I voted for boosting Ranger and Ele and fixing bugs on others (like iWarden for Mesmer)
It’s really hard to tell what voting for “balance” means, but it feels like those classes need more boosting
1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
Work on boosting those two and doing bug fixes for broken things on other classes (e.g. warden and leap for Mesmer)
I forgot to add that, because I use disenchanter, the signet is also my reset for clearing conditions.
I use the Mesmer signet with my phantasm build. In PVE, I use it as you describe, a utility to bring on more phantasms quickly. In WvW, I also use it that way at times – to finish off a camp faster when roaming or to add more burst on an opponent.
In terms of healing, I agree that it’s basically always worse than Ether Feast. For me, using a PU phantasm build, I’m okay with the passive healing and the lesser active heal in exchange for the burst. If I don’t win with the burst, I expect to die (or maybe to run away).
I don’t do pvp, but I suspect it wouldn’t work well there.
Thx for the summary – very helpful.
If I end up transferring, I’d like to avoid moving again.
With guesting to other servers for major PVE bosses and EotM, I don’t feel urgent about making a decision. So I have to give Anet credit for putting in those options.
I’m thinking of leaving Kaineng. The fun part is really feeling like I make a difference, and it’s nice to be able to roam around and take camps. But it can be tough to get sufficient mass to get things done both in WvW and PVE.
I have this vision of a mid-tier server where it’s possible to make a difference, but also where there might be a bit more stability in the wvw guilds.
The alternative seems to be just playing the EotM map. I actually like the map a lot, and I feel like you can find small group fights that are pretty fun there.
I’d love to commit to a great wvw guild, but the reality is the 350+ levels I’ve earned so far probably represent too much time spent in game. So I’m hoping for something that’s fun and competitive while not feeling like a huge commitment.
Any suggestions? Thx!
I had a lot of fun exploring, learning new champions, and having some interesting fights. As someone who likes small group and solo fights, it was really nice to be able to roam around and quickly get into some action.
I look forward to spending time in EotM for quite a while to come.
One of the things I like about the PU builds is that there’s actually quite a variety amongst all these. They tend to be 20/20/30, but the condi ones, pretty much always take cleansing conflagration, deceptive evasion and debilitating dissipation to create clones and benefit from their destruction (I think). The power ones pretty much always take empowered illusions and phantasmal fury. I think the condi ones almost always work in the scepter to get the torment on block. Beyond that, I see quite a few variations.
This is the power build I use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQNAR7anUEFWbRNC1wWbkw0je7bgTShqTdJF4O3A-jUDBYfCyEEQkIBOBdIa5phtMsIas6aYKXBR7CS/K1GcLr2mDyUGQIgRLAA-w
I think they should have lead off with the message that they put much later in the thread.
They have many changes besides the items listed in the post. I think they felt the need to make the post because not everyone watched the twitch stream, and they wanted to show that they did listen (e.g. they reversed their change on Deceptive Evasion)
It would be nice to see the total final list of changes, but I’m sure it’s hard to know which ones will make it until they get through testing.
Thanks Chaos.
Just because lots of people use greatsword, doesn’t mean it can’t be used in interesting ways. For example, if you are at range, you can cast zerker first if you want to have something to bounce mirror blade off to get a second hit on a solo target. Or you can cast mirror blade as you run in, so you get the bounce and then transfer the increased power from the might stacks over to all your phantasms.
You can use Mind Stab to try rip stability off of a guardian before you use Illusionary Wave. And illusionary wave is lots of fun on bridges and cliffs… Plus you can use it to push thieves out of their houses.
And, while I think that staff is clearly more defensive, greatsword has some neat defensive options. Illusionary wave is pretty straight forward, but you also can get benefits from Bountiful Interruption (for sure offense, but sometimes defensive) when you interrupt people with wave. The other interesting thing is that the two illusions have nice spacing when you use diversion. The mirror blade clone is right next to the target, so you can throw it and hit diversion right away and get a quick daze. And zerker is often spaced a littler further away, so you get a chance at two dazes (especially if your other illusions are things like a duelist or a scepter clone).
I think I understand the OP, but I think there are two key points here.
