Guild Wars 2

healing is bad in dungeons and restorative mantras doesn’t scale very well with healing power anyway sooooo

healing mesmer ain’t going to be very useful. same in wvw: people are just going to drop a big water and blast 3 times and get more healing than this, much faster.

It’s never, ever the optimal weapon. But in some situations, parties can’t handle melee and will range. My regular fractal group can’t handle the dredge Ice Elemental at full melee, so I keep sword/sword + gs for kiting (though scepter+pistol would probably work as well, if not better).

It’s never good to become complacent with this though. I range Ice Elemental for now, but eventually I hope to be able to melee it, so we’ll give it a few tries whenever we encounter it.

It’s very variable. Last time I trio’ed it we sold 4 slots for 15 gp in 5 minutes though, so good days definitely happen.

notebene.3190:

maxinion.8396:

notebene.3190:

Do people usually sell P3? I noticed I was at 4/5 on the achievement (while paying for shards for my legendary), and I ‘think’ that’s the path I’m missing. Only have 4-5 more runs to get all my shards, so was holding out for a P3, but if no one ever sells those runs, I guess there’s no reason for me to wait, and I should just take a P1,2,4 run?

P3 selling definitely happens. Just keep an eye out.

Thanks.

Through process of elimination, it turns out I need one more run to get my 500 tokens, and I’ve narrowed down the path I haven’t done for the achievement to P4.

Does anyone ever sell P4 runs?

Yup. But since this is the hardest one, and the demand is highest (from people like you who want DM), the cost is higher— expect 15g or more.

Slypher.5321:

frifox.5283:

Ascended Force is 0.22% better than Exotic Night.
Exotic Night is 2% better than Ascended Accuracy.
 

That’s interesting. This means that the Exotic Undead Slaying Sword I’ve been using for Arah is worst than the Ascended Force Sword I use for everything else. kitten . Time to upgrade to Ascended.

Btw, I hope the non-regular dungeon forumer are allowed here.

Everyone’s allowed in the trashcan!

BlackStarVegas.3258:

Alright, thanks to the both of you. Will keep in mind.
Going to move out of comfort zone then, losing all and any vit + toughness.

It’s tough, but worth it Remember to dodge, and use Blurred Frenzy (sword 2) only defensively. If you need more defense, consider using off hand sword, because the block on sword 4 can be quite useful (though this takes you away from your hybrid goal).

Good luck!

Fay.2357:

BlackStarVegas.3258:

Alright. Ranger runes?
I am currently utilizing traveler, mostly for it’s solid passive speed boost.
What are your thoughts on traveler compared to other runes?
(Also, I’ve sent you a pm.)

~ Love, Lexxy

Traveler runes are bad at everything except for providing a 25% passive speed boost that doesn’t require tapping the heal mantra to keep up. That’s about it.

Last time I did a rough estimate, it was something like a 10-15% DPS loss to go Traveller’s, and the only gain is the… 25% speed boost. If you really need the speed, consider running a backup set of armor with Runes of the Centaur— combined with Mantra of Recovery spam, you can get perma-swiftness, which is even better than what Traveller’s offers. And then after the run is over, you can swap back to your DPS set of armor.

Ranger runes give precision, ferocity, and 7% personal damage bonus as long as you have a mini-pet out. They’re the best rune that uses precision as a primary, which is why they’re helpful for mesmers in general, and any build that uses Sharper Images in particular.

If you want a more standard phantasm play, Force + Night is probably best (highest DPS). If you want to emphasize your conditions more, you could do Battle + Accuracy. This is probably better for PUGs as well (since you probably won’t have 25 might in PuGs). Ranger Runes will help a lot in any scenario (even more precision!)

I don’t have a good feeling how much worse shatter is. It’ll depend on the length of the fight, of course. Maybe someone else can comment on this.

Depends on the content. It’s fine/good in open world/wvw/pvp, but some folks will call you a noob for using one in dungeons. It’s decidedly sub-optimal in that context, but perfectly reasonable everywhere else.

I typed out a long post but it got lost somehow qq

If you want to play a “hybrid” which is mostly power based, but has good condition pressure as well, go sword + pistol and sword + focus. Start fights with pistol 4, signet of ether, pistol 4, swap, focus 5. The wardens + duelists hit many times per attack, and can proc Shaper Images many many times. This gets you a considerable amount of bleed damage— I think frifox calculated that about 30% of the warden’s damage comes just from the bleeds, for example.

