No need for it. CS->mimic->CS->Signet->CS->mimic->CS->Signet ad infinitum. The mimic effect persists after CS ends, which allows you to just recycle endlessly.
Legendary Backpiece component confirmed?!?!?
You don’t have four friends?
On top of that, did you make your own post? I’ll agree that most tabs, even during prime times are empty, but once you throw up a post you’ll get the group. Sure, it may not be instantaneous like it used to be, but give it about 2-3 minutes for the group to form up.
There are still plenty of people who want to do Dungeons, but for whatever odd reason players are too kitteno start up their own LFG post. See an empty tab? Take the initiative and make your own group rather than waiting for the “perfect group” to make a post of their own.
The general population of Dungeon nowadays has broken down into two groups from what I’ve seen in my pugs
-Seasoned players who are after the currency for “x” reason
-New players who were directed to try out the dungeon.
In the first group most players are already familiar with the “go-to” strats with the occasional reminder needed. On top of that, they’re just after the currency so most groups are in-out-cyas so they’re running at a quicker pace than before. The second group of folks who are new? Well….they’re new. If you have the patience to teach them, great! Don’t want to or don’t have time? That’s fine just specify 80’s only or something like that in your post.
Note, I’m a diehard PvE player as well. Though, it’s easy enough to get 4-6 PvP Potions from dailies by spending 5 minutes in a Dailies labelled custom arena. No skill or experienced required just walk in and follow the rules for the free win.
Double confirming. Even with 0 Illusions you can still cast Mimic in CS though as stressed by others you have to make sure you cast Mimic before entering CS otherwise you’ll snap back in time before Mimic is fully cast.
This same technique is also used for things like quadruple Feedbacks for projectile hells like Uncategorized Fractals.
While I can understand guild drama can be detrimental internal….there’s not a whole lot that the external world sees. Outside of DKB, how are we supposed to know who’s an officer and who’s not? On top of that how do we know what you’re ranking system is and what’s a regular officer vs senior officer vs Morgan Freeman level officer?
That’s not at all to say that I’m dismissing OP’s concern, but rather I think his efforts are best to be directed internally as the outside world is likely to to just ignore/lol at the troubled member mentioned in this post.
We also run into the “name and shame” issue of the forums so it’s not like we could actually know who this person is without contacting OP outside of the forums.
As a general rule I tell folks to save all their collectables until they have the finished product. With the Tyrian precursors you’re safe after fulfilling collection 3. With the Magus Falls maps hold onto your items until you’ve completed collection 4.
The shards/boss loots are the only incentive nowadays. Now that Anet implemented the shard drop rate “fix” it’s more of a drag. So, I’ll just settle on my boss loots and even more slowly accumulate my shards. Cba to run the content over and over again since right now the vendor doesn’t offer anything special other than neat skins and ascended boxes (which are now more conveniently obtained from Fractals again).
But yeah, we had the same drop in interest in my guild as well. Raids were being all talked about, and people were genuinely interested in going at first. Though you should see our interest level now. We were so overwhelmed with people wanting to go yesterday we had to post “LF3m” in guild chat yesterday to fill the squad!! (Coming from a guild that’s just shy of 500 members).
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You cap on shards if you clear the raid twice.
What i believe ArenaNet wanted/accomplished/you should do is:
You cleared the raid and want the cap? help/teach people out on raids and you will get the cap.
That seems stupid.
First, Anet comes at us saying that Raids are supposed to be difficult content and won’t be easily cleared [by everyone]. Thus, the pre-patch shard rewarding made sense; there was incentive for trying yet failing. Now, they’re coming back saying it was a “bug” and that the shard rewards was higher than what was designed. So now for those of us that have refined strategy and can regularly beat the bosses we have two choices to cap:
- Run the raid/bosses multiple times
- Fail bosses over and over once again
Better yet, let’s go out and help/teach others to clear the raid so we can all get shards!!!!!
/s
I can see behavior like these being plausible in other games where there’s an artifact or item hidden behind a drop table which would encourage multiple runs, but we already got two gates limiting our rewards so why add the extra feeling of grinding?
