Mesmer Discussion Thread

[zito]

Laughed so hard. Thank you for that.

Also proves that target of target would make this technique useless. Glad we don't have it.

It makes me want to spec decoy in my greatsword build I linked earlier. Though its suppose to be group oriented :x

[DrakeWurrum]

this is how you decoy: target someone else while someone else is attacking you.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/videos...-decoy-in-pvp/

That is a pretty epic usage, but it was made possible because of the corner at that stairway. He basically made sure the illusion would go one way while he went the other, rather than standing there attacking, and thus controlled the movements of his enemy. This resulted in unstealthing out of sight. :3

[zito]

I tested out my bleed build briefly, I am lagging like hell so I can't really test it. However its very OP and im glad I found it

[Illuminance]

Did clones get way better, or is this something I didn't notice in BWE3? They seem to be actually drawing attacks off me now, and really confusing the enemy (in PvE). This might convince me to play mesmer at release...

[zito]

Did clones get way better, or is this something I didn't notice in BWE3? They seem to be actually drawing attacks off me now, and really confusing the enemy (in PvE). This might convince me to play mesmer at release...

They draw aggro sometimes in PvE as of BWE3

Some awful mesmer changes.

They increased the backlash damage of scepters block though the block itself is still pretty useless and the blind still does not work.

[DrakeWurrum]

Did clones get way better, or is this something I didn't notice in BWE3? They seem to be actually drawing attacks off me now, and really confusing the enemy (in PvE). This might convince me to play mesmer at release...

This was happening as well with Necromancer and Ranger pets.

[zito]

Apparently someone at guru caught this, but every weapon as a trait that reduces all their cd's by 20%. This is a bit stupid to me as 20% is freaken huge, people are gonna gun for it as a requirement not to mention they are so deep in the trait line it basically kills stat customization. Just needs to be across the board....

scepter still has no increased defense like they said they were going to give, cry of frustration still the same eventhough they said they are going to change it for the better.

I'm really done...

[Deleted]

I tested out my bleed build briefly, I am lagging like hell so I can't really test it. However its very OP and im glad I found it

Perhaps share a link? (I'm very intressested of this build)

[DrakeWurrum]

Apparently someone at guru caught this, but every weapon as a trait that reduces all their cd's by 20%. This is a bit stupid to me as 20% is freaken huge, people are gonna gun for it as a requirement not to mention they are so deep in the trait line it basically kills stat customization. Just needs to be across the board....

scepter still has no increased defense like they said they were going to give, cry of frustration still the same eventhough they said they are going to change it for the better.

I'm really done...

I actually rarely pick up those traits. Because I'll look at the weapon skills it actually affects and go "Oh... only shaves off 1, 3, 2, 4 seconds? Pointless."
I'd rather time my abilities more smartly and be more powerful, than to be able to spam my abilities once or twice more in long fights. It also has absolutely no bearing in short fights.

[zito]

I actually rarely pick up those traits. Because I'll look at the weapon skills it actually affects and go "Oh... only shaves off 1, 3, 2, 4 seconds? Pointless."
I'd rather time my abilities more smartly and be more powerful, than to be able to spam my abilities once or twice more in long fights. It also has absolutely no bearing in short fights.

24 second chaos storm is nothing to scoth at.

Perhaps share a link? (I'm very intressested of this build)

I tested it a bit more and overall I think its pretty useless compared to a power build. It's strong because toughness isn't effected by conditions but it's also week because its a burst thing like confusion and only a 60% chance to bleed which I think as an internal cd.

[DrakeWurrum]

24 second chaos storm is nothing to scoth at.

It can be, depending on what traits you're giving up for those 6 seconds. I don't have any specific Mesmer builds in mind, considering how out-dated the build calcs are lately, but I know that, more than once when playing with builds, I've passed up that 20% for something else.

[zito]

It can be, depending on what traits you're giving up for those 6 seconds.

Nothing important in the toughness tree besides anguish but anguish isn't all that great with its 90 second cd. It can activate on some pretty useless CC.

but I know that, more than once when playing with builds, I've passed up that 20% for something else

Since it was just discovered like an hour ago and its not in the tooltip...

[DrakeWurrum]

Depends on the build, insofar as secondary weapon set and utilities and other traits.

---------- Post added 2012-08-09 at 06:33 PM ----------

Since it was just discovered like an hour ago and its not in the tooltip...

I'm talking about across all professions. Every profession does that for every weapon.

[Kelesti]

The third hit applies Confusion and summons an Illusion, unless that wasn't the case last BWE/stress test. Illusions do no damage, but can apply conditions, and can be shattered to apply more confusion (2 stacks per illusion, if you use Cry, I think). Two of your Shatters are also useful for defensive purposes.

As an update to this, seeing as I didn't misremember this: The word "Confusion" is in the tooltip for the third hit, but not the actual effect. It still does not apply any stacks itself. That was the case during BWE3, last stress test, and that's still the case now.

So no, third hit is for over-writing your phantasms with spawning useless clones in melee range, hoping that the mass you're "capable" of summoning faster than the cooldown is actually worth anything.

---------- Post added 2012-08-09 at 08:51 PM ----------

I'm talking about across all professions. Every profession does that for every weapon.

Not quite, hotshot. Every profession offers +50 to a stat with a weapon. The cooldowns are new.

[DrakeWurrum]

Every profession offers +50 to a stat with a weapon.

Well Thief can't, but there's an obvious reason for that.
Went to double-check, though, and it looks like instead that, in the case of
Guardians, they get CD reduction on everything but Sword/Mace/Scepter - instead they get 5% damage increase on each of those. They have had it for off-hands and two-handed weapons though.
Elementalist specifically has it for attunements rather than weapons, which is kinda the same thing (the standard way would be OP).
Warrior has it for Greatsword, Rifle, Hammer, Mace, Shield, Warhorn (for sword/axe, they get crit stuff instead, and it looks like longbow gets a range increase?)

