Guild Wars 2

+1.
/voteban inc.

@Trevor: and this is why I say, that it forces your team to make the most optimal rotations thus helping developing a somewhat healthier Conquest environment, if you are willing to learn (from your mistakes). Problem is, ppl more often than not ragequit and rant rather than admitting that they’ve made a mistake. Such as the nature of casual players, which makes most of GW2’s playerbase – even in PvP.

Turret engies are extremely vulnerable while on the move – others have pointed that one out. The key when facing a double turret engi comp (close-far usually as mid points are generally the least optimal for them to be at) is that your close point defender should be on his toe and prevent the engie to get to the point. even if that means temporarily leaving the point itself. If the turret engi unloads his turrets on open terrain to defend himself, he’s as good as dead. if not, he’s as good as a sparring dummy.
Kill him (the far point assaulter) before he reaches the point and you not only get a 4v5, but a 3v5 in your team’s favour and you will be safe to +1 at mid or rotate 2 from mid to the enemy’s home to gank that turret and have the close point defender reinforce mid with fresh cd’s.

Facing turret comps (with 1 or 2 turrets, doesn’t matter) require rather tactical insight than mechanical skills advantage – which the vast majority of GW2’s playerbase don’t have or don’t like to rely on. Hence why bruiser meta became a thing as questionable or even down wrong rotations don’t have such severe consequences compared to the tank/pain-train meta.
The playerbase, even at top tier, shifted towards laying focus on having better mechanical skills (and thus winning 1v1s and 2v2s rather than bigger teamfights while backcapping) rather than tactically outsmarting your opponent.
Turret engie comps triumph over this mentality as successfully facing them does not depend on whether you are superior mechanical skill-wise, but rather whether you have the tactical insight to make the right calls rotation-wise.

Oh and I completey agree with Fix #2, not because of turrets, but just based on general AI builds.

@NinjaSonic: My main problem is a turret engie requires an entire team to play around them.
Completely agree with this sentence. Which is why it is mainly a pain in the rear to face them in soloQ (even in ranked) with the random Rambos in your team, whilest it is quite laughable once you have a decent, organized team, who know what they are doing.

Make no mistake you two, I do share in the tears playing mainly soloQ and the disgust against turreteers quite passionately and I do think that the build itself promote low skillbased playstyle and that it should be completely removed, because it is just outright bad.
Not because it breaks PvP, or Conquest, but because it is an unfun and quite boring build both to play and to play against.

So many arguments…let me add my 2c’s.

There is a reason you don’t see the Turret build at a high level tier.
The build is – as others have already pointed out – very potent at holding a specific point in a 1o1 situation, but it essentially leaves your team in a 4v5 situation on the other 2 nodes.
This is something you cannot allow at high tier. You can’t put yourself in a rotational disadvantage by default, because you play a Turret engi, as the other team will severely punish you for it (unless your skill level/tactical and field awareness is much higher than your opponents’ – which is not the case when we are talking about even-skilled individuals. Hence the l2p counter-argument ppl keep throwing at eachother).
Turret engies have a counterplay – rotate around them.

And this is where, in my opinion, the issue lies. The average soloQ’er is not always competent enough to realize this and nevertheless engages the Turret engi on point instead of +1’ing somewhere else. It doesn’t take much – simply a random Rambo in your team and your counterplay, the rotational advantage is gone.

I don’t think the issue is with the build itself. It’s more with the mid-tier PvP community who’d rather tryhard to kill that engi to prove a point – “not even cheese can stop me”

True, turret engie’s counterplay is a lot more dependent on your team as in requiring them to realize the fact they would do better +1’ing in another fight, but saying it doesn’t exist is just creating false impressions.

Granted, if it was a 1-1 node Conquest mode, Turret engies would be blatantly OP, but Conquest have 3 nodes, which means you’ll have a certain advantage as long as your teammates will realize it aswell – something soloQ’ing can’t grant you.

But in TeamQ, where rotations are checked and called out, a Turret engi is a hindrance to your opponent, as long as the two teams are equally skilled.
If that 4 player can still somehow manage to hold up your entire 5-man team, then we are not talking about equally skilled teams.

Don’t get me wrong, I get Phanta and what he says about promoting low mechanical skill-cap builds and how it is unhealthy. But let me turn it around.
Facing a turret engi forces you to rotate optimally if you want to win the match. That alone promotes a healthy development as in realizing what fights should be taken and what fights should be left in order to retaliate somewhere else.

It’s just that the average soloQ’er goes for kills rather than caps and for high numbers next to their names by the time the match ends – has a rather wrong mindset when it actually comes to Conquest.

shimmerless.4560:

I don’t recommend the torch trait. As you’ve noted some matchups become far more difficult for the sake of one condition drop and slightly higher stealth uptime. Just keep your distance and play like a power P/D Thief. Landing a full Cry of Frustration once they’ve left water can really screw them over.

Thanks, I will try this one out! So far the torch trait seemed to be an absolute neccessity for my defensive rotations, but looks like I’ve overvalued it. It is indeed true that with frequent boonstrips a lot of the matchups can be easier

Against Engineers you can just range them with greatsword. For example on Temple there are ledges on the sidepoints where you can pump out ranged pressure to your heart’s content. There isn’t much if anything they can do to answer to this. (If they’re LoSing it means you’ve already pushed them off point).

Funny you mention it, as Temple is one of the maps I have no trouble against them – due to the aforementioned ranged spots. I was thinking specifically about Henge on Forest and Waterfall/Quarry on Legacy. With good turret placement (spreading them out), the engi can stay on point, while the turrets will spam you from every direction. The turrets, traited, can generally outrange you (feels like it, might have slightly less range than mesmer GS).
If I go for the point directly, the turrets wreck me.
If I go for the engi, he will kite around the point, I will make no cap progress (or barely any), meanwhile the turrets will spam me.
If I go for the turrets, that are spread out, it will take ages just to take those down and I make no cap progress during the process.

Hey there!