1) There are a lot of different Mesmer builds that use stealth and the PU trait. I play a phantasm/power one. It’s very different than the Blackwater build. I’ve fought quite a few different Mesmers with stealth and PU, and the fights have been very different. I fought a really fun fight that I lost against another phantasm PU build, and it was exciting to see the health drops and recoveries. The fight went long enough that you could start to see into how the rotations were coming together (even with the stealths), and my opponent did a better job of anticipating my burst and creating a counter burst.
2) I think there are two kinds of frustration that happen with “tricky” builds. The first kind of frustration is the “wtf” reaction when you don’t understand. Thieves were like that for me in the beginning. And anything that uses stealth (and really clones and staff retreat and blink cause similar confusion) will be frustrating to a player who is new to these mechanics. I don’t see a way around it – the different mechanics are what make the classes unique. The second kind of frustration is knowing that the fight might drag on or end in a disappointment. When I run into warriors, I often assume that they will run away. I know some thieves will break off and run away if the fight doesn’t end quickly in their favor. I think many mesmers that use stealth can fall into this category as well. But I just look at this as part of the reality of the situation in the same way that if I’m roaming solo and find a camp that is upgraded I need to decide if it’s going to be worth the time and effort to mess with it.
For sure, the good fights are really special. But I don’t think I can generalize that all players that use trait X will be good or bad fights for me.
I’ve had duelist pick up a new target in WvW. I think it happens when they lose their current target, but that target is not destroyed and there’s a new viable target available.
It may happen with all phantasms, but duelists attack is pretty visible.
Can you repair siege after it has been destroyed?
I’ve grabbed a hammer and gone back to the spot where the arrow cart was located, but it doesn’t seem like I can bring it back.
Speeding up the projectile for scepter 1 would be very nice all by itself for me.
Finding a way to add a blast finisher somewhere on scepter would be awesome
For me, the biggest thing is that it stays viable as a ranged, one-handed power weapon (and I consider it to be viable for that today – not great, but viable). I’m guessing most people use it as a condi weapon, but I use it for its ranged aspect in a power build
I just hope that whatever gets changed, the scepter can still be used as power weapon for people who want to fight at range. It’s the only one-handed weapon that can be used at range.
For that case, just making the autoattack a little faster would be great.
I know that using it as a weapon in a condi build is much more prevalent, but when you get used to how it works, the scepter can be fine in a power build. I felt it was worth investing in making an ascended version – hopefully it won’t get an unintentional nerf when they try to make it better.
I’m hoping they don’t nerf runes that were expensive. I invested a bunch to get Travelers runes because they fit exactly what I needed.
In terms of Sigils, I’m intrigued with trying a mixture of battle and either leeching or blood. I know that energy is better for the phantasm build I’m playing because they give more dodges, but I’m curious to see if I can get a reasonable overall passive heal rate by combining the life drain sigils with the healing signet.
With arrow carts, ballista, golems, etc at the marionette event, I was wondering if the points invested in WvW skills apply in that fight.
I tried an experiment the other day in boosting my mortar skill to level 3, and the faster refresh ability didn’t seem to apply in the Shatterer fight.
Thx!
First, I’m really happy that some changes got previewed and that conversation is being encouraged. It’s too to make software that makes everyone happy, but staying engaged and involved in the conversation helps a lot.
I don’t play shatter and don’t use DE, but I hope it doesn’t get heavily nerfed. As I was leveling up my Mesmer, I found DE to be one of the most fun traits I tried. It has that magical feeling of being tricky and useful while still relying on the player skill to use it well. It not only helped me survive, it helped remind me to dodge.
The Mesmer class is always going to frustrate other players because it has a nice combination tricky skills and clones popping up. If these characteristics go away, then the Mesmer won’t be the same class and won’t be as fun to play. I’m hopeful that there’s a good balance solution to whatever the problem is here, and I’m hopeful that Anet can find ways to teach players about clones by adding more things in PVE that help train players on the concept. I thought it was cool that down-state and stomping was added to the tower, and I think a lot can be done to leave Mesmers with their trickiness while giving players better preparation to deal with us.
I like double-tap because it lets me dodge directionally
For folks who have dodge on only one key, does it dodge in the direction you are moving if you’re holding a movement key?
