Guild Wars 2

Pyroatheist.9031:

Separate your glamour builds and your pve builds. They don’t mix, not even slightly.

In pve, not only is confusion useless, but glamours are completely useless for applying confusion because of their long cooldowns. This is not a build that works in pve, not even a little bit. My advice is don’t try to make it work, you’ll just end up producing a build that isn’t really great at anything.

I disagree, While confusion isn’t optimal in MOST fights, There are some select boss fights in which confusion completely destroys certain bosses. Risen Priest of Grenth for example. Each icicle he drops ticks confusion, With proper timing, it’s fairly easy to dish out 60k+ damage with proper confusion stacking. The same thing occurs with the boss in the Ice Fractal. Each icicle = Confusion. – Direct damage in PvE is generally the safer option, but there ARE fights in which confusion is the single best condition to use.

Glamours are also not completely useless for applying Confusion in PvE. They have long cooldowns, but with a traited pistol, Duelist firing through an ethereal field, It’s another 8 stacks per duelist. Although that requires a completely different build (20 in dueling at minimum)

As for the OP, With a 20 0 0 20 30 build
Greatsword is not very optimal to use in that build, at all. With no power it’s going to do squat for damage, It’s clones won’t potentially cause bleeding, and it’s Phantasm is buggier than ever. (Feels like another 20% drop in damage, though that’s probably paranoia)

x/Focus would be a wonderful thing with a glamour build, You can pull people through the field an additional time.

Precision wouldn’t be very good on the build either, While I generally feel that Rabid is usually better than Carrion, for that specific build I’d feel it might pay off more. Your damage reduction and deterrence can come from loading up on Chaos Armors, From Staff or from Combo Leaps in an Ethereal Field.

Blinding Befuddlement + Chaos Armor offers incredible survivabilty and damage. I’ve killed fast attacking Rangers with just one Staff 4 use.

If you do PvE, You could also take a look at the Ascended Condition/Toughness/Vit/small amount of Precision gear.

I have one set with Superior Air, and another with Centaur.
Air is nice for the extra burst, but can, and will, often proc at the worst possible time. Outside of that though, it does hit fairly hard. I believe I’ve one shotted upleveled characters with it.

I’d say Centaur if you want more control, and a more reliable swiftness (+6 more seconds, which means the world in some situations.)

Confusion Damage isn’t “doubled” in WvW, It’s unchanged. It’s only in sPvP that it’s changed, and I have not seen a confusion build in sPvP in a long while. Likely being Condition Damage from a mesmer, via staff is highly unreliable. An Engineer does everything they can do, better. (Pry Bar, Pistol 3) and no, I’m not saying Engineer is in a good spot because of it. They could use some buffs.

Confusion isn’t the only thing unchanged either. All runes, Lyssa for example, are not nerfed like they are in sPvP. (Hello all buffs instead of just 3 at half duration) You also have things like Sigil of Generosity (On Crit, transfer condition) which is amazing.

Confusion built mesmers also have to contend with (aside more AoE cleanses) – Food buffs. Lemongrass Poultry can reduce all condition duration by 40%.

In a group WvW situation that’s meaningless, but in a small skirmish, or 1v1 it’s massive. Sure the mesmer can run Rare Veggie Pizza to counteract, and probably is, as it’s the only way to give Confusion a decent duration, but all his other outgoing conditions are obliterated. As they mostly come from clones.

Staff clones, Bleeds now last 3 seconds (From 5), Burning lasts 0.6 seconds (Not enough time to actually deal damage)

When you see a zerg running 5 Glamour Confusion mesmers and Immediately stacking 20 Stacks of Confusion on people, via Null Field, Feedback, and Temporal Curtain (for pulling them back into the effect to put more stacks) is when Confusion gets out of hand.

Xeph has a point, Shattering does too much, while everything else does too little.

The benefit of putting 30 points in Illusions boosts our class mechanic by an immense amount, that far outweigh any other option from a pure min/max balance standpoint.

Let’s assume 0 points in Illusion, and look at Cry of Frustration. It is immensely weak.
3 Stacks of Confusion, Minor damage, assuming all land.

(Yes, I know, Why would you use it without specializing in the tree that gives +Condi Damage as well, besides the point…)

How about 15 points in Illusion?
Mind Wrack , and Diversion is now as potent at stacking Confusion as the 0 Point Cry of Frustration.

Cry of Frustration now has a 100% increase in potency, that’s a fairly small investment for a massive increase to one of our class mechanic abilities.

I’ll not even touch IP, or how impactful that skill is.