One thing that will help with this is using Assassin’s gear on weapon + armor instead of berserker, to get your precision (and your phantasms’s precision) higher. Phantasmal Fury is also a must because of this. The 2/4/0/4/4 build is what you want probably— the X in Illusions is very helpful because it means your phantasms attack more often (proc’ing even more bleeds).

Anyway, I think you’ll find that if your goal is to mostly play phantasm based, but with good condition damage as well, this will give you exactly what you want. People often don’t notice the bleeds, but they add up a fair amount.

Hi Lexxy,

The link in my sig (which maha also provided) has a set of builds which are power/precision/crit damage based which you may find helpful. I would suggest 2/4/0/4/4 for you (which is labeled as non-mantra builds).

If you want the condition damage to be a large source of your damage, consider sword + pistol and sword + focus as your weapons. Each of those phantasms hits many times per attack, and with Sharper Images, will proc many hits of bleeding. If you open up with Pistol 4, Signet of Ether, Pistol 4, swap, Focus 5, you’ll get a lot of bleeds going. Even without condition damage gear (still full zerker), the bleeds will be a non-negligible part of your damage. And, you won’t be losing direct damage either— both of these phantasms do strong direct damage as well. There’s a nice synergy here: you’re getting a decent amount of condition damage for free, basically.

Bleeding is the only condition you can apply reliably, because of sharper images. Torment/confusion aren’t too useful in PvE, because bosses don’t move much and don’t use very many abilities. Poison you can apply sporadically with Chaos Storm or Sigils, but it won’t be enough to make a difference.

Hope this helps~

Ok, so. I would recommend reading the link maha provided~

Conditions are not worth going for with Mesmer in PvE. To be somewhat effective with conditions, you need to be reliably getting full stacks of bleeding. The best way of getting bleeding is Sharper Images + Phantasmal Duelist + Phantasmal Fury, which you don’t even have— but even this can’t get 25 stacks of bleeding easily. Moreover, in a party, your high damage stacks are going to get overwritten by your teammates stacks, removing your main source of damage. This is why conditions work somewhat well in solo settings for classes that can easily cap bleeding— this class is not one of them.

You have Signet of Illusions to boost clone health, which works directly against the V in Chaos, where you want your clones to die. The 5 in Chaos is only ever really good if you have a lot of ways of pumping out clones quickly— with Deceptive Evasion for example. This can be useful to apply condition pressure in PvP, but in dungeons, the few random conditions you get from clone death are not going to hurt anything.

Finally, the Greatsword is not a condition weapon at all— but it’s also not a good power weapon for dungeons. Offhand pistol is better suited for both sorts of builds, and offhand sword is best for power.

In summary: conditions are bad in PvE, and you shouldn’t use them. But this build is not a particularly good example of a condition build either, because of the lack of weapons/traits to actually apply high amounts of conditions.

spoj.9672:

You are meant to run to the left through the arch way so the oozes dont even spawn. Either you or someone else ran straight across the room and spawned the oozes which is probably the reason they called you a troll.

This is it. It’s mildly helpful if people avoid the oozes. I always tell my pugs how to avoid it in the future if they do it, but it’s not worth getting upset over.

Fay.2357:

Jeremlloyd.6837:

maha.7902:

it should be moved to trash can, where mesmers belong with necros

<3

We’ll see mesmers in action during the tournament trust me

Meh, I wish. Mesmers are arguably in a worse spot in tPvP than they are in PvE.

He means the upcoming PvE tournament.

I’m excited now, Jerem! Looking forward to hot mesploit action

Izaya.2906:

Morsus.5106:

maxinion.8396:

Morsus.5106:

I have yet to join a Zerker party. Will it be a big deal that I run Runes of the Trooper (for the group condi cleanse)?

This is a ~15% DPS loss compared to Scholar or Strength (no joke). That’s quite a bit, and is definitely not worth it. Shake It Off on warrior or Purging Flames on guardian are sufficient for condition cleanse— you don’t need the trooper runes at all.

Is Scholar the absolute top DPS? At 4 gold a piece I’m not about ready to buy all 6, but if there’s a cheaper option I may go for that.

