Guild Wars 2

Sunflowers.1729:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

AOE = dead stealth player

Arrow Cart = Destealthed and dead stealth player

Back up 10 steps = destealthed player (by the time he gets to you)

Move away from smoke fields that allow thieves to stealth = no stealth for stealth player

Immobilize = stuck in 1 spot stealth player

Spin attacks = stealth player who has to run away

Stand in an AOE field = stealth player takes damage just to get to you

There are literally dozens of ways to counter stealth, being lazy and asking for a nerf is unfortunately the most used method.

All of these work against people who aren’t stealthed too. In fact it’s harder to do area damage and spin on people who are stealthed (since you don’t know where they are).

Edit: The ‘counter’ to stealth is to avoid CnD. D/P doesn’t have such a counter.

D/P, well, they hit #5, now you know exactly where they’re gonna be after the HS, and their Init regen takes a windup before it kicks in (#5 + #2 is painful on the Init)… sure they can just go find a place by their lonesome and stack stealth but to what purpose?

SwickHobo.5096:

jportell.2197:

wads.5730:

you cant get that sort of numbers with blurred frenzy+MW

you’d need to use a GS combo+MW

if the stars align, you can mw for 14k , then 8k with mirror blade then 8k with izerker(lol prebug), against a GC target

Just curious…. The person that perpetuated this argument proceeded to show an Osicat video when shattered strength was bugged to give triple the might stacks. I just kind of lol’d at that.

Its more then possible to get might from elsewhere tho.

You can still stack Might on a Mes but it’s kind of gimmicky and it constrains your weapon/item choices (GS, on-swap sigils, etc.)

jportell.2197:

That’s the road we are being pushed down… What’s worse is we have so many traits that deal with confusion to where if they nerf it at all past this patch it does affect all mesmers in some way whether we like it or not. However lets keep in mind that confusion for sPvP has always been the same… So maybe ANET needs to look at it’s numbers there and see about adding some buff to it. 10-15% damage increase. I think they intended it to be a burst skill so we would be hardpressed to get it to tick over time the way bleeding and poison do….

I’ve said this before on some of the other boards, people are under the impression that, “Well, it doesn’t affect shatter” which isn’t true at all. A hit to confusion hits a lot of our weapons, mechanics and traits, regardless of how you’re built.

We are supposed to be the masters of illusion

Since we seem to be getting a bit of attention lately, could we possibly have a QoL pass on iLeap? Pwetty please?

It’s a very temperamental skill, I suppose that element may be intended to provide options for counter-play but it’s already fairly well-telegraphed. (the Mez does a hand gesture and the clone isn’t an immediate melee spawn like with iZerker or Steal). It’s rather tragic that the clone can successfully traverse the clocktower steps in Kyhlo (most of the time) but it’ll be kitten if it can figure out how to run up a grassy hill.

If fixing iLeap is too technically-intensive, one idea I had as a quick fix would be to make it so you can use Swap with any active illusion by having it selected. Perhaps the trade-off could be that any non-iLeap clone wouldn’t apply the Immob.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Well glass shatter has really hard time against a decent glass thief. Mainly because thief will win the stealthing game and so mesmer has to be the one reacting. P/D thief will also defeat most mesmers trivially. Some glassy phantasam mesmers with right traits will still win against those too, though.

Lol, i just dueled this amazing ranger and lost like 3 times in a row. He then decides to call Mesmers OP after he beat me haha. Some people…

Ranger is almost kittened in spvp… In wvw its differend though, they can’t just face tank everything there.

My main is a mesmer but I also have a thief. And I have to say that thief >>>>>>>>>>> mesmer…

What’s so strong about P/D?

I’ve heard that the lack of Confusion runes was something that was supposed to be fixed (so they acknowledged that it’s not intentional), but it doesn’t seem as though anyone’s ever gotten around to it.

BossFi.6917:

Scepter is usless as a ranged weapon because when you spec condition you dont spec power so the number 1 skill is pityful damage.

Changing number 2 skill is pointless as you still may aswell carry the sword for blurred frenzy.