What I think would be fair to ask for is a full raid clear offering the full amount of the capped rewards. In other words, doing the raid from start to finish would get you all your shards as well as your 3 boss loots. That, and we can keep failed attempts more or less where they’re at so that players see the heavy incentive in bettering their skill to actually beat the bosses rather than failing over and over again.
The other thing to consider is what the opponents your fighting as well. You could easily walk away having done your pb of 400k damage, but that could have all been towards a bunker/healer who soaked all that damage like a sponge. So, in the end, you got a total net kill of 1….and 400k damage output.
1. once inside fractals you can travel to the lab (npc robot in there just beneath stairs to the left) and buy a removal item with which you can remove any infusions you already have.
2. do NOT replace your infusions, instead extract them (see point 1) and upgrade those :
- 5 versatile can be upgraded to +7 versatile
- any random AR infusion can be used to combine or upgrade to a higher level (5 to +6…etc)
- cost of removal item = 25 silver. Double click, drop in item (armor or trinket with infusion) and extract.One of the easiest and fun to get an ascended backpiece = Mawdrey.
Every piece of ascended armor = +7 AR versatile
Every 2 handed asc weapon = +7 AR x2 versatileRings can be infused and transformed so they can have a versatile (+7 ar) and 2 (two) agony slots.
At low lvl fracs keep your regular AR rings till the infused ones drop.
Hope this helps you on your way.
OP doesn’t have HoT which prevents him from getting the cheap extraction tool and the +7 infusions.
Am I the only one that’s glad that Anet’s found an alternative to feed their employees? Less time out of the road grabbing noms means more work that can be done by staying at the office.
For the most part, you want to get as close as possible to the Utility DPS build that you linked. With the exception of Raids (if you’re bunkering) that build satisfies most content in PvE.
The diversity comes from our selection in traits, weapons, and skills. So you can focus your build on damage output, Boon/buff output, Reflects, etc. So, unlike other classes who use a more static build (E.G. Warrior) you’ll excel in the class the more you know what build to adapt to for what situation.
Nope, you can only equip double Spear. That way you can still weapon swap and proc on-swap effects.
I would have to disagree with this.
Scorched Earth looks like it was deliberately broken up into multiple parts so that it could hit multiple targets and/or multiple hit-boxes. If the dev team was worried about that issue they would have instead made the skill operate something more like Tempest’s Wildfire that more limited in how many total targets it can hit. I mean, it looks like they learn from the whole FGS era that multi-hitting attacks can be extremely dangerous if not properly maintained. Scorched Earth is nowhere near the havoc potential that FGS had. If anything if gives that Primal Burst a very good niche use.
CoR also got modified in the latest patch so that it could no longer hit beyond 5 targets. So against something like Gorsy you can still hit it multiple times; however when the adds come up your attack might get “nerfed” if they get hit as well effectively eating from your 5 target cap (the skill will cease to cascade once it hits its 5th target). The worse part of that is the skill’s damage is backloaded, so if the adds so up the target cap within the first pulse you just lost out on your heavy hitter.
Note: Haven’t tested the CoR patch myself yet so that one may still be operating as it was before the patch released.
(edited by savacli.8172)
The checkpoints are based off of your squad leader. If he/she already completed VG and the Forest Events earlier today or yesterday then the following time he/she opens a raid instance the entire team will be able to walk/ley-line straight to Gorsy regardless of individual progress of the other raid members.
However, if a squad leader who has made no progress this week opens the raid instance everyone will be starting at encounter 1 despite if they already progressed beyond that themselves.
Can it happen? Maybe, if there was a glitch or something during your travel. Though that falls under the category of “that wasn’t supposed to happen”.
Once you’re in a map, your spot is locked in until you leave the map by wp-ing out of it, jumping into an instance, accessing WvW/PvP, random disconnect, etc.
So yeah, it’s safe to use WP’s within a map and not worry about being booted off the map (under normal circumstances, of course).
Yeah, long term you only get to choose from 3 Specializations to equip from the 5/6 Specs you have available (note that a class’s Elite Spec can only occupy the 3rd slot). You can change all that on the fly once you’ve unlocked the Specs and individual traits…which you’ll be doing A LOT.