I consider myself a somewhat rookie mesmer in sPvP (used to main guardian for over 1,5 year), only 700 or so Ranked games on this toon and I’ve got a couple of problems regarding certain matchups (both sPvP and roaming), that I hope more experienced mesmer players could help me overcome.
I play Sw/T + GS standard full-zerk shatter with MoD as 3rd utility (portal seems to be a wasted utility in soloQ). I know that certain builds function better in certain situations – I’d like to know what can I do with this build to overcome my difficulties.

1.) sPvP
Considering myself a mid lvl player, I am often facing opponents with similar skill level. Around this level, turret engineers are considered widely popular. No, this is not another cry-out post to nerf them, we have enough them on other parts of the forums.
I’d like to ask for possible tips for scenarios when you simply have no other logical choice but to go for the engi. I found that the “leave them to old age” argument is only working, if the rest of your team capitalize on the 4v5 aswell. Have just one random Rambo or w/e and the advantage is gone.
So, yeah, what can I do – if anything – in case I have to take a fight against one?
Going for turrets takes ages and in general, it just feels like I’m wasting my time fighting one (especially if he’s LoSing), yet, there were times where I couldn’t have been more useful to my team on any other nodes.

2.) Roaming
I have difficulties against good cele d/d ele. Might worth noting, that I drop MoD and take the cleansing mantra (otherwise I’d have essentially 0 condi cleanse). Granted, for roaming I take the torch trait as the reduced cd seems to save my life A LOT, so, without boonstrips, this matchup seems to be just a lost cause from the start.
It’s a stalemate at best. By the time I manage to take down his hp (talking about decent eles, with proper rotations and somewhat good situationary decisions), his water is back up and we are back to the start. Meanwhile, he wears me down due to his condi dmg (obv. others factor in aswell).
Kiting seems to be ineffective against these players, as I’m not traited for good phantasm damage, so the damage I’m doing is essentially non-existent in this case.
Again, if by some reason I manage to do the right jukes and get out of harms way, he’s still sitting on 70%+ HP and have easy means to heal again and again.

Thank you for your help in advance!

Bhawb.7408:

So basically you want Well of Power to be a stronger version of Hallowed Ground in every way. The only reason it has stability right now is to cover the cast time of a stun-break that isn’t instant cast.

Well, guards have 2 other sources of stability, that quite a few “meta” builds use (so not even nietzshe options – unlike the DS trait), 2 stunbreaks, their heals is uninterruptable (+ there’s the well-known invuln elite) and blocks while healing and they have more frequent blinds than necros (given their builds, true) – so I don’t really see how Hallowed Ground or the Guardian for that matter is a good comparison in that regard.

engi: turret engies tend to drop their turrets on the point while they go sideways to kite around them. This may sound obvious, but go for the engi, not for the turrets/point.
If you manage to get up close and personal, your cripples could become actually quite effective as engies generally have very few cleanses. He then would probably try to lure you into his turrets, in which case do not follow him, keep your distance, no matter how low his HP is, as a neat Krait can turn the whole matchup to his favour.
Stomping can be extremely frustrating as the engi will probably go down near to his turrets, so expect loads of CCs. Best to bleed them out (literally), if you can afford the time that it takes.
Unfortunately there are some maps and points, where turret engies with good turret placement are essentially untouchable by condi necros (Henge on Forest for example). My tip would be to leave him to old age in that case and capitalize on the 4v5 your team will have during the match. Watch out for his rotation and try to snipe him on the road as they are essentially free kills while on the move.

medi guard: as macaulay has pointed out, medi guards have mediocre cleanses – try to bait them out. His biggest advantage (or hard counter) is his CoP, which converts all his condies into boons (essentially a hardcounter for SoS). If you can bait it out with a high enough bleed/torment stacking, it’s a win for you for sure.
Use sigil of torment (guess most of the necros have realized how much better it is than geomancing) – torment can do wonders against guards, as they have to keep moving constantly to stay in range, especially medi guards, since all their dmg comes from melee bursts.
A common combo is that they immob you with scepter#3 and then port to you with their Focus#5 and GS spin. A good medi guard times his Focus#5, so that it would explode on impact. You can exploit this and anticipate when the burst will come. The Focus#5 pulses 3 times before it explodes (eplodes on the 4th), try to observe it and either blind (dg#4) or fear the guard. It might worth noting that you’d have to be extra precise on the fear so that you’d fear him after he ported, as his port skill is a stunbreak aswell.
Or break the focus shield before it explodes (can be frustrating on condi) and you will halv his damage output instantly.
But the general tip is to use your cripples/chills effectively and you should be out of harms way as he won’t be able to catch up to you.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

While I feel your pain, as I main Mes and Necro, I think it is safe to say mesmers have it just as bad as you guys right now

I’d say this comparison is spot on. I also used to main necro (at some point), then switched over to mesmer (oh, the irony…)

The thing is with these 2 classes, that you need your team to build around them. Both can be strong with a proper setup and more importantly with proper communication. Something, you don’t really get in solo q’s.
You can use portals, but I can almost guarantee you that none will really take them effectively/will get the idea behind them.

These 2 classes also need to be nursed quite often by your teammates – you need constant peels if the enemy team decides to focus on you (which happens quite often as otherwise freecasting you could do havoc). Again, something that you won’t see regularly in yoloq.

The 2 class share also some similarities as in both require top notch gameplay to be effective. Anything less and you will be a downside to your team.

I’d say mesmer is still in a better position, as we have at least stealth (could have 3 of them in certain setups) on our side, while the necro’s only chance is Wurm, really, on a quite long cd. Essentially no chance to drop target/disengage from an unfavourable matchup, which hinders the option to rotate on/off from a point quite heavily.

RashanDale.3609:

all boons work, no exceptions there either.

^This. End of topic.
On a more serious note, just make all boons work in DS. Make it the first step.
It would seem to be reasonably balanced.
In 1v1 it wouldn’t be OP as necros themselves have no access to mass amount of healing sustain – Regeneration (the boon) – , unless they would go for some cheesy tank build with runes and so. But in that case they would sacrifice nearly all their damage output, just like a normal bunker (guardian) would do, which means they wouldn’t pose much of a threat.
In team fights (2v2/3v3) necros could benefit from the cele classes just like every other currently available class.
- thieves can dodge/evade
- guardians block/invuln
- mesmers distortion/blurred frenzy
…
and get healed during the process

(+ fix siphoning in Shroud obv.)