IMO only way to buff scepter is add condition to the 1 skill since only conditon builds would choose to carry a scepter.

The last in the scepter auto chain is supposed to apply Confusion, for some reason this has either never been implemented or never been fixed by the devs. Take a look at the in-game tooltip for Ether Clone.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Yesterday.

In fact in euro tier #1, I see turrets used almost every single day. BUT that doesn’t make them any good. I destroy the enemy turrets really fast as the turrets have so weak armor and low hit point pool. Turrets are useless in WvWvW. Compare it e.g. with ranger pets: ranger doesn’t need to allocate any skill slots to have a selection of pets, which provide lots of useful utility and/or conditions. Some ranger pets, e.g. ursines, have 2.6k armor and almost 30k health. And pets are mobile. For comparison healing turret has less than 6k health. What a bad joke in WvWvW, gets destroyed in <1 s in a zerg fight. In siege situation healing turret is also useless, because the traited arrow cart range is now so long and it destroys any turrets in few seconds and doesn’t even require line of sight. The arrow cart spam made all turrets useless.

Supply crate is the best engineer elite skill, but that is because the other elites just suck. Supply crate still has 180 s cooldown, which is pretty kitten long considering its effect. I have never died when an enemy engineer drops a supply crate over me, unless it is already a truly unfair situation (e.g. I am against a group alone and in such situation I would have died anycase).

In fact engineer is the easiest profession to kill, due its super weak downed state.

Are we playing the same game? Maybe I’m coming from an sPvP perspective but Crate is one of the best elites in the game, in my opinion. The net turret alone can get people killed, and a decent Engie will happily punish players who waste their time trying to clear the spawns out.

John Widdin.9618:

shimmerless.4560:

vinceftw.5086:

Don’t forget distortion. Mesmer, Arenanet’s favorite didn’t get this nerf of course.

Distortion is on a 60-second cooldown (~45 with 30 points in a trait line), requires at least one clone to trigger at all if you’re not traited for IP (30 point cost) and lasts for a maximum of four seconds, during which time all clones are shattered solely for the distortion effect. It also does not break stun or prevent condi damage (it does prevent incoming stuns, though).

Elixir S always lasts for three seconds, acts as a stun-breaker, can be traited for 10 points in Elixirs to work on a 48-second cooldown and the immunity works the same as for Distortion or Endure Pain. It now prevents one from using #6/util skills.

The two are not miles apart and cater to different play styles. Elixir S has a better immediate payoff and is more consistent, but comes at the cost of a slightly less potent invuln and a temporary skill lock. Distortion requires more sacrifice from the player and has a lower basic effect, with a higher potential performance cap (an extra second over Elixir S when traited for IP; no skill lock).

Let’s not forget that distortion can be traited to refresh when you hit 50% health, and be refreshed manually with a signet. I personally have never had a shortage of clones when running a shatter build, so it’s not much sacrifice, it’s just used to reduce incoming damage until your next burst rotation is ready.

If you’re running shatter then a hefty chunk of your damage output is being sacrificed, incl. your overall strength if you’re taking common traits like iDefense or Compounding Power.

It’s not the right word since really it’s just playing defensively, but my point is that even if you’re running DE and Mirror Images you’re going to reach a point where you have to choose what your clones are for until you can get more out. If it were as simple as smashing shatters as fast as clones come out then every shatter would constantly be on cooldown, which anyone will tell you is rarely the case.

sorrow.2364:

shimmerless.4560:

I’m not terribly sure where these mythical ‘resetting’ Thieves who can escape any battle are found, or how exactly they’re so much more capable than other classes. I can escape pretty reliably on a Warrior (30+ seconds of Swiftness and 3.5 long-range dashes that don’t require a target, wat).

I think a lot of players forget that stealth is not invulnerability and that Thieves who can move well have to give up in other areas to accomplish this (mspeed in stealth takes up a trait, mspeed Signet takes up a util slot, a metric ton of Init gets blown on Shortbow #5, etc.)