Personally, when I had a core Mesmer I ran Sword/Sword + Sword/Pistol unless Reflects were needed in which case I ran Sword/Focus.
Oh! that reminds me. You don’t have to fill all your weapon slots when dual wielding. What I mean by that is if you plan to use Sword for both your weapon sets you can slot Sword in your mainhand in one weapon set and leave the main hand blank for your second weapon set; you only need to slot in the off hand you’ll be using since the mainhand sword will be “inherited” from the other weapon set.
This helps long term cutdown on costs since you can have one main hand weapon that is used in both your weapon swaps. That way you don’t have to budget for double to weapons.
Chronobunker is just the latest flavor in the ice cream shop. Once someone else comes up with a new flavor we’ll see the herd move on to that build.
That doesn’t sound right. If you defended the village (choose Ibli) then the following open world story portion just requires you to interact with a few other members of the Itzel. Gliding was the only concrete requirement (you can get around the need for bouncing mushrooms).
I think the part you’re confused at is the map marker for one of the scouts shows it right on the tunnel, but all you need to do is talk to the scout right next to to the tunnel; you can ignore the tunnel altogether.
If needed I can link you a video, but that’s kinda a huge spoiler.
Ah, I gotcha now. It depends on the particular creature.
Some creatures will have stated in their tooltip or unique buff that they have a naturally immunity against a particular CC (such as the Mordrem Champs in Silverwaste). Some creatures have an immunity against all damage and/or control until a particular condition (not the DoT) or window of time occurs such as some of the creatures in the Octovine meta who are otherwise invulnerable unless they are attacked by a player donning Exalted Armor.
Neither of the bosses mentioned have those requirements.
The Mordrem champs and a few others have the Indomitable buff so that soft CC’s and a few hard CC’s are ineffective. They may have removed it after the introduction of the breakbar system (haven’t been to SW myself since before HoT release).
The Stoneheads in the Octovine event have a unique buff of their own that makes that invulnerable to “mortal players” (can’t recall the name of the buff atm). The Mordrem and Frogs in that event use the typical breakbars though.
Ah, I gotcha now. It depends on the particular creature.
Some creatures will have stated in their tooltip or unique buff that they have a naturally immunity against a particular CC (such as the Mordrem Champs in Silverwaste). Some creatures have an immunity against all damage and/or control until a particular condition (not the DoT) or window of time occurs such as some of the creatures in the Octovine meta who are otherwise invulnerable unless they are attacked by a player donning Exalted Armor.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Utility_DPS
Depending on whether you’re doing Fractals, Dungeons, or Raids you may need to tweak your build a little to achieve the level of Quickness output you desire.
For tanking in raids you’ll want something like this:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Chronotank
Kai’s guide is pretty good for 1-80 (just finished reading it, and it’s pretty hilarious as well). The one I linked from Sandy caters a bit to 80’s, but I like that he goes in depth on the skills.
All classes except for Engineer and Revenant (HoT Exclusive) have signets. So while you can maintain a passive effect you can sacrifice it for a more potent active effect.
Chronomancer has been regarded as one of the best Elite Specs in the expansion so I definitely would recommend the purchase of HoT for that reason alone. Before that though, core Mesmer is still lots of fun and is still quite potent. Though, Chronomancer lets you do silly things like use a utility skil back-to-back…..to-back-to-back.
If you have any questions regarding the class feel free to hit me in game, I’m mostly on during 6pm CST for a few hours on the weekdays (mileage varies on the weekends).
Well, to be blunt, it’s to make them immune to CC (both soft and hard).
Imagine, if bosses or certain veteran mobs didn’t have that breakbar what would prevent a team from effectively perma cc-ing that boss til its death? In order words, you could so something like bring a thief or two and just spam blind through the entire fight and completely nullify the boss’s attacks.
The breakbar (previously known as the defiance bar) is a mechanic that makes it difficult to combat certain mobs by effectively making them immune to CC, but there is still an incentive to cast skills that invoke CC as the attacks will tick away at the bar. Even better some mobs lose the ability to use certain skills while their bars are broken and/or even take an increase in damage.