I could keep going, but I guess they don't have it for every weapon. I suppose, since this is all based on the wiki, and I didn't double-check during the test, that I could be wrong. Since, obviously, Mesmer doesn't have it for any weapon on the wiki, and you're talking about what was in the "current" build.

---------- Post added 2012-08-09 at 10:22 PM ----------

As an update to this, seeing as I didn't misremember this: The word "Confusion" is in the tooltip for the third hit, but not the actual effect. It still does not apply any stacks itself. That was the case during BWE3, last stress test, and that's still the case now.

In case you forget, shattering is really good for Confusion-stacking anyways, and is in fact the main way to burst up to ridiculously high stacks of it, which I covered back when we had this debate. The auto-attack itself would only apply 2 stacks of Confusion if it actually did what the tooltip said. (still need to verify how Illusionary Retribution works - one extra stack per shatter, or one extra stack per illusion? I noticed that the Shatter that already applies confusion is one stack per illusion)
I still think it's weird that they fixed the tooltips for two of the skills, but not for the third skill. When they made the change to Thief Dagger's third chain attack to only apply one condition instead of a random chance between two conditions, they cut out the text referring to the random chance the "easy" way and created something grammatically incorrect that made it obvious it once said something different. ("Strike your foe with an cause Weakness") So I don't know why they didn't do that, either.

Consistency dammit! Currently hoping it's a "doesn't work" situation, similar to the blind from the Guardian Focus.

[zito]

I'll test scepter confusion again.

My beef is, there is no steady stream of damage via confusion it's only burst. Plus the only way to get insanely good stacks of it in a burst formation is to do the confusion glamour spec I was running. I don't know how frequent engineers stack confusion but all I know is its faster then mesmers.

If scepter stacked confusion the first 2 hits instead of the 3rd hit it would actually be better. Because in order for confusion to work effectively you need condition damage well outside the 5 stack you can apply condition damage is wasted with scepter attacks especially if you run something like pistol where phantasms don't stack confusion but rely on power for their damage. Which in turn forces us to go torch for the confusion phantasm. However if you stack power the confusion damage becomes useless now and if you run torch with scepter the torch phantasm is now useless.

Once again limiting builds.

I said before scepter is a double edge sword but its more of a rusty sword.

[MKing]

I just switched my main from Warrior to mesmer after this stress test, the abilities are so much more fun with mesmer and i love the mechanics. warrior is just very bland, all you can do is hit things, hit things harder, or take less damage. And warriors only get to use a few conditions while mesmer can use them all. Plus the randomness is kinda my playstyle.

[Durzlla]

I'll test scepter confusion again.

My beef is, there is no steady stream of damage via confusion it's only burst. Plus the only way to get insanely good stacks of it in a burst formation is to do the confusion glamour spec I was running. I don't know how frequent engineers stack confusion but all I know is its faster then mesmers.

If scepter stacked confusion the first 2 hits instead of the 3rd hit it would actually be better. Because in order for confusion to work effectively you need condition damage well outside the 5 stack you can apply condition damage is wasted with scepter attacks especially if you run something like pistol where phantasms don't stack confusion but rely on power for their damage. Which in turn forces us to go torch for the confusion phantasm. However if you stack power the confusion damage becomes useless now and if you run torch with scepter the torch phantasm is now useless.

Once again limiting builds.

I said before scepter is a double edge sword but its more of a rusty sword.

Actually the scepter auto attacks NO LONGER apply confusion... at all period... and idk why you hate the scepter so much that was BY FAR one of my favorite weapons and i was reliant entirely on conditions and my phantasms for damage bringing absolutely nothing in the bursty aspect for myself... and idk about you, but 5 stacks of confusion were more then enough to bring any poor bastard to their knees and weep, especially if i hit them with a 3 cloned cry of frustration... *wipes tear from eye* it's so beautiful seeing people with 6 confusion attack someone with 3 stacks of retaliation and just explode....

---------- Post added 2012-08-10 at 11:43 AM ----------

I just switched my main from Warrior to mesmer after this stress test, the abilities are so much more fun with mesmer and i love the mechanics. warrior is just very bland, all you can do is hit things, hit things harder, or take less damage. And warriors only get to use a few conditions while mesmer can use them all. Plus the randomness is kinda my playstyle.

Omg.... i'm not the only one who enjoys the randomness and isn't on the forums going "ZOMG!! RNG IS BAD!! I BRAKEZ DA PVP!!!"

[Durzlla]

How much damage is a 5-stack? Going by the formula on the wiki it doesn't seem like all that much. =O

i had 1.4k condition damage (stacked toughness and condition damage and had 10% of my toughness turning into condtion damage) so i was dealing 170 damage per stack, 5 stacks is 850 damage per attack, each confusion lasted roughly 5 seconds, and most people kinda shrug off that damage so it really adds up, and between confusing images, cry of frustration, and 2 phantasamal mages it wasn't uncommon for me to get 15 stacks on the enemy for a good amount of time which is 2,550 damage everytime the enemy uses an ability, not to mention i was reflecting a lot of attacks back at them by using feedback, not to mention my cry of frustration put retaliation on me making them take even MORE damage for just using abilities.

[MKing]

Omg.... i'm not the only one who enjoys the randomness and isn't on the forums going "ZOMG!! RNG IS BAD!! I BRAKEZ DA PVP!!!"

YES, i love playing games and getting super lucky and doing crazy things.