Guild Wars 2

Thanks very much for the feedback.

For siphoning sigils, do you mean blood and leeching? I can see how they make sense. Do they work if you are in death shroud?

I looked on the wiki to see how life steal healing scaled with healing power, but couldn’t find it anywhere.

I’ve been trying to understand how things work by looking at the combat log, but it’s a bit tricky. There are things like:
- You heal yourself for 50 using Jagged Horror Species Buff.
- You heal yourself for 50 using Bone Fiend species buff.

I assume these are the Vampiric Master healing. In the build editor, 100 healing power only increases the healing amount by 2 points.

Thanks again for the help and suggestions!

Thanks for all the previous tips a couple of months ago. My son got his necro to level 80, so we tried to make a build that he liked that would be fairly effective. He does PVE stuff by himself sometimes, and dungeons and WvW with family and friends.

Since he wanted to have an army, we came up with this minion build (plus ogre runes). He really likes it and it seems to be plenty effective enough for our needs (we can share swiftness when moving around in WvW, and we don’t need to clear dungeons super-fast).

I’d love feedback on adjustments that would make it more effective:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRQQNAW3djM00VbbNO1webiohQ6gjip7+CpaH-TFCBwAGV+14gAA5IAI5CAKBxp+DgHAAx9HSpbgMA6jB-w

Also, do jagged horrors (from the Death Nova trait) count as minions for either the Vampiric Master trait or the Fetid Consumption trait?

Thanks for any feedback or suggestions!

Thanks much for the advice. We don’t get to play all that often together, so it’s helpful to have some things we can learn and try out in between the sessions.

The engi build is still evolving, but it looks like this right now:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdQQJAqelUUpkr9ZxdLseNSaBNy0MHRHyRukPOhAA-T1RHABF8AAcTPAjq/k7+D3pEEgTAwRK/IEwi1A-w

I get that incendiary powder gives access to burn which is really powerful, but both the ranger and the guardian apply a lot of burning. So it feels like it’s a little bit of a waste. We’re trying to see how much burning uptime we’re maintaining right now.

Adding Elixir gun seems to add some nice access to bleeding without needing to invest in crit chance at all. Clearly, we’re still doing a ton of experimenting and learning. If we manage to record any good fights, I’ll try to share them to get suggestions on the tactics.

Thx for all the advice!

I totally agree. We are definitely not trying to tell him how to play Engineer. We tried to help him get a build that seemed viable and let him learn how to play it.

Since I spend a lot more time on these forums than he does, I was trying to get a few suggestions to help us get on the right track. I found Wolfineer’s guide thanks to a link here, and it’s amazing (sent it to my friend and asked him to read the whole thing!)

And I agree that knowing what the other professions can do and coordinating is amazingly powerful. I really appreciate the guidance.

Thx much for the help!

Sounds like guardian is the consensus. I was thinking the chill ranger would make it easier to hit with the bombs, but I see the good points you raise on the guardian.

There’s one more piece of context that I probably should have added here. The three of us have dramatically different levels of experience. I have probably 1500 hours of mostly solo roaming in WvW on my phantasm mesmer (so I’m kind of stuck in my ways… lol). The friend who can play guardian or ranger has a couple hundred hours of WvW experience. Our engineer friend probably has less than forty hours in WvW in total.

So the perplexity build is the result of two non-engineers giving advice to our engineer friend, and we’re trying to get a good mix of builds/professions as well as learning how to fight together. Lots of good learning going on – so I’m happy to get any general tips!

We’re doing a 3-man roaming group in WvW.

One friend is playing a condi Engi something like this:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fdQQJAqelUUpkr9ZxvLseNSaBNq0I6QOyv8xJEAA-T1RHABF8AAcTPAjq/k7+D3pEEgTAwRK/IEwi1A-w

I’m playing a phantasm mesmer (mostly power, but quite a few bleeds):
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

Other friend can play either a guardian or a condi ranger (with lots of chill). Any recommendations between guardian and ranger in terms of which should generally work better?

Thx!

Thanks – the meta build page and video are really helpful!

