If your target is running away without any swiftness or any passive increased movement speed, then there’s a 5% chance a single “slice” of ZD might connect. Other than that and a point-blank barrage, ZD will always miss.
It doesn’t target via predictive path like the staff#2 Orb of Light. So even if the target is chilled and crippled and strafing sideways, ZD will miss.
You’re rooted. Projectiles are too slow. Targeting is broken. The cone spread is too random to be effective for a single target at anything further than 100 range, and is too narrow to be effective at attacking multiple targets.
I don’t see the point of this skill other than being a poor-man’s version of Hundred Blades – a rooted skill that’s only effective point-blank against an immob or cc’d foe.
Why no Charr love? They got Hidden Pistol, a 3/4s evade every 15 seconds with 100% projectile finisher at 900 range, and a kick back equal to the sword#2 rollback? I love firing that gun, it’s like shooting off a Noisy Cricket.
If all Sylvari ran their racial elite, they would turn any battlefield into the Caledon Forest.
I’ve also seen burning tick as if it was stacked twice. For example, instead of ticking 700 fire damage, I’ve seen a single tick for 1400. Anyone know what’s happening here?
The answer is always Norn! I remember one time when myself and my other 2 brothers made mesmers. The amount of fear it generates is really awesome, seeing 12 max-sized Norn staff mesmers shooting bolts. I remember just 3 of us held back about a 15+ small team from pushing a gate. They could’ve rolled right over us but not one dared to push through, it was hilarious.
I’m still a beginner but traps are pretty awesome in WvW. With Poison Master trait, you can easily dish out 1.3k+/second condi damage to an entire train with poison and flame trap+bonfire which should be ticking for bleeds as well with Sharpened Edges trait.
Which in some cases is better than necro staff marks which is visible, can be evaded through, and may only affect 1 target. When traited, traps apply more condi damage than necro staffs, are as large as wells, and have extremely low cooldowns compared to wells. Then you have axe#2 and shortbow#2 which don’t have a 5 target limit, and possibly axe#4? (wiki says the pull has a target limit, but I’m not sure about it shooting out).
Spike trap is super deadly against tight groups. Layer spike trap with chill/burn/poison traps and you can immobilize the driver+surrounding frontline tanks and lure them to eat pulsing condi damage. You can easily force half the team to pop cleanses early which should help your team immensely.
Ranger gonna range, even in melee! It’s some powerful stuff, dat longbow auto attack in melee.
Especially that trait that gives 15% chance to destroy melee attacks while executing ranged attacks
I’m having 1-4 second skill delay as well as delay in combat and animations. Just noticed this last night as well – I’ve never had any skill delay issues before so this is a first. My ISP seems the same and my other games and programs are unaffected. Also takes longer for the Guild list to get populated and for me to hear map-chat.
Everything looks good on speed test and ping test so I don’t know what the issue is.
Here to report the same. I’ve never had any lag since I started playing, and now WvW and PvP is almost unplayable. Full 1+ second delay on anything – have to run into a portal for a full second+ to get out of a gate, a full second+ to an auto attack to start, etc. For example on my ranger, shortbow#3 skill makes me rubberband pretty hard, as well as sword#2 skill of rolling back and leaping forward. Instead of using this technique to catch up to a group, I usually end up falling behind. Just an extremely frustrating experience.
I’ve always loved Balthazar runes. The quickness means a near-instant cast of Mass Invis on low hp, and with same cooldown to boot. So if you see your Mass Invis ready, you can be sure that quickness is ready behind it. When paired with Desperate Decoy and PU, that’s insta-10 seconds of invisibility which should slip you out of any situation.
Also works great for those kamikaze “death from above” situations, which is extremely fun to do. Works especially well with Chaotic+Bountiful Interruption:
1. Start mantra healing charge while in Torch#4
2. Jump off, landing for Chaos Storm, by that time Prestige and Balthazar goes off
3. Blurred Frenzy, trigger Torment Sigil
4. Swap with Geomancy to Staff#5 for a second Chaos Storm, pop shatters
8 area attacks. Burn, chill, poison, weakness, bleed, torment, confusion, (and on interrupt from 2x Chaos Storms) also apply cripple, blind (+more confusion if traited), immobilize, and most possibly 25 stacks of might. The actually time they see you is 1/2 cast time for Blurred Frenzy, the weapon swap to staff, then 1/4 cast time for Chaos Storm. You’re in and out at literally about less than 1 second, maybe 1.5.