1. Speed signet is not what gives thieves the ability to reset fights, neither is movement speed.
2. Withdraw and Roll for initiative are skills which gives you a massive distance from your target.
3. You don’t need initiative once you have escaped, so Infiltrator’s Arrow is a great escape skill.
4. Shadow Refuge is a sure escape most the cases, unless you are that unlucky to meet someone with an AoE knockback/fear, essentialy only staff Necro and GS/Staff mesmer.
5. Stealth isn’t invulnerability, but it gives no clue to the enemy about where you are going to escape, which makes it a GREAT escape mechanic. Stealth+Withdraw/Roll for Initiative is a sure escape with no counter at all, exluding obviously some lucky CC.

SR is hardly a “sure escape”… if they stick around for the stealth, well, it’s a ring with a giant clip-art house over it, could it be the most telegraphed skill in the game? If they get forced out by AoE/non-target CC/cleave or try to make a rush then the stealth’s broken and there’s only so far they can go, so it’s a moot point.

If SR has a strength it’s in preventing stomps, partly because the longer you’re in it the more cost-effective it becomes. Using SR as a stealth panic button isn’t illegit but I don’t see it as ideal either.

I’d disagree that stealth “gives no clue to the enemy about where you are going to escape”, but I guess that’s a matter of opinion. I find my guesses are right more often than not, I just take the most obvious choice (if they seem new) or ask myself where I’d go if I wanted to confuse someone (if they’re formidable).

The thing is that what you’re saying isn’t false, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that it paints an overly-optimistic image of a Thief resetting which could honestly be done for just about any class (Bull’s into Rush or an opposite-facing Staff #2 into Blink covers the same distance). SR into heal into Withdraw is also extremely punishing on the cooldowns.

vinceftw.5086:

Don’t forget distortion. Mesmer, Arenanet’s favorite didn’t get this nerf of course.

Distortion is on a 60-second cooldown (~45 with 30 points in a trait line), requires at least one clone to trigger at all if you’re not traited for IP (30 point cost) and lasts for a maximum of four seconds, during which time all clones are shattered solely for the distortion effect. It also does not break stun or prevent condi damage (it does prevent incoming stuns, though).

Elixir S always lasts for three seconds, acts as a stun-breaker, can be traited for 10 points in Elixirs to work on a 48-second cooldown and the immunity works the same as for Distortion or Endure Pain. It now prevents one from using #6/util skills.

The two are not miles apart and cater to different play styles. Elixir S has a better immediate payoff and is more consistent, but comes at the cost of a slightly less potent invuln and a temporary skill lock. Distortion requires more sacrifice from the player and has a lower basic effect, with a higher potential performance cap (an extra second over Elixir S when traited for IP; no skill lock).

Staff is fun but I’ve always seen it as almost a pure PvP weapon, in PvE it can be a bit dodgy what with Phase Retreat’s habit of gluing you into rocks and such. If I take the staff, what I like to do is trait for iElasticity (extra bounce on WoC), hit iWarlock, CA and then switch to melee while I still have Fury up.

I would also probably go for Chaotic Dampening over Debilitating Dissipation but either are very strong choices. DD is again a bit more PvP-oriented because of the conditions it applies (weakness in particular).

Two things I’ve noticed…

Illusionary Elasticity still has no effect on the WoC used by clones;

Blurred Inscriptions has no effect on the reflection provided by Masterful Reflection.

Crion.8465:

Skill 1
Double Shot:[½ second] Two quick shots at the target(Both pistols if two pistols are used).
Followed by
Aimed Shot:[½ second] An aimed shot at the target, causes 1 stack of Confusion for 1 second.

Skill 2
Illusive Acrobatics:[10 second cooldown] Mirror Images effect. Jumps/rolls to the left or right summoning a clone that jumps/rolls in the opposite side. Clone causes 1 stack of confusion on attacks.

Skill 3
Chaotic Barrage:[15 second cooldown] Phantasmal Duelist type attack using both pistols if two are used. Attacks target repeatedly causing 1 stack of cofusion with every attack.