It looks like we were close to the right concept. Now we’ll do some testing to see what feels best for him.

Thanks again!

@shreddie here’s a variant that’s closer to your build but still uses the perplexity runes (I already bought them for him, so the gold isn’t the issue). What do you think about this one?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdQQJAqelUUpkr9ZxvLseRCbBNyxcGQtBRmlN+xGEAA-T1RHABGp8r2HAgb6BYU9nc3fAgTAQUKBJEwi1A-w

Thanks very much for the help!

I have a couple of specific follow-up questions:

- Would you recommend Automated Response if he learned to keep his inventory open and double-click on Lemongrass Poultry Soup when he got heavily loaded on condis? It’s one more thing to learn, but Automated Response seems really nice (especially if you still have 8000+ health when it kicks in).

- If he stayed with this basic point distribution, it sounds like everyone would recommend Invigorating Speed over Backpack Regenerator. Basically, getting an extra dodge is more powerful than 117 health per second.

- I agree Tool Kit doesn’t inherently look like a condi weapon. The pry bar is a lot of confusion, but the rest of it looks mostly like covering conditions. But magnetic pull seems like a really good way to set up a confusion burst with perplexity (interrupt on pull and then pry bar). Does it not work out this way in real game play?

- I assume Power Wrench is not worth taking just for the cooldown value given a condi build. Does anyone use Kit Refinement? It appears that it would give one more interrupt chance (magnetic bomb) and a possible stun breaker (when switching to tool kit). That seems pretty valuable in this build.

- Lastly, how big of a deal are the bleeds in a condi build like this? That’s the damage part that feels trickiest to give up. It just feels like a 33% chance to get a 5 second bleed on a crit isn’t that great unless you get the crit chance at least up into 40% range.

Thanks for all the help. I don’t really know things really play out with the profession, so the guidance is awesome.

My engineer friend usually plays with me (phantasm mesmer) and a third friend who often plays a support Guardian.

We don’t mind if it takes us a while to get through a dungeon. When we go into WvW, we usually take camps and towers, so we run into other small roaming groups.

I think the ideal build is one that’s fun to play, very survivable, and uses his favorite utilities (tool kit, bomb kit, rocket boots). Below is the build we put together as we chatted about what might be a good fit.

The core idea was to give lots of condition damage and confusion with the perplexity runes and lots of interrupts (which I think he will find fun). Since our coordination isn’t fantastic and he occasionally plays by himself, we wanted his build to have enough ability to handle conditions on its own. Dire armor seems great for survivability. With the sigil of intelligence, Incendiary Powder can be triggered regularly even though precision is very low. I’d love any feedback or suggestions – thx!

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fdQQJAqelUUpkr9ZxvLseNSahMq0i+72lfeSgDA-T1BHABA8AAeTPQjq/o7+D4pEMgTAASK/IEwi1A-w

Phantasm builds can be nice for these – especially with duelists or warlocks who can keep shooting and not get destroyed by AoE around the mobs.

One point from the latest living story, there’s a fight where you have to attack a boss in the middle of a large circular field. My phantasms were useless there. The protective aura you get doesn’t apply to them, so they died in an instant.

Yup – some very similar concepts.

I don’t think your sigils of bursting or force apply to your phantasms, so you might swap those at some point.

In the situation where you get three phantasms up, you’ll want to avoid dodging so you don’t overwrite a phantasm with a clone via deceptive evasion. That’s one of the reasons I don’t use that trait (even though it’s an awesome trait).

In any case, I think these kinds of phantasm builds are very fun and I keep coming back to them. Hopefully the OP likes one as well

One important point – signet of ether can be used aggressively at the beginning of a fight to get 3 phantasms up quickly, but it can also be used later against opponents who focus on killing your phantasms. You just want to make sure you manage the fight so that you can summon, heal and then summon again quickly.

This is what I use and sounds close to what you want.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

I shatter pretty rarely with this build. The only times I shatter are when I want to interrupt (the might from bountiful interruption plus stopping a heal can be more valuable than the next cycle of phantasm damage), mind wrack when a target is nearly dead, or distortion for stomping.