And if that kamikaze almost kills you, you get quickness+Mass Invis for the getaway. Mid-channel you can pop off your healing mantras, so I guess it’s not really a kamikaze hah.
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Have you used this in WvW?
I just started playing a ranger and Entangle is easily my favorite skill in the game so far. My usually routine is GS#3 to Swoop past tank frontlines and dive right in their ranged backline, do Entangle, swap with Geomancy popping, drop a flame trap, off-hand axe#5 whirl. In all that’s bleed, torment, poison, fire (and fire bolts).
Entangle is best used for ranged because melee could just auto-attack cleave right out of the roots. It’s more of a yolo move, but 90% of the time ranged pugs will shoot at you, in which case you’d reflect it right back. After that just roll back using sword#2 + Lighting Reflexes and you’re pretty much in a safe position again.
Spirit Weapons in general will improve with power
Are you sure about that? I’m pretty sure spirit weapons don’t take any attributes except for condition damage, and even then that was recently changed because A Fire Inside used to be a fixed value.
Depends on your zoom level right?
Drop your first portal. Run, out of combat and with swiftness, in a straight line for precisely 12 seconds.
And doesn’t it also depend on terrain? Like if you’re portaling up/down the cliffs/walls? It would be nice to have visual cues to know if portals went out of range, like with the little red bar underneath our skills.
My guardian has been a Spirit Weapon pvper and it is pretty dominating. Con is that it has pretty long cooldown times across the utility slots, so you can’t really finish a battle and jump into the next one. Pro is that it doesn’t rely on your stats, so you can stack on toughness, vitality, and healing all you want for survivability and have the SW still hit like an 18-wheeler.
My build is similar to yours, except I have the full 30 Honor with all the Writ traits for symbols (heals, larger, duration). You’ll want contant symbols to fully utilize the Zeal traits (apply Vuln, +10% dmg). Since SW don’t pick up boons like Might from Empower, the Vuln will make a huge difference for SW damage output. Not only that, you’ll constantly be healing your SW. Because of this, I picked up a mace which pretty much has constant symbol uptime with all Writ traits taken.
For condi removal and more area heal, I have the Bow instead of the Shield. You’d be surprised how many times the Bow has saved me while I’m down to my last sliver of health trying to do a final healing Empower inside its rain of healing arrows. It definitely helps buy that few extra seconds healing. Con is that I don’t have a nice shield bubble for those heavy condi bow warriors, but then again with being constantly cleansed by the spirit bow, their damage is basically nullified.
For your own damage output, you have lots of power from Cleric, but no crit chance. So this is where I use Sigil of Intelligence (100% crit chance on swap) on the mace. Just swap and mace #3 for block and massive crit damage. The trick is to not have any symbols down when you swap or else the symbol gets the crit tick. The other trick is to also stack Empower before swapping. 100% crit Protector’s Strike + Empower is just wow.
I’ve actually never tried Healing Breeze, but I probably wouldn’t be using to save my SW as I would do to save myself. I’d probably need to micro-manage a whole lot to know if my SW is low and if myself is low, and then pop my Healing Breeze to use its full potential. I think it’s just too much for me, and possibly risky.
I’d also like to add that SW build underwater is just way way powerful. Sure you lose synergy with symbols, but with constant Vuln stacking auto-attack spear to constant bouncing heals on auto-attack trident, SW is probably the deadliest build for underwater. And along with spirit shield which would nullify probably 80% of all underwater attacks, it’s just insane.
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I feel like ZB is there just to mitigate the effects of Retaliation, and is not a healing solution. With such a low health pool, Retal which is the deadliest effect especially when you do Whirling Wrath in an enemy group. With <14-15k hp, you will easily insta-down yourself.
I’d say Burning Oil Mastery. It gets taken out the first thing mostly if a tower is under siege, if they forgot it and have a zerg nearby you are as good as dead when they start hitting the oil.
