Mesmer Discussion Thread

[Sunseeker]

Clones are good for 3 things. *even more maybe *

1 Confuse enemies. (I think enemies in pve attack the "wrong" you just as it happens in pvp).
2 Keep them up. (There are plenty of traits that gives you a bonus for each illusion up (which means clone or phantasm) like doing more damage, taking less damage or even moving quicker.
3 - Blow them up. (That you knew).

Now if you have a phantasm up (that actually does damage), you should keep him for the dps blow him up if the CD for him is ready.

Fyi: Clones looks just like you but don't do damage, Phantasm are faded (meaning it's not 100% like you to confuse enemies) but they do alot of damage.

Clones can also "crit" even though they may do still only 0 damage, and there's a trait under dueling that inflicts bleeding when illusions(which includes both clones and phantasms) crit.

[zito]

Clones can also "crit" even though they may do still only 0 damage, and there's a trait under dueling that inflicts bleeding when illusions(which includes both clones and phantasms) crit.

If you want to go bleed stacking the best way is sadly stacking a shitton of crit and keep 3 GS clones up.

Also trying to fit the torch in a pve build is hard because its so.... damn... awful...

---------- Post added 2012-10-22 at 10:22 PM ----------

I haven't done a build in awhile so here is something for you tank lovers!

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/mes...031|0|0|0|0|0|

This is... dun dun dun the clone tank build!

Your main weapons here are sword and torch with blood and water sigils. You will be stacking knights gear for toughness and you should have around 18k hp via traits which is acceptable with the amount of toughness you will be getting and blood sigil should cover the rest of the vitality you don't have.

Clerics gear would be optional of healing power scaled to something.... decent, but it doesn't so that is that.

The main strategy is filling every single illusion slot with something. Try to avoid shatters unless its the daze (for interrupt which half the time you won't need) and distortion. Your main clone generating will come from dodging. Dodge every time your dodge bar reaches full to create a new clone. The reason being is you will be rolling stacks of vigor thanks to critical infusion. So don't waste clone producing!.

Now on to weapon specifics. Why sword? Because scepter is crap in this scenario. The main focus is having mobs focus your clones, each hit on your clone is one less hit on you and your party members. So that also leaves out staff and GS as they don't have much survivability for melee in this case.

Why torch? I mean torch... come on... we all laughed at it. I still laugh at it, but that stealth even though on a long cd can force a mob to stop attacking you and attack your clone instead. With the torch trait it has a shorter cd plus Image becomes a phantasmal disenchanter! Though it still sucks. Don't be using Image on cd. Only use when minor conditions are going out and when you do use it. Dodge roll back then summon it so it is not in melee so it will not die super fast.

Offhand weapons? Scepter/Sword is what I am going with. The blocks make more clones and if timed right can save you if you are out of energy for dodges or if dodging won't get you far enough. Staff also works here if you prefer it in fact it is probably better in aoe situations.

Now for utility. Since you will be having all clone spaces filled up ether feast is a no brainer, providing max healing which you will need. Phantasmal defender will save your life and reduce damage you and your clones and any other party members near him will take. Don't summon more then 1 at a time because it will bug out and not absorb anything however most of the time it'll die before its cd is reset. That last utility slot is up to you, I took null field for a group cleanse however you can take something else.

The traits are self explanatory.

Sigils are blood and water, which I feel are a necessity in melee imo. Blood will be healing you, water will be healing your clones and party members near you.

Doing some reading it seems rune of the vampirsm heals for the amount of damage you did with that attack. So this will be the rune of choice, however once I get more money I will test it.

[Deleted]

Arcane Thievery: This skill now appropriately removes the aegis boon rather than being blocked by it.
Confusing Images: This skill has been updated to fire at its correct distance.
Cry of Frustration: This skill’s tooltip now accurately shows that confusion it applies lasts for 3 seconds.
Mirror of Anguish: This trait no longer functions on necromancers when they have Reaper’s Protection active.
Phantasmal Warlock: This illusion’s recharge between attacks is now slightly longer.
Phase Retreat: This skill should no longer teleport players into geometry or other places they shouldn’t be getting into.
Scepter Skills: Projectile skills for the scepter have had their velocity increased by 33%.

New patch notes for mesmers...