@Doiid

Let’s just agree that we are disagreeing on this topic
Like I said, we already have a pretty safe and reliable double ranged setup with Staff/GS.
Making OH Sword a viable ranged weapon (by allowing the phantasm to be summoned effectively from range), I fear, will result in nerfing one of the double ranged weapons as measures to counterbalance. Personally I don’t want that.
Furthermore, with your suggested change, S/S would become kind of an OP set, as it would have essentially no weakness. All weapons in the game have their own counterplay. By making OH Sword viable from range, you’d essentially get a weaponset that is near-perfect both for defensive and offensive purposes. Not just that, but could be used with the same effectiveness from range and from melee distance aswell.
I see OH Sword as of now as a melee-counterweapon (mainly against thieves + medi guards).
There are more popular offhand choices (Torch) currently in the meta, just because players prefer the advantage (Stealth) torch gives them over anything else currently available.

I definitely agree that spawning the phantasm in melee range would make the weapon more versatile, but I’m still not sure that it would beat torch utility-wise.
Knowing ANet and their history of balancing, they don’t just buff classes. If they give something, they’ll also take something in return.
And for max ranged, the double ranged setup is really nice in my opinion.
and S/S for melee can also be viable, it’s just not popular amongst the All-Stars at the moment…it’s player preference. Currently Torch beats everything in PvP.
Who knows…not so long ago everyone was rolling double ranged, cause Helseth, Supcutie, Misha were playing that.
Now, that they’ve switched over to Sw/T, you see more and more mesmers following them, following the “meta”.
Not so long ago it was unimaginable that anything else could be viable (meta) other than double ranged in sPvP.
Just because Sw OH is not meta at the moment, doesn’t mean, it cannot be one day.

But to once again emphasize my main point regarding Sw OH – I definitely agree, the suggested change would buff the weapon set. I don’t think ANet intended to buff the weapon set in that direction. I fear, this buff would result in some nerfs of other weapons that would severly impact the current meta.

BlackDevil.9268:

glorius.1235:

The only phantasm that spawns right next to the target is the iWarden

What… Are you being serious? I even stated before all the phantasm that spawn next to the target and all melee phantasm besides iswordman spawn next to the target:
Izerker does:
Iwarden does
Imariner does
Irogue does
Iswordman doesn’t

Izerker: it spawns out of melee range (quite situational actually) and covers the gap via its Whirl. Or, what is even better, spawns out of its attack range (more likely the target simply moves out of its Spin range during casting) and have to run to close the gap – just like Swordsman – before he starts attacking. Happened quite a few times with me.
Iwarden: already covered why it utterly sucks in PvP despite being a melee phantasm
Imariner: underwater phantasms do not really play a huge part in PvP
Irouge: is a downstate phantasm that could be hardly called a part of your rotation. If it is, I have bad news for you…

I will stop posting regarding this from now on as I’m only repeating myself and probably getting quite boring for other readers. We are running in circles, not getting anywhere

My only fear is, and this is probably why I’m arguing so heavily against it, that with boosting Sw OH to be a capable ranged weapon, devs will need to tune something down in order to maintain balance. Now, personally I don’t really want to see GS nerfed, just to give iSwordsman the potential to be able to be used effectively from range.

BlackDevil.9268:

@ glorious
Pistol is a power based off hand weapon too that almost always goes along with main hand sword. So this is a melee weapon too? What a silly argument.

You either ignored my argument about why you’d swap to OH or didn’t understand it.
Switching to OH (and to MH sword) against ranged pressure is ineffective. Let me give you some examples
a.) power ranger sniping you
against rapid fire, the BF seems to be really good, but (assuming the ranger does it from max range as he should) then what? you will be a sitting duck as none of your weapon skills can be used from that distance. You’ll have to run to the ranger, meanwhile you’ll do no counter pressure whilest the ranger can still apply pressure to you as his weapon has a much higher range than yours
b.) power necro LB’ing your face off
while this tends to be more of a mid-ranged scenario, lot of necros use LB from range (not to its full potential, might I add). Same as the ranger – he will outrange you.

All of these specific examples are very much scenario-based, meaning it can go a lot of ways. A lot depends on cooldowns, endurance, the state of the teamfight, etc.
This is just to give some general examples of what I was talking about.

But to emphasize my main point here, stated a few posts above: Sw/x is mainly a defensive weapon set.
Or arguably an executing one. Both scenario puts you in melee range.

BlackDevil.9268:

You can easily use the block from 900 units to do the exact same as in melee range. Not to mention that the velocity of the bolt of the active effect is so fast and has such low display that it’s not even worth mentioning to not use it from range but for melee purposes only.

See my reasoning above. Blocking a ranged projectile is a prime example of using OH sword ineffectively (except maybe soft CC projectiles) . Again, to back up with specific examples, I am pretty sure OH sword block is intended to block backstabs, mighty blows, eviscerates and hammerstuns.
The clone from the block will spawn instantly, do dmg and can be instantly shattered. All that together – for maximum damage output – is only possible in melee range.
Furthermore, blocks have no range. I’m not even sure why it states a range for the block itself as it doesn’t even require a target to be performed. Probably it means the clone summoning – that it summons a clone only within 900 range.

BlackDevil.9268:

Not only that but you can easily use iswordman on the run to your target from 1000-1200 units. The moment you have ended your cast you should be somewhere near the 600 range cap that’s required to leap to your enemy with illusionary leap. Your example is assuming to be standing still constantly or to at least stay on more than 600 units while casting the skill.

Again, why would you start off with Sword from 1000-1200 range? That is just ineffective gameplay in my opinion. And goes against the most optimal uses of weaponsets.
Your counter-argument indicates, however, that the target himself will stand still. A rookie player might do so, but an experienced one will know exactly what is about to happen and will react accordingly. You will end up being kited, I can guarantee you that.
My example only states that (in my opinion) the most optimal use of the Sword OH is within 600 range, so you could instantly follow up with your main hand skills.

