Guild Wars 2

Anierna.6918:

maxinion.8396:

Notice also that DEKeyz says go for perception stacking, and Anierna for bloodlust. The difference in the armor sets, after full stacking, is going to be basically marginal. Berserker is way easier to get, so I personally just went with that.

The difference is there. It matters. If you’re going for “optimal,” which I’ve assumed is the goal, any difference at all, even a “marginal” one, matters.

EDIT: One other thing I just noticed. In all my LH builds, you’re stacking Bloodlust. That means that you start the instance with either 98% or 100% crit chance, depending on the build, immediately. As the instance progresses, you accumulate Power via Bloodlust stacks. Each stack of Bloodlust gives 10 power, up to a maximum of 250.

In DE’s builds, you’re stacking Perception, so you start off the instance with significantly less crit chance. Each stack of Perception gives 10 precision, up to a maximum of 250.

An important thing to note is that, at the start of an instance (meaning without any stacks), my builds have significantly higher EP than DE’s builds, and each stack of Perception has a greater impact on the EP of her builds than each stack of Bloodlust has on the EP of mine. This means that even though the difference in EP once both builds have maximum stacks is minor, prior to maximum stacks, my builds are significantly better.

If for a given dungeon you have maximum stacks only half the time, my builds will FAR outperform DE’s due to stacking Bloodlust rather than Perception. Even if you assume maximum stacks 90% of the time, the slightly higher EP of my builds for that 90% plus the significantly higher EP of my builds for the 10% averages out so that the differences become more apparent.

Right, the difference (once at max stacks) is 160 points more to precision for DE, and 160 more to power for you. I guess the point is that the 160 points actually are too much in prec, since you’ll be at 100% already, assuming fury and everything.

That’s still probably a minor point, as natural fluctuations in might, vulnerable, etc all will probably be larger than this. But point taken~

cranos.5913:

The build I’m most interested in is the s/f LH build for might and fury. Checked yours and Anierna’s guide on it. Armor-wise there’s a difference, Anierna says go assassins and here it says go zerk (talking full exotic here).

So I guess the basic question is, which is it?

Notice also that DEKeyz says go for perception stacking, and Anierna for bloodlust. The difference in the armor sets, after full stacking, is going to be basically marginal. Berserker is way easier to get, so I personally just went with that.

Isn’t the size of the animation (whirling stuff) what actually determines reflection? If you just focus on that, it might help (though obviously not when he’s not attacking).

Wtb reflect warrior plz

Errr…

Tl;dr: flamewall lasts longer than ring of fire, and the blasts from focus channel faster. This means your LH AA gets more rounds off while the fire field is up, which means more total might.

Thanks DEKeyz for the explanation. Vuln stacking, perma fury, moderate might, and good dps do seem to be plenty of motivation to run the d/f ele instead of Yet Another Warrior in high level fractals. I personally just do not have the experience with dagger air aa to understand how much DPS loss there is, so I guess that’s something I’ll have to play with to get a feeling for. But even 30% down from scepter-hammer is probably still competitive with other classes. Anything you could do to help quantify this would be highly appreciated, of course!

Lord Kuru.3685:

So I guess the best solution is to grind out 2 Ascended weapons, one with night, and one where you put slaying sigils that you overwrite each time you do a different dungeon (for the day dungeons)?

That’s what I’ve seen people so, as much as it sucks. Don’t forget a third one for bloodlust/perception stacking

That’s basically what I’m getting at, though I know Zelhyn et al. feel otherwise, and so I’d like to understand better why

If the reason is as simple as “run this build if you simply must bring your ele into high level fractals because it is your only toon with AR and this is the best way to make it survivable”, that’s fine too. I am just trying to understand the best situations for each of the builds.

You should specify NA or EU

A question, which may have been answered in the videos, but I can’t watch those atm.

Why bring a d/f ele over some other class? We know what s/x + LH builds bring (might plus huge dps), but d/f seems to bring much less might and only moderate dps compared to the LH builds. Obviously it’s much more survivable, but what does it have which other classes do not?

Thanks!

I’ve seen some people keep night + stacks of the other sigils. The other sigils are relatively cheap, so constantly throwing them out isn’t the craziest thing I’ve heard of (at least, compared to the cost of all that ducking dragonite).

Thanks DEKeyz. This, along with Anierna’s guide, is another excellent resource for the dungeoning community.

You should consider checking out the three other threads on page 1 of the Mesmer forum which all contain discussion about the best dungeon builds. This is actually fairly close (30 in inspiration and the staff are bad, but most other things seem ok). The best support you can provide your team is more dps, so an offhand sword is going to be a better choice than the staff.

It’s the mesmer’s job to portal. Makes everyones’s life easier. Likewise, it’s the warrior or thiefs or eles job to kill the gate, not yours.

You’ll want as many mantras as you can to maximize damage. Restoration for healing obviously, and concentration and resolve for stability/stun break and condition cleanse. You can swap out some of those situationally, but keep in mind the damage loss when you do.

