Guild Wars 2

I started the game as a pure PVE player. I tried shatter for a bit, but between lack of skill and traits, it didn’t seem to work well. I saw Pyros post about a phantasm build, so I tried that for a while and it became the base.

Eventually, I started playing WvW and kept evolving the phantasm build around roaming (I played on Kaineng after the downfall from 2nd to last, so roaming was mostly what was available.) For some reason, I’ve never really been interested in PvP, but phantasm is a nice roaming Mesmer build.

I decided to experiment when the new grandmaster traits came out and tried to make a shatter torment build. But it was so slow in moving and in burst damage compared to what I had been using that I just couldn’t take it.

So back to phantasm Mesmer and experimenting with little tweaks (like trying Mirror or trying to make Arcane Thievery work as my main condi removal). It’s still a lot of fun for me in roaming, but I have to say I’m looking forward to whatever comes from the Skill Bar updates to give me a few more things to experiment with.

Thx much – this is what I was trying to get at.

Currently, Mesmers can focus on shatter, phantasms or conditions as their damage strategy (where something like 75% of the damage comes from that mechanism)

It seems like minions can’t get to that level (despite having at least 3 traits that seem to be designed to increase total damage from minions)

@spoj you’re hitting on the point I was basically trying to understand – phantasms can get up to be very high dps (both burst and sustained). The weakness is that they die if they get hit by basically anything. In that playstyle, my job is to keep myself alive (through stealth, dodges, blocks) and contribute to damage by stacking might (with sigils, but also the Bountiful Interruption trait and the Greatsword skill) and doing direct damage. By increasing the damage a lot, it doesn’t matter as much that phantasms die easily.

I was wondering if minion necro could do the same thing but swap out using Death Shroud as the defense mechanism and adding more direct damage from the necro (or that maybe the total minion damage would balance out with phantasms).

It just feels like a minion build won’t ramp up on dps as quickly, so it feels like it will take longer to take things out in WvW

Thx for all the insight!

Thx – it’s really helpful to get the necro perspective. The build I was using in the video is actually pretty tanky for a Mesmer. Most of the armor is Sentinels. I play a slightly different build now, but the build in the video is like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGGqB3aGJ1IMd66LJHCK5XIA-T1iFABDcBAgb/hkUSpo6DRqCDAHBAjUmckSBGeIAnpbAQlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sQAmXAA-w

Since I only play WvW, I don’t have any idea of how things work out in PvP. From a WvW perspective, it feels like it would be hard to just bunker and support the minions. It feels like it would kill too slowly – especially when roaming, I think you need to get done with a fight quickly because more enemies will come if you take too long. I looked at the video again, and the phantasms are doing 3000 – 4000 base and between 5000 and 6000 when I get up to 20+ might stacks. When you add in the bleeds (about 1800 over six seconds typically for a duelist), you get closer to 1000 dps per phantasm than the 500 I was using. So it feels like a minion necro would need to contribute more damage personally if you wanted to get up to the same level of damage output.

There are lots of differences here in that phantasms have very low health (2000 hp or so), they die as soon as their target dies (so you want to shatter them just before that if possible), and mesmers generally have much worse AoE than what I see in necro skills.

In the end, it feels like I shouldn’t go in with the mindset of teaching my son to play minions the way I play phantasms. Thx much for the feedback!

Thx folks. I’ll work on getting my question better defined at the start

I’m talking about WvW. And, NeXeD you have my question exactly correct. I’m trying to understand if a minion necro can be played in some way like a phantasm Mesmer. Even though Mesmer is overall in not a great place, I have a ton of fun roaming in WvW with a phantasm build. So I’m wondering if minions can end up being like that since I could teach my son pretty easily.

While phantasms themselves are pretty passive, my overall play style is pretty active. This is a very short example video of how might stacking works in Mesmer phantasm builds, but it gives a good idea of what the playstyle can be like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBStdjXeeYI

I’m basically wondering if minion necro can play somewhat like that in WvW

Is it possible that some other variable actually controls the order of removal?

For example, the condition with the longest remaining duration actually be prioritized always? Or possibly total remaining damage potential (e.g. how much damage would this condition cause if it ran to completion)?

From a coding point of view, it seems like a pain to create a specific removal list for every skill. Plus any time you add new conditions or substantively change them, you have to go back and review each list.