I don’t know. I’ve got max oil mastery. The damage reduction along with the burning shell make it much more survivable (enough to where you can comfortably stand in a meteor shower, among other aoes, in my experience). This can buy valuable seconds needed for a response crew to get to a contested keep. Plus, using the burning shell vs Omega golems under time warp is hilarious.
To OP, yeah, probably mercenary bane. Not exactly worst, just fewest possible instances to be made use of.
Agree with you here. With a skilled player, oil mastery is devastating. With the right build, a 20 man would have a hard time killing a 1 man oil mastery user. Many times it’s to shoo away blob zergs who think they got it easy taking an empty tower. Many times it’s just to buy that few extra seconds for the commander to rally up and save the tower. And even if they do back out to focus fire on the oil first while you’re on it, it’s gonna take a whole lot more time.
And don’t get me started on towers where the enemy has to pass through the oil to get to the lord. If the tower is well fortified enough for the enemy to take down the walls from a distance and ignore the oil all together, they’re gonna have a rough time passing through that oil site.
We have the skill channeling visual effects to charge the Mantras. The biggest drawback is definitely the lack of visual skill activation (like Mantra of Pain shows nothing) and number of Mantra charges.
I said this in a previous Mantra discussion but it’s worth mentioning again. What we need is some kind of visual cue to know how many charges a Mantra has. I get you need a highly skilled player to micro-manage the Mantras, but seriously, no one wants to squint down at the subscript to see how many charges are left in the middle of a fight.
We need something like Mimic, where a caught projectile is indicated by a glowing orb on the arm. So a charged Mantra of Recovery will have 2 blue orbs on the back, Mantra of Pain will have 2 purple orbs on the main hand, Mantra of Concentration will have a yellow orb on either leg to indicate Stability, etc. Just throwing out ideas, because I feel like Mantras were literally given like 2 days development.
No one really cares for sword/scepter/gs clones, but if you have 3 staff clones up, you bet any player would be quick to turn their attention to them if they have not already.
I agree its not great but considering axe 2 can and will hit 20k on softer targets, and will hit through stealth as long as you get the channel started before they enter stealth. I feel its well worth the down sides.
Except it stops channeling if they move to your far sides or behind you, in which case dagger 2 has the advantage here.
Both are very good, it just depends on your play style. Chaos covered most of it already, though it is rare to see Mesmers finish the 3 hit combo for clone creation.
If you’re a condition build, don’t rule out swords. Swords are perfect for Cripple/Debilitating Dissipation builds. If you trait for clone at dodge, you can easily get 3 clones and completely punish melee cleaving builds with Cripple + Confusion + Bleed/Vuln/Weakness for every clone death.
Via reddit:
Mesmer: Signet of the Ether: Signet Passive: Heal yourself based on the number of active illusions you control. Signet Active: Heal yourself and refresh all phantasm skill recharges.http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1s31pc/new_healing_skills_datamined/
This sounds amazing, but way way way overpowered. If recharges = phantasm summon skills, it means we could start a fight with 3 phantasms up immediately. If recharges = phantasm attack, then it’s a little less potent, but would allow a massive burst of 2 izerker and 2 ideulest attacks. Either way, I think it’s a bit too powerful.
You could already start a fight with 3 phantasms.
1. Summon iSwordsman
2. Quickly switch weapons (you’ll still be out of combat) summon iDuelist
3. Summon iDefender
If this skill gets implemented, you could get 30% movement speed, 9% dmg reduction, and max signet healing ticks. Of course this still means nothing in large scale WvW where all illusions die after a second anyway, but still be interesting for PvP.
Here’s a little vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6NeyXVwDaw&feature=youtu.be
Just watched the video, was mimic blocking melee attacks?
The only problem with the secondary function is it doesn’t block all attacks.
Maybe Mimic should be converted to a block skill, and block all incoming attacks.
It used to work that way, Mimic blocked both projectile and melee attacks. Only thing that keeps me away is that you take the hit of the initial projectile, which is usually the one that’s going to mess you up anyway.