With my play style, I get much more bloodstone dust and empyreal fragments than dragonite ore. I would pay for a device (or more likely a consumable service) that allowed me to convert the other ascended mats to dragonite ore.
I wouldn’t mind if it cost 3x – 5x the materials as wells as the cost of the converter (e.g. 400 fragments to make 100 ore).
Would this be appealing to other people?
You can swap out utilities. I normally do not run with Portal, but if I’m working with a group that needs it, I’ll add it to my bar temporarily.
I tend to use Disenchanter as my primary condi clear now. I mostly fight solo and small groups. I don’t have too much trouble with opponents dodging all of it because I usually have it up in conjunction with a berserker and a duelist, and I try to use magic bullet and illusionary wave to stun or knockdown opponents.
I don’t read the WvW forums a lot, so apologies if this has already been suggested.
One of the consistent complaints I see is that people want more balanced matches. I think given the server-based approach to matches, it’s hard to imagine that there could ever be great balance (and if it happened, it would probably get boring).
But what if there were short (maybe 3-hour long) scheduled matches (could be on the regular map or the edge of the mists map). They happened at specific times, and you could sign up with your guild to participate. But the actual red, blue and green sides are determined by balancing out the total numbers. So the three sides are even at the start.
With this approach, there could also be some variants added along the way like minimum ranking to participate (or maximum rank so that you could make a newbie friendly situation – and do something to reward commanders who come in and teach). You could also potentially implement some things like maximum group size, so if people wanted to avoid blob vs blob battles, there would be a battle for that.
I’m not sure how difficult all of this is logistically, but it would be cool to go into WvW knowing basically what to expect and have a real sense of accomplishment when you succeeded.
I’m sure there issues with this approach, but it feels like there’s some opportunity here. Perhaps the next “season” is one where you have a series of matches like this and the rewards go to guilds (as well as individuals).
I made a little video of the roaming build I use in WvW. The thread is here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Video-PU-Roaming-Phantasm-PURP-WvW
The video only shows solo roaming, but I use this build with others as well. It’s helpful if you have voice so you can let them know a stealth skill is coming.
You can get to pretty high crit chance, but as others have mentioned, your goal is roughly equal levels of crit chance and crit damage percent. Since I have fury on all my phantasms, I balance for them being about equal crit chance and crit percent.
@qaelyn I forgot to respond to your part about condition removal. The disenchanter seems quite powerful to me, but you could certainly swap it for another option. Disenchanter has two little side benefits in this build. If it gets killed early and you can’t wait for the 20 second cooldown, the signet also refreshes this phantasm. Also, it’s a handy range indicator for using the greatsword auto-attack at max range (since the disenchanter is a 900-range cast)
There’s one other bit of condition removal in the build since you can shoot through veil to remove conditions. But that’s very tricky to pull off (it used to be cool when duelist would proc 100%)
Anyway, thanks very much for the feedback. Have fun!
@quentijar glad you’re having fun with it!
@qaelyn – I’ve never played tPvP, so I can’t say how it would work. You could certainly use another heal. The biggest benefit of the signet for me is the burst damage. You might see it a couple times in the camp fight – I cast a phantasm, swap, cast a phantasm, use the signet, and cast the phantasm again. That get’s three phantasms out in a hurry (either 2 zerkers and a duelist or 2 duelists and a zerker).
I’ve really enjoyed videos from other mesmers, so I made one that shows what my WvW experience is like.
Here’s a link to the build: http://bit.ly/18Y9seQ
It’s a 20/20/30 build, but it focuses on phantasms versus conditions as the primary damage source. Besides just wanting to share my experience and show what’s fun for me, I wanted to show that not all “PU” builds are the same. Osicat has a great video here that is yet another approach to using PU in a build. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K700U5oxLso
I would love some feedback on two areas:
- Things I’m screwing up in the fights (there are tons of fights that go worse than this)
- How to make the video better (this is my first video – I’m using Fraps and Sony Vegas Movie Studio)
Thanks and have a great 2014!
Really cool video. I think you have battle sigils in the video, but not in the build that you linked.
It’s very cool to see how you use your mobility for both offense and defense.