Hello fellow DnD Player!!
I’m a personal fan of Signet of Ether for Healing. Not so much for the healing but rather I can start off an encounter with 3 Phantasm (P.SummonSkill 1 -> Sig + PSummonSkill 1 -> Weapon Swap -> P.SummonSkill2).
Signet of Inspirations is generally recommended because of the swiftness, tbh. Running around in open world is a big drag more so without swiftness. That, and Mesmers aren’t the world’s most mobile class (shenanigans put aside). Though at higher levels the Active effect of boon copying has some rather interesting payoffs if you can set it up correctly, but that’s something for you to test out later.
Spec investment? Up to you. By level 80 you will have enough points to fully unlock your 5 core specialization so there’s no chance of you accidentally locking yourself out of a trait or never being able to unlock it. The extra Hero challenges you see will help you speed up unlocking your traits but will also be used if you ever buy the expansion and want to unlock your class’s “Prestige Class” which comes in the form of an overhauled 6th Specialization (New weapon, skills, modified class mechanic).
Speaking of the expansion, you’re not missing out on too much (assuming you have the core game). There’s 4 new maps, a continuation of the Storyline, new equipment stats, Mastery System, new class Specializations, new class, etc. I’m generalizing here, but a good portion of the game can still be accessed through just the core game alone. Personally, I’m the type of player who wants to complete it all so getting the expansion was more or less mandatory knowing I wasn’t “finished” with the game until I got it.
Overall, Mesmer plays much more dynamically than some of the other classes. What I mean by that is this class often has to switch up builds on the fly during an instance to where some other classes stick to one static build and just roll with that. Having said that, there’s even more emphasis on Mesmer needing to know what they’re capable of.
(edited by savacli.8172)
You should be able to get the recipes for armor insignias and weapon inscriptions through Master crafters that stand next to the crafting stations. From there you just discover the specific item through the Discovery panel
Trinkets, iirc, are rewarded through achievements.
I’d have to disagree. In the Tier 1 and 2 dailies (including recommended) the free keys and encryption boxes drop a few gold, and the Champion chest from Tier 3 has consistently given at least 1 member in my party an ascended box. Even buying keys at discounted rates and using them on encryption boxes still yields a profit.
Well, unfortunately, Mesmer rely a lot more on their Specializations than other classes do. So, you may not feel like the most awesome class leveling up.
I would definitely hold on to GS since fighting things at a range can make things less stressful. Staff, Torch, and Scepter are about the only weapons that rarely see a use in PvE. Main-hand Sword is one of the best weapons (if not the best) for Mesmers so I would suggest keeping it wielded at all times. Offhand Sword is your big damage dealer followed by Pistol whose Phantasm stays at a range. Focus is good for projectile control and swiftness but gets much better when you can trait it.
Healing? For now you may want to stick to Either Ether Feast or Signet of Ether. The Mantra heal can be good but is unfortunately one of those that requires a Trait or two to really shine.
Utility skills? That one’s really up to you. Decoy and Mirror images are great for distracting mobs. Blink and portals are good for moving around or saving time travelling around but may not be the most straight forward skills to use. Mantras are my personal favorite for leveling as they’re simple to use, and you’ll have plenty of time to use them in open World.
Specializations? I would start out with dueling as you get the ever important Vigor boon upfront. You also have a few items to boost your own damage as well as beef up your Phantasms. A few trickery options in this line as well.
From there, it’s a matter of personal preference. Domination is another damage booster and promotes interrupts, Illusions reduce your Shatter and Illusion skills’ CD’s, Inspirations is great for additional survivability. That leave chaos which doesn’t offer too much for PvE other than a trait or two.
Honestly, if you have time I would recommend you read a guide such a Sandy’s who breaks down the class as well as offering tips and tricks.
Yes, but it’s very very lengthy if you don’t use exploits. You’re essentially stuck using your 1 skill over and over on the boss, and you’ll more than likely die a few times. Luckily, the Alpha’s health does not seem to reset when you checkpoint.
Hey folks!