BlackDevil.9268:

Besides, if it would spawn near the target you could start off from s-s when standing on difficult terrain where the phantasm bugs or will be forced to run around and then swap to GS. If your target is within 600 units from this terrain (for example at keep where you have the platforms where you can stand on) you can even use your ileap to immobilize without you porting into it. The fact that you are forced to stand within melee range of the target to let the phantasm be able to hit is a massive loss for yourself, as you wanna be as much as possible on range from your enemy unless you want to burst and there will be many situations where you wont be able to spawn the phantasm because of it’s horrible spawn location so the low cooldown is after all not that useful as it seems.

I highlighted the part where you strengthen my argument. Unless you wanna do your melee burst, you will be out of range of MH sword skills >> will be (should be) using your GS.
If not, that means, like I said, that:
a.) you wanna do your melee brust with MH Sword
b.) you are under melee pressure and need that BF~distortion

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Shatter_Mesmer_Roamer
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Traditional_Shatter

Traits can slightly vary as weapons too based on personal preference, but otherwise these are the core builds shatter mesmers run nowadays.

BlackDevil.9268:

@glorious
1. Please explain me why it’s not designed for range if any other melee focussed phantasm is being spawned next to the target, both skills on the off hand are ranged (i.e. >900 units) and even the phantasm itself leaps from a reasonable range bigger than melee as attack. Just because it’s a sword it shouldn’t be instantly something that’s close range. Torch is even a more melee focussed weapon than off hand sword, yet that has a phantasm that has a ranged attack.

2. Off hand sword can be a really good alternative instead of torch just because of the leap combo on the phantasm when used in combination with a thief. You’re not gonna use phase retreat for something like that if you wanna burst because you wanna stay double ranged with that. You also don’t have immobilize on staff and no on demand 2.5 second evade. The thing is, 20/16 seconds for a leap finisher only is rather pointless if you can aswell just get your torch out and have on demand stealth, bigger burst and survival, unless the phantasm actually hits. Now this is the problem, because in team fights it’s not gonna hit, especially if you stealth on the side with a thief before jumping in on a target.

1. This goes way beyond the nature of the weapon set, but I can get into details if you want me to.
I think, we can all agree on that OH Sword is a power-based OH. Therefore, it shall be used in pair with the MH Sword. Now when would you switch to your MH Sword (and therefore OH aswell)?
A.) you are under pressure and need that on-demand distortion (BF)
B.) you want to land the finishing blow via Swap

Both cases indicate that you are in melee range. If you are not, swapping to MH (and OH) Sword, or should rather say swapping from GS is a mistake, as you will be losing out on dps. This is a rather simplified explanation, but hopefully you will get my point. If not, I can expand on why it would be a mistake to weaponswap.

Regarding OH Sword #4, I respectfully disagree. It is a melee skill. The block is and that is its main strength. You can choose to abort it and use another skill instead of it (essentially grants you a +1 skill on your OH), which has a range of 900 units.
Now as I said, I don’t get either why the 1200 range on the phantasm, considering none of the Sword skills, main hand and offhand, have the same range. Probably designer slack – as all other phantasms have the same summoning range. But when you’ll get a chance to use it (ie. switch from your GS), you will be 99% in melee range. Either because you got (or about to get) backstabbed by a thief, or to further pressure a target.

That is why I say, it is not designed to be used from range.
(The spawn location has nothing to do with the phantasm’s effectiveness. The only phantasm that spawns right next to the target is the iWarden and I think we can both agree that as a melee phantasm, it has the least reliable damage. You don’t even have to dodge from its attacks, all you need to do is step back and all its hits will miss.
Even iZerker spawns from a certain distance, that he can close with the Whirl – sometimes not btw and ends up swinging in the air.)

The torch’s strength lies within the stealth, which can be used both for setting up your melee burst or for repositioning. In the first case it’s used for melee purposes, while in the second, it’s used as a ranged utility, ie: to get some distance between you and the guy who’s chasing you. Speaking of torch, I wouldn’t tag that weapon as “melee” or “ranged”, I would say, it’s purely a utility weapon.

2. Staff’s strength lies in its range, kiting potential and also in its utilities (C. Armor + Storm). With Sword OH (and therefore MH), you will be in melee range. You have to be, unless:
a.) you messed up something
b.) you were forced out of your most optimal rotation
Torch, compared to OH Sword, does not provide a bigger burst potential in itself – how you use its utility, is entirely up to you, but that can be said about any weapon set.
In fact, strictly damage-wise, Torch will be beaten by OH Sword. The reason people use Torch in GvG’s and in sPvP is that the Stealth can give you tactical advantage, some breathing room, a chance to reposition yourself without the enemy being able to react to your movement.
I’d like to point out that we’ve moved from discussing the weapon itself long ago and it is much more like a playstyle preference discussion.
I get your point, I like Torch more too. Probably because of the same reasons, you do. But I could probably force myself to learn Sword OH with all its uniqueness and be just as effective with it (considering the rather long cd on Torch Stealth), if I had to. Thing is, I don’t have to and I rely way too much on that stealth to just throw away for some kind of experiment. But who knkows, maybe I’ll try someday

BlackDevil.9268:

Still it forces a target to move out the way and stay at least 900-1200 units away from the iduelist to avoid it ‘’that easily’’, whereas Iswordman can just easily die before it even started casting its attack.

Kiting means in this case avoiding damage, not killing the phantasm. It requires the player to change position continuously regardless of his attacker’s nature (melee or ranged).

Baiting/killing the phantasm is a different case. In your example there is an imaginary deathfield between you and your target (or a strong potential for it), which is why the Swordsman can’t cover the distance between you and your target.
ie: it gets killed before he can execute its attack

Exactly the same can happen with the iDuelist. The deathfield is still there, just like in the Swordsman’s case. The difference is that the target needs to react (slightly move back) to lure the iDuelist into his trap. I see no issue with that.