Right now there’s nothing distinctive or uniquely Mesmer-y about it. Mimic is 95% like Warrior’s shield block traited with projectile reflection. It’s crude and dirty. We Mesmers deserve something more elegant and majestic. Maybe something like:
Mimic: Every projectile absorbed creates an imbalance in the membrane, causing it to slowly shatter away from reality, flinging shards which randomly applies Confusion, Blind, or Cripple with 1 second IC in a 300 radius around the Mesmer. 4 second channel, maximum 4 pulses. (projectiles are absorbed, not reflected)
Echo: The shield membrane cannot stay sustained in the fabric of reality and collapses into the Mesmer’s palm. The Mesmer unleashes the unstable ball of energy, reflecting all projectiles back to their original sources up to 5 targets. It also creates additional 5 illusionary projectiles which cause no damage.
The random condition makes it uniquely a Mesmer skill and not a CopyPaste of the Warrior’s shield. Now picking up Far-Reaching Manipulations makes sense for Mimic→Echo. The exploding Echo hitting multiple targets addresses the issue about Mesmers lack of AoE attacks.
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If the 10 were well coordinated with comms, then impossible. Those 10 would probably wreck a 20-man mindless zerg.
3 mesmers would seem like 12 players on the field (3 illusions + mesmer themself). Even with proper comms, it would be a hassle with constant target switching. You don’t have to win, but you should be able to stall them for a good amount of time. In WvW terms, that’s already winning.
Anyway, if you would even know what WvW was and what guilds were there, you would probably speak on another tone. 1 Fight of 25vs 80 IRON/RAGE/NuKe without the idiotic server lag lately, required more skill than you ever needed in whole PvE.
Or maybe a bit smaller scale since you think raids don’t require skill:
Winning 1v3’s against equal/better geared people every day. Those are the people who got stuck in pve too long and have no idea what to do when fighting 1 guy with 2 mates on his side.
Jesus christ I just want to read some good ol’ tactics without some alpha Mesmer spouting out zomg you all suxs wvw better. Seriously, what’s with the elitism? This is a Mesmer forum, and the good folks here are just discussing PvE strategies, so what exactly is your problem? Because guess what, and this is a real eye opener, some people actually do enjoy PvE more than PvP/WvW.
If you want to talk WvW, go post on that section. I see no reason why you’re here other than to just bash on people talking about Mesmer things on a Mesmer forum.
We should just get back to topic ….
Yes, please.
Most fun build I’ve played. And since everyone’s got a witty name for their build, I wanna call this The Vanishing Balthazar!
If im not using blink im usino decoy just because I find it important to have a stun break for the odd stun warrior or just to relieve some pressure off me.
That being said I like decoy over blink but thats just preference.
Blink for me. Faster recharge, and don’t need too go deep within a trait line to pick up a reduced cooldown. That and the fact that other players can still bash your face in with auto-attack if they trap you in an Immobilize (remember it’s a condition, you won’t break from it). With Blink I may still be Immobilized, but at least I’ll be insta-900 range away from them. Well doesn’t really matter for me anyway, I will almost always carry both Decoy and Blink regardless of build.
Regarding tactics, it depends on your build. For mine with traited Manipulations and traited Torch, I practically have 100% safety from iLeap+Frenzy.
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So here’s why you’re not quite right.
When you have high toughness, each point of hp represents a higher amount of health, because it takes more raw damage to remove each point. Due to that effect, heals are more effective with high toughness.
With high vit and low toughness, you have 2 interactions. The first is that each point of hp is worth less health than with high toughness, and so your heals are less effective just because of that. However, on top of that you also have the issue of heals healing for a lower % of your health.
Now, while this doesn’t make an immediate difference, it ends up being very impactful in how your build is able to sustain effectively. Even if at 40% Hp you have as much health as a high toughness build at 70% hp, your 40% is worth less. With lower health you are targeted more often, finishing moves (such as heartseeker) do more damage, and so ultimately your sustainability is significantly reduced.
No argument here, I agree on all points. I only have an issue when you talk about healing percents (or I’m possibly just misunderstanding).
