Guild Wars 2 - my colon was impacted because we were raiding for so long

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Inzombiac: Mar 19, 2007; PARTY ALL NIGHT

EAT BRAINS ALL DAY

Blasphemeral posted:

Karma can buy you entire end-game sets of exotic armor at the temples in Orr. It's 252,000 karma for a full set of Aurora, Rubicon or Armageddon armor, and they have the second-best stat budget in the game. Only the ascended/legendary tier is higher.

Yeah but then you have to go to Orr

# ? Aug 11, 2016 17:02

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# ? May 10, 2024 00:29

Aleph Null: Jun 10, 2008; You look very stressed; Tortured By Flan

Blasphemeral posted:

Karma can buy you entire end-game sets of exotic armor at the temples in Orr. It's 252,000 karma for a full set of Aurora, Rubicon or Armageddon armor, and they have the second-best stat budget in the game. Only the ascended/legendary tier is higher.

You also need gold, but I think the total is less than 20G.

# ? Aug 11, 2016 17:06

Generic Octopus: Mar 27, 2010

Aleph Null posted:

You also need gold, but I think the total is less than 20G.

Buying the pieces from the merchants in Orr only requires karma (42k per).

# ? Aug 11, 2016 17:12

mike12345: Jul 14, 2008; "Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries."

Oh yeah, about those eyes...

lol

# ? Aug 11, 2016 18:49

Bieeanshee: Aug 21, 2000; Not keen on keening.; Grimey Drawer

I noticed that the other night when someone linked them in chat. Now I'm tempted to make Nightmare Schoolteacher, who has eyes in the back of her head.

# ? Aug 11, 2016 21:22

U.T. Raptor: May 11, 2010; Are you a pack of imbeciles!?

Inzombiac posted:

MF helps to get better drops and Karma can be spent on...
I'm not sure what anymore unless you want to make a Legendary.

There's actually a whole bunch of weapon and armor skins scattered around the world that can only be obtained from karma vendors.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 05:10

Xun: Apr 25, 2010

Ugh I feel like doing some spvp for some of the wing backpacks but the thought of doing spvp again disgusts me

# ? Aug 12, 2016 05:54

zokie: Feb 13, 2006; Out of many, Sweden

Thirst Mutilator posted:

I got an 80 Mesmer but I honestly can't remember if I liked the game or not, just like one day the expansion was announced and I went "huh oh yeah I kind of spent a chunk of time playing that" so we'll see

Helping out with portals in HP trains and the like is suprisingy fun. Also pooping out swiftness and alacrity to everyone, makes a huge difference. Can anyone link the huge mesmer posts that were made? I think Waci made some really good raiding ones

# ? Aug 12, 2016 07:02

where the red fern gropes: Aug 24, 2011

Xun posted:

Ugh I feel like doing some spvp for some of the wing backpacks but the thought of doing spvp again disgusts me

ive been eating the barfed up poo poo that is gw2 pvp for the last 3 years and i'm too deep in it to stop now

# ? Aug 12, 2016 07:48

Ineptitude: Mar 2, 2010; Heed my words and become a master of the Heart _{(of Thorns)}.

Waci posted:

Ok, I said I'd write an effortpost on mesmers. Turns out effortposts are a lot of effort, and this might take a while, but here's part 1: traits and shatter skills. Since it's past 4k words, I'll break here and write up weapons and skill tomorrow a similar way, with descriptions of what they do, notable interactions with other things, and why they're commonly liked or disliked and which kinds of builds are they used in. After that's done and the basic class properties are done, I'll write up something explaining a common build or two for each game mode with some playstyle advice, and usage notes for special situations like portals. I know this isn't a use these skills push these buttons in this order type build advice post like someone might have hoped, but I hope it might help people not familiar with mesmers understand WHY metabattle tells you to use certain traits or to put together their own builds.