I feel if anything, Our class mechanic abilities, Mind Wrack, Cry of Frustration in particular should be buffed. Now now, Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting buffing our already highly dominant Illusion trait tree.

The core mechanics of it should be increased, promoting the mechanics outside of builds revolving around 30 points in Illusions.

While the Illusion traits themselves are reduced in potency an equal amount (So we break even for those investing 30 points.)

Iruwen.3164:

thetarot.8246:

I can see only one situation where Mantra heals are viable, and that’s a WvW Zerg standoff, requiring both sides to simply shoot at eacher, and not pushing.

And to trigger runes of the centaur

Nonsense! There is a better way to do that! Just get any transform item and use the heal button. For example Endless Griffon Tonic. You use the 6 ability to end the transformation at the same time, triggering the swiftness from Runes of Air/Centaur, without consuming your heal!

Heck, you can even grant yourself Swiftness from said runes when there isn’t actually a skill available in the slot! (Hit your heal skill underwater, in Dolphin form in the Underwater fractal for example) (You’ll need 7 runes of the centaur for it though, as helm is replaced by breathing mask underwater)

I believe most people understand already that those two traits drastically improve Shatters. With them, they’re a potent weapon with proper setup.

Without those two traits. Shattering isn’t very powerful at all. It’s laughable damage. The main concern of “Shaving Damage of Shattering” is if they specifically target the class mechanic as a whole, and not through the tweaking of traits.

The feared method reduces the effect of all Mesmers of all specs. Which is already lackluster in regards to Shattering (If not focused on shattering exclusively) , and further creating a divide between what is, and what isn’t a viable spec.

The tweaking of traits, is a better method, but still not good without offering something more in other trait lines, in combination of bugfixes that have been plaguing our class since launch.

Carighan.6758:

thetarot.8246:

Will it do the weak damage, or the 1200 damage, to the guy in my face? If the answer is the “close-range” damage, I’ll be sorely disappointed, as that damage is not worth the retaliation damage I’ll likely get in return.

OTOH that is the only logical way it should work. Otherwise, that would be hellishly complex, and needlessly so.

“When fighting at close range with the long-range specialized weapon, target something far away so you do full long-range damage even in close-range.”

That also goes against GS’ identity as a long range weapon in the first place. If you are fighting someone next to you, change weapon. :P

Yes. I imagine it’ll work like that, and at the end of the day I’d be perfectly satisfied if that is the only change that’ll happen to mesmers, but the possibility of lowering our damage in other areas (Shattering) is my biggest concern, giving the buff isn’t terribly powerful giving how difficult it’ll be to line multiple targets up, At maximum range, for maximum damage.

Even if it worked like your quote. “Target something at range to do more damage close-range” wouldn’t be terribly surprising giving. “Hellishly Complex” is probably class-defining words when you take a look at half our skills under a magnifying glass.

It would be more work for more damage, encouraging a possibly higher skill challange, and even then, You’d still have to retarget if you want your illusions to be on the right target.

I’m sure they’ll likely fix Greatsword Berserker, so that’s not a huge concern for me, they didn’t really address any ‘bugfixes’ in the podcast. (Or I skipped over that section.) Giving their response to the Basilisk Venom bug. (RE: “I believe our team knows about it”) and that they’ve responded to the numermous reports of it’s weakened damage already. iBerserker will likely be fixed. (and broken again in the April patch. :P)

I’m not trying to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Distress) with the post. I’m hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, as both this game, and several others in the past have histories of nerfing viable specs into the ground before introducing tried and tested other viable builds.

Further extended by my paranoia that the balance guy doesn’t necessarily know how to balance us. For example when he mentions “Restorative Mantras.” You can practically see the other mesmer player’s expressions reading “That’s a gimmick, We know about it. It isn’t viable.”

No offense to you Mr. Balance guy- but it’s exactly that , a Gimmick. I can see only one situation where Mantra heals are viable, and that’s a WvW Zerg standoff, requiring both sides to simply shoot at eacher, and not pushing. Giving the Mesmer time to cast the still lengthy cast-time, small area heal.

All other traits associated with Mantras, HINDER a build revolving around around Restorative Mantras. – Even if that were not the case, They’re still very deep in three trait trees.

This topic is response to the podcast: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/377719641

44:20 is when Mesmers specifically are brought up.
58:40 is when the “Revealed/Stealth” topic brought up.

Greatsword and Confusing Images get a buff, “good news”. Only that I feel that giving the history with mesmer changes and bugs. I’m more than a little skeptical about how they’ll be handled.

How will the damage be handled if I have an enemy in my face , I use Spatial Surge, and my target is 1200 range away?