Another point to bring up >> why would you have a second range weapon (as in casting pistol from 1200 range) and not pick staff then, besides your GS? If you want to play double ranged, go for Staff/GS.
If you want to grab MH sword, that means you will be aiming at ~600 range with your MH sword. Casting your duelist from 1200 makes no sense in that case – you cannot follow up with your MH skills, as they have the range of 600 units.
You will essentially lose out on dps as you’ll have to cover the gap yourself – the same way if you would cast your iSwordsman from 1200 range. It is not designed to be used from range. Now, why ANet gave it such a long range, while it’s clearly not designed to be used from that range is another question, but probably because all phantasm summoning skills have 1200 range from the start (except pistol, that has to be traited to achieve that)

Like I said, you guys want OH sword to be something, that Staff already is, something that it is not and you two say that because it is not, what you want it to be, it is flawed.

trooper.2650:

glorius.1235:

All Phantasms need the same time to die in an AoE-rich environment, which converges to 0s.

Do you agree that iduelist has better chance to survive when casted from 900, let alone 1200 than, lets say, iswordman?

If you cast it from that range, all the target needs to do is dodge once backwards and it will get out of the Duelist’s range. Then the Duelist needs to close the gap and the baiting begins.
It is just a different kind of kiting. Instead of kiting a melee phantasm, you’ll kite a ranged one. Essentially the same.

So no, I don’t agree that duelist has better chance to survive.
Against non-reacting players, it has. Against good players, it has just the same chance, other phantasms have.

BlackDevil.9268:

…
My comment on the damage is because of people using the argument that Iswordman ‘’hits like a truck’’, which is not true unless you mention that for any phantasm due that nearly all power based phantasm hit equally hard.

My argument about that it is easy to bait into aoe refers to the very first post, where I mention Iswordman is being spawned next to the caster instead of the target. This meaning it is much easier to bait into aoe than any other phantasm.

Iduelist is far from useless when the enemy runs away due range. Neither is Izerker due it’s being spawned next to the target so it will always launch it attack. Iswordman, however, will most likely not hit once casted on a target running away due it’s horrible location of spawning.

Iswordman has 1 attack. Therefor it can be blocked with a normal block or aegis much easier so also be avoided much easier. As for Izerker and iduelist it will hit no matter the aegis or weapon block. Damage spread across more hits > singular hit in most of the AI cases. As you said, you don’t use it for damage only, but many other purposes. This is in my opinion a major one of them if you would want to bait defensive skills so you can land your burst/immobilize.

Iduelist and Izerker both have a much higher chance of applying bleedings and will most likely also apply more bleeding stacks therefor deal more damage and be more useful in builds other than full power based.

Like mentioned in a previous post and I’ll mention it again because this is one of the most crucial ones: It does not, I repeat not fit in the way mesmer has to position himself. If you gonna go balls deep as mesmer in spvp you most likely gonna find yourself dieing very quickly or being forced to bail out the fight unless you win the fight right after.

Tell me 1 situation where the leap combo can be useful when casting iswordman without it being totally useless. Cause the only thing I can think of is casting it just for the leap combo to stealth in a blinding field and having your iswordman not even being spawned or having to run all the way to your enemy and most likely will die or gets stuck before hitting the enemy.

If it hits, it hits like a truck. When it comes to dodging phantasm attacks (if you really have to), I don’t find any phantasm to be harder to dodge – assuming you have the luxury to pay attention to the phantasm’s animation. The same is the case with iZerker, iLock, any other phantasm. The if is always there.

Baiting is only possible if people are kiting – it can be done succesfully against all phantasms with equal chance (except maybe iZerker, due to the aforementioned cripple).
All you need to do is to get out of its range and the phantasm will stop q’ing its attack and will try to close the gap till it gets into range to execute its attack.
With continuous movement (especially one with the aim to get away from the mesmer itself), I can see it be done for quite long – still strictly talking about pantasms.

The “delay” that Swordsman has can be also a strength. If there is a short window you know you will be able to exploit, it’s better to focus your damage on that opening rather than spread out.

We keep talking about the phantasm solely and completely forgot the “utility” skills the OHs provide. In that regard (personal preference matters ofc), the Sword OH is more than on par with the other OHs – if not better. The block is extremely valuable against thieves amongst many others, that are known to be mesmer’s hard counter.

The Leap is a single target buff, granted, but then again, mesmer is not really known for boon sharing or group support, so I don’t think there’s any issue with that.
The self heal is useful, as you don’t have any blast finishers (besides torch, which is a delayed blast), so is the single Chaos Armor from your null field or a shocking aura from a static to negate inc dmg, I could expand on that for more, but that is not the point here.

I think we have a playstlye preference issue here. You have your own style and taste in combat, which is all good. But to say that certain weapon sets need buffs, just because they don’t suit your taste – cause that is the ultimate issue here – could make people jump to wrong conclusions.

@Doiid (+trooper)
On one hand you are talking about how PvE environment and therefore PvE damage race is irrelevant, on the other hand you try to implement the same race into PvP by comparing Phantasms’ damage output.

Any mesmer who relies on his phantasms to deal damage (unless it’s a strictly phantasm-based build) is playing the class wrong, or should rather say not to its fullest potential. Sure, Phantasms are a nice addition to your overall damage output but by no means your main source of damage.

In an AoE-rich environment iZerker dies just as quickly as iSwordsman, not to mention its increased incoming damage from retaliation (which is a quite common boon in PvP) due to its AoE nature.

All Phantasms need the same time to die in an AoE-rich environment, which converges to 0s.
Except iDuelist and iMage – talking about OH weapons (don’t even know why you bring up iLock). iDuelist is the only ranged phantasm that is worth keeping up based on its damage output. All of the other OH Phantasms are worth more to be shatter fodder (rly cenzorship? lol).

BlackDevil.9268:

It’s damage is easy to avoid, it’s easily being baited into aoe and killed before it has done it’s attack, it does nothing but damage and it’s damage is not higher than any other power based phantasm. It’s extremely useless when someone is running away and therefor it’s only useful in 1v1’s with people actually wanting to fight you.