I’m about a week away from making Nevermore, but my Mystic Coin stash is non-existent :c
The coins are the last thing needed to finish off my Mystic Tribute, and the rest will just be selling my soul to the Magus Falls maps for the account bound materials.
Thanks in advanced to anyone who can help!
Edit:
Thanks you to all my donors. I got what I needed!!!!!!
(edited by savacli.8172)
Have you crafted the precursor, The Raven Staff, yet?
(edited by savacli.8172)
You don’t have to change maps, you just get an incentive to do so. Specifically with HoT maps players are leaving and taxiing around the clock once certain checkpoints of their respective metas occur. During times like that your map may have its players taxiing to organized maps is why it’ll empty out in moments when it seemed like an active map.
That, and the map you are transferred to simply has more players. Though, they may just end up leaving/taxiing as well for a better map during prime times.
Effectively, unless you’re in an organised map of sort it doesn’t at all surprise me that you’re regularly receiving those prompts since player population is so dynamic.
What to do about it? You can either decline the offer to change maps, or you can start out in an organized map (posted through LFG tool), and you should have more consistent player populations.
The whole “condi is better” had some merit before this week’s patch as Toughness scaling in higher level fractals got to absurd numbers. In that case it’d be better to burn through their armor (literally) rather than hitting them with raw damage only to see them soak it up.
Now that the patch is in play classes that excel in condi builds are still welcomed, but they’re not as quasi-mandatory as they used to be.
HoT and Fractals are two different things. Berserker/Assassins/Viper’s is what you want in Fractals since you can safely and comfortably focus on damage and survive based on your active/passive defenses.
HoT [maps], on the other hand, may not be so great to wear full offense gear if you’re running the meta events. For example, if you happen to be standing in a spot where you catch sniper crossfire you’re pretty much dead. At that point though it’s a matter of whether you want to toughness up a bit to sustain more hits, or you can stick with offensive gear and just have to waypoint back a few more times than other. Honestly, it boils down to luck sometimes in HoT maps as to whether or not you get caught in a bad spot.
Personally, I would go with Chrono tank. Mechanically, it’s a very versatile class that adapt to the team composition. Personally, I find the class very fun to play as well.
As far as builds you’ll want to shoot for something like this.
The weapons, skills, and traits are the concrete part of the build, but you can play around with the gear selection based on what you have and/or how much you’re willing to spend. In other words, if you have full Assassin’s you could decide to go out and grab different gear, or you can just slot in a Knight’s trinket or two and still be okay.
Aside from the typical tank responsibilities you bring the following resources to the team:
- High Boon and Alacrity uptime (Mesmer offers Quickness but extend other boon duration through Signet of Inspirations)
- Personal sustain through multiple blocks and evade
- Healing for both personal and Group
- Group invul (save someone from a teleport or a failed Green spot)
- Group damage mitigation through Phantasmal Defenders
- CC burst for Breakbars
- Boon Strip
Note: For tanking purposes you just need to focus on your Toughness stat. Heavy classes may still have more total armor, but for the raid bosses that follow the aggro rules they grudge based on the Toughness stat alone.
Eh, it’s a cheap Ascended weapon. And you can either grind it all out, or you can accrue the collection items over time if you working on something else HoT related. In my case I had already fully unlocked all 9 Elite Specs and had accidentally killed a could Treasure Mushrooms. So when I decided I wanted to pursue the weapons I spent about less than a week to unlock 4 weapons.
Derailing aside, the skin is indeed awful. I slapped Wall of the Mists on it the second I got it.
Why is everyone still stuck on Rune of Leadership (and also commander’s gear) for boon duration?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Concentration
It’s 33% boon duration, when with herald and boon duration food, is 100% (103% capped) boon duration. It can be timed well. Most importantly, it only takes a sigil slot.
For one, the price tag. Raids are the argument battleground here, and it’s hard to justify 130g (the price at the time of this typing) for the typical Raider. If the Sigil were something that I can use everywhere else then it would be an easier decision to make, but we run into situation where all aspects of PvE considered you don’t always make use of extra boon duration.