Yes your point is true, the 4k heal is more effective with toughness because it’s harder to chew away at. But strictly in terms of only Healing Power and Vitality, the heals are the same. Healing 4k at 15k health is the same as healing 4k at 90k health. Yes it may not visually rise up much on the health globe, but it doesn’t change the fact that the amount healed is the same. This is an important concept especially for Zerkers who take comfort in their chunky heals. It may seem like a 60% heal, but it’s only like that because of their dangerously low health pool, and many new players don’t realize that.
Yes, with Carrion and Rabid having equivalent health, the Carrion will have a lower hp%, making them more targetable for opportunists or percent-specific skills like Heartseeker. But if a pet with a thousand conditions in your group gets Epidemic-ed, visually having more health won’t matter because now it’s just a numbers game, percents won’t help you. Yes having lower health pool means heals appear more “bursty-er” which destroys enemy moral (can’t count how many times my heart drops when a Guardian pops their Signet of Resolve and goes from 20% to 100%). But those are strategy techniques for another discussion.
Ether feast is such a strong heal that often in full toughness you’ll waste 1000 healing on over healing.
I actually find it rare to see people hitting their heals early, it’s mostly when they’re at half way. When I watch Mesmer videos, the most common mistakes with Ether Feast is casting it after a shatter (why??) or completely ignore their skillbar and not noticing a readied clone/phantasm. At least spit out a couple of illusions, and then heal! Most players just treat Ether Feast as any other healing skill.
Torch build here. Like Godmoney I too run a different mix of Carrion armor/weapons and Rabid trinkets (but have Carrion gems in them). Though I’m only using them for the toughness and condition stats, so I may switch them out for Dire trinkets. I’ll try to address the common points, but this is only specific to my build.
Defence
Constant Blinds, Confuse, Stealth, Blinks, and Staff mini-Blinks means I should have just enough defence to slip away from any surprise physical attacks, but do nothing to help mitigate condition damage stacks on me (except for picking up Regen from Stealth). We already have so many tools to slip away from physical attacks. Because of this, I picked up more Carrion pieces than Rabid, and possibly taking away Rabid all together for Dire. Protection/Aegis from Chaos Armor and Prismatic Understanding helps with the lower sub-2.5k defence.
Precision
Like I mentioned I only picked up Rabids for the defence. I have 0 Dueling in my build, meaning no initial Precision/CritDmg. So any Precision picked up from Rabid trinkets are negligible and a waste. Also because of this, I lose Vigor. But like I’ve said, we have so many ways of slipping away that losing Vigor may not be as devastating as, let’s say, a clunking Guardian losing Vigor.
Torch Mage and Staff Warlock Phantasms are the worst with Sharper Images since they only throw out a single bolt vs. a Berserker or a Duelist. Precision has no place in my build.
Health
Additionally, toughness indirectly increases the strength of your heals, while vitality decreases it. The same strength heal heals for a lower % of your hp with a lot of vit, making it indirectly weaker.
-[Incoming life and economics lesson]-
I have $5 off coupon. Would I save more if I buy something that’s $10 or something that’s $10,000? Buy the $10 thing and save 50% or buy the $10,000 thing and save 0.05%? Neither, it’s the same savings because at the end of the day you’re still saving $5.
You don’t want to think in terms on percentages in this situation. Just because you get a higher perceived heal does not mean you heal more. In my particular build (near 20k health with 0 Inspiration trait) I still use the 4k heal Mirror. Sure the perceived heal looks very low, but it’s still going to be 4k even if I have 15k health.
So in the end, there is no real answer. Almost like how everything else is answered, the real answer is…!
It depends on your build and your play style.
Im running the support build on the GW2 build site (pretty much P/V/T) and was wondering if Mace and Shield would be a good combo? Right now im running greatsword and scepterfocus
First of all, supporting and tanking are different. Support helps others, tanking is selfish.
Let’s talk about the 5 skill for both focus and shield. The focus only blocks for yourself and doesn’t benefit others, it’s selfish. For WvW support, Shield of Absorption can completely negate a zerg’s volley. Just because a block effect doesn’t pop up doesn’t mean the shield “doesn’t block” as Deathmond stated.