- all Phantasms animations are fairly obvious, therefore really easy to dodge, except maybe iLock and iMage, but there the projectile speed comes into the picture, which is rather slow
- all Phantasms, ranged or melee, can just as easily be baited into AoE, as all Phantasms are AIs without programming to avoid damage (except the swordsman’s leap btw)
it applies a Leap finisher (single target heal/frost aura/shock aura/fire aura/chaos armor/retal), which is more than any other (OH) Phantasm can do. iDuelist has only 20% chance to proc a projectile finisher
- all Phantasms are useless when ppl are running away, except maybe iZerker (which is not an OH Phantasm btw), that applies a nice cripple. Talking about people and running away – all Phantasms need to stand still to execute their attack (chain), except iZerker, which means the Phantasm either chases the target running away and not attacking, or launch its attack and risk that the fleeing target gets out of range. If you want to chase people down with your Phantasm so badly, iSwordsman is your best bet besides iZerker, as it is only the Swordsman that has a gap closer.

That is strictly comparing the Phantasm summoning skills. For utility-wise, see my post above.

From a somewhat rookie mesmer’s – ~700 ranked games on mes – (but otherwise experienced player) perspective:

I like to think of OH weapons as more of utility weapons than damage dealing sets in PvP.
Talking about shatter spec(s), OH phantasms are terribly unreliable when it comes to dealing damage against experienced players and therefore their strength does not lie in their own burst potential.

Torch – stealth: good for defensive and offensive purposes aswell combined with the blind. Time it right and blind that crucial incoming burst or use it to set up your own from Stealth + melee MB facemelting combo/Moa

Focus – pull: secure/interrupt stomps, chain it to an immob combo, etc. No need to expand on that

Pistol – stun: interrupt stomps/heals/critical skills
note – this is probably the only OH weapon, where the phantasm does not suck utterly at dealing dmg

Sword – block/daze: block the incoming burst + counter with decent dmg, daze the stomps/rezzes, etc.

Now, I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on why OH phantasms suck at dealing dmg themselves, but just in case let me make a short list anyway

Torch: low dmg output, period.
Pistol: easily readable animation >> easy to dodge
Focus: iWarden stands still >> move out of its range >> avoid its full dmg
Sword: the aforementioned range issue + slow movement

The real strength of OH phantasms lies in their shatter potential imo or their potential to combine with other (MH) skills, such as the MH immob on the Sw.
Talking about combos like the iWarden>>curtain>>Swap, or the iDuelist>>Stun>>Swap combo. Such combos are very much possible with the OH sword aswell, but again, I think its utility value outweighs its dmg dealing value.

Speaking of which, its CD is one of the lowest, talking about OH phantasms, which further strengthens its utility value and synchs well with your shatter CDs.

Don’t take me wrong, I don’t personally like OH sword, I’m a much bigger fan of the OH torch, even though its phantasm is even worse at dealing damage, but I can definitely see its potential in certain playstyles. 12s on-demand block AND/OR daze? Yes, pls.

As for your GS ||OH Sw comparison: your are comparing a strictly damage dealing weapon set (GS) with a much more utility based set (Sw/Sw – in this case). Of course the DD set will be more suitable for actual damage dealing…

TyPin.9860:

Curunen.8729:

TyPin.9860:

Curunen.8729:

Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag. I do all the time (need to correct my sig link tbh).

No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…

Yes sir!

Is that before or after greatsword training? :P

GS is different. Everyone knows that. GS is awesome by itself, while torch looks ugly, so it needs to be flavored with a tasty torch trait… now go out there and do as I say.

As a somewhat rookie mesmer (started a month or so ago, after 1,5 years on guardian), I can already tell you that long drawn out fights are not amongst the shatter’s strengths.
Generally, you either snipe and land that burst, or you’ll be eaten alive – unlike thieves, that have the ability to reset fights anytime via on-demand-stealths. Sure, you have a fair share of survival skills on Sw main hand (btw anyone who uses it offensively over defense is doing it wrong imho – unless it’s a finishing move), but apart from that, you have not much room for errors.

My experience is that fights rarely draw out for so long that I’d need my Torch skills to come up again. That 1 cleanse is kinda ‘meh’ and tbh Torch skills have kinda long cd, even with the traited reduction, that its not really worth to lean on that defense-wise.
Sure the stealth is nice to have up when you are suddenly getting outnumbered and need to get the hell outta there, but apart from that I always tend to use it offensively.

Open with iZerk + stealth, get in melee range and MB+shatter his face off >> usually tends to be my strategy (obv has a large variety of different applications). Then again, each have his own playstyle, whereas I tend to play mesmer really aggressively (not saying that it’s always optimal btw!)

Bottom line is, I’d say it’s much better to have boonstrip and mitigate dmg by stripping that Fury/X stacks of Might, or just use torch stealth to remove target and set up your own burst. Not to mention that removing that Protection is also kinda neat, considering having that up pretty much negates your dmg.

Sure, you could wait for the enemy’s boons to wear off, but I found that it has key importance to control fights on mesmer, otherwise you will be worn down. You can’t be sitting and walking around without doing constant pressure, otherwise most classes will outsustain you.

just my 2c’s

@wintrwulf:
I usually dislike charrs in light, but man, you did a great job! And even on a female (I found it harder to get a “cool” look on a female Charr).
Love how the Staff matches the mantle, the skin tone, the hairstyle.
I have to say, I’m partially biased (I just don’t think anything else than heavy fits Charrs in general), that’s why I’ll give you 9/10 on this. Great job, mate!

@hexxalite:
For a heavy, the first set is pretty standard, spice it up somehow! Either with colors or don’t go (almost) full cultural. It’s not bad, but nothing eye-catching either. 7/10
The WvW set is just weird for me, especially that helm. WTF is it doing on a charr?
Colors seem to be a little chaotic too. 6/10.

This is my Charr Guardian.
Went for a berserker-like, fierce look, with not that much armor coverage. Used to be experimenting with the skirty skins, but it just looked weird, made the toon look like he had terribly skinny legs, which just didn’t fly with the idea. Used to have eyepatch, but I think the mask really suits the character.