Second, it’s not completely reliable. Even though it’s a 3 second gap in its proc Mesmer’s won’t always be in a position where it’s convenient to swap the exact moment their Weapon Swap is off cd. In that case I’d much rather have something that’s applied 24/7 is why Leadership/Commander’s are more appealing (they’re also much much cheaper).
Played through all my Fractal Dailies yesterday, and I didn’t experience the issue OP is describing either.
I have a lot of questions, very specific questions about Druid and Ranger. I’ve reviewed the above links and other wiki sources as well as Ranger Forums (which mostly concentrates on PVP).
Can someone recommend sites for detailed info above Druid and CA for a PVE player?
Thanks all, and happy Wintersday!
You’re gonna want to start up your own thread for that. You don’t want to derail OP’s request for your own (thread hijacking). Also, for the info you’re looking for it would be better to ask the folks in the Ranger Forum by creating your own thread.
I don’t think glint is too strong; I think other specs are either too weak (Jalis), or too specialized (Ventari).
This is pretty much how I feel.
Shiro and Glint are great and versatile enough to be used in many specs, and Mallyx is (or was) good enough to be powerful in its own right.
I think other stances need to be brought up to Shiro’s and Glint’s level. If they’re specialized, make them good in their own right; if they’re too weak, buff them.
Pretty much this. Glint offers boons which are universal to, I dare say, every aspect of the game. They also come with secondary attacks, though that is the only niche portion of the Legend.
Shiro falls under the same boat.
-Decent heal + Damage boost
-Stunbreak/Evade/Mild condi clear bundled into a skill
-Shadowstep + unblockable following attacks
-Quickness + Super speed
-PBAoE Stun
Once again, you have a Legend whose set of skills can be used in multiple aspects of the game.
The other Legends are good but only in their niche situations.
Personally speaking, in a VG fight our Revs are brought along for 3 reasons:
-Damage
-BoonBot
-Breakbar breakers with Staff 5
For the most part you’ll be camping Sw/A and should only be switching to staff for breaking bars. You’ll primarily be auto-attacking but should also be using Axe 4 and Sword 3. It’s even better if you can time Sword 3 to evade through Blue spots rather than dodging away to not lose any damage (plus, it looks cool as well).
While in Glint you want to pop your Facets while using your weapon skills to drain your energy as fast as possible. Facet of Elements should be double toggled for its Dragon breath attack just before you lose energy. Shiro is your big damage dealer since you have quickness and extra burst damage with Enchanted daggers. In a pinch, Shiro’s Shadowstepping can help you out of an otherwise fatal Blue spot teleport. Note that it’s extremely important to make sure to fully drain your Energy before swapping to Shiro otherwise your Nature Facet being up interferes with activating Impossible Odds. Also, be sure you’re preserving energy for bar breaking. If you have a Druid/Ventari in the team you may not want to pop Facet of Light as it’ll compete with their more potent Regen (save that skill for its Infuse Light toggle).
Mallyx can be better in a perfect situation and allows for permanent uptime on Nature Facet, but it heavily hinges on a Chrono that can consistently and effectively push out Quickness. So, if you have one of those players in your team, great. Otherwise, I would stick with Glint/Shiro since it’s more reliable.
It depends on what you want to make. If you want to make Legendaries that were introduced pre-HoT you still can as they follow the following formula:
- Precursor (You would have to buy it or get it as a drop as you would not be able to complete the collection to get it)
- Gift of [Specific Legendary]
- Gift of Fortune
- Gift of Mastery
As far as Ascended items are concerned you will be able to craft most of them. The only one’s you are locked out of are those equipment items that use stats introduced with the expansion: Viper’s, Commander’s, etc. Otherwise common prefixes like Berserker’s, Soldier’s, etc. do not require any involvement with HoT. To craft an ascended weapon the formula looks like:
- Deldrimor/Spirit Wood component 1
- Deldrimor/Spirit Wood component 2
- Asecended Inscription (Must be a pre-HoT inscription in your case)
- Vision Crystal
The other Ascended Weapon you will not be able to obtain are those acquire through collections such as the 9 Elite Specialization Weapon (Glint’s Bastion, Horologicus, etc).