My skills are very average, but you can see how it tends to play in the videos I publish here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqzNWP8L3BAAQXDbDdXF02Q

Thx much. I don’t actually play shatter, so I only get it at a conceptual level. I have tried a couple of times to do condi-shatter builds, and it always feels like it doesn’t have a burst (but it’s hard to tell how much is my poor play).

So I was just mulling this over as a something different kind of build. But it seems like it’s just different in bad ways, so I’ll let it go

Thx again

@adelaide this certainly wouldn’t have to be a sinister armor build. I think the majority of the damage would come from bleeds and burning in the way I’m thinking about this.

It just occurred to me that maybe you could get a reasonable level of power damage as well to add a little burst to the condi pressure.

I might try testing this out. I’m not great at playing new builds, so it’s often hard to tell how much the poor performance of a build is my skill versus how bad the build is.

Thx for the feedback

Thx Pyro.

I know sword is not a hybrid weapon, but I was thinking of it as basically defense plus a supply of illusions that are close enough to the opponent that the on-death traits are likely to hit. I was trying to think about swords in a different way.

It feels like staff clones should be able to create quite a bit of condi pressure if you get the extra bounce and had have a reasonable level of bleeds from crit.

Thanks much for the feedback.

I really am curious if anyone thinks this is viable. Here’s a small variant with more dire gear mixed in (so assuming all sinister armor, I think you would end up with about 1200 power and about 1700 toughness).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAscWl0npMtNqxINcrNyqxYyW2BlZ1VpHJ7AA-T1RHABFq+Ta7P4m+g7UCCwpAQgnAwRK/CAgAMzysMnZgje0je0je0u4Fv4Fv4FLFwiKrA-w

Here’s a possible rotation:
- Start in staff and get 3 clones out (phase retreat plus 2 dodges)
- Close the distance to the enemy
- Swap to swords
- Cry of Frustration shatter/leap/swap
- Blurred frenzy
- Sword block
- Dodge back twice
- Summon swordsman (should get you an on kill effect from first sword clone)
- Swap to staff
- Chaos storm on self
- Phase retreat (should get you chaos armor and another on kill effect)
- Summon warlock (should be another on kill effect for the last sword clone)
- When phase retreat is ready, do another shatter (mind wrack or diversion) and then repeat the rotation

Any thoughts? Is it the power too low to do anything (even assuming some might stacks?)

The concept that seems interesting to me is switching between condi pressure (from the staff clones, confusion shatter, and on death traits) and some burst/power pressure (from the blurred frenzy and two, power-based phantasms).

Here’s an idea for the new armor type. I used rabid for this build since sinister is not in the build editor yet (I think the final numbers would be around 700 more power and less toughness)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAscWl0npMtNqxINcrNyqxYyW2BlZ1VpHJ7AA-T1RHABGp8rQ1fSb/BAOFAopPQgnAQUKBDAgAMzysMnZgje0je0je0u4Fv4Fv4FLFAMLrA-w

It’s a hybrid damage build with the idea that you won’t mind if the opponent leaves the staff clones alone or kills them since you have a couple of on death skills. Even the sword clones aren’t too bad in that they can add bleeds and vulnerability as a covering condition. An occasional shatter can be fine if you wanted to do cry of frustration to stack more confusion.

The idea that seemed interesting to me was starting with some staff clones and then switching to the swords. With blade training, you’ll basically always have the block, leap and blurred frenzy available whenever you swap. So you have some nice defense and ability to pin down the opponent and make sure the staff clones hit and you get the bounces from winds of chaos.

Seems like it might be a little too squishy, but maybe there’s something that could work here.

The points about WvW being really different depending on server tier are really important. In silver tier, I’ve had a lot of fun playing this phantasm build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

When I do it right, I can clear a camp in under two minutes. That’s not fast enough sometimes even in silver tier…

As Calliope points out, a phantasm build like this can focus a lot of damage on an opponent in a small period of time. If you use ether signet aggressively, you can have two duelists and a berserker out to start a fight. But it’s tough to fight against multiple opponents (and good thieves are tough because you can’t cast phantasms when blind).