The good news is hopefully this means no more teleporting into walls whilst using phase retreat ^^

[Kelesti]

Let's hope the Phase Retreat fix also works with Illusionary Leap's "Swap" skill too. Thievery's fixed. About damn time.

Warlock's been nerfed, but it does nothing to change just how tanky the Staff actually is. That Scepter update... the slow attack speed isn't complete butts anymore. Still lacking a real purpose (y u no confuse!), but at least they're acknowledging that it's the worst weapon by far.

Edit: At least the animation is fun to watch and looks really pretty now that it's, you know, actually moving. But as a heads up, it still waits for the hit to land before it changes over to the next one in the chain, it hasn't been coded differently just sped up. But given the speed of the projectile now, it's a much smoother move over, even at max range.

Still no update on a good chunk of our Phantasm traits not working correctly:

• Phantasmal Fury/Vengeful Phantasms/Phantasmal Healing conflicting with eachother and not refreshing properly.
• Phantasmal Haste still not triggering on several of our Phantasms
• And of course, clones still not using Offhands,or showing Map Completion Icons...

Another Edit:

• Updated the stability boon to stack duration up to 3 times.

So that Mantra suddenly looks like less ass. Blow two charges (or three charges) and lolz may infact ensue.

[Deleted]

The good news is hopefully this means no more teleporting into walls whilst using phase retreat ^^

And underground! Several times I was getting ported under the ground without a chance to come up, most of the times it happened when close to some place with water. I got to a point of being afraid to actually use the skill :P So, yay for the fix!

[Kelesti]

Not sure how "fixed" Phase Retreat is, but Illusionary Leap-> Swap parked me into the stairs under Dwayna's Shrine this afternoon.

Calling out to leave the mob alive so I can use it to teleport back out, instead watching "LOLOLOL" across my screen as the closest waypoint is halfway across the fucking map, yeah. Real warm feels about that one.

[zito]

Not sure how "fixed" Phase Retreat is, but Illusionary Leap-> Swap parked me into the stairs under Dwayna's Shrine this afternoon.

Calling out to leave the mob alive so I can use it to teleport back out, instead watching "LOLOLOL" across my screen as the closest waypoint is halfway across the fucking map, yeah. Real warm feels about that one.

The new phase retreat is annoying. It teleports you from the target now instead of just a certain amount no matter what.

I have used it and teleported to the left of my target, backwards. Meaning I was facing my target it teleported by back and left and turned me and my camera around.

I'm like... wut

[Kelesti]

Regarding there being no sets that increase confusion duration (like they do Bleed/Burn/Poison/Cripple, etc):

Great post. Truth is the sets were designed probably right before confusion was introduced and we never retrofit them. If we introduce a new set I will take this into account. Perhaps we could make a PvP version of one of the magic find sets, pirate for example, that does confusion. We will talk about this next week.
Thanks,
Jon

PvP set doesn't actually make it better for PvE, but what do you think? It might make it actually capable of building around (if perhaps Scepter gets it put into 1-chain like it's supposed to be?)

[Deleted]

Regarding there being no sets that increase confusion duration (like they do Bleed/Burn/Poison/Cripple, etc):

PvP set doesn't actually make it better for PvE, but what do you think? It might make it actually capable of building around (if perhaps Scepter gets it put into 1-chain like it's supposed to be?)

A confusion set would be awesome! I asked myself the question why there is none for confusion several times I actually enjoyed doing sPvP in a tanky scepter/pistol build centered around confusion/bleeds and I resorted to Undead set since I think that's the one that maximizes condition damage in general.

And yeah, make it available for PvE as well.

[Durzlla]

A confusion set would be awesome! I asked myself the question why there is none for confusion several times I actually enjoyed doing sPvP in a tanky scepter/pistol build centered around confusion/bleeds and I resorted to Undead set since I think that's the one that maximizes condition damage in general.

And yeah, make it available for PvE as well.

I do staff with scepter/torch (so much confusion due to shatters lol) and I run with nightmare, which gives me like 20% condition duration (10pts in Dom) and then I took the increased confusion duration trait so it's on them a TON, and I still have like 1500-1700 com damage...

[Deleted]

I do staff with scepter/torch (so much confusion due to shatters lol) and I run with nightmare, which gives me like 20% condition duration (10pts in Dom) and then I took the increased confusion duration trait so it's on them a TON, and I still have like 1500-1700 com damage...

