I have almost finished the precursor when a little doubt occured to me. I think I remember reading that for the Gift of Twilight you need to have both Weaponsmith and Armorsmith to 400. Is this correct?
I only have Weaponsmith, Jewerly and Tailoring so high. Do I have to farm Armorsmith too? That would be needed to craft Gift of Darkness.
Please… say, “no you do not have … there is a way around it” please…. please….
wb Sticker.
Anyway one other thing I really like is the proposed change to offhand sword 4. That rework is… well it’s kitten awesome and I might use it more often than Torch if it functioned as in the OP.
We do need an overhaul for our offhand weapons – especially evident with Mirage because Shield has eclipses these issues by being so good (and Torch has covered the other issues – although iMage still could do with a coldown reduction because 30s untraited is stupid).
Focus definitely needs love, especially considering what Wardens’ Feedback currently competes with – nobody in their right mind would choose that over RI. This trait has to be moved and Focus could do with your proposed buffs ro bring new life to the weapon. It’s such a beautiful and skillful weapon to use but it’s so weak in the current state of the game.
I’m curious as to Pistol – would you change anything with that?
These are the things I got struck the most with.
Been off for a while and came back to see the new elite, but I was not too impressed.
However, it’s unbelievable how can the comunity come up with such good ideas. I hope devs will have a look at this. If they only implemented the off hand sword and focus changes, that would almost give me a reason to buy the exp pack because as it stands Mirage is not worth the money
Agree, no clone on death traits.
The other day, I read a post in the PvP section. The poster was observing that when playing against the druid, occasionally he loses the druid as a target. And wonder if it was a bug or something.
Of course, the what he was observing was the “taunt” from the pet. (certain pets anyway.)
Then it occurred to me….. why don’t clones cast “taunt”. They are supposed to deceive our enemy’s? “Can’t see the forest from the tree’s.. kinda thing.” I know it will never happen, but I just thought it would be kind of a cool and very annoying gameplay element. Having 3 clones out, all casting taunt every 10-15 seconds.
I too agree with it.
Regarding taunt. I have been thinking about a new phantasm called confusing phantasm. Not an original name but this is what it does:
When it hits, aside some insignificant damage, the enemy gets his/her weapon skill bar shuffled in a random order. So, skill 5 could be placed on 1, auto on 4 and so on. This should indeed confuse the enemy messing around with his rotation. Effect could last 5 seconds and hit rate (ranged or melee I dont know) could be like iMage, I guess…
This is build is something I have considered (and played) many times. It is indeed really fun to play and can lead to very quick wins. However, I always ended up discarding it after playing vs a competent player using a condition build. Never mind which profession… it could be mesmer, necro, engi, warrior. I am not saying you cannot win, but a good player will deny 1 or 2 bursts of yours and live long enough to apply few conditions (if you are lucky) which will eat your life very quickly.
I am not saying it is not possible to play without inspiration line, but every time I do, I regret it and always go back making a hard choice between which tree I need less.
Right now, after ditching illusions line (which doesn’t synergize very well with my build I have been advertising here), I have been switching between dueling and domination, with the latter having the upper hand because its GM traits work well with gravity, which I favour.
Dueling can only offer DE, which is kind of overkill if you use chrono line, and it is a shame because it would be logical if you want to use swords, like I have been doing for the past weeks. (mantra and mistrust not interested in)
The build I have been running is designed to counter thieves, which were a hard match-up when I was using GS . I dunno if it reliably does it now, but at least I defenitely have an easier life when one of them wants to bring me down.
Nothing special, but here is a short vid https://youtu.be/LGJz4yQrxQw
I would like to add more and better ones but unfortunately, my slow connection requires 5 to 7 hours just to upload 1GB video, that is why I am not that active on the side
@GWMO
I appreciate your post. Reason why I do not sw/sw is because I like casting swordsman and stay ranged, a little. Eventually, I go contesting point/melee when using sw/shd which I believe to be a better tanky set than sw/sw.