If you wanted to adapt my build to be sword/sword instead of scepter/pistol, it might look like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR8cnsISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK53JA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPBAv0NAwBB4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

There’s probably a better way to make the build than that, but it would probably work.

Pyro has a neat phantasm build (Invulnerable? Unbeatable?) that has scepter along with sword. You put the swordsman phantasm out, and then just block with scepter and sword and run in a circle. I think it’s probably very strong for 1v1, but would be a pain for taking a camp (but I’ve never tried it)

Good luck

Well, I would guess a lot depends on your skill. I’m a really average player, so outnumbered fights are tough for me. I do play a power build and do a lot of roaming, so you might try it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

This is a short video that shows a couple outnumbered situations. If you have more skill, you could certainly go with more berserker/assassin gear. Or you may prefer a shatter build more than phantasms.

Thanks much – very helpful suggestions!

Since I only play mesmer, I’ve only learned the downstate capabilities of other classes by fighting against them.

I generally know what to expect what to expect from all of them. But rangers sometimes seem to be able to interrupt more/faster than I expect.

And sometimes I do the stomp with apparently nothing interrupting me, and the stomp doesn’t happen. Those are the really strange cases. I finish the whole move, but they don’t die. And the “finish them” message is still on the screen. It’s stuff like that which makes me sometimes choose to dps instead of stomping, but I know stomping is better.

Thanks again for the help – more stuff to practice

Short video looking at how much of a role vulnerability plays in some WvW fights with the phantasm roaming build I use.

The focus of the build is not vulnerability, but it fits nicely with the power focus and the trait lines that I like. It is possible to get up to 25 stacks just fighting the way I normally fight.

As always, my gameplay is pretty average. I’m happy to get feedback on how to play better and make better videos (but it might take a few months before you actually see any improvement… lol)

And of course, it contains more 80’s music

As I slowly increase my skill over many months of playing, I now find that I can play my phantasm roamer well enough to go against two seemingly good opponents and do okay.

The challenging thing for me is figuring out what to do after I get one target down. I know that I need to get the stomp, but often I’ve used up a lot of my cooldowns at this point (for reference, the build is below).

If I have it available, I’ll definitely use distortion and go for the stomp. But if it misses, all the damage capacity is gone (and I’m still finding weird cases where stomps seem to fail for no reason).

So I’m wondering about best tactics or rules of thumb for what to do when one opponent is downed but an ally is still engaged. I could leave the downed target down and let the phantasms continue to damage while I distract the ally. But I’ve seen the ally rez the downed foe too many times.

Any suggestions are much appreciated – thx!

Current build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

I recommend Northern Shiverpeaks

I had almost exactly the same scenario. I started WvW on Kaineng around March of 2013. I pretty much only do roaming (solo mostly, but duo or small groups).

I switched to NSP this past spring. It’s been great. There are plenty of times where I can operate totally solo and get a lot done (even solo a tower every now and then), but there’s typically enough opponents that you can get a reasonable rate of 1v1, 2v2, etc fights

On reset night, it’s typically a bit tricky to roam solo – there’s usually enough opposition from other servers that taking things by yourself can be tough.

There seems to be a pretty healthy population of roamers. I see quite a few familiar faces in the borderland maps

Overall, it feels like roamer’s paradise to me

This is the power PU phantasm build I use for roaming in WvW

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

It’s fun for me. I never play pvp, so no idea how it would do.

Good luck!

For roaming, I keep coming back to this power-phantasm build

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

As I’ve been experimenting with a staff/scepter+torch build in WvW, one of the things I’ve noticed is that opponents can run away from my shatters (especially before I get any torment on them).

Other shatter builds have the sword for the immobilize.

I was wondering about sigils of ice, incapacitation, or hydromancy as ways to slow down opponents enough to let more shatters land. Has anyone tried using these sigils in a condi shatter build? Is it worth the experiment?

I’ve been experimenting with torment off and on for a while. It feels like there is some inconsistency in the combat logs and it’s a pain to track down.

My current guess is that the “is moving” check happens at a different time than the base damage tick.