In general, I don’t like comparing specific skills of different classes. But I’m learning about necro coming from a Mesmer background, and I’m trying to compare similar strategies. This is a very rough comparison.

Mesmers can play a strategy of summoning phantasms and also attacking directly. The build I use has the berserker and the duelist. Both of these attack around once every 6 seconds (without the trait that accelerates them). The attacks are often around 3000 damage (with lots of might stacks, I see them get up to the 4000 – 5000 range on guards in WvW). So that’s about 500dps (ignoring the bleed stacks they can add based on traiting).

I did some quick calculations on a possible necro build (using build editor info and only having the Vampiric Master trait) and came up with this:
Blood Fiend = (239 + 58) / 3 = 99
Bone Minion = 2 x ((159+58) / 3.57) = 121
Bone Fiend = 2 x ((286+58) / 3.055) = 225
Shadow Fiend = (350 + 58) / 1.64 = 249
Flesh Golem = (578 + 58) / 1.2 = 530

So three phantasm is about 1500 dps and five minions is about 1200 dps.

Questions:
– Are my minion dps calculations close to what actually happens in the real world?
– Anyone who plays both classes have a sense of how necro weapon skills compare with Mesmer weapon skills in terms of damage in the real world?

Mostly I’m trying to understand if theoretically there’s a somewhat comparable playstyle between Mesmer phantasm and necro minion as it would make it a lot easier for me to teach my son about how to think about playing his necro. I have 1500 hours of playing Mesmer phantasm builds… lol

Thanks very much!

I’ll work with my son to try out those tips.

My two teenage sons have started playing, and one of them chose thief. So far he has been using shortbow and dagger/dagger or dagger/pistol. He’s mostly doing PVE and typically playing with two others (a necro and a mesmer mostly). But he had fun running with an EotM zerg for a while today, so maybe he’ll do more WvW.

I’d really appreciate any guidance on a recommended build for leveling and learning how to play thief. This is the first MMO for both boys.

Thx much!

I’m excited to see the changes. I’m glad they put time into ranger – it was needed.

I’ll be interested to see if other classes get anti-stealth mechanisms. It seems like it would be a choice for ranger and engi to take anti-stealth skills – not sure how often those skills will be taken. But I hope it at least reduces complaining about PU. And maybe it will finally force me to change my build.

Since they have shown a pattern of tweaking weapon skills, I would expect changes to scepter, greatsword (mind stab) and torch (phantasmal mage).

Mostly, I hope they put in bug fixes. Looking forward to it.

Thx very much for all the great help. I’m at work, so can’t chat

One last question – it seems like with the Death Nova trait that maybe it’s better not to take the increased health trait – it seems like you want the minions to die. I’m sure you don’t want them to die all at once, but having one die every 15-20 seconds seems like a good thing. I’m probably missing something coming from my Mesmer mindset (where clones and phantasms have only a couple thousand health).

Thanks again for all the help!

Couple other questions related to this build / topic:
- Are there any guidelines on how quickly life force builds up? I’m trying to get a feel for the timing of a fight – like how many weapon swaps are likely before going into death shroud
- How much of life force typically comes from things dying versus from skill usage?
- How long do minions typically last in a fight?
- Are there “standard” ways of playing minions (like casting fear before summoning to avoid interruptions)?
- Do all minions attack on a 1.5 second cycle?
- Does anything increase minion damage (e.g. can they get might stacks that affect their damage – for mesmers, you want the might stack on the Mesmer not the phantasm)

If there’s a good guide for this sort of stuff, please feel free to point me there. I’m sure all of these questions have been asked before…

Thx much!

Thanks very much for the feedback.

I worded my post poorly – my son choose minions and staff. I tried to make a build that I thought would work okay given those constraints.

The other constraints about same build for PVE and small-group WvW and not high skill cap are ones I’m adding based on how he is playing right now.

Thanks again for the help!