Switching persistance for compounding is something I may do. Switching Improved alacrity is something I wont do. I am not condi and my dps do not benefit from having so many illusions to shatter, while improved alacrity helps so much more with general CD. Signet Healing is very important for doubling phantasms, which I often do at beginning of the fights.
I may try Scrapper runes, but I fear it will boost my power but loose that (little) survivability Divinity provides.
All in all, thank you for your feedback
@Blackari
So do I, but I am not the greatest mesmer and thieves give me trouble when I am on my GS. The build I am running let me deal with them toe to toe and I still have to loose to those pesky backstabbers
@Zephyra
I’d love to check it out. Can you share it?
As you can probably imagine from the title, meta builds aren’t for me.
You run them and yes, they work well, but after not too long I get bored. In this game, for me fun means tweaking builds, experimenting, proving that I can be good even with odd builds. I don’t know you guys, but I have changed tons of builds: power, hybrid, condi, phant, shatter, different amulets, weapons and sigils, and I keep changing builds because it keeps the game interesting, fresh even after all these years.
Anyway, let me state my focus is 80% in spvp.
Despite I never been a huge fan of sword off-hand (even in the old good days) I wanted to make it work, with all its pros & cons. I considered it a good challenge to wash this boring period away.
I was ready to trash the idea after the first few matches, sure that off-hand sword cannot find its place in this game anymore (pvp wise, of course). But the result was… quite interesting to say the least. Light armor professions looked like needle cushions, but even the sturdy ones had to back off, so it intrigued me and kept playing it. This is for the past couple of weeks, anyway.
The interesting thing is that swordsman goes almost unnoticed, compared to the noisy duelist. His damage per hit isn’t “WTF did it just hit me?!?”. It is on a high level anyway, but not crazy. You need to pull out 2 of them and with phantasmal haste is like two of them hitting every 2 seconds +/-. Sort of what you would do in pve. By the time the foe realizes his on low HP, it’s too late because of the constant “picking” from the phantasm/s.
I haven’t got a video to back me up yet, although I will add one soon. However, I wouldn’t mind someone to try it and let me know what you say. Of course, you cannot go all dandy to mid and face tank all the AOEs. Swordsman benefits from sigil and talent. It wont die immediately, but you still need to play carefully. It’s a good build for far, close, skirmishes, harassing but not mid, unless you know what you are doing.
PS: I have been able to do well and felt that when I lost (vs a particular engi for the most) it’s because I was outplayed rather than because of the build wasn’t effective. I guess someone better than me could have won where I lost.
PPS: messiah called a build with this weapons choice “the blocker” but I do not remember the traits and I am pretty sure it wasn’t berserker
PPPS: I got inspired by Hiro Yasha (check him on youtube), although he favors pistol over sword.
Sorry for the wall but I’m relaxing and wanted to share some ideas
Just thinking laterally, I think the burst nature of current meta and reduction in condi players make inspiration less essential. And you see much less ele so they can’t group cleanse easily. In the past interrupt literally does nothing against diamond skin as confusion is the first thing that got cleanse by it, granted its still the same but much easier to drop their health below 75% without toughness etc.
If you kite enough and can survive then you can actually free up inspiration for dueling, which many mesmers are well trained pre-HoT
So true. Been playing without inspiration for a while and don’t feel the need for it. Just using eternity and it seems to be enough.
FI i think is more selfish trait than to be used to share the quickness
That is my assumption as well ?
However, without going with Diviner ammy (and thus being so squishy), try thinking what would happen if you’d go with your usual support setup, take FI and manage a bunch of interrupt with Gravity. That is 3 sec quickness x 2, 3 interrupts = 6-9 sec to share. That woukd be something noticeable, wouldn’t it be?
@mailmail
I think everyone agrees on SC to be superior to FI. No doubt about that. A little twist would be welcome too. But during this vacation, I have been theorycrafting on it and cant wait to try it properly once I am back home.
I think the trait per se is rather lacking. But you need to consider it together CI (or PB), to really make it shine.