Just an idea for condition type weapon using mesmers favourite condition. :p

I really like these, however since #3 steps on the toes of the iDuelist (and the Thief more generally) we could perhaps instead have something like:

Chromatic Shock: [22 second cooldown] Fire a bullet applying Confusion (2 stacks) to all foes along its path. (similar to o/h sword #4)

Once you activate CS, you can then activate a “Swap”-like ability at any time during the bullet’s path, otherwise it’ll automatically activate once finished:

Slip the Parabola: [x] Blink to the end of the path, summoning a clone that will use Double Shot in your place.

I think something with high clone production and strong movement would be really cool.

Sol Haer.5187:

Dunno even without mobile strikes chill – cripple – immobilize barely phase me – signet of stamina, lyssa runes + signet of rage, sword + warhorn as my secondary. Warrior problems exist in getting tunneled into ground, and not being able to deal with damaging conditions.

I use Lyssa runes on the Mes because of the low-ish CD, but it’s never even occurred to me how well they’d work on the War!

Warriors are hardly the only melee class (and they’re not even exclusively melee anyway, even if I’m personally not a fan of any of their ranged options).

I guess it’s a matter of opinion but I don’t find Warriors are half as bad as what you’d believe if you took some of the hyperbole in here as gospel. The main issue I had on my War was with being too severely penalized by movement debuffs (which ANet seems to recognize, since they just introduced a trait intending to counter this) and having meh condi removal more generally.

They’ve never needed damage buffs, their output is already very high (which is why I’m somewhat baffled by the new GM trait).

tigirius.9014:

Eladriel.7295:

I hate it and it isn’t even fun.. I hate it when you make things so difficult it can’t be done. And the new thing with this you can’t waypoint after dying and have to wait til everyone is dead is ridiculous. Ok rant done.

*<goes down the list of people saying it’s easy guessing their class> warrior warrior guardian warrior thief mesmer…..

I just did it with a group of total randoms (literally spamming /invite to people in Wayfarer at one point). I think it was something like a Ranger, a Guardian, a Mesmer, an Ele and myself (a Mes). It only took about a half hour or so and it was really fun, when we wiped we just assessed what we could be doing wrong and pretty soon we had it all sussed out:

All of the above was just some common sense and patience.

Poliswag.8240:

I’ve played an ele since release and have taken the RTL changes gracefully, it was too strong to begin with.

Now? I’m in pure shock and awe. I can’t keep up with warriors. I can’t catch rangers with sword. As scepter/dagger, I can’t even leap off of tall places to gain extra distance, it really doesn’t feel like 1200, and you still get an RTL rubberband at the end of it, so it may as well be 900 with having to make the distance up (mind you I have a powerful computer with a fast connection).

I’ve been saying this for yonks and yonks and yonks. D/D Ele mobility is overrated and Warrior/Ranger (espesh GS War) mobility is severely underrated. The only catch was that you couldn’t chill/cripple an RtL the way you could to stop a War, but now that RtL got hit any advantage the Ele had is more or less gone.

Personally my issue with mantras is that they’re competing with the three slots where there are other skills I can take that’ll keep me alive in 1v(x) engagements (plus many of our strongest utils are also stun breaks).

I actually find them quite useful all the same, and I’d use them more often (especially MoC and MoR) if the mantra CDR trait didn’t have extremely unfortunate tree placement.

Benjamin.8237:

One thing I like…Illusionist elasticity actually works 100% of the time for me now rather than whenever it chooses to. So now staff 1 is reliably epic.

Does it work on staff clones now?

zexion.5842:

shimmerless.4560:

Fay.2735:

The moa flee is both a nerf and a buff. It will help us mesmers by allowing us to catch up to moa’d people better but it’s a nerf in that it will make escaping while in moa form harder.

I suppose what I mean is that I can’t tell if the reduced run distance (a good thing for us) outweighs the reduced CD on the run skill (bad for us). I honestly haven’t used Moa in that long (because seeing someone rocket off at RtL speed was a bit of a kicker) that I’m completely ignorant about it.

Moa form only last 10 seconds so why the hell does it matter?

Shows you just how long it’s been since I used it

Fay.2735:

• Moa transform flee: Reduced run distance and reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.