My Charr Guardian

A few HB videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfNspDI7P7Q – with TS included
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b68b2S6ruw – Pilas Imum II

we also have nightly recaps, but I guess those are probably too long for you.

- [ÆGIS] masterpiece

awesome guide, thanks for sharing it, mate!

A cestus would look awesome on my zerker charr guardian.
Aurellian is right there…fist weapons are more like warrior stuff…

The skills on the other hand…
Guardians still lack soft CC and a weapon set like this (full close hand-to-hand combat) would definitely need some to provide the guardian the ability to stick to the target.

The concept would be nice, however, I don’t think it will happen.

nice one!

would you mind sharing your build?
I’m looking myself for something else than the standard zerk meditation burst build, something that shines in outnumbered situations – your build and gameplay seems to do that

I’m fairly new on my guardian, used to main a necro.

Jet.4795:

Amazing fights tonight in JQBL, some of the most intense fights ever. Hope to have more in the future thanks to; HB, ICoa, APex, and HzH!

props to you guys, was good fun indeed.
Hope to see you more on the field!

Good hunting!

Bumping with our current class needs

We are still looking for:

• elementalists
• a very few guardians
• talented and competitive mesmers

We have quite a few skilled roaming guilds who tend to run with 5-6 players per night.
We also have large guilds who are in WvW to take on similar huge opposing forces and guilds with 20-25 that run untagged each night.

No matter what you prefer, small scale or large scale, you’ll have company on our server.

I’d advise anyone who’s looking for a new guild on Blackgate to register on our website http://www.blackgatewvw.com/
After you are done with the process, you should be able to see the recruitment section, which allows you to pick from the many we have.

Most of our guilds have a recruitment thread here, on the official forums as well.
You can also look for that.

if you want to, meet up with me tomorrow and we can discuss this on the BG TeamSpeak.
From 2pm to 6pm GMT+2 I’ll be online.
send me an ingame mail and set a time when we can have a chat.

- Skugg

^word

really, I wish I could add anything to the last comment, but honestly can’t do. It says everything in true fairness.

If you want a challenge, competition and it’s also important to you to be part of a good community, this is the place to be.

Silver.4798:

• Alternatively there are 2 focuses (one is glowing purple and will cost your left kidney, the other is glowing blue, will cost half of your left kidney) that looks like a piece of a chain dangling from your fist (the name escapes me at the moment

I believe you are referring the two chain skins, one is the purple misty one, but…the other one glows as well? Didn’t know that, seemed like a regular chain to me.
Can anyone confirm this “glowing”?

While I completely agree with Bhawb, I have to admit; there were times I wished there was an icd on entering in and out of DS. It’s not fun to “dance” with a non-dancer build when skill lag happens :/

Bumping the thread with the following informations

• we are back to organizing Training Sessions to teach our newest members about our strategies and open field tactics. If you plan to check us out, now is a good time to join us and participate in the event
• we are still looking for a dedicated NA commander who wish to help us extending our reach into EST timezone on a daily basis. If you think you have the skills and the charisma, apply at our website!
• we are still recruiting: mainly elementalists and warriors

To apply, visit our website and fill out a join request!

See you on the fields!

The classes we are currently looking for:

• warriors
• elementalists
• a very few guardians

Feel free to contact me either here or ingame for more info.

It shouldn’t be.

On topic: 4 gambits is easy play, a bit sad that so far I’ve couldn’t come up with a solid rotation that would make 5 gambits a safe run.

Can be done, but it’s still risky and have to wait on cd’s, while 4 gambits can be farmed with no breaks at all.

Just simply swapped out blinding to daze, was not safe for me…slow projectile
the confusion runeset is awesome on the other hand, cheers for the tip!

Spectral Grasp is unbelievable…haven’t seen such a slow pulling skill.

Getting in, SoS – BiP – Dagger #4/#5/#2
First killshot – Fear
Proceeding with autoattack
Second killshot – Spectral Grasp would be the ideal choice if it wasn’t so godkitten slow
It always ends up me getting downed by the killshot THEN pulling him to my location.

Any ideas how to avoid the 2nd shot?

Isn’t S/P PW spamming still viable?

Bumping this to update with a few things:

• we are no longer recruiting for the part time rank
• we are looking for talented commanders especially in NA EST timezone, who would wish to lead (currently) off-night raids

/signed +1

Without going deep in arguing for it, check out every single linked post to make comparisons. That 1-hit block in every 10s is far from being overpowered.
Look up guardian Aegis, channeled blocks, Vigor and Distortion skills.
For the falling damage concerns, check out the countless arguments that have been made for it.

I also agree that evolving the character would be much better than having this mechanic, but you don’t address an issue the way ANet did in this case.
It’s like you take your car to the repair shop cause you need to swap some parts to work as intended. It still does run though, you just have a feeling that things are not the way they should be.They only remove the broken elements, but don’t replace them with working ones and then give the car back to you saying they will do the actual fix later. Now your car is completely broken, doesn’t run despite paying the bill and you are left with a promise that says actually nothing about when and how.

If they truly intend to address some issues, remove the broken parts, then implement a new mechanic at the same time.

Until such thing’s not gonna happen, give back the mechanic, that we are used to. If they want us to take another way, remove the (considered-to-be) broken one and implement a new one.

Torch, really?! Look at that frakking HAMMER!!! It screams for a Necromancer.

now just a quick question that came up in my mind, without actually joining this conversation:
does DS count as HP bar from the enemy’s PoV? Can it activate enemy traits based on HP level, etc.
Does a thief HS against a 25% LF bar in DS hit harder based on that?

bit on topic: what others said – if it’s only 2 hits, I can’t see a way that any class could 2-shot a Necro with full HP and full LF bar. Especially not with the recent DS bug fix.

What I liked:

• I really like the new condition, Torment. I also liked how it was a Necro primary condition – the idea that the least mobile class punishes others for their mobility is brilliant and well-fitting.