The trait has been there for ages and no one has ever consider it properly until Nicenikeshoe posted this 3d. I started thinking how many interrupts I see flying around with my current build, without even taking Shattered concentration or domination tree, for what that matters. And so I started thinking of the benefit of quickness from this trait.
Cant wait to go home and try it. I hope not to be too disappointed 
Thank you skamow. Appreciated.
After further testing, I can say the build is scary, both with destroyer or sinister.
The only thing I see is that I do not always find myself useful to the team. A bad timing, a small mistake and you end up to be more of a lability than else. Few can counter it, but in a group situation, when capping and contesting is everything well, that is slightly different. Sure, you can go far and keep arassing but it’s not always a valid strategy.
However it is a great roaming build, has shown in the QQ thread recently opened about cancer build. Fun, especially with perplexity runes
Back during season 3 before I remembered that PvP in this game is a waste of time,
This made me smile
But let me ask you a question. In which other game pvp isn’t a wate of time, or aren’t games just a waste of time? I know, I should not be asking this in a game forum in the first place….
Oh well…
my fun build of the moment is this:
nothing completely new, but at least it ain’t the meta.
I also tried it with no torment but faster phant attack rate. You can get up to 20/25 bleed stacks in few seconds. People don’t notice it for some reasons, and they end up dead after a very short fight.
Using MotD, the average is 10-14ish and torment on top of it. Still deadly
I am aware of some duelist’s discipline bug. There was a post somewhere. Nevertheless I still find it fun, and I like running it now in the actual unranked time frame.
Ok, I’m gonna say it. Is it a new build when it’s simply the meta chrono build of S2 but with guardian runes?
Sure you dropped staff and took scepter/sword, but even I did that in S2 (since I don’t favor staff XD )
Well, that’s a good question. For sure, weapons give a different flavour to builds which use same trees. So do amulets, traits and to less extent runes, sigils and utilities.
Naming a build though, is something to do carefully. I am fine with “the blocker” since it uses so many blocks from weapons, but by nameing the build, it sounds like you want to coin something completely new. Messiah could have done something new if he went inspiration and he did not take restorative illusions, or torment in Illusions. That would have set the build apart from the meta which uses the same trees. Those traits are so strong that define the build.
I am using meta build, but with viper amulet and mantra heal and berserker runes. Is it a new build? No, it’s a meta variation to suit my play style better.
I think Messiah tried to move away from meta but found that it is really difficult to do so and ended up switching things here and there and didn’t even noticed he was posting just a variation of it.
Don’t be mean Ross!
(edited by trooper.2650)
Yea its mainly a WvW build, not applicable atm to sPvP. But hands down fun.
It is a wvw build because of perplexity, but I am having fun in pvp too. Using nightmare + viper + Illusions gives confusion a 85% duration which isn’t bad at all.
I prefer the mantra trait for the extra condi clear charge when going vs necros or any heavy condi builds, otherwise I use mistrust too.
I have to say the build is very effective. I hope to be able to record some pvp videos soon
Trooper, u using that build in tournies or in just hotjoin matches? Wanted to make a Viper build in sPvP too, but was afraid if someone just sneezed at me I would die.
As I wrote in the other post, this season I am not even ruby yet, due to lack of time. However, I have been using this build in ranked matches.
It is not a build you can go and contest a node to a trap guardian, of course. You need to play aggressively, but smart. I quickly build up clones with staff and try to drag the fight as much as possible, till I switch set, pistol stun, unload pistol, full shatter, let second pistol to unload and shatter again. Mix all this with sword BF, chill from weapon swap, a daze to top it off and keep pressure with staff and you get an idea of what you can do People were not melting as fast as in Ruine’s videos, but enough to have them retreating. Yes, you are squishy but it’s about who puts more pressure, and this build puts pressure
Now that I watch it again is hilarious how ppl is just melting. I mean, you are very glassy and need to watch out for everything, but a single burst is enough to make ppl panic.