I’m learning necro profession to help out my son. Any help with these mechanics questions would be great:
- Wiki says any traits on your equipped weapon affect death shroud skills. So if you have Staff Mastery and have staff equipped when you go into death shroud, do you get 20% cooldown on death shroud skills?
- If you explode your bone minions, does that trigger the “on death” effect of death nova?
- When a skill says “life force: 3%” in the build editor, does this mean any hit with this skill fills the life force bar 3% of the total? If a skill can hit multiple targets, is this 3% per hit or just 3% for using the skill?
- How does Deathly Swarm actually work? If you had four conditions (let’s say bleed, torment, burning and poison) on you and did an attack that hit the first opponent, bounced to the second opponent and back to the first opponent, what do the opponents have in conditions? (I’m guessing the first opponent has three of your condis plus a long blind and the second opponent has a blind)

Thx much!

If you like scepter/pistol and you want to try WvW roaming, you might like this

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1iIABkt/QPKp+6KA4n6DFqCjOKT2RpAAPEgF0IsluA6UCGAABgV+chLchrzCBYeBA-w

I’ve used some variant of this for more than a year. It’s a lot of fun for me. Good luck!

My teenager just started playing and picked a necro. I really don’t know the class. I’ve played Mesmer for a long time and gotten a lot of good answers on that forum, so I’m looking for a little help.

My son hasn’t played any real MMO’s before. I’m trying to look for an end-game build that he can work toward along the way. Here’s all the things I’m trying to do in the build:
- Minions
- Staff
- Same build can work in PVE and World vs World (in both cases, he’ll be in a group of at least 3 – he doesn’t need to be the best but he needs to be effective and survivable – the likely set is phantasm Mesmer, thief and him – but he’ll also probably play with his friends playing ele and warrior)
- Doesn’t require great skill or reflexes

This is what I came up with based on those points:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRQQNAW3YjM00UbXNu1webiohS6AoBKAI7xBgyd4GA-TFCEABJ8AAKUJoEXEAFV/Jl9HiS5HAHBA30NQKgLGDA-w

I’m thinking he would start with staff and put down a couple marks. Switch and try to build life force with axe. Then go into death shroud and hopefully have a nice amount of might. (Maybe it takes a couple weapon swaps to get enough life force?)

Couple questions:
- Do marks trigger immediately if you cast them on an opponent?
- Is it enough to just have two condition removal skills (one on each weapon set with three condi’s for each)

Thanks for any feedback and guidance – have a great day

I don’t stream, and I’m a pretty average player. But occasionally I post a video trying to illustrate something from my solo roaming time. Here’s the one from today
http://youtu.be/2xqdku4J134

Short video showing roaming build I use and a three-way fight.

http://youtu.be/2xqdku4J134

As always, my skills are very average, so this isn’t one of those amazing gameplay videos. The opponents are mostly new to WvW here (and they basically never focus on me). So the things you might enjoy here:

• phantasms being effective in a group fight
  *couple good uses of arcane thievery
  *what I’m thinking about in a complex fight
  *more 1980’s music

Have fun

It would be phenomenal if this worked when you were blind (actually transferred the blind condition). It’s definitely something that can make the skill fail and make it frustrating. I think I would still rank the desired tweaks as:
- Auto-target on cast
- Instant cast
- Shorter cooldown
- Transfers blind (instead of failing)

The biggest decision is whether you’re doing condi with something like the Blackwater or doing phantasm. Condi tends to be more survivable but slower in traveling and slower in killing easy targets (I think – I don’t play it). Phantasm allows you to have travelers runes without any real penalty, faster burst, but less survivability.

I play a phantasm (or phantasm hybrid because you’ll get a fair amount of damage from bleeds, torment and a bit of confusion) build. There are tons of other variants, but mine currently looks like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1iIABkt/QPKp+6KA4n6DFqCjOKT2RpAAPEgF0IsluA6UCGAABgV+chLchrzCBYeBA-w

Pyro generally makes the point that eventually in WvW, you end up in a 1v4 and the condi PU build is the only way to survive. I think it depends very much on your server, play times, and play style. I have about 8800 WvW kills and 3500 camp captures – about 80% of those are solo. I very rarely find myself in a 1v4, and I don’t mind dying if I get in that situation. I lose more 1v2 fights than I win, but my skill is decidedly average. More importantly for me, those fights are exciting.

In terms of rotations, I usually try to get a duelist up and switch to get the zerker up before I’m in combat. This weapon set is designed to fight from distance, so I usually throw mirror blade from a distance and don’t get the might bounces (but it will bounce off the zerker to get two hits on the target). Look for interrupt opportunities because bountiful interruption is very helpful. Stealth to reposition and cast phantasms. For even more burst, cast duelist, cast ether signet and cast duelist again.