Now let’s talk about the 4 skill for both. As for Ray of Judgement, you’d be Blinding one enemy twice, or just Blinding two enemies. A miss is just as good as a block, so for tanking purposes, focus is great. In WvW, a single enemy gets Blinded, maybe two, so what? For support, I’d switch out Ray of Judgement for Shield of Judgement. I would rather give Protection to 5 allies than to Blind 1 enemy.
Focus 4 should stack swiftness, just like every other swiftness in the game except Focus 4
The only problem with that is it stays on the ground. If it stacks Swiftness, I could just run back and fourth and stack a minute of it. It should at least work like the guardian’s Symbol of Swiftness and just refresh it if you already have it and not be completely ignored.
@mambastik, I can beat the best thieves with that setup. But ide prefer to run a power build without torch. I just hate how slow the build is for roaming (since i use perplex on that setup). Im contemplating trying that setup with traveler runes tho. Bu ti want that to be a last resort.
Yup extremely slow, I’m usually forced to carry a Focus for long runs in WvW which is a hassle. But it’s a small sacrifice for a build that’s practically unbeatable and super flexible: 1v1, small group, zergs. I run with Balthazar runes with Fire aoe on Heal. For example, for breaking up groups, do Prestige, start the Heal, time it correctly and Blink right in middle of the group with Frenzy. Add a Sigil of Fire and it’s just an orchestra of explosions which drops most Zerkers hiding behind front lines.
The only reason I switched out of this build is because everything seems easy mode.
Torch/Staff build will be your savior against thieves. I know Phantasmal Mage doesn’t get much love but it’s one of the best ones against them. Here’s what usually goes down when I fight thieves:
Thief initially Blinds. I go Prestige removing the Blind condition and allowing me to pop Mage while invisible. Traited, this usually applies a Blind+Confusion, meaning he probably won’t be spamming auto-attack trying to find me. With Sword main hand, do the usual Leap+Frenzy combo while timing your Prestige reappearance. Tip: Try and keep a Mage present. The second the Thief comes out of stealth to do another smoke+leap combo, it’s going to get tagged by the Mage. The decision goes to them: if they want Stealth from a leap, they’re going to have to take a hit from 3 stacks of Confusion.
Switch to Staff and do the usual routine, Storm+Retreat for Chaos Armor. Once that runs out, activate your normal Chaos Armor. This is your best counter because chance for Confusion or Blind, and when traited, also causes Confusion. Tip: When you have Chaos Armor, do try and take the hits if you can, meaning activate it when you’re out of Endurance. If you dodge with Chaos Armor, then it’s a total waste.
I’ve said before I think it’s the most useless Guardian skill. It has practically 0 synergy with the other traits, other than the “+10%dmg on target with conditions”. But then again you’re relying more on that condition damage being Burning instead of a Chill.
I still think devs picked this out of a hat. A class where traits and skills go hand in hand like Blinds, Immob, Burning, Vuln, and somehow Chill was just thrown in there out of nowhere.
I’m betting even with the change from “50% chance to Chill every kitten ” to “100% chance every 30s” people still didn’t pick up Glacial Heart. Like many have said, there are so many other better choices that actually synergize with other skills.
It’s good supplement damage and it adds a punishment to your foes when you block. In combination with Retal and Direct damage it can add up a lot. (Has Runes of Guardian on too)
Does Defender’s Flame stack with Rune of the Guardian, meaning 1 block gives 2 seconds of Burn?
We share the idea about the trigger for protection part. Right now I feel kinda dumb when I wind up PS expecting to get hit just to end up running around holding my hand in the air and not getting hit at all. I mean I barely use PS for protection at all, the animation is a long wait to be worth it.
The reason why I suggested PS to have a blast finisher is for retaliation, because the single cleansing bolt it creates from whirl finisher is just laughable.
Whirl finishers in general are laughable. Every time I do Teq, people are stuck with 30s+ of Vulnerability condition, which I try to cure with GS#4 Symbol, then whirl out Cleansing Bolts with GS#2. It almost always fails to hit anything, it just spews out everywhere except to where the players are. It’s amazing.
If you ask me, the whirl finisher on the Mace is one of the most useless guardian skills, next to Glacial Heart.
