If it gets to the end of the week and there is not a single group that has gotten gold, at least then hopefully he’ll realize where we are coming from. If there has been one, please post the video.
But think about this: achieving gold is arguably harder then any lvl 48 fractal. A level 48 fractal for something that’s available for 2 weeks. Shouldn’t the reward for that be something pretty special? At the moment, no one in the hard core pve is going to try this because there’s no reason to. Literally zero incentive, beyond the challenge of it.
If you’re going to make something that hard, it’s got to have a decent reward. And I’ll be amazed if there is a single group that gets gold before the end.
Totally agree. Hard contents might be intended for hardcore players but if the rewards are subpar they are not gonna bother. Why? One word: efficiency.
Given the devs reply, if a full group of 5 can post a video how they succeeded in T4 then I will not complain about the difficulty anymore. But until then…
Yes, page 3. I must missed this one.
Maybe a lot of us did not saw that replies or just think its fine the way it is? Even if its not an hour it hurts to read that they wanted to fix it.
the reason i made this thread. i knew people would come with their sarcastic bs “How long is the ICD” but what they don’t understand is that it doesn’t matter. This was supposed to be fixed and fixed long time ago. Nothing been done and they let it broken like dozens of other skills/traits in this game.
I was sincerely asking. No sarcasm.
But really thank u for bringing up the topic. I was not aware of this.
Traits:
- Phantasmal Fury vs Blade Training: this depends on playstyle, if you spend most of the time fighting at range and not using sword much, Phantasmal Fury might suit you better. Otherwise, Blade Training is better well-rounded choice.
- Masteful Reflection is good, but its quite situational. Compounding Power is better as a default option. You can always switch to MR if you need it or use Mirror instead of Ether Feast.
- imo, Illusionary Invigoration is somewhat a standard choice for Shatter build just like Illusionary Persona. Also, just like Hexxen said, you wont benefit much from the extra bounce, at least not as much as the shatter reset at 50% health. Precise Wrack is also a good option.
Stats and Gear:
- i recommend Centaur Rune set since it synergizes well with any power build and gives you out of combat swiftness. But feel free to experiment here.
- i think your health pool is too large. This is actually a bad thing because your heal skills cannot sustain it over the course of battle. I’m sure as you become better and better a player, you realise you can replace vit gear for more offensive stats. The build I post is just an example of what gear combination can be used for a reasonable offense/defense stat ratio. Ofc for skilled players, full berserker is always the best option.
My best attempt with a full group of 5 was copper on T3. Not sure how we would fare in T4.
The strategy involves:
- 2 single DPS camp at beach and only kill looters and mortars, stealth, go back around the rock, or swim out far to lose aggro.
- 2 tanks with heavy condi removals/ stunbreaks stay near gold, hold aggro and pretty much try to survive
- 1 CC specialist run back and forth to kite vets away from 2 DPS and deliver to 2 tanks.
All members should have decent CCs and focus fire on looters as much as possible.
Even then, I think it still requires extreme coordination which our group didn’t have because we were PUG and didn’t have voice chat or something.
@Otters: do u have any tips regarding my strategy? Thanks a bunch.
Just ask yourselves if you really want to elect a fancy cat with a lead designer in his pocket. We’ll just have double up our support for Kiel on SATURDAY.
Brought to you by the people against smelly animals in office.
This man speaks the truth.
Remind me which Edge of Destiny member screwed over the others…oh right…the human -_-
Oh please, all Logan did was restore party balance. Six is too many for a dungeon run.
AND he is a Guardian. Sooooo I think Logan did a great thing.
Have anyone successfully done T4 with a full group of 5?
If so, what composition u guys had? What strategy?
My best attempt with a full group of 5 was copper on T3. Not sure how we would fare in T4.
The strategy involves:
- 2 single DPS camp at beach and only kill looters and mortars, stealth, go back around the rock, or swim out far to lose aggro.
- 2 tanks with heavy condi removals/ stunbreaks stay near gold, hold aggro and pretty much try to survive
- 1 CC specialist run back and forth to kite vets away from 2 DPS and deliver to 2 tanks.
All members should have decent CCs and focus fire on looters as much as possible.
Even then, I think it still requires extreme coordination which our group didn’t have because we were PUG and didn’t have voice chat or something.
Desperately need some advice to pull this thing off with my group. Any non-solo tip is very appreciated. Thanks a bunch
The clones use MH weapon’s autoattack so they move to get in range and attack target. Thus sword clones chase down targets. Hope that clears it up for you.