I’ve never tried testing on golems, since I’m only looking for WvW results. So my tests have even more variability.

I’m really interested in what you figure out – thx for sharing!

I did a little testing of the build I posted in WvW tonight. Not quite that quality of gear, but reasonably close.

I definitely feel like I don’t have the playstyle down yet. I fought a shatter Mesmer who I could get low but never quite take down. I was doing pretty well on an engi who was running with 8 stacks of torment, but got help from friends.

Testing on a camp supervisor, I was able to get 16 stacks of torment but it only lasted for a couple seconds. I would guess with the improvement to maim, I could have had 22 stacks.

Mantra for healing feels weak (even when I’m used to using ether signet). Deceptive evasion seems a bit inconsistent in creating clones (sad that I’ve played the class almost 2 years and haven’t really ever tested this trait much). Do you have to be in combat for the clone to generate? Or have a target and be in some range?

In my previous tests, I didn’t play condi shatter long enough to understand how the damage really played out in real WvW fights. I started with the assumption that Tormenting or Perplexity would be necessary, but the lack of mobility was too much.

I’m thinking with the build I linked, it would be possible to do a rotation like this:
> Start with Staff
Dodge forward
Phase Retreat
Dodge forward
F3 Shatter (staggered distance for better interrupt chance)
Weapon swap: scepter
Dodge forward
Scepter block (hope for block and clone)
Cast iMage
(Maybe) auto-attack chain (if needed for clone)
F2 shatter (stack confusion)
Confusing images (stack confusion)
Scepter block
If needed use prestige first, otherwise just weapon swap: staff

Without using any cooldowns, it seems like that rotation could produce up to:
24 stacks of torment
17 stacks of confusion
and probably a bit of burning, bleeding, poison and vulnerability

But I have no idea what happens with real players (maybe half of that?)

Still, I’m hopeful that it could be high enough to create real damage and still let me keep using travelers runes

Thanks. It’s good to hear there’s someone doing shatter-condi with travelers and blink.

I’ve been playing my current build so long in WvW, that whenever I try something new, I have trouble deciding if my ineffectiveness is just lack of skill and fit with my style or a problem with the build.

It’s the lack of mobility that has always made me give up on condi-shatter previously

I’ve tried making shatter condi builds a couple times, but the lack of mobility just made it less fun for me than my current build.

With the doubling of torment stacks on maim the disillusioned, I’m wondering if something like this will be effective enough that I can use the travelers runes which aren’t optimal for a condi build and keep blink as a utility.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAW7fl0npMtNqxTNcrNytBdyZcDUHkikySGggB-TFyCABAcBA2b/BA1N4p6PJqEMLlfU8EAk4gAEAABYmzMZWmBDdoDdoDdoNzZOzZOzZWIgFrBA-w

Anyone already running something like this in WvW?

Thanks for the feedback

I’m slowly going through and testing the minions. So far my conclusion is that they don’t do that much damage and they don’t attack that reliably.

So basically I’m wondering about a build that has them but pretty much ignores the minions.

On one hand, it’s really painful to think of having a bunch of utility slots that are not really optimized. On the other hand, if you think about being in death shroud as much as possible, maybe you can make a build where the utility slots just aren’t that important?

My son really wants to use minions. He plays mostly PVE and can hold his own in dungeon runs with the family. He also does a little WvW with us.

I’m trying to find a build that will have a really nice punch to it but still use minions. I’m wondering if a build like this one is possible.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRQQNAW3YjM00UbbNe1webinhS6IIASAoCSq/hdIUB-TVSGABA8AAMS53hqUkwFBgMdDEquiBHBAU2foPlgBAQAu5NzmtZwRP6RP6RPaH9oH9oH9olBoaBA-w

It uses minions, but it has almost no minion traits. The basic idea is build up some might stacks and life force and just spam life blast.