While I screw up sometimes, I think this build can beat basically any other build. It can certainly beat a PU condi Mesmer since you don’t ever need to attack the other Mesmer directly. Good thieves are hard, but being able to put up duelists quickly and having magic bullet is nice.

Good luck!

I’ve been using this skill a lot lately. It’s one of those really fun skills that so satisfying when you use it right. So I hope any change doesn’t nerf it.

I’m using it as my primary condi-clear mechanism, so the biggest issue is when it fails. The two failure cases for me are primarily when it goes out of range and when the target is lost. There may be some other failure case – something happens where the outline of the skill icon sort of pulses, but the condi transfer doesn’t happen. This typically happens in really chaotic fights, so I don’t know if it’s just another case of lost target or out of range. I’ve definitely tested successfully facing away from a target, and it worked reliably in controlled PVE tests.

I think I would prioritize changes like this:
- Auto-target if no target selected (the thief stealths, but I could still dump that poison on something in range)
- Instant cast (helps with both range and target loss cases)
- Slightly shorter cooldown

It’s so satisfying when it works and so frustrating when it doesn’t

The last one about class philosophy was really cool – and it was nice to provide some input ahead of time.

If there’s another one upcoming, here are a few things that I’d love to see:
- Some idea of how class balance changes and fixes are meant to fit with living story updates
- A view on when the next significant updates are likely and what each profession can do now to help with that process
- The dev view on what one or two things each class needs most right now
- The dev view on what roles each class is best suited to fill in pve/pvp/wvw

Don’t know if any of these are viable topics, but I would enjoy them and I think you could get a lot of input ahead of time if you asked

Thx for all the hard work on the game

Thx much for the help.

In my particular case, the crit chance does matter a lot as I’m using the crit for several things;
- Life steal food
- Sigils of generosity as part of condi handling strategy
- Proccing bleeds (especially with iDuelist)

So right now, the build I’m using is 2050 to 2100 power with a 59% crit chance for me and 79% for the phantasms. The damage on a critical hit is only %194 since ferocity is hard to stack up.

What I’m considering is giving up a bit more defense and swapping out one of my sentinel pieces for an assassins piece or possibly swapping out an earring / ring. Pretty small adjustments really, but I like to continuously tweak. And it’s nice to know what others are running.

This is the current build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-TliIABkt/QPKp+6KA4n6DFqCjOKT2RpAAPEgt0NQnSwAAIA7cnpz6MwKfuwFuw1ZhAMvAA-w

Thanks so much for doing all the podcasts. I’ve learned a ton from them.

If this is the last one, here are a few things that I would find really fun and more interesting than talking about what’s wrong.

- Top two or three tips for fighting each of the other professions 1v1

- What strategies you think are viable for dealing with conditions in the different game modes

- Your favorite Mesmer builds for all the different modes (pve, wvw, pvp – is there one good shatter build for all of these, one good phantasm build, is there a lockdown build that applies to all). Maybe not necessarily looking for the very best build for each situation but something that’s fun and workable for all of them

- Some speculation What do you think is likely to happen with the class in time? What changes do you predict in game mechanics? (It’s interesting to see the latest living world update has some elements that seem like they’re trying to pull more of the pvp concepts into pve. Maybe it’s been going on for a while, but in the current living story, I’m seeing lots of stealthing opponents, opponents with strippable boons, opponents that dodge, demonstration of the portal (though it’s shown in a way that’s different than how it currently works). So some speculation on what you think will come at some point would be cool.

Thx again and have fun!

Thx. I’m at a similar crit chance, but lower crit damage.

Pondering swapping out a bit of defense for more offense…

I’m curious what power roaming wvw mesmers typically have (for power roaming builds – either shatter or phantasm).

I’m around 2100 base plus 100 from the guard killer stacks and then whatever I get in might stacking. In most cases, this seems to produce plenty of damage.

I’m wondering what most people are running – trying to make some risk-reward decisions. Thx!

I definitely feel for folks who can’t get fun out of the class and the game.

I still have fun roaming around in WvW. I’m sure WvW roaming is a bit different on different servers, but I generally find some fun fights, and I still feel like I can keep working on getting better (finally solo’d a tower the other day, solo’d a fully upgraded camp a couple weeks ago, still have stuff on my list…). But I can totally see how my experience may not match up with others.