Note also that the p2 cutscenes is way too short to allow you to log back into the dungeon; you’ll need to leave before the boss is dead, which can be frustrating for the rest of your group. P3 and P1 both have long cutscenes, which allow you to relog after the boss dies.

cranos.5913:

maxinion.8396:

AC p1 can be even faster than p3, and is also worth 1.5 g.

Pugging it however, is always a gamble…

Absolutely. However, if you go ele yourself you can easily solo at least half the burrows in the Pug Killer room, which is probably enough to allow the dopiest pugs to proceed.

Oh, and I can’t believe I forgot: focus 4 is one of the best, most reliable pulls in the game.

You also get boon stripping with sword aa, sword clones, and null field and arcane thievery. For some bosses, this is hugely useful.

Mesmer death times on the giant are kept down by the need to spawn your phantasms. For Real Long Fights, you’ll have ~2 up on average and do more consistent damage than at the start, where you are still spooling up.

Mass invis and veil and portal are also situationally very useful in some runs.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification! I misremembered the domination major trait while on my phone as well.

Either way, you need to decide on the compromise between phant dps and reflect damage that you want to use. I personally skipped out on empowering mantras these days to keep more flexibility with my utilities. But the 0/30 does seem to maximize reflect dps.

AC p1 can be even faster than p3, and is also worth 1.5 g.

Another viable, and perhaps slightly better with reflections, build is 10/30/0/20/10. You get less phantasm dps, but empowering mantras and the 10 in domination will help with reflects.

The differences between these three builds are going to be very marginal over the course of a full dungeon though, so any of them should treat you well.

Bread.7516:

maxinion.8396:

Let’s ignore trolly trolls and reply to OP!

I like your idea! However it puts more require to on the buyer to trust the seller, since you can’t check that the seller is at Brie anymore before you pony up cash. How do you deal with this? Perhaps a slight discount?

I dont agree with the slight discount, imo still stay with the market price. Individually the buyer can just see the professionalism and for personal security just record the few seconds it takes or take screenshots.

I can relate this to general business with supplier relationships, a lot of it is based on trust. Sometimes you have to deposit the money to their bank account before they ship your items. The most you can do is check their background or in the case of gw2 have evidence to back your gentleman’s agreement.

TL;DR no discounts. stay with market price (+- 50s to 1g isnt a big deal tbh). reputation goes a long way. protect yourself and record evidence.

This seems fair. If you start running this method, let us know how it works out— I’m curious if people will go along with it as you hope.

Let’s ignore trolly trolls and reply to OP!

I like your idea! However it puts more require to on the buyer to trust the seller, since you can’t check that the seller is at Brie anymore before you pony up cash. How do you deal with this? Perhaps a slight discount?

Mesmers can ruin your fire fields with useless feedbacks too

Basically, I would suggest avoiding the hammer AA if you see the ele trying to stack might. Hammer is unlikely to ever become meta precisely because of this problem— it’s too easy to screw up the best (or second best, next to banners) source of offensive buffs in the game.

omg. picked up two separate pug eles for CoF p1 and p2— both were using frost bow everywhere tonight! Can’t believe this.

Is it because of Tequatl that people think ice bow is so powerful recently, or something? Whyyyyyyyyy

Just came to say that indeed phantasmal haste is pretty borked, so it’s best to put that 20 in inspiration as colesy mentions.

The (traited) focus is better in most situations than pistol because of the AoE + reflect— pistol wins in single target encounters that do not need reflects (melee’ing bosses).

Ropechef.6192:

late Friday night here. thought about doing a run to finish off the day. pulled up LfG, went to arah because it amuses me.

for over 30 min, I watched. 2 (count them 2) sellers sit on their adds. they did eventually get filled. one was for path 2 the other path 4,

38 other parties. (yes I counted) poped and filled and ran in that 30 some odd min.

the only reason you see sellers is because it takes a long time to fill. Arah is run regularly. and often. you don’t see posts for it because they don’t last long.

If you are concerned about player greed, and all that jazz. try not using the trading post. ever, you have to farm ALL of your own stuff. you think there is a gear grind now?

The dungeon sellers that are perfectly capable of running a path solo or duo and sell of the work and make a little coin on the side. more power to them. ohh hey, I have an excess of mithril ore. I will just post it on the trading post… you see where were going?

Play your game, Have some fun with it, and enjoy yourself. that’s why we are here is it not?

Thanks for running the test to see how many other parties went up. Good to have an actual number to quote on this!

Ok, but seriously. Stability, dodges, evades, invulns, stun breaks, blinks, etc. All of these can be used to survive the knock-downs, and all classes have access to plenty of them. The tell for knock-downs is also super obvious and gives a ~1 s warning, which is more than enough time to prepare with one of these options.

If there’s a specific part that’s giving you problems, you can describe it and people can suggest a way around it. But please rest assured: not being able to deal with the gravelings is entirely a skill related issue, albeit one you can easily fix with some practice.

l2p

/15chars

DivineSlayer.5039:

I don’t get it…

Two lovely people trying to blackmail an Arah seller into giving them the path for free, or losing his entire progress.