Best example I can give you is crafting something like Sunrise. Technically, all four components to the weapon can be obtained without HoT. Its precursor, Dawn, used to only be obtained through luck or straight up purchase from another player. With the introduction of HoT all precursors can now be crafted by components acquired through fulfilling 3 specific collections based on your weapon. However, Precursor crafting is HoT exclusive so if you don’t have the expansion you’re stuck on having to still buy the precursor itself.
The overall crafting description for either Legendary Weapons and Ascended weapons are both rather lengthy is why I’m refraining from posting a huge wall of text. If you can maybe give us an better idea of what you’re specifically after (such as a certain stat or Legendary) we can point you in a better direction.
You need to meet a couple prerequisites to unlock your class’s Elite Specialization:
- Need to be level 80
- Need to have fully unlocked your 5 core Specializations
- Need to have enough Hero points to Unlock your first Minor trait (which is 30 for most classes iirc).
- A total of 250 additional Hero points beyond those necessary to unlock your core specs are needed to fully unlock your Elite Spec.
Hero points can be acquire in PvE and WvW:
- Tyrian maps’ Hero Challenges only grant 1 point
- Magus Falls maps’ Hero Challenges grant 10 points
- You can trade Badges of Honor + Proof of Heroics in WvW to randomly complete challenges in PvE. Pricing is based on what type of Hero Challenge you’re trying to complete.
Even if you take away Alacrity from Chronos, the elite spec still made us stand out. We would still provide quickness in high amounts and be able to manipulate our own cooldowns with Mimic/CS abuse. We would have re-spawning Illusions as well and have more gameplay with Slow. Alacrity was just icing on the cake, and it is definitely very sweet icing indeed.
Beforehand, Mesmer were a great class in the right hands, but everyone kinda had a bad taste still left in their mouths about Mesmers being a “sub-optimal” class. It was almost to the point that a Mesmer had to prove himself before the team realize how good of an asset that class was to the team: high boon availability, group distortion, healing, cleanse, Interrupts, reflects, etc.
Nowadays, everyone wants a Chrono and there are indeed more of us in game. However, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across a Chrono in game that simply does not take advantage of his tools. Just because the class is “OP” doesn’t mean anyone who picks up the class is instantly going to become a rockstar. I mean if a player is just gonna grab one build to play braindead and do nothing but drop Alacrity over and over they might as well play a Warrior. In other words, Alacrity is great and all, but I’d much rather take the Chrono who knows to slot in Feedback and/or trait his Focus to deal with something like Uncategorised Fractal.
Tbh, I haven’t seen a whole lot of Guards/Hunters in Raids other than for tanking the first boss so I’d feel inclined to provide a build for that. However, if you’ve got a group together where you’re not tanking you could use the same DPS builds as you would for Dungeon/Fractals.
It is a bit to powerful for a game like this with no real cost system to cast ability. Its ok to make things go off faster but to simply say your ability are 66% lower cd with no real down fall makes it the strongest effect in the game. You cant even counter it with a strip or effects that do more dmg vs ppl with boons.
“Skills recharge 66% faster” which translates to a 40% reduction in CD not a flat 66%. You can counter it with chill. Even though Chill can be removed there are a lot more sources of Chill application than there are Alacrity applications.
If you really wanted to do damage you can do something silly like Mimicking/CS-ing your Calamity Well (4 in a row if you do that). Though at point, you may not have the utility to offer buffs/boons as well as you could. It’s a trade-off. You can be really good at one thing but be mediocre in another.
That would still be garbage-tier dps. Calamity is not a good dps skill.
Hence the “silly” disclaimer. As a Mesmer, we’re a whole lot better about boosting everyone else’s potential and providing cover rather than trying to go ham by ourselves. My Calamity suggestion was on the “things I could do but shouldn’t do” shelf.
Shoot, I forgot Mantra of Pain. There! Now we got ubber DPS.
(edited by savacli.8172)
If you really wanted to do damage you can do something silly like Mimicking/CS-ing your Calamity Well (4 in a row if you do that). Though at point, you may not have the utility to offer buffs/boons as well as you could. It’s a trade-off. You can be really good at one thing but be mediocre in another.