Its good that scepter #1 spawns clone near target.
Isn’t it supposed to be done by a good group? I haven’t seen a full group of 5 successfully done t4? Only guides for solo which I’m sure won’t work for me.
Might as well make it a single person instance kind of thing.
Lol, i opened 37 chests and got 13 scraps = 1.3 tickets. You opened 50 chests and got 2.3 tickets. Someone please do the math. -_-
I say you’re fairly lucky. It could have been much worse.
At this stage, I’m more interested in whatever happens to the losing candidate when the vote result comes out. What will they do? What will they say about the winning one? Also, what will the winning candidate do or say to the losing one?
Just some tips I want to share when I use iCounter:
- I never let the channel get past the first second (in other words, past midpoint of channel bar), if it does, i hit Counterspell and consider the block is wasted. This is because it means you hold your block too early and the enemy just dodges the counter even if they trigger the block.
- Consider using the block when you’re in the different weapon set. If you can see the attack coming, hit ~ and 2. With practice, you learn the timing and it works wonder for me, odds are the enemy don’t even know that you just block the attack because you weren’t using a scepter the moment before.
But Chaos is right, we do have 0.5s of extreme vulnerability especially in group fights and against multi-hit attacks. 0.5s or 1s of evasion after the block would be great.
Furious Interruption would have earned its place in my build if not for the ICD 15 seconds. Halting Strike and Bountiful Interruption are really good.
@Chaos: Sigil of Rage provides Quickness, I used to have it on Scepter but my crit chance was low so it didn’t really shine. I think you might want to try it out if you go 30 deep in Dueling.
@Helios, all clone death effects are AoE, from my experience, I think they have the same AoE range like shatters (Mind Wrack, CoF) though I couldn’t find any source to confirm this. Also, i don’t think Confusing Combatants is good for on-demand stacking confusions, it’s more like for keeping the enemies in almost perma-confusion.
After using CoF you can continue stacking confusion with the Confusing Combatants trait, as Keenlam pointed out on a separate thread, by simply spawning more clones. This makes DE very useful and Confusing Combatants is 25 in Dueling so it works well after taking DE. This does block you from taking both PU and a traited torch though so I’m not sure where to take it from there for my 20/20/30 build… Personally, I’ve not tried it yet, but I am curious how many players Confusing Combatants hits. I assume it’s an aoe.
I’d be curious to see how viable this is in WvW. First, clones often die almost immediately before they can run anywhere. Is their burst radius enough to hit people? Do you need to blink into the crowd to make it effective? Also, the confusion stacks are fairly short lived. Can you get enough stacks to be any better than the Confusing Enchantments trait with glamour? If you do that though then you’re really painting yourself into a corner with already being at 20/25/0/0/0 with only 25 points remaining.
Hi OP, just for your reference: here is the thread Helios mentioned about: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/condition-build-The-Clone-Spammer/first
The build is 10/25/10/0/25. Pretty exotic I think. Unfortunately, with this build, you don’t have much stealth to rely on or lots of toughness since you don’t go deep into Chaos trait line. But with proper positioning, your conditions will hurt a lot in every imaginable way.
I think Pyro shows a complete understanding of how the skill works.
@Pyro: Just a couple of things I haven’t been able to confirm.
- Is the clone generated with the block being triggered or with the counter effects (0.5s after the block)?
- Is the counter effects (dmg + torment) required LOS to apply on the target?
Thanks
Do the button “buffs” stack? If I eat 24 of them at once will I be supporting for a day?
No, it resets the buff like any other consumable
It would be great if they stack duration.
A slight buff is nice too, something like Kiel’s provide extra exp from kill, Gnashblade’s provide extra gold from kill.
Look at the 2 minigames (Southsun Survival vs Aspect Arena), see which one you enjoy more or play better, then vote for the candidate hosting that minigame. Just my 2cents.
Thank you Cody. I think everyone is very pleased with your response.
I second what Alexander said about adding even more instruments to the game. You have my total support.
… while also maintaining the functionality that was added in today.
Thanks for your prompt reply.
However, I seriously think the added functionality of ‘press the same key again to cancel the note’ should be removed completely. It single-handedly destroys the flow of music on the flute.
It is a common misconception that rangers are named so because they used “ranged” attacks. In reality, the term “ranger” comes from the definition of the word which means to cover a lot of ground. In other words, they “range” all over the place. It is also this definition that gives rise to the rangers of the US Army and the law enforcement group known as the Texas Rangers. So the answer to your question is, no, not necessarily.