I don’t have a good feel for how quickly life force builds up, but I could imagine a rotation like this if he was starting from empty.
– start in staff and drop mark of blood (try to get a proc on sigil of strength)
– trigger all the minion skills (except blood fiend) – get life force from haunt
– dodge a couple of times (for might from the food and for defense)
- switch to axe for the might stacks from the battle sigil
- use ghastly claws, dodge
- use the dagger skills as desired
- swap back to staff (more might stacks) and hopefully be close to full life force.
- drop a marks as needed to get to full life force
- death shroud and life blast

Death nova is basically just there for fun (in WvW, it would punish people for killing the minions)

It feels like this should be able to get up to 10+ might stacks really easily. There’s very little here for condi defense. In a lot of the fights I see him in, it’s not the thing that’s going to decide the outcome. He has a removal skill on each weapon, and the hoelbrak runes cut down the duration somewhat. It will encourage him to dodge a lot, and I think that’s a really good skill to learn.

Couple of questions:
- Overall, is it just a really bad idea? This isn’t for extremely serious play, but I want it to be effective.
- Do death shroud attacks proc sigils? It would be ideal if life blast could proc the strength sigil since it would create a really nice chance of getting 2 might stacks every second.

Thx!

Yeah, I was trying a build where I was stacking a few passive heals like this and the passive food heals (which seems to show up as “nourishment” in the combat log) to see if I could get to a reasonable steady healing rate.

Does it help if you use the active attack skills (e.g. tell the golem to charge at the start of the fight could get the golem to engage with auto-attacks)?

I know pretty much nothing about necromancer, so sorry if this is a total noob question. I’m slowly learning in my spare time to help my son with his minion-mancer.

Thx. I was looking in the combat log for something, but good to know there’s another way.

Thx again

I’m trying to determine the direction of the causality here

The operating theory goes like this:
- Every so often (about once per 10 – 15 seconds), the code chooses to apply a different attack which does more damage and applies cripple

I’m suggesting that possibly the code actually works like this:
- When the target has a CC effect on it (either cripple or immob), then generate a higher damage
- And there’s a built-in effect to apply cripple (once every 10 – 15 seconds) before damage is calculated

The difference is just that if the code actually works the second way, then players could affect bone fiend damage by maintaining CC on the target.

The numbers are small, so it really isn’t a big deal. But, I have to admit, it’s more fun than the long document I need to write

The question I’m trying to answer is what causes variability in the damage. I fully grant that given the sizes of the numbers, this is a pretty much just an academic exercise. And two sample runs is way too little to even say there is some other factor at play.

But…

If you look at the data, there a couple of interesting differences:
- using the skill always causes a pattern of one “bigger” hit and one critical hit
- only in the case of using the skill do you get samples of different damage on the two hits (in the first set of data, both hits in an attack always do the same amount)
- there are cases in the second set of data where a “big” (but non-critical hit) happens and no cripple is applied
- the crit rate is much higher in the second set (kind of improbable to get these results with a 4% chance, but a very small sample)

Here’s my crazy theory:
- Bone fiend attacks have a higher base damage when the target is under a CC effect (at least cripple and immobilize). This would be consistent with the cripple-applying attack causing a larger amount of damage. And it would explain some of the larger damage numbers in the second set because those attacks are happening while the immobilize from the skill attack is still on the target.
- (maybe) something about using the skill causes attack damages to be calculated separately thereafter (and possibly crit chances are rolled separately as well)

Not really a balance question, but not sure where else to ask.

What is the combat log entry for the healing effect (6th rune effect) of Superior Runes of the Dolyak? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Dolyak

I’m trying to verify that it actually is adding health, but I can’t find a message in the log.

Thx!

I’ve only done a couple of tests with FRAPS recording the actual damage. My son’s character is only level 60, so I was testing on crabs in Bloodtide. In two tests, I got really different results depending on whether I used the bone fiend’s skill. Two samples is not a pattern, but I need to get some sleep. Still, if this is the case, it’s best to use the skill early. (All attacks happen at 3 second intervals)

Test 1: No skill use. Each line is one attack on the 3-second timer.
2×39
Crab blocks
2×38
2×43
2×42
2×103 (cripple effect as Bhawb said)
2×40
2×43
2×39
2×102 (cripple)
2×39
2×39
2×41
2×59 (critical hit)
2×98 (cripple)
crab blocks
2×40
2×41
2×43