Can’t decide if it’s a buff or a nerf?

Fay.2735:

Arcane Thievery skill: Now correctly transfers the boons removed from enemies and the conditions removed from the mesmer.

Def gonna need a sauce on this one

+1 to the OP

Chopps.5047:

@Torres

Dying via confusion or retaliation were two of the most common ways players died. Many players don’t notice this because of a lack of visual cues to help alert the player to these effects (blind has a nice animation to alert the player, for example). Anet reps have said many, many times, if the game wasn’t so fast paced and/or if the death window was active (tells you what killed you), then there would be A LOT more complaining about the amout of times people died to confusion. When properly used in a zerg, confusion can be quite OP.

Do you have a source for the claim that “[…] dying via confusion or retaliation were two of the most common ways players died”?

The complaint that confusion had no visual cues is utterly baffling as well, are we playing the same game? The one where there’s no indication you’re bleeding (other than your buff tray) and where confusion nets you a gigantic purple aura around your character?

Some key notes for staff are that #2 will push you away from whatever you have targeted, no matter what direction you’re facing, and that using #2 inside #5 will grant five secs of Chaos Armor (minus Protection). The iWarlock also scales very hard with conditions: it can nuke squishies down for ~4k if they’re suffering some vuln and bleed stacks.

I honestly think it’s our strongest weapon (maybe tied with m/h sword) once you get used to it.

If Portals aren’t going to be Mesmer-exclusive, then I’d like the same access to Swiftness that other classes get for free.

Portals in WvW aren’t always used for JP-skipping (even inside the JP itself). And WvW is an open PvP zone; there’s no guarantee the Mes isn’t at risk or that he can’t be killed.

(Just as a disclaimer, I was brought here from the Mes boards)

Sixe.5704:

Lux.7169:

mursie.3681:

You went afk and died? I don’t see the problem.

if you weren’t afk you need to uninstall. He hit you with opening burst..followed by auto attacks..followed by 3 heartseekers…ran out of initiative and proceeded to do more auto attacks. this only happens if you are literally standing still afk. or … if you have absolutely no clue how to even move your character.

This exactly. Anyone whose played thief and looks at what he did to you would come to the logical conclusion that you had no idea what you were doing if he could land all those and you never hit him with a single thing during that time.

Lets not judge, I have 3 80s and rank 32 pvp, I’m not a noob. I couldn’t react. And how does Flame Blast work? Isn’t it an engineer’s skill with 6 second cd? How can it be used twice in such a short time?

Flame Blast is a Sigil, it goes on weapons and it procs a ‘flame blast’ effect on crit. It’s popular with classes that spec into crit because it’s a fairly reliable extra source of damage. Anyone can slot one, even Necros.

I’m not really here to comment about the kill/damage in question, but if someone hits a triple Heartseeker then no, they don’t have a lot of stealth at all, so I’m not sure what the title of the thread is supposed to relate to. It doesn’t even look like he landed a second CnD since it didn’t register on the log.

Rieselle.5079:

In a game that’s designed as a team game, dueling will inevitably lead to unbalanced situations that weren’t intended to be balanced for.

As an analogy, imagine some soccer players wanting “dueling”, and then people complain that goal keeper players are OP because they can stop the ball with their hands. (iirc, in soccer goalies are also allowed to kick the ball and do everything normal players can do as well.)

When it comes to “unsupported” gameplay modes, it’s best if a developer offers many tools for players to make their own fun, like modding support, private servers etc. ANet seems to be on track for this when they finally release custom servers.

But making something an official feature implies some level of balance support that I don’t think dueling deserves.

To be honest (and I’ve already posted about this with another fellow just above), I think it’s quite the opposite: the game feels very smooth, manageable and ‘balanced’ in duels or small engagements, it’s when things scale up that it gets weird. The game’s own history and the devs’ decisions seem to back this interpretation up: consider the constant revamps to Portal, the AoE limit in WvW, etc.

Has any class not been described as “gamebreakingly OP” in this thread yet? lol

Gasoline.2570:

The price, perhaps???