@chaos here’s a link to my build http://bit.ly/18vY89x
I’m not actually dealing with people specifically messaging me to say my build is unfair. I mostly roam in WvW, so I don’t tend to stick around long after a fight (unless I need to finish taking a camp or something).
And I’m really trying to ask the second question – what kinds of tactics and moves separate a “skilled” phantasm Mesmer from an “unskilled” one. I don’t really mean this post to be about me. I’m around rank 270 in WvW with about 4000 – 5000 kills mostly from roaming and havoc. But I know there are tremendously more skilled Mesmer players here on the forums. So I’m asking what kinds of things people do as phantasm players that show real skill.
@terekhov I’ve never tried casting a phantasm and swapping into inventory. It feels like the timing is pretty tight. I do try to open by casting a phantasm and swapping before the phantasm engages so that I can swap back without having to wait for the cooldown. I do try to fight from range. That’s the point of my build. That also means that I need to keep the terrain in mind and choose when I use my stealths to disengage and maneuver. When I fight against other phantasm mesmers, it doesn’t happen like you describe. There’s usually an initial dodge on the first phantasm attack, and then I will typically try to take out the other phantasm (which isn’t so hard because of their low health – it’s more about choosing what to target and knowing what skills you have available – I try not to use a phantasm on a phantasm, but it’s been the better tradeoff from time to time.)
I guess that’s the kind of stuff I’m looking for here – what kinds of decisions people make when using phantasm builds that represent skillful play.
Ever since I saw Pyro’s build for a phantasm Mesmer for dungeons, I have focused on some form of phantasm build. Over the past year, I tuned a build to work the way I like and have played it a lot in WvW. Fairly often, I see a post that says phantasm builds are “no skill” builds. It doesn’t feel that way to me when I play. I feel like I’m constantly moving, using every skill on all my weapons, managing which phantasms are up, swapping weapon sets as frequently as possible, dodging and using blocks or interrupts defensively, etc.
I haven’t played a shatter build or a mantra build or any other Mesmer build for at least 10 months. So I don’t have personal experience to compare in terms of the level of skill involved. But I guess it really comes down to just two questions:
- Is it possible to play a phantasm Mesmer at a high level of skill? For example, so that someone would say they lost to that Mesmer because of their skill vs their build.
- If so, what characterizes playing a phantasm Mesmer at a high skill level? What separates it from a “low skill” phantasm player?
Thx and happy holidays
There’s nothing that I really hate about the class. I think if I had to choose, I would say change nothing versus potentially breaking something I like. If I had to pick two things, they would be:
- Scepter improvements – but any change that makes it less viable as a ranged weapon that does power-based damage is bad for me. It is the only one-handed ranged mainhand weapon.
- Portal range/time indicators – I feel really bad when I screw up on using a portal
This is what I have been playing for the last six months or so in WvW
http://bit.ly/18vY89x
If you get the stack bonuses for guard kills (power and vitality), you can end up with quite a nice burst (especially if you also have 25 bloodlust stacks)
As I build out my ascended armor, I’m planning on doing half sentinels and half assassins to add even more burst.
I’ve been using it for a while in my PU phantasm build. I really like it now.
Sometimes, I still need to remind myself that the active can be used as a heal. I am remembering more and more often to use the active to bring up another phantasm when I need it (for example, it seems like a good trade in a fight with a necro to recast disenchanter quickly if the first one died)
It definitely has taken me a while to get used to the mechanic and the cooldown time
Not a big deal – I think this is actually more interesting because of what it says about the underlying mechanics.
Today there was a daily for condition removal. Since I’ve been using Illustionary Disenchanter as my condition removal for a while, I thought I would try it out.
After several tries where iDisenchanter clearly took a condition off me, I checked the daily progress. No progress was recorded under the condition removal category.
I assume it happens this way because the Disenchanter gets credit for the removal (versus my character). So this may be interesting from PvE agro calculation point of view.
If you’re ever playing against other players, when you say “F….ing Mesmer!”, at least you’ll be one. And you will say it….
I only play WvW against other players (no PvP), but it definitely took a couple of tries to learn to like disenchanter. Now whenever I see a necro, guardian, ele, or engineer, it’s my priority to get it out right after my first two phantasms (sometimes right after the first offensive phantasm).