QFT. Rangers are indeed arguably the fastest travelling class in the game, ideal roaming class in WvW.
^ what Pyro & Palu said. That would destroy a playstyle altoghether (something that rewards smart positioning & counterplay) since most people just shatter the hell out of it.
This looks like a bunker build. Bumping this up because I want to hear comments from others on this build as well.
To OP: how’s your playing experience with your build so far?
I’ve never played a bunker build so I can’t comment much, just a couple of questions if you don’t mind me asking:
- how often do you shatter? can you keep up with creating shatter fodder to use shatter often enough?
- you have lots of health, will healing power of 200 enough to sustain against condition spamfest?
Yes i was running with same traits as posted but in full rabid gear. I agree with you Bountiful Interruption might be a better option in zerg fight since with 3 stacks? of Might, provide you an easy burst after the successful interrupt.
The way I see it, phantasms are designed to provide burst dmg. That’s why condition phantasms do not work. About that iMage, I have no comment apart from totally hopeless.
@LumAnth: haha, I use Krytan Sword skin too. You must be very excited as I am now for the upcoming (supposedly) Aetherized rapier skin.
My condition weapons are all greenish look, just so people kknow I’m running a condition build lol
Staff, Pistol: jade
Scepter: tribal
Hi all,
So I got in a massive zerg fight yesterday, and I must say I’m totally in love with chill + interrupts now. I reckoned i finished off around more than 10 enemies in that fight.
I had great success on how to pull an interrupt. Here’s what i did:
I watched for someone who just dodged and started running away with low health. Usually it means they’re using heal. CC fire away and they’re downed instantly with Halting Strike (I got like up to 1,5k dmg on my rabid gear). Also the chill was great to slow them down in case they got away with my CC. Obviously, running with Berserker gear would be more devastating. Will def try it out next time.
Ofc Chaos Storm on an enemy group works well too.
The staff is amazing as it is. Its the most versatile weapon our class has. It can fit both powercrit and condition builds.
If you want to use staff in power builds, just use it in mid- to melee- range and enjoy the might-stacking. If you up the dmg from autoattack to par with sword’s then with might-stacking, it would be OP.
A solid shatter build imo. Although I don’t understand why you chose Dazzling Glamours in the Illusions trait line. Most people would probably go for Illusionary Invigoration or Compounding Power instead.
@OP:
From a design point of view, Staff, together with Scepter, is subtefuge weapon as opposed to sword & greatsword being intimidation weapons. It means the Staff requires some sort of setup and ramp-up time for optimal efficiency or damage for what it’s worth whereas Sword and Greatsword just scare the kitten out of enemies with overwhelming dps.
I made this comparison between Scepter & Sword. But you can easily find the similarities between Staff and Greatsword. You can check out the dead thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Discussion-Comparing-Between-Sword-Scepter/first#post2343997
3. Shorten the pre-animation on skill 3. The channel with the bright purple beam is bloody long enough without the 2 second wind up.
Or better yet get rid of the purple beam entirely, since it’s such a big tell for enemy to dodge. Make it like mantra, hit out of nowhere, fits the confusion theme.
@bobross, right – wondering if DE plus one utility provides enough benefit for the clone on death traits to free up a utility slot for condition management.
Fair enough, so if we consider the effects of MI (assuming it lands) in terms of damage- we have between 0-6k damage in bleeding, and 2 stacks of confusion for 6 seconds (in a 100% duration build). Lets assume 3 skill uses in this time, so add another 600 damage or so. So for one utility slot, you get between 600 and 6k damage and 6 seconds of cripple. Also weakness or vulnerability if we’re unlucky with it. Lets ignore the extra damage that iWarlock might do, since there’s so many conditions flying around anyhow. I think I agree with you here skcamow – Though it has the potential to be spectacular, it is too uncertain to be worth losing condition removal especially on its long cooldown.
So which condition removal? I’m thinking I might try arcane thievery or null-field. Both are solid choices, though null-field certainly scales better for small-large groups. For duels, I think arcane thievery might be really nice, as an extra boon stripper (aside from sword attacks/clones) when conditions are not a problem, and as extra condition pressure when they are an issue. Phantasmal disenchanter is great too, but I think it works against this build too much to have lots of phantasms out all the time.
sorry noob question, but what is MI? Doesn’t seem like Mass Invi the way you described it? Am I missing something?