But that could be down to a million and one different things. I mean…

a) They’re the most valuable lodestone in terms of just how many coveted items they’re used for. Sunrise, Bolt, Infinite Light, Mjolnir… they’re ‘sparkly’ skins and so they attract a lot of attention.
b) When was the last time you ran Crucible of Eternity? (Be honest)

The orange swords are one of the worst offending factors. If I get into a small skirmish I just count in my head till when the guildies call in the zerg cavalry, and it rarely takes more than half a minute or so. For a map this small where groups can keep 100% Swiftness uptime, there’s no need for the map/minimap to be so painstakingly detailed.

chefdiablo.6791:

I look at a map like Caledon Forest as an example and wish we had open world pvp instead of WvW. Pvp in places like that would be an adventure and every battle would be vastly different due to the terrain alone.

I have to agree and one of the biggest heartaches for me is that this game has no true open world PvP. WvW doesn’t even come close really.

I can confirm with samski that contrary to what the tooltip implies, you won’t get Protection as a random boon on Staff #4 (and it will never appear through field combos). You only get it as an immediate, guaranteed boon on hitting Staff #4, never when struck.

I used to think that DE was nigh mandatory and that the difference between a Mes with and without it was night and day, but now I feel it’s more that our other traits just have either lackluster effects or odd trait placement. For example I tried fiddling with a build that used Fury on interrupt, but it was made difficult because IP shares the same tier as Imbued Diversion in GM Illusions. Compare to DE which has exquisite placement that can complement many builds.

Ulysses.4765:

I’m sure many people don’t even realize they have Confusion on them until it’s too late and they’ve spammed a buttload of abilities.

That’s the whole point, and it’s been the point since the Mes was originally conceived of almost ten years ago in GW1. The counter is to not “spam a buttload of abilities”, and it encourages you to pay attention to your buff tray.

Maybe I’m just a bit callous but a part of me does want to say, “Suck it up Buttercup”. This game already holds your hand so that it’s nigh impossible to outright fail (dungeon waypoints, big red AoE circles, etc.) If confusion gets nerf-smashed into oblivion, life will go on, but on a broader scale the reasoning behind its nerfery paints a poor picture for the future of the game.

wookie.8934:

If they nerf confusion, zergs will be even more prominent than they are now.

What bugs me is that people are exaggerating about the effectiveness of confusion against groups the way they typically seem to do with everything else on the boards. Numbers get inflated through the Chinese whispers game, traits and builds are blurred together, classes are suddenly capable of everything at once, etc.

I would put hard money on the fact that a full condi damage glamour Mes will rarely get more than two or three certified pure confusion kills per week of play. To die only to confusion, someone has to be seriously going out of their way to kill themselves. The only opportunity to even apply fields is usually at the gate since the zerg seldom stands still anyway.

When I’m feeling a bit playful, I find a zerg and toss FB + Staff #5 under it. Know what they’re usually taking the most damage from? The FB bubble: i.e. their own attacks. If confusion is done for, reflection will be the last thing one can hope to use against the zergs. And I guarantee the same arguments will come out about reflection too.

There’s also Null Field, which is okay but fairly easily countered (it rips on a slow ‘tick’ system and you can just move out of it). Plus it’s just a boon rip, not a steal.

I’m just a newbie, could you (or someone) be kind enough to explain how the orb works? I find there’s a lot about the maps that isn’t immediately clear or a little hard to understand (like that thing that suddenly caps all the points in the temple map).

Arganthium.5638:

Agony.3542:

-Don’t run Dueling X.

I lol’d … seriously wtf?
Running Duelling X has its purpose in some builds, not running it would simply be dumb.

This was my point. If you can’t handle the trait, reroll or swap builds. Thanks for obviously having taken this into consideration.

Well, you clearly haven’t taken into consideration what’s already been pointed out…

Deceptive Evasion has no bearing on telling which is the real Mes. And why would it? Clones don’t dodge roll, no matter what the source: if you get caught dodging then having DE or not will not make any difference.