It’s not the lag, it’s how the skills work. Both Hammer 3 and Sword 3 shoot projectiles at the current location of the target, which will almost always miss even if they are Chilled and walking sideways. Scepter auto-attack or Staff 2 will shoot projectiles based on a predictive path of the target, meaning they will fire ahead of them if they are moving.
Like Tarsius said, if you want Hammer/Sword 3 to hit, you’ll need to either immobilize, knockdown, or be in point-blank range to be successful.
Guardians are good at 1v1 it’s just we have to try harder than other classes because we don’t have the mobility, CC, stealth etc that other classes have that allow them to take a breather before getting back in the game.
Guardian is a very ‘once you’re in you’re in’ kinda class and the only real options are killing everything or die trying.
They got pretty good mobility with the right weapons. I run with sword and a 600 range tele every 10 seconds is really good. 1200 every 20 seconds is still better than a dual-traited Mesmer Blink (reduce cooldown + increase range). With a GS, you’d be getting 1200 every 15 seconds. Not bad, granted there are targets to select.
Is that a joke?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat
Do you even have a Mesmer? Phase Retreat blinks you backwards at about 300 range. The 1200 range you see is the requirement for a Clone to spawn, it is not the range of the blink. If you want to use Phase Retreat for traveling, you’ll need to keybind a 180 camera turn to face backwards, do Phase Retreat that blinks you forwards, then do another 180 turn to continue running forwards. Every 10 seconds. You can do that if you want, but it’s a hassle. And if you mess up, you’re 300 range behind.
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Spirit Weapon build is my favorite for pvp, but completely useless for wvw unless you’re roaming or dolyak escorting/killing. Like someone said, 30/0/0/30/10 with a mace would probably be your best combination, fully traited for Spirit Weapons and fully traited for Symbols. You’d get super high survivability from healing Symbols, constantly stacking vulnerability from Symbols, and truck-hitting Spirit Weapon crits, even with just a Cleric’s set.
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Guardians are good at 1v1 it’s just we have to try harder than other classes because we don’t have the mobility, CC, stealth etc that other classes have that allow them to take a breather before getting back in the game.
Guardian is a very ‘once you’re in you’re in’ kinda class and the only real options are killing everything or die trying.
They got pretty good mobility with the right weapons. I run with sword and a 600 range tele every 10 seconds is really good. 1200 every 20 seconds is still better than a dual-traited Mesmer Blink (reduce cooldown + increase range). With a GS, you’d be getting 1200 every 15 seconds. Not bad, granted there are targets to select.
Almost guaranteed that he was a Healway variation. That would be this guy.
^^ Yep.
Burns on Blocks, Retal, Sword/Focus + GS… Dodge Rolls and Boons to boot.
Super troll build…. dodge’s in and out of combat.
Does the burn on block trait have a cooldown? For example using Shelter on Hundred Blades will give 8 seconds of burning. Also, does it stack with Rune of Guardian’s 6th bonus of adding burning on block, giving 2 seconds of burning for 1 block?
Gahhh… thanks.
The only thing that will actually stack with the “healing” thing is Healing Breeze and Healer’s Retribution – 3 seconds of Retaliation on heal, found on Radiance branch. Healing Breeze ticks, so you’ll actually be getting 9 seconds (or 12, forgot how many ticks) of Retaliation. So with Altruism, you’ll get 10s Might, 5s Fury, and 9/12s Retaliation, which is a pretty sweet deal.
Channeling area cleansing every 15 seconds is amazing. The channeling even sometimes forces double dodges because it’s a kitten scary sight to see it in your face.
Torch 4 is like a Kill Shot for Guardians. Even with low crit chance, you can put Sigil of Intelligence. Staff 4 to stack might, swap to torch for 100% crit, pop Retreat! for Aegis and traited +20% dmg under Aegis, and you have yourself a sniper.
Zealot’s Fire shouldn’t increase the CD by 50% IMO. It’s a subpar skill as is and it would be nice to be able to throw the fire and still maintain at 15 second CD.
Cleansing Flame’s cast time could use a reduction from 4 1/4 seconds to 3 3/4 seconds. At the moment it feels way to long for little damage, I could be auto attacking with my sword and do much more in less time.