People didn’t want mesmers before. Now they do.
You’re operating off a faulty assumption that things were better before, and they weren’t.
PvE was a wasteland for mesmer. You came along for reflects and portal, and that was it.
Amen, brotha! (Sista?)
Back in the day a really really skilled Mesmer could effectively replace a Guardian (“Mr. I Carry Bad Players”) in PvE. The June Specialization also helped that as well. Otherwise, your average Mesmer was more a burden since other classes played by average players brought more to the table other than in niche situations.
Alacrity gave a unique buff to Mesmer that now make them desired. We got BannerBots, BuffBot (druids), BoonBots (Heralds), and now Chronos are welcomed with open arms as an AlacrityBot and QuicknessBot too for those that can pull off rotations well…no pun intended.
(edited by savacli.8172)
If I understand it right then phantasms benefit just from the precision u have, not from the crit chance u have with fury, thus having more than 100% crit chance buffed shouldnt be much of a concern, coz ur phantasms will have 20% less crit chance anyway.
Bingo!
Though Phantasms only draw from the Mesmer’s raw stats. So anything that does a flat +x modifier like Sigils of Force/Accuracy, Salad Nourishments, Slaying potions, etc have no impact on your Illusions. So, if you are going over 100% crit you need to see how much of that is going to your Illusions. In other words, if I was at 105% crit chance, but my build involved an Accuracy sigil I would want to remove that Sigil since neither me nor my Illusions benefit from that. Thus, for versatility purposes you want to pack as much raw stats as you can in your base equipment and use the external boosts to accommodate your situation. E.G.
- Raids: More boon duration
- Non-Reflect encounter: Steaks
- Reflect encounter: Soups
- Heavy Reflect or Non-Phantasm (very rare) encounters: Salads
- Oils, Stones, Slaying potions based on the encounter and team buffs (banners and such)
The loss of pre-applied Phantasm Fury for Dueling is more or less mitigated Domination’s +15% Phantasmal damage.
There’s a lot of arguments for/between assassin’s or zerker but when push comes to shove, the difference between the two is minuscule. This brings me to my primary advice I give any time someone asks: get whichever is cheaper/easier. You’ll be perfectly fine in full zerk, full assassin, or any mixture inbetween.
+1
If you have the time and money to min-max go for it. Otherwise, use what you have.
I think people are really failing to see that the dps difference between Assassin’s and Commander’s is so small. Its actually quite imbalanced as to how good Commander’s is in comparison.
I think you’re failing to see that a revenant is such a large boost to the party that there is 0 reasons for a chrono to ever be in a party without one. Which brings us all the way back to you not needing commander gear as you can run boon duration food and leadership runes.
Also I do not have much confidence in your dps calculator that you linked it does not take into account a ton of things like cast times, coefficients of different skills, rotations etc. So I would refrain from using it as any form of benchmark.
DPS calcs like that serve as a high level comparison. There’s a more sophisticated one on http://gw2power.com which has more fields for buffs, boons, etc. At the end of the day though it’s just a very generalized chart which is helpful for making decisions such as should I go with the Steak or the Salad.
Coefficients are a big factor as well. So even though Commander’s, on paper, seems to only be missing a few points in the damage column skills like Phantasmal Swordsman and Illusionary Riposte have very high damage coefficients where the damage increase is quite noticeable. Granted, if you’re doing something like stacking just iAvengers they have a much lower coefficient so the damage boost is barely noticeable in those attacks. In effect, even a “tiny” boost in damage has variable impact based on the skill itself. I’m not dismissing that boon duration is helpful, but why would I go out of my way to gear up with Commander’s when not every encounter needs the extra duration? Even a tiny bit of damage increase is still more useful over extended boons that are left to expire long after an encounter was completed.
Again, if I’m in a fractal and want to nuke a boss, I’m gonna grab my Swordsmen, Steak and Soup noms, and abuse CS and/or mimic to get the buffs and boons that my teams need. If I’m in a raid, it goes down to what kind of team I’m in and how much of a demand my boons are.