Pity I cannot use perplexity in pvp
Wow… so similar to what I posted earlier on:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Bleed-vs-Torment/first#post6172370
Difference is that I use it in spvp and went with viper ammo for a more hybrid type of play.
Certainly a nice build. And good videos too
Certainly, Pyro’s post is very accurate, but does a streak of 10 peeps in a row make a build a “good build”?
No, of course not. Especially because I am not yet ruby, for what it matters. But it is a start.
My debate on which condition is better, ended. And I decided to take them both
FYI the build, which is a true hybrid, runs Viper + runes of nightmare for a nice 85% confusion duration (ingame tooltip), and I can literally cover the target with all the damaging conditions at once. Burn, confusion, bleeds, torment and eventually poison or chill when swapping.
Here is the link:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8Klknhi0YZagbNWWNK0pLouu6l9Zn2yOo4CAA-TpBCABVcBAmvMAAHBgr2fwiHAwFHEAA
Running with no Inspiration is something not everyone wants to do, especially now with all the conditions flying around. However, 3 charges of MoR is the second best choice and you should feel relatively safe with it. Also, playing aggressively is your best bet; the amount of pressure you can dish out is astonishing. I remember when I tried viper in the early days and discarded it as “too squishy/it won’t work”.
If you play smart and try to go “unnoticed”, you should have enough time to unload your rotation. Although conditions are 50% of your damage, I have seen warriors with resistance backing off and most of the other professions going on the defensive side, because the row damage cannot be ignored, especially when you swap for the pistol, let him unload the first time, full shatter burst and second unload.
It is certainly a squishy build, however only once I had the feeling of being defenseless.
All in all a very fun build.
@steepled
I do not agree on Illusions to be mandatory. Also, the nerf to persistance of memory makes the tree less attractive, unless your are going condi for torment. For power builds, domination is so much better, while dueling synergize very well because of the mantra trait and inspiration
@simonoly
why not taking shield AND pistol? This is what I am running sw/ps, sc/sh full berserker. Crazy damage, really
@crowley
see above. I take both. You are right, shield could be overkill, but I prefer to run with one more tool to help me survive than one tool less, at least nowadays with all the power creep.
Playing lockdown.
Killing everything.
that was my thought
with the build I am running chronocondi is the last of my problems
Oh and on the double portal stomp math…only an asura could computate those variables.
That was really the best editing. I literally laughed my head off
A little aside, but you’re using Staff and Sword/Shield?
What happened to the Scepter love?
He is right. What about scepter? Please, explain
I usually use continuum just before my Signet heal to get an extra izerker out.
You should use CS right after signet heal.
iZerker -> Signet of the Ether -> CS right after the heal completes and before the CD starts counting -> iZerker -> Whatever you have time for -> CShift -> iZerker
With Chronophantasma you have 3 zerkers out and your signet heal ready. Also gives more time to do stuff in CSplit.
You can do double Ether Feast that way too or get a free shatter recharge with Signet of Illusions.
What I meant is to use CS while sighet heal is casting. Same as you would do with the elite skills, just before the cd starts ticking.
Casting CS after the heal will give you the heal on cd when you go back in time.
I think we are saying the same thing, though
While I am trying to grind away to get the runes and H points needed for the build in WvW, I have been testing it in PvP (using Herald runes, for Prot uptime. Waaay less powerful than Defender runes but I had to use something after all)
I LOVE IT. Surviving/winning 2v1s, dominating 1v1s and just generally having a great time playing it. Im Psyched to share it with my WvW teammate who mains Mes and to see it with Defender Runes!
Thanks for the detailed post, for instruction, and the video, for inspiration
What amulet do you use in pvp? My experience and other’s tells me the build isn’t as effective in pvp as it is in wvw. Still a good build though.
In wvw is a different story. I have two mes toons and the one I use in wvw is in fact geared and set up with the bruiser build by Amadeus. It’s almost as broken as meditrap in pvp Just kidding… not so OP but really strong and fun to play.