Dastion.3106:

He has a point that dodging just to produce clones is a good way to get yourself focused. Anyhow, I find it refreshing that he decided to share his insight with another profession.

Thanks!

You can see it another way… dodging for a clone gets an extra +100% duration on your F4 shatter, not bad when you didn’t lose a util CD to do it.

Necros can be quite difficult, particularly if they’re good at using DS. Unless you’re toting a cleanse you really have to avoid the condi bombs in the first place because distortion/blur only prevents the damage for a few seconds, while the conds themselves can last up to half a minute.

It’s difficult to test this since I have very few reliable forms of Swiftness and the only other way to suss it out would be to try on an ally, but from what I can tell, Swiftness granted by Temp Curtain (Focus #4) doesn’t stack in duration. If you already have Swiftness, it’ll do nothing.

What gives?

Vayne.8563:

I hate skipping mobs. I really do. I don’t like running through stuff.

One of my guildies got dusk off a dredge mob in FotM. I was standing right next to him when it happened.

In normal games, you have trash mobs, and people don’t care about them because you can’t get anything of value from them, period. In Guild Wars 1, we almost never heard the term trash mob. That’s because any mob could drop a black dye, a white dye and in hard mode and EofN any mob could drop a lockpick.

I killed everything in Guild Wars 1 for a reason, and I try to do the same in Guild Wars 2.

Though like most people, I do skip the bridge in CoF runs…in fact, I do CoF runs skipping everything everyone else does..not for preference, but because I know if I stopped to kill mobs I’d be standing there alone. lol

For anything other than a few parts of very select dungeons (CoF because honestly you’ll make moar money skipping than standing around) I pretty much agree. People don’t realize that the loot system in this game is a bit whacked out, “trash” mobs will generally drop better items if only by sheer virtue of their numbers than Champs, bosses etc.

Oareo.1604:

jportell.2197:

Oareo.1604:

It’s silly Mesmers don’t need to use their weapon set for damage, instead they have a profession mechanic that hits for 10k.

Unless you are a GC and have a full set of vulnerability and the mesmer is also a full GC with a kitten ton of might… 10k is elusive… I actually hardly ever even see thieves that hit for 10k with their backstabs and as a full GC in tourney’s I hardly ever hit someone for 10k…. Also the GS phantasm was kinda the only way we could catch people running away (run away)… And the cripple doesn’t matter at all now because it lasts for a half a second (exaggeration) but seriously… GS is useful and most of that came from the phantasm…

Yes 10k is a GC vs GC number, and approximate at that. But it’s closer to 10k than 5k.

The point is, that’s a lot of damage from a profession mechanic. It allows Mesmers to take staff, have tons of extra utility and maintain viable burst. Hopefully now GS will be more tempting, but Shatter will be just as effective.

I don’t get why you’re so fixed on the “profession mechanic” thing. Steal does pretty beastly damage once traited last I recall (plus it’s weapon-ambiguous), as does Eviscerate (Warrior’s axe mechanic).

10k is not really an approximate number at all… the guy you’re responding to was right, you’d be lucky to hit that even with might stacks and a debuffed opponent. Right off the bat, you won’t break ~5k without IP, so that’s 30 deep into Illusions. ~8k is about where you’ll reach if you’re a typical glass v. glass and you get the full four off. Even then you’re looking at a decent crit string.

Oareo.1604:

It’s silly Mesmers don’t need to use their weapon set for damage, instead they have a profession mechanic that hits for 10k.

Why does it matter whether it’s a weapon or a profession mechanic?

playandchill.3908:

Blade Training trait: Properly reduces the recharge of Illusionary Leap.

Pretty happy about this one at least!

Bear in mind that clones don’t switch weapons anyway. Clones you’ve rolled with the staff will still keep the staff even if you swap to your second weapon slot. The way it stands, it’s quite tricky to blend completely into your clones and you have to play it carefully, footprints or no footprints.

FLIMP.8172:

1. Trait under the illusion line called “illusionary invigoration” that resets shatters at 50% hp on a 90s CD.

2. Signet of Illusion when activated resets shatters.

Awesome to know, thanks for the quick reply.