More importantly, this forum has always had a great number of really smart and helpful people. Thx for taking a moment to point that out, Swish.

I am currently running generosity sigils on both scepter and greatsword to supplement using Arcane Thievery as a condi handling strategy. It’s expensive and so far a little tricky to manage as you really can’t control what condi gets pulled off and when. But it’s very fun when you see a condition pop off you and show up on the opponent.

I used Fire sigil on the scepter for a while, and that seemed to work fine as well.

I’ll miss your posts. I hope the podcasts still happen – I think there’s still a bit to talk about (especially things like fighting against other classes if you’re a Mesmer using different kinds of builds – I’m too lazy to go learn all their abilities)

Chaos, if you keep writing, consider submitting your manuscript to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. It happens every year (in February I think). I submitted a book a few years ago and got some nice feedback as it went through the different rounds. http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000633821

Fermi is asking for a PU roaming build. Pyro shared a PU condi build. I’m offering a PU power build. Osicat posted a couple of PU power options as well.

I think for the question of what is better or more easymode, the difference is that the PU condi builds rely on the opponent killing themselves (mostly) and the PU power builds rely on the phantasms taking down the opponent. I’ve played against PU condi builds several times, but I’ve never played it. I find I can beat them if I just pay attention (and particularly avoid the scepter block / torment).

Scepter and sword are just different. Scepter is definitely better than sword if you need to damage from 900 distance. Most PU power builds don’t use scepter. It might, however, be more “easymode” in this build because you just use the block and use confusing images. On sword for “easymode” perhaps you would only use blurred frenzy and ignore ileap.

@zaxon Scepter is actually quite nice once you get the hang of it. The block is handy and the torment puts out quite a bit of damage even in a power build. Confusing images is tedious to start, but scales very well with power. Here’s a very short video that is mostly about might stacking.

At around 55 seconds, you can see me using confusing images. It’s ticking for 1100+ per hit (and can hit 5 times in 2 seconds and pierce up to 5 targets).

The auto-attack is slow and the damage is underwhelming – about 400-500 for the first two hits and about 800-1000 for Ether Clone. So I try not to use it.

The reason I started using scepter is because it’s our only ranged mainhand. You can see in the video how I try to avoid most damage by keeping distance. It’s taken a lot of hours of practice to get comfortable with scepter, but I disagree with your assessment that it adds 0 damage.

This is what I use for WvW roaming right now. I’m average skill level despite lots of hours of play. I feel like I can win any 1v1 with this build (though I screw up and die sometimes – especially to good thieves). You can get around pretty quickly with Travelers runes and traited blinkittenep a focus in my inventory (which I keep open) so I can swap that in when running across the map.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1iIABkt/QPKp+6KA4n6DFqCjOKT2RpAAPEgF0IsluA6UCGAABgV+chLchrzCBYeBA-w

I’m testing out a condi handling strategy of Arcane Thievery plus two generosity sigils. It’s an expensive experiment, but I like to keep tweaking.

Coming into the patch today, I didn’t really expect any changes for Mesmers. Since this is a living world patch, I think it’s intended to be separate from a balance patch.

Secretly, I hoped a couple bugs would get fixed or possibly that something might happen with greatsword or scepter as there’s been some discussion on them where the devs have participated.

Since the iLeap change in this patch has clearly made some people unhappy, it would be good if there was some expectation setting (or re-setting) about what we should see in living world patches and what (and when) we should see in balance/fix patches.

I know it’s tricky to project the future, but even a general statement like “living world patches will only contain class changes to fix exploits, major bugs or major balance issues” would be very helpful. As it stands, I’m going with the assumption that using iLeap when the clone was dead was somehow being used as an exploit.

Anyone have info on a target date for balance/profession bugfixes?

In terms of phantasms surviving longer to do more damage, I was wondering about the idea of being able to swap out an F1-F4 kind of skill to get either a heal or an invuln for all phantasms.

Another possibility is a new elite skill that would buff/invuln all phantasms.

Then the “counterplay” here is waiting out these effects and knowing that the Mesmer can’t use them too often.

As much as most people don’t seem to use it, I think Ether Signet is a really interesting healing skill that allows for an offensive boost (at a tradeoff). It would be interesting to see another kind of tradeoff decision that would let you keep phantasms alive to do more damage.

