once you have established a proper hp advantage.
Yeah I’ve heard of other players who go sc/sw. Do you miss not having the block in each weapon set? I guess it’s weighing the pros/cons as I can see the benefit of having a chain block at your disposal.
And the lack of escape ability can be somewhat mitigated by adding blink, though you sacrifice a mantra.
Blanket mesmer vs. Mesmer tips:
Shatter for distortion before anything else. Save it for when you see their clones coming.
Target their phantasms when you summon yours. They will blow them up and move on to the player.
Summon your clones and los the other guy. Once you ‘tag’ the guy new clones will just go at him.
If you use mass invis use it on approach to give yourself the initial strike (for you either a mind wrack or cry of ffrustration, but only if you have the capability to restock your clones).
Many condi builds thrive on generating their stacks via crit. They will not be untouched. This is why the duration times for weakness may have to be adjusted. If a meta floated more weakness stacking then carrion, soldiers, and valkyrie would become more popular untill the weakness applicators have to switch in order to make themselves more useful. Right now the only great proliferators of weakness are warrior and necro. Warrior has it on a weapon that hardly gets used, one slow hammer attack, and the warhorn..
I’m in the camp for a severe reduction in crit percentage* if not making it effectively zero*. Even if that means putting in extra work to adjust duration times.
I’m not knowledgeable enough to know but this type of change may strongly encourage a wider variety of builds.
Removing builds from the game sure does improve variety.
If Weakness removed crits which generally burst builds are dependent on, then what happens is a greater pull to go towards conditions than current or crit builds trying to fit in more condi removal dropping their damage and generally being more ineffective as a result of how ezpz conditions are applied anyways (so might as well scratch the crit build).It definitely be interesting if weakness gave better damage reduction and that would make some skills much more interesting if it wasn’t an rng based reduction, but shutting down crits? Are you cereal?
I’m in the camp for a severe reduction in crit percentage if not making it effectively zero. Even if that means putting in extra work to adjust duration times.
I’m not knowledgeable enough to know but this type of change may strongly encourage a wider variety of builds.
It is when the ball is so heavy and you have to swing it so hard to permanently warp your enemys armor. Thats rl vs. gl though.
The mace chain should be able to be completed in full before a full adrenaline stun wears off imo.
Well I just want to commend you on tryung to make the celestial amulet work.
I’m a bit amazed at how few builds use warhorn.. when traited it is one of the most
amazing weapons in the game.
I think warhorns application us limited.
One use is to tie into a 100b build with sword for obscene mobility. This would be used to apply maximum presence on an enemy’s backpoint.
Otherwise I don’t see using it outside of clerics or shamans. Reason being that when traited a large percentage of the useful boons you get only have real value when backed with healing power and toughness. So in the case of a condition build you would use sw/wh and longbow or shield, probably using endure pain as a utility to help vs. large group spikes.
Also they really should consider granting 3 might from that instead of one. Getting might over protection, regen, retaliation, etc. is such a bummer.
(edited by djtool.8372)
@ mr. Smiley
Mostly because when people go for condition damage they want to feed the “bleed on crit” minor trait.
I think carrion is best for confusion-shattering builds. You’re blowing them up too fast so you want the power to give your own weapon some sting (and mindwrack).. Confusion is a finnicky dueling condition but increases with value as the number of people go up. I would use carrion in this manner and attempt to avoid sitting on back-points. Most will tell you confusion is a lousy way to do damage but thats not true, it just changes the complexion of the mesmer from being stronger when there is less people (optimum being a duel) to contributing more when there’s more people.
Thieves are tougher when your not condition specced.
First tip is to learn to bite the bullet and blow up your phantasms for distortion when you need it. Don’t be a slave to them.
When they stealth turn toward where they were and gs5 the area. Hopefully you knock them down and waste some of their time.
Learn timing. With phants up you can get a feel for using sword 2 to prevent damage on restealth while they attack.
Stand by your phantasms so he has to be in their attack range when he pops.
Before restocking on phantasms produce one or two clones and daze shatter.
Gl and kill those kittens ;-)
Its been my experience that gs does the best at stacking.
Outside of math staff and gs are better because they operate at 1200 range. I do have a sword bleed build but its abstract and probably not for ‘real’ tpvp.
Staff + greatsword synergize best in a bleed build. Max your crit and condition damage as best you can. Crit gets the priority.
I’ve have the math for Sharpened Images floating around somewhere … none of the weapons does any better than the others except Staff benefit seezs the least from it as it gets 1 hit every 0.75 seconds while all the other weapons hit once every 0.5 second. However, this is assuming against only one target.
Staff, however, does benefit the most from a combination of condition damage and precision given that Staff clones will apply more damaging conditions than any of the other weapons since they already have a 2/3 chance of applying a damaging condition before even factoring in crit chance.
Warriors need their niche regarding what keeps them standing up. I think I recall the devs saying they wanted to emphasize control but that leaves out a bunch of weapons. They have quite a bit but cripples don’t save your but and while immob is very strong it doesn’t shut someone down, also it only has the one trait to support it.
I am ok with warriors having lousy condition removal as that is a method of profession definition. So instead of doing more damage per boon (yours or theirs) make it more damage per condition on the war (or something of that nature). How about a trait that causes the warrior to proc a “fear me” when at %X health.