Initially was going with nightmare as well, but ended up going with undead for more con damage (since I run with 20 Chaos and rabid stuff). Does the fear proc often?

[Sunseeker]

I have to say, after these changes my Mesmer feels...slow. Personally I'd rather see reduced damage on skills with shorter cooldowns than higher damage and longer cooldowns. I like having buttons available to push and it really feels like I'm spending more time AAing, and that's not very engaging. Maybe it's my build, but I have to say I LOVE cloning/phantoms and it really feels like one of the more unique aspects of the game.

[Deleted]

I'm sticking with greatsword / scepter+pistol damage dealer right now but I'm curious about staff / scepter + focus support for dungeons. Can anybody say something about it?

[zito]

Regarding there being no sets that increase confusion duration (like they do Bleed/Burn/Poison/Cripple, etc):

PvP set doesn't actually make it better for PvE, but what do you think? It might make it actually capable of building around (if perhaps Scepter gets it put into 1-chain like it's supposed to be?)

You could pick up the trait which applys confusion on clone death. Since scepter spawns in melee... its perfect.

[Kelesti]

You could pick up the trait which applys confusion on clone death. Since scepter spawns in melee... its perfect.

Which Phantasm would you pair it with though? And would you run 2 phantasms and just auto spawn clones in melee? How else would you trait?

[zito]

Which Phantasm would you pair it with though? And would you run 2 phantasms and just auto spawn clones in melee? How else would you trait?

Was being sarcastic :3

However the best thing would be Iduelist x2 then spam the clone as the duelists will be at range they are less likely to die. Torch is an alternative if you are dealing with reflect mobs, so they won't kill themselves.

[Durzlla]

Was being sarcastic :3

However the best thing would be Iduelist x2 then spam the clone as the duelists will be at range they are less likely to die. Torch is an alternative if you are dealing with reflect mobs, so they won't kill themselves.

lol despite your sarcasm it works REALLY well xD, i use scepter torch a lot and pretty much make people cry whenever a clone dies... cripple, random con, confusion, giving me might if i shattered it... oh it's bloody glorious!! and so many delicious tears... You should try it sometime xD

[zito]

lol despite your sarcasm it works REALLY well xD, i use scepter torch a lot and pretty much make people cry whenever a clone dies... cripple, random con, confusion, giving me might if i shattered it... oh it's bloody glorious!! and so many delicious tears... You should try it sometime xD

I won't really support scepter in the state it is in now.

It's like a guy experimenting in college claiming he is straight. (lol). Most of the time in PvP I can't even get a full death beam off. And it's not bad timing its just everyone has something that can stop a 5 second channel and attack 1 is still slow as hell (don't know why they did missle speed and not casting speed it made almost no difference) it takes way to much time to get out a chain attack 3. Rather stack crit and vigor trait.

[Morae]

I just recently made a mesmer and to me it seems a bit weird class. I'm wondering what traits should I go for? Probably mostly for leveling purposes since I doubt I give up my engineer main, but I just want to level all classes to max lvl at some point.

I picked up greatsword, but before that I used scepter+pistol. I use shatters since, I feel the illusions are most useful that way. I'm not entirely sure what things I could get, but atm I'm thinking of putting points to increasing condition damage, power and precision in that order. The explosions seem to be power based, though, so I'm not sure, if I should put power first and then condition or even go for power, precision, condition.

I'm not too far yet so there is not much harm, if I have done wrong choices, but I'd like to at least play thinking I'm going the right way.

[Durzlla]

I won't really support scepter in the state it is in now.

It's like a guy experimenting in college claiming he is straight. (lol). Most of the time in PvP I can't even get a full death beam off. And it's not bad timing its just everyone has something that can stop a 5 second channel and attack 1 is still slow as hell (don't know why they did missle speed and not casting speed it made almost no difference) it takes way to much time to get out a chain attack 3. Rather stack crit and vigor trait.

Well, you kinda do have crit and vigor traits with the build I was talking about... And actually I've noticed that I connect more with the scepter now that it's sped up instead of BARELY hitting people because a light breeze would throw the fucking bolt off course...

That being said... The death ray may not hit fully like ever, but when it does ohohoho do they cry!