Not really subpar. Zealot’s Fire is one of the single most damaging skills a Guardian has, next to the focus #5 Shield of Wrath explosion. I believe it even beats out hammer #2 Mighty Blow. It’s definitely easier to control and will damage 100% of the time, unlike focus 5 which can be broken and requires timing, or hammer 2 where you’ll need to be in melee range.
I agree with you on Cleansing Flame. The channeling is just too slow to be effective for damage. However slower is better if you want to keep up area cleansing conditions. It would be silly to have it burst out quickly and not have a chance to run around and cleanse your teammates.
Who said this? Torch is used for offense, focus is for support and shield is defensive.
Who said this? Even untraited, torch’s Cleansing Flame is one of the fastest area cure conditions which is perfect for support. Shield of Wrath can be used for burst when detonated. Focus could be defensive, a blind + 3 blocks means 4 guaranteed avoided hits, while a shield doesn’t really block anything except projectiles, and even then it isn’t defined as a block and will not synergize with traits.
In the end, a weapon will be it’s purpose if you trait and equipt for it correctly.
For OP, go test it! If you’re level 80 doing WvW, there’s really no excuse to spend 1 silver per masterwork equipment just to play around with different builds.
Also great write ups by Balekai. I’m still a beginner necro, but I love how versatile it is, especially when it comes to healing. Healing 700hp/s from Well, nearly 100% uptime 300hp/s regen with Mark of Blood/Evasion, area heal on leaving DS, area heal on DS#4 Life Transfer, and maybe others that I may have missed. Full healing/Clerics is one of the builds I’ve always been coming back to.
Did they mention anything about summons being able to regenerate out of combat? Was it in the leak that didn’t make it into final patch, I forgot already.
I agree the chances of hitting/pulling are very confusing. Just last night in WvW I tried to pull a warrior across flat land from mid range, and all he did was stumble over in place, no pull.
I also remember another time I actually dragged an enemy that was just about to run down the opposite side of a hill. SG has an arching motion and it actually caught him, pulling him up the hill to the peak, continued down the slope, and delivering him right at my feet at the bottom of the hill. Definitely one of the most did I just do that moments.
Love this build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIhdu1IjWne3m2GDnCQSh18CVY3oCHT9A+2RH-T4AA1CtIuSdl7KzVSnsXNEZJyugDBTCeFAI call it the Shroud Bouncer. Unlike most every shroud build, you don’t use the shroud to absorb damage unless you absolutely have to, you mostly bounce in and out of it every 4.5 seconds, as doing so gives you 65% uptime on retaliation, removes conditions, and keeps constant weakness on your target. It does amazing in 1v1, especially against thieves and mesmers.
It could be better still, with just a few different runes it could have 100% uptime on retaliation, but Spiteful Spirit is just as bugged as most necro traits and doesn’t function with boon duration.
But doesn’t Weakening Shroud have a 15 second internal cooldown? I’m still fairly new with Necro, but it seems like Weakening Shroud’s Enfeebling Blood’s cast time is transferred over, meaning there is no effect the instant you pop F1. But yeah, remove condition every 5 seconds is pretty sweet.
So secondary bounce on reapers touch is 600 even with spiteful talisman? Kind of makes using Reapers touch at 1200 range pointless if it cant bounce between you and the target no? Sorry cant test due to being out of country.
The argument being, other allies, pets, other enemies could be within that range even if you are at 1200 distance.
I agree its irritating, and its the main reason I don’t take focus, because just the one hit from it without the bounce is no good. If it did rebound 1200 yards it would have to go very fast, much faster than the projectile moves right now.
Mesmers have the same problem with Greatsword 2. Just one of the things about the skill you have to live with I suppose.
It’s not really a bug/problem if that’s the way it’s supposed to work. Mesmer’s staff 1, pistol 5, greatsword 2, and Disenchanter, all bounce to nearby targets. If the bounce was 1200, and at 5 bounces, it would theoretically reach 6000 range if the enemies were spaced apart. Now imagine if a Mesmer along with 3 clones casting staff 1 Winds of Chaos all having 1200 bounce and traited with an additional bounce. It would be utter devastation.