Ranger runes + active mini is probably best at a cheap price

Not for all classes. It’s suboptimal for Warrior, for example, since they can reach nearly 100% crit chance without the need from precision on runes, and get more from power on runes. The same goes for Ele.

Morsus.5106:

maxinion.8396:

Morsus.5106:

I have yet to join a Zerker party. Will it be a big deal that I run Runes of the Trooper (for the group condi cleanse)?

This is a ~15% DPS loss compared to Scholar or Strength (no joke). That’s quite a bit, and is definitely not worth it. Shake It Off on warrior or Purging Flames on guardian are sufficient for condition cleanse— you don’t need the trooper runes at all.

Is Scholar the absolute top DPS? At 4 gold a piece I’m not about ready to buy all 6, but if there’s a cheaper option I may go for that.

Scholar is almost always the top DPS. Strength is close, but good on might-stacking classes like ele or war if they are spec’ed to stack might— and anyway they’re 17 gp a piece, so affordability is much rougher. Ranger is a good alternative for some classes, and is actually better than Scholar on Mesmers in most situations— it has the advantage of being super cheap as well.

Honestly I would recommend (stealing this advice from some other folks on the forum) using Flame Legion runes till you can afford Scholar. This is probably a ~5-7% DPS loss compared to Scholar, and they’re super cheap (4-5 silver a piece).

notebene.3190:

Do people usually sell P3? I noticed I was at 4/5 on the achievement (while paying for shards for my legendary), and I ‘think’ that’s the path I’m missing. Only have 4-5 more runs to get all my shards, so was holding out for a P3, but if no one ever sells those runs, I guess there’s no reason for me to wait, and I should just take a P1,2,4 run?

P3 selling definitely happens. Just keep an eye out.

Morsus.5106:

I have yet to join a Zerker party. Will it be a big deal that I run Runes of the Trooper (for the group condi cleanse)?

This is a ~15% DPS loss compared to Scholar or Strength (no joke). That’s quite a bit, and is definitely not worth it. Shake It Off on warrior or Purging Flames on guardian are sufficient for condition cleanse— you don’t need the trooper runes at all.

RavenRecoil.6103:

What about rampagers? I’m am working on getting a full set of that. (Council ministry armor) It has condition damage and buffs my might. I am an elementalist. I have yet to be kicked from a group but I have never tried joining a zerkers group. Is that good armor for an elementalist? Sorry i know that is a broad question..

It’s a bad armor for elementalist. Burning is your main condition, and that doesn’t apply a lot of damage. Just go for Berserker, it’s significantly better.

Sanderinoa.8065:

I love the combination of a question and the combined use of the word ‘mandatory’

one answer question!

IvanTheGrey.2941:

We got John Smith to actually visit the trashcan!!!! I don’t know about you guys, but that made my day! Iris, we really need to co-ordinate for practicing!

Two red posts in two weeks. My goodness!

DiogoSilva.7089:

Disruptor’s Sustainment is a trait designed to improve a playstyle that does not exist in this class: on-demand healing.

Outside of regen (passive, over time heal) and the default heal skill (which does not scale much based on healing power), what do mesmers have to create some healing bursts? Water fields? Blast finishers? Healing weapon skills? Is mesmer an elementalist? No? Healing light fields? Is mesmer a guardian too?

Ultimately, it’s hard to shake the feeling that traits like those were created without much consideration or knowledge about what the mesmer is and isn’t.

There’s Restorative Mantras, but the scaling with Healing Power on that is so bad that it doesn’t help much.

Did it last night with one WoR + ice bows + LH. FGS helps but it’s not even necessary for killing them before WoR runs out.

Braizake.3274:

Lindbur.2537:

I proudly present my Wethospu-inspired Guardian.

You may now laugh.

Hi, I really like how those colors go with the armor and wanted to replicate it given its ok with you. If that’s the case, could you please tell me which colors are the ones used?

Thanks in advance, Funky.

the weth cancer is spreading! lol

One wall and one FGS should be enough. If you can’t FGS, then wall + shield of the avenger should be long enough for a zerk group to take them down.

Rainmaker.7594:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Oh man… they’ll pick Arah P2 just to prove a point about engis :P

What’s wrong with engis in Arah p2? Engis can do any skip and supply crate is useful for protecting the terminal at the final boss. Only Belka is a threat (being knocked into the barrels), but only if the party isn’t reflecting.

you just missed some srz forum drama

My sig has a guide that should be helpful for most of what you are looking for.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first all ele builds for pve are here. If you don’t like squishy, you’re in the wrong place though.