What needs to be changed:

• revert DS to its pre-patch form. Remove the damage taken in DS bleeding into the HP-bar thing
  OR
• implement some kind of block mechanic upon entering DS to absorb 1 attack. This could be Aegis, but honestly I’d prefer something more fitting to necros (maybe Turn to Stone/Bone or whatever)
  This would give the 1-shot mitigation that Deatshroud used to be used for and would make up for the lack of on-demand blocks/invuln./evade

• revert the falling damage thing. This way necros would get back their escape mechanic that would make up for other classes’ methods (blink, stealth, multiple leaps, channeled blocks).

• revert the 1s icd on Spectral skills, thus giving back our homemade invuln. that was based on Deathshroud. This would make up for the duration of other classes’ invuln. skills
  OR
• introduce a new mechanic that replenishes endurance based on the Life Force the necro loses in Death Shroud. This way we would get significantly more dodges and thus an increased survivability against multiple opponents, PvE or WvW.
  Right now the order is DS>>out of LF>dodge>dodge>die – this could be reversed to use up our 2 natural dodges first, then pop DS and generate more dodges by being under fire.
  This variation seems a slightly bit OP to me in sPvP and frankly, I don’t think it would be well-fitting to the original design of the class.

• remove Dhuumfire completely from the traitline, swap it to something that would give torment with a reasonable amount.

• change DS 2 to a ground targeted port, like it’s been already suggested.
  either increase our mobility (that again would not fit the class imo.) or give us more access to immobilizer skills. Like instead of giving protection, Wells would imply a 2s immobilized condition to foes with their first pulse.

• moving the Unblockable staff trait into the Master Tier is understandable, but merge it with the other Staff trait and leave it where it is now.

• drop Conditionmancer’s damage output and so balance sPvP and buff Power based builds, thus making the viable specs vary more

Kraag Deadsoul: Well said, dear sir.

Herfolge Boldklub is once again open for recruiting WvW oriented players!
You are wandering around and can’t find your place? You fancy WvW, but can’t find a guild that provides intense competition? You are simply an EU player on a US server?
You want to get into Tier 1 to check out the atmosphere?
If any of these fits you, read through this post as we might be the guild you are looking for!

Short introduction

HB was created in the game Dark Age of Camelot in 2001. Ever since we have been flying our banner high in most major PvP MMO’s with multiple server firsts and other unique accomplishments.
We have always been in the front representing our server in the top percentages. And we have been continuing to do that in GW2!

What we do and what we stand for

We enjoy fights that put us in a rough position. We enjoy being the underdogs. We enjoy setting up goals that may seem impossible to accomplish and we enjoy even more accomplishing them. We keep challenging ourselves from day to day to become better.

Our motto is: we want to make a difference

We play by this and so far it’s worked out wonderfully for us. If HB is needed in WvW by our server we WILL be there and doing our best to hold up the banner. This has been our reputation in other games, and we plan on sticking to this in GW2 too.

What can we offer to our future members?

• we can offer you organized guild raids several nights a week lead by one of our prime commanders during EU primetime and early EST
• we can offer you a guild that you could call “home”. Quite a few of our EU players are with us since 2001, the very beginning,
• we can offer you a highly competitive US server as in Blackgate, with short queues but epic, monumental fights
• we can offer you the chance to fight against or even alongside the most competitive US guilds in WvW. We have both enemies and allies highly skilled.
• our guild is part of the BWC (Blackgate War Council), which means you will get notified about every events that affect WvW on Blackgate.
• we have our own channel on the official Blackgate TeamSpeak server

bonus:

• we have Smokee Gee on our side (should have started with that! )

Things you probably won’t experience with us

• we couldn’t care less about the PvE content. That means, we won’t organize any kind of dungeon runs or fractal farming nights.
• we are a mature community and frankly, too old for drama. People may come and go but we keep standing firm on our ground. That’s not gonna change in the future either.

What do we expect from you?

• full-time repping. If you want to play with us, join us, not others
• we are an English speaking community. Although the guild is considered to be international (we have members from several countries from Europe, from North America and even from South America), we use English as ‘lingua franca’
• have a working headset and a microphone
• be an active member of the community both ingame and on our forums
• have a mature attitude. If you decide to make a comment on the Official Forums, do it with good manners. Respect your allies and even your opponents. Good sportsmanship is very important to us.
• we have expected builds and specs. Be ready to run them.
• make your goal to be the best. Be humble and accept guidance if the Leaders think you need it, but also do your own part of the research. Look up your class, learn to play it on a high level.
• your focus should be on WvW and WvW alone. As I’ve mentioned above we ignore PvE almost completely and live for the PvP. That could include some sPvP as well, but our profile is highly centered around WvW.

How to get to us?

We communicate with outsiders mainly through our website that is accessible for everyone. The registration is free of charge and only takes a few minutes to go through the process.

You could also look for the following persons ingame:
Myself (Skûgg) – Guild Leader
moriali – Community Officer
Smokee Gee – prime commander, Inner Circle member

Lastly, I’d like to attach a short video, made by our mesmer, Kirston, which highlights a few fights from the many we had in June-July.

For more videos check out the HB Playlist.

We hope to see you ingame! Until then, good hunting!

My sylvari necromancer

-Skugg-

BillFreist.1527:

The change to having damage spill over to your health pool was indeed to resolve falling damage, but was also how Death Shroud was, from a Design standpoint, intended to function. Obviously making these changes simultaneously was to help decrease any sense of buff/nerf to the mechanic itself.

If it’s indeed only about falling damage, remove the ICD on Spectral skills and implement some kind of Aegis-like mechanic upon entering DS (or anything else working similarly, maybe a bit more necroish – saw a lot of good ideas. Spectral Evade maybe? whatever.)
This way PvE’ers will have their one-shot mitigation and it will still reward skillful PvP playing as Necros will be able to absorb 1-shot bursts if they use their defensive mechanic at the right time.
WvW’ers will have their homemade invuln. as Spectral skills used to scale with the number of people you were getting attacked by.

what aspect of the game are we talking about? PvE, WvW or sPvP?