Sure hope something is in the pipe.
The longbow + s/s build I’ve used in pvp was 0-30-30-0-0 (10). It works ok but folds easily when pressured. I recommend bulls charge for knocking them down after creating the fire field on them.
0
20
0
0
20
Is your shatter template. The rest depends on your goal.
Bah i read good.
If you want to shatter the choice between sword and pistol phantasm lies mostly within the realm of your amulet of choice.
If you are doing significant condition with a good crit proc chance go pistol as it will cause bleeding.
If you have a good amount of toughness or vitality you can use swords block often with little fear, which gives s/s the edge in illusion creation. It would be better if you have some power to go with it.
There are people who wear berserkers or knights and say they run a shatter spec when all they’re really doing is mindwrack. If this is your mentality then you want the pistol because the block from sword isn’t going to do you jack. This really isn’t a shatter spec as you are opening by shattering clone, then generating phantasms to do your damage until yoh finish off with your next mind wrack.
If you are shattering to do condition damage then I strongly suggest you consider trait III in the Inspiration line. It is superior to duelings 5pt minor. Use this with two sigils of energy and you’ll run out of shatters before you run out of clones.
Sorry one more thing.
Phantasm specs are analogous to cond specs in that your goal is to buy time to allow the damage to take place. Once you have determined your basic loadout and necessary traits you should identify what your method of ‘creating space’ is going to be.
Torch is fine if you have the malice for good confusion damage.
Sword/sword will generate more retaliation damage if you have that 5 in inspiration (although without extra health this works against you). Sword phantasm does roughly the same as pistol only its damage is frontloaded (pistol has the bleed damage to bring it up). Sword phantasm fires off around 6 seconds and pistol around 9. Pistols big advantage is that the phantasm has to be sought out to be disposed of which takes time.
If you choose signet of illusion for phantasm health don’t be a slave to that. If you’re in trouble do a full distortion, cast the signet, then another distortion to buy time.
My favorite part about distracting strikes is that a warriors primary method of interrupting is either a stun or knockdown. Both of which, of course, disallow the target to commit actions.
sword is the only way to avoid “the pink”….well most of it anyways.
as stated great 1v1 class and it drops a (donkey)load of damage so its attractive.
or boys are more into pink these days.
i use it currently in spvp. it makes a better power/crit weapon than condition atm, which is too bad.
if it doesn’t fit into the ‘mage’ or ‘dueling’ category i doubt it’ll happen
Why is it so hard to change the heal on restoritave mantras? Its not like the trait touches anything outside of them.
Due to the nature of spiritwatch you don’t get all of them cast before stuffs going down in the middle. It’d be nice if they were a bit faster in that small regard
Staff + greatsword synergize best in a bleed build. Max your crit and condition damage as best you can. Crit gets the priority.
Whether or not it is probable to change I find it disheartening that rude and immature behavior is something that we must just ‘deal’ with. I personally do not report or feed It with attention but these people are capable of living to a higher standard and should be encouraged to do so. The anonymity of the internet is too often treated as a place to act out dark fantasies or behavior not permitted in normal society. Could we not just use it as a means to prove courtesy and respect are so important to us that even when the fear of identity is removed we continue to breed these acts not only because they are important, but because we want to create such an environment around ourselves that encourages these type of individuals to take part in it.
I am having a suitable amount of success with the cond setup I have been playing (bow-s/s), I am not skill capped with the build either.
It may be a matter of semantics but I do not believe the rabid and rampager amulet “playstyle” is what is not viable. % 33 bleed on crit just doesnt hold up to the power damage carrion provides in my mind.
Shamans would be easier to pull off than rabid but I think you’d be relegated to mace/sword instead of sword/sword
Does the bleed duration really even matter? If the damage done via the bleeds is sufficient then be happy that its on a short timer.
That’s if you think the damage is sufficient.
A nice change would be to move the cripple the cripple from 3 to 2. I’m not sure you’d ever use button 3 in pve and its not exactly the type of tactical decision that’s keeping you up at night in pvp.
then come up with something for 3.
Usually when people are tossing the acronym OP in this forum its related to large damage spikes or thieves and rangers that didnt notice they are confused.
I feel pretty certain that what you want is the build(s) that open up with an obscene damage spike followed by dropping phantasms to do more obscene damage that they cannot recover from. Its been around since the Inception of the game.
Your post is worded poorly. You want a strong spec handed to you but there’s more than one so we need to know you want to do before we can really answer.
now that i’m home I would like to add to this ‘definition of viable’ discussion.
In tpvp play, I would say that once you consistently find that one of them is going down when you are going down, you have reached the very floor of ‘viability’.
If you can candidly recognize that your traits and gameplay have not reached their ceiling, then you likely have a ‘viable’ spec within your environment (that being the level of gameplay you find yourself consistenly surrounded by).
So if someone says they have a ‘viable’ spec some skepticism must occur because you are being asked to not only trust a person’s level of self-examination but also accept the assumption that the environment they compete in is equal to or greater than your own.
for example its absolutely amazing how many people on these forums ‘hardly ever lose 1 v 1’.
just food for thought. I think its best to either be happy that they’re happy or to be happy that they’re happy that you’re happy.