Ele is top tier in pve these days— most optimized parties should have at least two, and sometimes even three or four, per dungeon.

I generally agree near light, but warriors got two great new traits (Dual Wield Agility and Phalanx Strength). Shame that mesmers are this useless!

Nice comments on the pvp side of things, Chaos. And yes, completely agreed that different builds for different game modes are required.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

God kitten $!/##$$@$!!

I hate flight delays because people are freaking inept! Did general discussion non skip stack kittens get a job directing my god kitten plane today?! GODCAT THEM

Wuhoh, she’s breaking out the cats instead of kittens. Srz bznz.

This looks much nicer, Martial. I would recommend a few small changes:

1. Take Inspiration V to Inspiration VIII— reflections are very important for a mesmer. If you know the fight doesn’t need reflections, you can swap back to V if you want.
2. Take Feedback instead of Phantasmal Defender. PD is ok defense, but it prevents you from having 3 offensive phantasms up. This can reduce your potential damage by about 20% in this build. And again, reflections are your responsibility as a mesmer in your party— you’ll be expected to use Feedback in the right times.
3. Definitely don’t use Anti-toxin Spray. Signet of Ether is probably best in this build.

With this build, I suggest you play with something like: start with staff. summon warlock. signet of ether. summon warlock. swap to sword. summon warden. attack with sword.

Or variations of the above. Staff does very little damage, so whenever you swap to it during combat, you’re losing damage. It’s an alright weapon to start fights with though.

I also do not think you should go for Bountiful Interuption. That’s deep in Chaos, which is a bad line in PvE, and you only have one interrupt (Temporal Curtain’s pull). Phantasmal Haste will be a lot more helpful for you.

Mender’s Purity does not cleanse allies.

For sigils, the standard night/accuracy + force will be fine.

One final comment: don’t leave your utilities set in stone. Swap them up depending on the situation. If you’re in a place that doesn’t have knock-downs, get rid of Mantra of Concentration, and take Mantra of Resolve for the group condition cleanse. If you’re in a situation where your party is stacking 25 might, you won’t need Signet of Inspiration, so you may as well get rid of that for Null Field or something else that will help your party more.

Good luck, and enjoy~

Enaretos.8079:

I may have work or friends at home. Or both :’(

casul

yay cancer!

For dungeons, the best form of support a mesmer can provide are reflects, pulls, condition cleanse, and in some situations, portal. Other classes are much, much more efficient at every other form of support— aegis, might stacking, protection, blinds, and even healing. As such, the only effective support I see in this build is the traited wardens, and the occasional cleanse/boon strip from Null Field.

As others have mentioned, conditions are also not particularly useful in dungeons even with Warriors and Necros— with Mesmers, whose main condition pressure comes from confusion and torment, the situation is even worse. Mobs rarely proc either confusion or torment, so both of those condition’s effectiveness is substantially reduced.

Is this build “viable” for dungeons? Sure, everything is “viable” and you’ll be able to complete content, and assist your team in some small way (the game is easy and old-ish, so pretty much anything goes). However, this is not certainly not the highest level of support you could be offering (that goes instead to maximum reflect damage/ reflect uptime builds).

phantasms deeps gonna rock this party

Sounds like fun, good luck!

Power Block was pretty great when it went through Defiance in pve. If only it wasn’t nerfed, reaction-based control might have a role in this game ;_;

petyr baelish.9675:

maha.7902:

30/20/0/0/20

30/20/0/20/0

30/30/0/0/10

10/20/0/20/20

full assassin, scholar runes
sword/sword + sword/focus
undead slaying/accuracy

switch utilities dependent on situation, stack mantras on the first 3 builds if theres no utilities worth taking so you can get a 4% damage modifier per mantra

When do you use 10/20/0/20/20 over 30/20/0/20/0? Is it solely for the times when you don’t run any mantras or are there other reasons?

Basically yes. It’s also a personal preference: 2/4 loads up on phantasm damage and 6/4 loads up on personal damage. Most people prefer personal damage because there’s less ramp up time and you’re less reliant on phantasms staying alive. The 2/4 has less Feedback damage as well, but whether you need that depends on the situation.