The lowest of the low! Haven’t heard of this till now, this is even worse than just kicking sellers.

Sellers don’t hurt ~you~ in any way. They provide a service, which you are free to ignore! It takes 1 ounce of mental effort to ignore the listing in lfg. You can do it guys, I have faith in you.

Consider looking up the dungeon meta builds for your classes before you go in. These are often much more glassy than builds people run in open world, and so you’ll be much more reliant on active defenses (blinds, dodges, aegis, etc.). However, this is very much worth learning, and you will contribute significantly more in your parties with these builds.

Good luck and have fun!

Shiva Dragons Heart.5203:

lol come do any dungeon with me, especially stack on a lvl 50 fractal no matter which path and I’ll show you why frostbow is awesome, even the new ele heal skill. Sometimes I’ll run and not cast one skill to see how the party does, ele’s are awesome. And this “heavy” only in fractal party searches is pathetic. I’ve been in parties and ran Fractal lvl 50 in less than 30 minutes the whole way through.

wat

I have been noticing this as well. Is there a new meta we are missing??!!???11

Where: cof p2, advertised by elementalist as “pro speed run”
What: ice bows on all mobs, recast on cool down.

Dat ice bow auto dps.

Bonus points: thief also picks up all bows, guaranteeing even lower party dps!

Redeeming (?) feature: we did get the Eternal Flame down in one round of acolytes, after all our ice bow practice.

colesy.8490:

Pug’d Arah p3 and got kicked at final boss @ 1%.

Not only can I not believe that happened, but I can’t believe I’m actually being “that guy” who makes a “QQ got booted” from dungeon post. Has anyone else had experiences like this with fluffythecharr and princessmisery?

Played with the charr once in in AC with no problems, but AC is a bit of a different story. Bummer about lamers~

Titanimite.2534:

Jeremlloyd.6837:

I agree with Ryn, you should either go for 0/30/0/25/15 or 10/30/0/20/10 (if you can maintain 2 phantasm up)

These are the two best builds you can get on mesmer right now plain and simple.

Why the final 10 in dueling? Traiting pistols, or empowering mantras? Either way, the 100 power and 15% damage from 10 in domination is nothing to sneeze at. Empowering mantras gives you 16% at most, and usually less (since it’s rare to bring all mantras). Traiting pistols is great, but sword offhand is better in most places.

I was running the 0/30 for a while and switched for these reasons, curious on thoughts otherwise though

LittleLepton.8915:

My thread! It’s back!

Yay!

Iris Ng.9845:

^Not everyone have to spec arcane for everything. The patch does its job, does it not?

Well, the meta PvE builds before the patch had 0 arcane as well. If the developers thought people were relying on Arcane too much, they were probably looking at PvP and WvW builds. In that regard, not much has changed, as people still usually drop 20 or 30 there.

Wintel.4873:

Yup, because unsupported LH build basically gets 1-shotted. And I mean literally 1-shotted. Being in melee range with 10-12k hp really isn’t something that’s very…safe, unless you’re very good :P

Right, it’s a matter of knowing when and where to dodge, and knowing the boss tells. I only bring my ele into dungeons I’m already comfortable with from my previous classes.

Tricolor chest is basically a conversion of 1 g → 20 dragonite. Plus the rates you get actually make up for the 1 g fairly quickly either in ectos or on the TP.

for what it’s worth, LH might stacking builds are super high DPS in dungeons, and have a hugely positive effect on party dps as a whole.

You can’t use MoC like stability on a guard, where you just fire and forget. Because it’s so short, think of it as more of a dodge for cc abilities, or a stunbreak if you miss the ‘dodge’.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

maxinion.8396:

If you look at any pve meta build right now, basically all of them have 0 arcane. That’s not to say EA is bad or anything, but do realize: lots and lots of players are surviving without it.

Congratulations you can survive a AI in a simplified game… PvE is kind of a joke in this game that is why Anet doesn’t balance builds and classes around PvE its all to very simple. They revolve balances around PvP, whether that includes WvW or it is just just sPvP is beyond me.

fyi, the first occurrence of “pvp” or “wvw” in this thread is the reply above you, so it wasn’t exactly clear that the discussion was only pvp/ wvw based.

Agreed, of course, that in pvp and wvw you need more survivability, and for that reason you’re probably going to roll 30 in arcane anyway, and the patch hasn’t changed anything wrt that at all.

10/20/0/25/15 is close to the new meta. Use sword/focus + sword/sword. Maximize damage + cooldown for phantasms on all traits. This gives you basically the maximum dps and maximum reflect uptime, which is what you want for fractals.

heyyyy a moderator is reading the dungeon forum!

That’s the game folks. We can all pack up and go home now. Good job obal~

(next run: naked bowbear solo)

If you look at any pve meta build right now, basically all of them have 0 arcane. That’s not to say EA is bad or anything, but do realize: lots and lots of players are surviving without it.

Just wanted to say, good luck to the 10.9 crowd in getting this solved. I’m glad you’ve showed me a reason to stay with 10.8 for now!