Test two: Use bone fiend skill. Each line is one 3-second cycle
2×108 (cripple)
crab blocks
Use skill: 1×108, 1×162 (critical hit)
2×108
2×119 (cripple)
2×43
2×44
1×43, 1×64 (critical hit)
2×66 (critical hits)
1×47, 1×71 (critical hit)
crab blocks
2×45
2×44
1×43, 1×65 (critical hit)
2×114 (cripple)
2×47
2×47
1×44, 1×66 (critical hit)
2×45
2×45
crab blocks
Use skill: 1×118, 1×178 (critical hit)
1×109, 1×163 (critical hit)

Thx for the tip. I’ll try recording a combat sequence with FRAPS and see if I can connect the higher damage with the cripple.

Mostly, I’m just trying to understand how things compare in damage. So far in the build I made for him, putrid explosion on the bone minions, life blast, and the fire sigil I put into his weapons are the biggest damage entries in the logs. But I’m trying to do some more isolated testing.

Thx again!

I’m helping my son out with his goal of making a minion master build. I decided to look at his damage in the logs to try to understand how helpful the different minions really were in damage.

I was testing in Sparkfly Fens killing moas. The tool tip for his bone fiend said:
(2x) 192

In the logs attacking the same moa, I saw four different entries:
Hit 2x each for 68
Hit 2x each for 172
Critical hit 2x each for 105
Critical hit 2x each for 250

It seems like it’s possible to have two very different base damage levels on the attack (68 and 172). Not much else was going on in the fight (I had the shadow fiend out also, but the only other thing going on was some necrotic grasp auto-attacks)

What’s going on here?

There are PU builds which are not condi builds. It seems that 95% of people mean a condi build when they say PU mesmer, but the trait can be used in power/hybrid builds.

Here’s what I use in silver tier WvW roaming

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

I finally broke down and put in one energy sigil, and switched to might on dodge food.

I find it very fun

From the NSP side, I just want to say thanks to so many people who I saw working hard when I went to sleep and were still working hard when I logged in to help with a couple camps in the morning before going to work.

I bet there are similar efforts on the other servers. So very cool to be part of this

I know that not everyone has had the match-ups they want and that the placements may not truly indicate who is “best”, but I just wanted to say that the last week in this tournament has been really close for my match and I’m enjoying that a lot.

I’ve put in more time than any other week, and I really enjoy it when I can help out my server. I know it only means a few tickets and a yak statue, but I can certainly see a ton of people putting in a lot of work.

And having all three scores basically within 1000 points when we’re two days from the end is really cool.

Thanks to everyone who is making it an exciting week

Doh – I should have read MSFone’s post first. Looks like I’m not the only one to think of using AT…

Cool build

One possibility is that you put in Arcane Thievery in place of the signet. This gives you more benefit from the manipulation traits, gives you a boon strip, and maybe lets you use ether feast all the time as your heal since it gives you another condi removal.

Thx for sharing!

@curunen – yeah, scepter is interesting in a power/hybrid build. The condi’s don’t do so much, but I like the range. I need to get better at using the block (still.. after 1.5 years with this weapon set – it did help a lot with the guardian late in the second fight)

@msfone You’re right – the phantasms get crushed quickly. For sure, when I fight a mesmer using duelist or zerker, I try to kill them quickly. It’s funny how people say phantasm builds are all AI and “passive”. I find I put a lot of effort into getting the phantasms out (and hopefully distributed), so that they can get multiple attacks in. (And, I actually screwed up and cast the duelist out of range early in the second fight because I was trying to keep it away from the battle.) The problem for me with taking the signet is the utility slot. After all this time, I can’t live without blink and decoy. And I can’t find a way to set up the build I want without using one slot on handling condi’s.

The plus side is that you can create really nice burst if you have ether signet. Right at the end, I cast zerker as I jump off the cliff. Then I swap, interrupt the might stacking with magic bullet, cast duelist, use ether signet, cast duelist again, and can still swap back for one more zerker to finish it off – all in about 12 – 15 seconds.

Thx on the music