Another situation is when you need both Phantasmal Haste and Warden’s Feedback. This gives you 100% reflect uptime with just 2 wardens if you time it right. Without Warden’s Feedback, this just blocks projectiles instead of reflecting; without Phantasmal Haste, you have small gaps in your coverage.

people advocating traveller’s runes and lyssa runes for pve (including dungeons)

now i’ve seen it all

Thanks pyro for that detailed post. Yes, I was joking earlier, but after a large number of terrible recommendations from these double threads, it’s hard to take things seriously today~~~

Fay.2357:

Dracatis.1908:

Mantra/Interrupt Build

Knights/Cavalier’s with Runes of Vampirism

6/4/0/4/0 (Empowering/Protective/Restorative Mantras, Rending Shatter, Shattered Concentration, Retaliatory Shield, Mendor’s Purity)

Scepter/Sword and Staff(Yes, power build with mostly condition weapons lol, think outside the box)

Mantra of Recovery/Pain/Distraction, Phantasmal Defender and Summon D-Series Golem

You shouldn’t do this. That’s a horrid build to run in PvE. Shatter builds are just bad, they do far lower dps than phantasm builds. Retaliatory shield is 100% useless in PvE as well, and so is protected mantras.

but pyro, you’re not thinking outside the box!!11!!!

ok, so nothing having to do with playing your class effectively, and some random commentary about ‘counter-class’ play that lyssa runes don’t actually support, gotit.

why would you ever run lyssa in PvE when ranger gives you more ferocity and a 7% damage bonus and no useless random boons

DraconianBlake.6917:

I just got kicked from 2 different parties. 1 was selling a run for 8g and then the 2nd run was selling final boss for 20g. Like seriously, Im going to give you 20g for what.. a couple of pieces of loot and maybe 2g if Im lucky.

They had completed the dungeon (Arah p4) and were offering the Dungeon Master to people willing to pay the price. It saves the purchaser an hour of running a difficult dungeon.

Stop joining LFG’s that you explicitly saying “don’t join us if you want to do a normal run!”

holy kitten.

Iris Ng.9845:

Just want to chime in, this guy made an extremely wonderful look on his sylvari ranger:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Post-a-pic-of-your-character-only-if-your-armor-is-mix-n-match/4075980

I think Sylvari can look good outside the Cultural/TA norm.

Absolutely agreed. Sylvari can be like humans, with more interesting skin/hair combinations which still look natural. The glows can also be used in interesting ways.

Iris Ng.9845:

Sanderinoa.8065:

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Sanderinoa.8065:

;_; so much mesmer hate

I will never get a team

I know right We need to form teams by ourselves to be able to play mesmer

Best
Idea
Ever

Who is joining our 5 mesmer team?!

Me! My live commentary is awesome as well. Zelyhn thinks it’s cute. You must have me, Sandy!

You need a particularly bad mesmer, right? If so, I’m your guy!

I bumped into Swifty in the open world yesterday!

It’s like running into a celebrity.

Please see my sig for a full guide on what you should be running in dungeons. Basically what maha said.

For the love of kitten, do not run Traveller’s. If you need a secondary set for speed, just buy a second set of armor with Centaur runes and spam Mantra of Recovery— you’ll be even faster than Traveller’s. For actual fights, Scholar or Ranger is best— and Ranger is so cheap that there’s no reason not to use it.

The main-hand sword is always equipped, so if you put an agony infusion into it, you always have it working. The off-hands have their agony infusions active whenever they’re active.

There is no reason to use Traveller’s in dungeons. Swiftness from teammates and focus 4 and an alternate Centaur set if absolutely necessary is more than enough speed. Traveller’s does basically 0 DPS bonus (bonus to “all stats” is so diluted it may as well not count) and should therefore never be used.

I mean, this is easy to see. Ranger Runes give 175 precision = 8 % crit chance, 90 ferocity = 6% crit damage. This is substantial! Traveller’s? 26 precision = 1% crit chance. 26 power = 1% damage bonus or so. 26 ferocity = 1.5% crit damage. Basically nothing.

Boon duration? Useless most of the time, as the only time you provide boons is with a big Signet of Inspiration flip, but really other team members should be responsible for might. Condition Duration? That one is actually a complete joke.

And this is completely ignoring the 7% damage bonus from Ranger on top of everything.

Friends don’t let friends use Traveller’s in dungeons. With Ranger being so cheap, there’s no reason not to.