You still have to choose to use Berserker or Warden to do AoE phantasm damage, but it’s an option.

I’ve come to generally like the scepter though I wish the auto-attack was a bit faster.

As a new player to GW2 with Mesmer as my first character, I really didn’t get the scepter. I think Mesmer is positioned as a more advanced class, but all three of the scepter skills have something about them that add to the learning curve for the new player (who is starting in PVE).

Autoattack is slow and by the time the clone is created, you have agro (mobs aren’t fooled by this clone). Block is a bit of a tricky thing to learn at the start since you don’t know any tells. The 3rd skill has the huge lag in startup so it feels cumbersome and mobs don’t attack often enough to really be hurt by confusion.

At this point, I’d rather have only minimal changes in scepter since I’ve learned to really like it. But it is interesting to have a “tricksy” weapon as the first weapon for the profession.

This sounds like it would be tough for the way I play. I use phantasms as my primary form of damage.

I can summon three right at the start of any fight if I want to begin with a high burst. For example, summon a duelist, flip weapon sets (before he shoots), summon berserker, use ether signet, and summon another berserker.

Generally I don’t do that, but it’s an option currently. Perhaps you would mean for the F1 and F2 skills to be available to be reset by ether signet.

I don’t have a lot of trouble with overwriting phantasms because I don’t usually put up three at once.

I use three of the shatters even when I play a phantasm build:
- Mind wrack when the target is near death
- Diversion when I value the interrupt more than the damage
- Distortion for stomps (or if I get into a lot of trouble)

Using the shatters feels like an interesting but manageable decision in the way I play. It would be really tough to give up the utilities to get any of these shatters. I would probably just lose the shatters entirely from my set of tools which would be a sad loss of variety.

I do think it would be very interesting to have a couple choices that were specific to the F1-F4 skills. For example, if I could choose to replace Cry of Frustration with a skill that healed all phantasms (even if it just healed them for something like 800 health), I would use that for sure. That could make phantasms a bit more viable in a zerg situation.

Just sharing how this idea is working. The beginning is choppy as I’m using short clips just to show how the skills can work. The last part is a tower solo where you can get a feel for the pace of the generosity sigils procing.

http://youtu.be/r2gn_UO5miM

P.S. Contains more old guy music and average game play. And happy father’s day to all the dads.

Yeah, I’ve been asking about and testing AT for a while. I agree that the general input is to use AT offensively to steal boons. And, for sure, it’s fun to do that.

I’m just trying to see if there’s a viable condi management strategy where I can incorporate it. After a couple of weeks of only having AT, I’m still fine in WvW fights in general. But there are cases where I get stuck with something like a stack of torment after I’ve used AT.

I think Mender’s Purity is very cool, but right now, I’m not using that trait line.

Does anyone know what classes ARE using these sigils? Seems like a 35 gold price must mean someone uses them.

Thanks for the answers. Here’s the bigger picture. This is all wvw roam/havoc

I’ve been trying to use Arcane Thievery (with 36 second cooldown) as my primary way to deal with conditions. It is somewhat unpredictable, but it’s really fun when it works (either for condi transfer or for boon stealing).

But AT seems a little bit too unreliable and 36 seconds is a long time to wait.

So with a 60% crit chance in my build, I was thinking maybe a condi transfer from each weapon set might be enough to make a complete condi defense.

Thx much for the input! I suspect it’s too unreliable, but I’ve been living for a week or two with only AT

Not strictly a Mesmer question, but I always get good answers here.

Has anyone experimented much with superior sigil of generosity since the April patch?

They are really expensive, but I was wondering if they might be worth it.

Do they have any failure cases? Like out of range or can somehow be dodged or because your crit has happened, the condi will always be transferred.

Thanks for any feedback

In case you didn’t see, Josh posted a thread in the Profession Balance forum basically asking what you thought about strengths, weaknesses, and kryptonite for your profession

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Ready-Up-Balance-Philosophy-6-13-Noon-PDT/page/5#post4116214

They are using the posts in this thread as input for the ReadyUp episode tomorrow.

Lots of good Mesmer input there already, but they want views from every playstyle. Go share

Mesmer

Notes
Thanks for making this thread and doing this episode. I look forward to watching tomorrow. After 1.5 years of playing and 1500 hours, GW2 is by far my favorite game ever. In that time, I moved from nearly a purely PVE player to nearly a purely WvW player. I log in every day and have fun every time. Thanks for all your hard work.