Will it do the weak damage, or the 1200 damage, to the guy in my face? If the answer is the “close-range” damage, I’ll be sorely disappointed, as that damage is not worth the retaliation damage I’ll likely get in return.

How much damage will be “shaved off” of Shatters? Even if they buff GS1 and Scepter 3. Lowering the damage of Shattering by more than 5-10% is not remotely a trade I’d want to make giving that lining up 3/5 targets with our beam ability is going to be an extremely rare opportunity outside of PvE/WvW zergs, and will provide us with a much quicker death via retaliation, as Greatsword 1 is already a huge offender of that.

(Fight the Urban Fractal boss for example)

We’re the one class that requires actual precision, set up, and more than a bit of luck to land our aoe abilities. (See kitten clone AI, slight inclines in terrain, pathing)

My deepest concern is that they’ll ruin the viability of our only "viable’ spec (arguable, but I mostly agree) without opening up others in light of these, very situational, probably bug riddled ‘buffs’.

Adding Condition Duration to illusions, from via runes/food/traits, would go a long way to improve the viability of another spec. As it currently stands. All it takes is someone eating the -40% Condition Duration food to COMPLETELY neutralize Staff 1’s burning effect. (Duration less than 1 second = No damage)

They talked in the podcast also about how Stealth is getting changes, no one brought up how this might impact a Mesmer as well.

From what I understand is “Revealed” will appear regardless of whatever or not you attack at the end of it’s duration. That’s a great balance move in regards to perma invis thieves, but how will it effect the mesmer? They have methods of stacking stealth, we do not.

In fact, none of our stealth stacks Decoy and The Prestige for example doesn’t stack with any other stealth out there, Mass Invis doesn’t stack with Veil. While their icon is similar, they’re seperate ‘affects’

We won’t be able to Decoy , followed by a timed Mass Invis to lengthen our invis-time.

Yes, they said Legendary weapons will be upgraded to be equal to those of Ascended Weapons when they are released.

Do you honestly believe people worked to get a Legendary weapon because they’ll be ‘upgraded to always be Best In Slot’ over say, Their fancy skin? That’s the point, the only thing they have going for them is their fancy look. They’re a skin. A bragging right.

Right now, They equal exotic in stats. This “legendary tier” doesn’t exist yet in any statistical or meaningful way. Tier implies ranking of quality. Later, they’ll equal Ascended. Which I’m willing to bet anything the “regular” Ascended weapons won’t take nearly half as much time, effort, and money to get. Making once again the “legendary tier” meaningless.

I’d be perfectly content if I could trade a legendary for a Fractal Skin. At least THEN I would have a goal to work towards instead of falling back into the RNG Grind, and hoping.

EVERY other item in the game, Every other skin, Aside from HoM Rewards, Have a clear and precise method of obtaining them. (And even then, HoM Rewards have a clearish method of obtaining them) Some involving lots of cash, or dungeon runs, but none – save for Fractal Weapons, fall purely under the RNG system.

Want a Chainsaw Skin? Buyable. Want a legendary? Buyable, Want an Ascalion Greatsword? Run AC several times.

Yes, It’s a skin. Like Legendary weapons, They’re no better than any other exotic items. The entire point of them is the unique look. Like every other weapon out there.

Even if it had stats, It would be no “better” than getting a exotic pearl weapon from weaponsmithing, and given how stupidly low the RNG is for them, it wouldn’t hurt the economy at all if they did, giving they’re account bound, and Fractals already have account bound exotics dropping from chests. (Or had, I haven’t recieved one in awhile) but that’s not the issue at hand.

Every other dungeon, If I like a skin, I can buy it with tokens. I can set a goal, and reach it and get rewarded with what I want, As per their manifesto claim. With Fractals Skins, I cannot. I’ve done the content, a hundred fold. More so than that. Am I any closer to my goal of getting the skin I want than when I first started this content?
No.

Even with Legendary weapons, I can set a goal and reach it. – Hell you can even BUY legendary weapons. Yet it doesn’t seem to take away the appeal of getting one. How would this be ANY different?

So I’m not sure why people are saying ’it’s fine’ when it’s not. Unless of course you are one of the few stupidly lucky individuals that received a skin you want, and don’t want others to receive one as well.

18 Ascended Rings, Over 1200 tokens, 30+ Pristine tokens, 20+ Shards of Essence, All earned doing 26-40 Fractal dailies, and nothing but.

ONE Fractal skin, and I salvaged it by accident (No confirmation window)

Whoever had the bright idea of Fractal Skins purely RNG, should be slapped upside the head for going against the design manifesto.