I have trouble keeping track of the disenchanter during the fight, but I can see the orb bouncing around. And the fights go well when disenchanter is out.
One small advantage I see in WvW fights – not many people seem to use disenchanter, so I think opponents don’t always know what it is.
I think it looks very cool from a visual standpoint. I was surprised to see negative responses – this tends to be a very friendly forum.
From a lore or backstory approach, I think people can come up with whatever they want. Perhaps this character realizes the power of illusions and vows to center himself on reality while inflicting the harm and chaos of illusions on others. Perhaps he chooses to wear black to represent that the world is always in the mind of the beholder.
If what you’re looking for a is a PU build that focuses on direct damage (versus condi damage), you might like something like this.
As Pyro points out, this isn’t a “raw dps” build like you might get with all berserker gear and maxing out some traits. But this has been fun and flexible for me for WvW roaming.
Thx much for doing this test!
Should we assume that your stats where no higher than what you got from traits? For example, was condition damage 200?
Thx again
I’m starting down the path of crafting my ascended armor. I play mostly solo and small group roaming in WvW on a lower tier server using a PU phantasm build (20/20/30)
I currently use a mixture of Sentinels and Soldiers armor. I’m considering switching to a mixture of Sentinels and Berserker armor. My current build gets the phantasms to be around 75% crit chance and crit damage while still getting me fairly close to 20K health and over 1600 toughness. That was my design goal from Kylia and Pyro’s optimization podcast many months ago.
Now with the 250 vitality bonus from killing guards, plus the ability to slot 30 vitality in infusions, and the increased armor values on ascended items, I’m thinking I might be better off to raise the damage potential a bit more.
Anyone run a mix anything like this? Are there particular pieces that have the most value if I do them as berserker? (e.g. the +crit damage is 1% higher)
Thx!
Coming from Ether Feast, the signet is a big mental shift. When I’m playing in WvW, what I trained myself to do (good or bad) with Ether Feast was to watch for a big health drop and then try to use it. I think in most fights against other players, it’s fairly common to get big drops in health.
My goal is not to use the active on the signet except for when I’m nearly gone – then I have a race to get more damage out (and I should have one or two phantasms readily available – depends on where weapon swap cooldown is). If I’m at deaths door in my typical 1v1 or small group fights, getting 5586 healing and two fresh phantasms is probably better than getting 6876 (ether feast with two illusions).
From a math perspective, I’m looking at this:
I expect signet to average around 220 hps. That’s based on an average of two clones or phantasms out when the tick happens. It’s tricky because illusions die, targets die, and sometimes I shatter.
If I only had two illusions out when I cast Ether Feast, it would heal for 6876.
So when a spike in damage comes, I need to be able to hold out without taking any more damage for about 31 seconds at my 220 hps to get back to the same place that Ether Feast would have put me with the 6876 heal. So I think the problem is that playing with the signet will mean I find myself dropping lower on health more often and feeling like I have to use the signet.
I need to test it a lot more to find out if I’m happy with this. It’s certainly going to feel more stressful at first. I’m working on finding ways to blunt the bursts because that’s the real issue here for me. When the fights don’t have big bursts of damage (like most of the fights I have in PVE), the signet seems great
I did a little experimenting in wvw (bronze tier server) with a PU phantasm build.
I took a couple camps and fought a couple 1 v 1’s.
Probably the biggest conclusion was that I felt some tension when my health dropped. I wanted to hit my heal like I normally do with etherfeast, but I resisted. It felt more stressful to be sitting at half health and not use a heal to make it surge back up.
I started to think of illusionary disenchanter as a bit of heal. Casting it when I didn’t really need condition removal, but I wanted a little more healing.
When I did use the heal skill, it was nice to have the extra phantasms. But I felt like I pretty much needed to finish the fight at that point. I did use the heal skill “offensively” once when I was finishing off the camp supervisor – cast duelist then did the heal and cast duelist again.
Feels like it might work, but it’s going to take time to get used to it.
Couple of questions:
- Has anything changed about scepter for Mesmers? It was discussed in the dev thread.
- Did anything change about the vigor-on-crit trait in Dueling?
- Is craftable ascended armor in the game now? I didn’t see it in the patch notes, but there’s a gallery of armor images on Dulfy.