Strengths

• It’s fun to play. Have unique skills. Can keep learning. So much fun in combat.
• Can fight any class 1v1 and feel like you could win (phantasm build)
• Can uniquely aid others with portal, veil, mass invisibility

Weaknesses

• Seems hard to make a viable condi build except PU-condi (tried shatter condi for a bit)
• All of the other limitations seem like fair trade-offs to me (e.g. out of combat speed, fairly minimal AoE)

Kyrptonite
*Main role in a large (zerg) scenario seems to be veil and portal. While interesting and cool abilities, my guess is that it’s just not that fun. I pretty much only do roaming/havoc, so it doesn’t bother me. But for people who want to play with their friends in large-scale wvw, I think there needs to be other build choices. (Maybe a GM trait that gives phantasms invulnerability for a few seconds)

Thx again and have fun!

There are a few builds in this thread that might suit you well

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Trait-choice-for-zerker-Pu-build

Not sure if this falls into the rules of the game, but what if you have three phantasms all timed to do their attacks within the one-second window (maybe 3 iZerkers) and then you add in Prestige pre-cast, blurred frenzy, mantra of pain, and shatter at the end of the second?

It’s certainly not the same as the question of what’s the highest 1-second burst starting from a cold start. But something like that is likely the highest burst within a 1-second window.

Is this screen available outside of PvP? I’d love to see more detail on what I did wrong in a WvW fight.

This is what I run in WvW right now. It’s PU, but it’s a phantasm build.

I think the traits work quite nicely this way

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-TFjFABDcBAgb/hkUSpo6DRqCDAHBAjUmckSBGeIAXoR4MdBAqEMAACAr85CX4CXnFCw8CA-w

I think Mesmer is a very interesting profession. It feels like there’s always something more to learn. Many other professions can be more effective in early levels, and there are limits on what roles and styles you can play at the most extreme end-of-game scenarios (elite dungeon running, player vs player, etc).

Like Hamster said, I think concentrating on the phantasms (there will be one in every weapon set) is the easiest and best way to start. I really like the illusionary berserker on the greatsword. I also like the illusionary duelist on the pistol.

You can do fine by yourself. You might not be able to fight many opponents at once. Mesmer feels harder to level up than other GW2 professions, but not too hard or slow compared to some other MMOs. It depends a lot on your point of view, but I didn’t notice the a leveling issue when I started because Mesmer was my first GW2 character

Lots of good info here. I will just add a couple of points.
- I would get rid of scepter as early as possible. It’s a confusing weapon. (I use it all the time now, but I think it’s bad for beginners.

- I would start with greatsword. Put the skill one on auto-attack. Start by casting the phantasm (Illusionary Berserker). Then use Mirror Blade. When the mob gets close, use Illusionary Wave to push it away. Those skills are all pretty straightforward.

- I suggest avoiding fights with multiple opponents as much as possible to start. For sure, watching my friend on warrior made me envious early on. Mesmer is not great at multiple mobs.

Have fun and good luck!

Thx for the info on pvp. I can see how boxing in all the phantasms makes them easier to kill. For sure, fighting at the top of a tower in WvW gets tricky – I find myself running to the back to drop the duelists and then letting the zerkers run through the middle.

Sorry to hijack your thread a bit, Elitist. One thing to consider – phantasms aren’t really an optional class mechanic, every full weaponset has a phantasm. Unless you refuse to push that button, you’ll have phantasms out. So it’s pretty hard to play Mesmer without having some actions taken by the AI (including how the illusions path to the target when you shatter). I hope you get a chance to try playing the class and see if it’s something you enjoy – maybe it won’t feel too “AI-ish” when you play it.

Ah, timing is everything. I was replying to Elitist.

Thx for the explanation, Fay. Is pvp really that different than 2-man roaming in wvw? I do tons of 2v2, 2v3, etc fights in wvw with a phantasm build.

For sure, in fights with tons of AoE, the phantasms die before they get multiple attacks. I use duelists a lot (and use ether signet for 2 duelist burst). I find if I drop them on the edge of a 2 to 5 person fight, they usually last for a few attacks.

Thx again for the answers!