Make them buyable with Relics, Pristines, Mystic Forgable. Anything but this absurd grind for the chance to get one. The content isn’t even challenging, it’s a battle of attrition against bosses who have WAY too much HP, and not enough abilities.

I’ve done, countless dailies. I have a bank full of infused rings. 20 shards of essence and I’ve been lucky enough to recieve ONE Fractal Skin, which was a Trident, and I accidently salvaged it. (They have no confirmation window.)

RNG is ruining my fun, entirely.

They need to add it to the merchant. I can’t progress toward a goal of getting one, where as EVERY OTHER CONTENT IN THE GAME I can.
I want an Ghastly Sword? I know exactly how many AC runs I need to do to accomplish my goal.
I want Twilight? I can grind queensdale for a year and even make some headway.
I want a Fractal Sword? Fruitlessly repeat level 28 and 38 Fractals, and pray to the RNG. Which I’ve been doing almost every day.

I’d add 40s into the mix too, if I had the laurels to buy an Ascended Amulet. (You know, that piece of gear meant for content, not actually found in the content it’s for.)

Fractals are the worst content in the game, with the worst reward system. They need to be revamped, entirely.

I got my first Fractal weapon today, A Fractal Trident! Woo. (Sarcasm) regardless, after the run I go through my inventory spam salvaging all the blues and whites. Apparently this item despite being an ‘exotic’ is treated like a blue. No confirmation window on salvaging it.

Luckily I don’t particularly care for the item, but if the lack of confirmation window exists on other Fractal Skin items, it needs to change.

Oh, and make Fractal Weapons buyable for Relics while your at it. =P

I agree as well, They should be buyable with some form of dungeon currency. I’ve had zero skins drop for me. (Diff 41, would be much higher if every group didn’t have disconnections)

This is the absolute worst kind of design to get the items you want, Pure RNG.

Grinding Queensdale for one copper at a time can atleast progress toward a goal of a legendary weapon. Although slow, atleast there is some headway.

With this design. You could do 100+ Dailies and never get the item you want or even progress toward one at all. Completely against everything in their dungeon mission statement.

I sincerely hope the January 28th update completely overhauls the reward system. Until then, I’m not wasting my time with the RNG coupled with Disconnects.

Only a mesmer has to sacrifice traits and runes to gain reliable swiftness.

Please make it so that we don’t have four different kinds of stealth. I’d like to be able to stay stealthed through stacking it if I need to.

Example:
Decoy is ‘Decoy’ not the typical stealth buff. It doesn’t stack if I already have stealth from another source. Same with the Torch ability.

Mass Invisibility and Veil, have the same icon, same name as a thieve’s various stealth, but if I already have it on, It applies another version of it. It doesn’t lengthen it’s duration.

Yet another post regarding Fractal Weapon skins.

As it currently stands, getting a Fractal Weapon (the one you want) is infinitely harder than getting a legendary weapon. Even grinding lowbie Queensdale can progress toward getting a legendary. Any content you do can.

But for Fractal Weapons? Good luck with the RNG daily, Even if you’re immensely lucky and get one (I sure haven’t), good luck getting the one you want.

Please include one, or all of the following with the Fractal improvements coming January.
1. Fractal Weapons made available to trade on trading post.
2. Fractal Weapons added to the FoTM merchant for daily shards. (Like the rings)
3. Fractal Weapon Skin Token added to the daily reward in place of a random weapon. Tokens could be turned in at a merchant for a skin. (Like Pact Weapons.)
4. Fractal Weapons recipes added to the Mystic Forge.

I for one, am sick of running FoTM with literally no progression toward my goal of a Fractal Sword. RNG Exclusive, Account Bound items never should have existed in the first place.

I’m with Hiki on this. Applying conditions, relying on conditions in any sort of way on a mesmer is a sure fire way to get disappointed. Let’s not forget one GIGANTIC problem with being a Mesmer condition applier.

If your clone/phantasmal dies, which applied a bleeding/burning/confusion condition through it’s own attacks or via Sharper Images. It no longer does any damage. Thus an enemy in PvP can completely nullify your damage by just killing your illusions, and in PvE during boss fights, it’ll indirectly stop them by sneezing on them. (AoE)

If you don’t believe me. Test it yourself, Go to Heart of the Mists, Trait for Sharper Images, Summon Duelest against a target, let it build up it’s bleeds, then distortion to immediately get rid of it. Watch the bleed stacks do absolutely nothing, yet still waste potential bleed stacks.

I’ve found an irritating clipping issue regarding the Human Male Dreadlocks hairstyle. Terribly easy to reproduce, Just move forward or strafe with it, and the hair will clip into your avatar’s head.