Thx!
I’m looking forward to trying it out in roaming and small group play in WvW.
I can see some cases where it will create interesting decisions about using the heal to get another phantasm out.
On the livestream, they mention that phantasms can get destroyed quickly in large battles. That’s true, but it would certainly be a pretty risky move to use this skill and have no healing of any kind for 35 seconds.
It did make me curious about trying out disenchanter again, and I found it quite helpful in a 1v1 with a necro as well as 4v4
I’m glad they have expanded the game with a skill that looks like it will add more decisions
I tried Blink almost a year ago. Everyone said it was great. I had trouble using it effectively.
Maybe it was the changes made in ground-targeted skills a couple months back. Maybe it’s just being more familiar with the game. I tried it out for an hour tonight, and I love it. I’m still making mistakes (trying to blink out of immobilize), but it’s so helpful for me now.
Any other skills that stand out for you as possibly making a bad first impression, but really just needing multiple tries or more experience to really evaluate? I’m considering giving Arcane Thievery another chance…
- Stealth is a tricky mechanism. Especially for newer players, it’s something that needs patience and learning. Thieves were very frustrating for me initially because of stealth. But it’s a mechanic that’s in the game, and it’s going to stay.
- Mesmers were designed to have access to stealth. PU is meant to be the biggest investment you can make if you choose to pursue stealth skills.
- The Blackwater build is one build that uses stealth and uses PU. A lot of this thread seems to be complaining about the Blackwater build, but there are other builds that use PU (and, as pointed out above, the Blackwater build does not have to have PU).
The changes to PU caused me to experiment with stealth skills, and ended up allowing me to create a build that I really like. It’s not the Blackwater build, and I think there are probably a lot of builds that use PU that are still possible to make (and that nobody has tried yet). I hope that players keep experimenting with PU (for example, I’m wondering if anyone has ever tried a shatter build that uses PU)
It’s not a bad question. Scepter is a bit of an odd weapon.
As StickerHappy points out, probably the strongest skill is #2, if you are set up to do condition damage. To use skill #2, you need to press it and get hit within 2 seconds. It’s hard to train yourself not to dodge away, but you need to see the word “block” flash up on the screen. This does the damage to the thing that attacked you, creates a clone, and applies the Torment condition. Then if you can get the attacker to chase you, it will do even more damage.
The #3 skill creates a beam. It starts slowly and then pulses five times. The beam can pierce up to five targets, so if you can line up multiple opponents, it will hurt them all. The beam does pretty good damage, and it adds the Confusion condition. Confusion is not very good against monsters because they usually do not attack very quickly (and confusion only damages opponents when they use a skill).
The autoattack does okay damage, but it travels pretty slowly. It will hit more quickly if you are closer (but being closer can make defending tougher). On the third attack in the sequence, a clone is created.
So both the autoattack and the #2 skill can create clones. These clones will do basically nothing with their attacks. But you can shatter them.
I use the scepter because it’s the only mainhand weapon that lets you attack from range. I don’t have high condition damage, and I don’t try to create lots of clones. So I’m only getting some of the value out of the scepter. But I find I still like it after I’ve gotten used to it, and it’s supposed to get some improvements in a future update.
It comes down to fractions of seconds in timing I think.
My normal starting sequence is:
- cast duelist
- swap weapons
- cast zerker
I think probably 90+% of the time, I get both phantasms out just fine. I haven’t noticed anything in the patch.
There are many things that cause the summon to fail for any phantasm – blind, invulnerable target, loss of line of sight, dodging while casting, etc
I know it’s a bit off topic for thread, but would people who choose Sigil of Energy also choose it for power (phantasm) builds?
I really like the sigils of battle. The damage bonus helps a lot and lasts 14.5 seconds when you have PU and wear Travelers. So it’s pretty easy to have 6 stacks that transfer their power to your phantasms.
I’ve never tried the sigils of energy, so I’m just wondering if it’s specific to clone-creating / condition builds.
Thx Pryo. I was listening to the Mesmerized podcast on the airplane last night, and I thought you said something like “It’s disappointing that they aren’t fixing scepter autoattack.”
So I figured I had missed a post somewhere. Good to know there’s not a final answer.