Mesmers 101: Effortpost 1 - Class abilities:
Like most classes, mesmer traits significantly modify the class abilities. In addition to their core functions, all of them can, for example, grant you quickness or alacrity, act as condi clears, or strip boons. Because of this, most builds want to use all of them, all the time. Exceptions exist for phantasm-focused builds which only use shatter skills when really needed, but thanks to some of the traits in the Chronomancer line, even they usually want to be quite liberal with their shatters. Actual shatter builds basically want to use them on cooldown unless you have a reason to believe you will need Distortion or Diversion before the cooldown is over. If you don't know that you should specifically be avoiding them, you should be smashing those buttons. Remember that the effect also happens on your character (you count as an illusion), so for example Distortion will still give you a short period of invulnerability, boon strips and condi clears trigger, Continuum Split will still duplicate your emergency Moa, and Diversion will still interrupt someone even if you have 0 illusions up. Shatter skills are all instant cast and can also be used during crowd control effects or while channelling another skill, which can be useful eg. when you're stunned and REALLY need that Distortion, or want to use their condi clear to get rid of Fear.

Mind Wrack:
The main source of damage for all power shatter builds. Notably also the shortest cooldown of them all, making it optimal for use as a boonstrip or condi-clear button without worry about having it available later, and something that you should be using on cooldown even out of combat if you're using Chronomancer so that you can keep getting Alacrity.

Cry of Frustration:
To condi builds what Mind Wrack is to power builds. The second-shortest cooldown, with the same implications a for Mind Wrack.

Diversion:
The crowd control button. Dazes the target (or up to 5 targets within the small AoE, if you're using the Master of Fragmentation trait). Note that Daze duration does not stack, so if you have multiple illusions up (remember you count as one), try to position yourself so that the illusions hit slightly after one another for repeat effect.

Distortion:
Your Invulnerability button. Reminder yet again, you count as an illusion. The duration is longer for each illusion you have up, but even that 1 second from just yourself can save you. Note that since this is actual invulnerability (ie, skills that ignore blocking or other evasion effects do not ignore Distortion), you do not contribute to contesting circles in PvP while Distortion is active. With multiple illusions up, this can last long enough for an enemy to decap a point from under you. The Inspiring Distortion minor trait form the Inspiration line makes this an AoE, granting 1 second of Distortion to up to 5 allies within the small AoE. The short duration makes it somewhat gimmicky to time, but it is also the only AoE invulnerability skill in the game.

Continuum Split:
Chronomancers only. Plop down a space time rift. Number of illusions increases duration before rift closes. When the rift closes, your health and all your cooldowns return to what they were the moment you created the rift, and you teleport to its position. You can also close the rift voluntarily, using the chain skill that replaces it. The rift is visible and targetable to everyone, and can be destroyed with a small amount of damage, ending the effect early. Notably excellent for effectively allowing you to reset the cooldowns on a set of long-cooldown skills like wells and elite skills. Note that if you have a skill on cooldown when you use Continuum Split, the cooldown will return to what it was before you used it when the split ends, even if the cooldown expired while the rift was open.

Mesmers 101: Effortpost 2 - Traits:

Domination
The power damage tree. Also contains a few things that may make it useful for other builds, such as Shattered Concentration. Lots of traits that cause or benefit from Vulnerability, as well as a bunch of on-interrupt traits in case you want that GW1 mesmer feel.

Minor traits:
Illusion of Vulnerability: Inflicts 3 stacks of Vulnerability for 5s when you interrupt a foe.

Dazzling: Inflicts 5 stacks of Vulnerability for 8s when you Daze a foe. Far more useful than the previous line thanks to Distortion. Note that this does not have an internal cooldown, meaning you can very quickly put 20 stacks of Vulnerability on something while also Dazing them, which is great on its own and even better with the next minor trait.

Fragility: Deal 0.5% more damage for each stack of vulnerability on your target. Vulnerability stacks up to 25, so at best it�s a 12.5% boost to all damage you deal to the target. In group PvE, this will happen more often than not against any enemy where it would matter. In WvW and sPvP, the bonus you�ll ever actually get (outside of a well-executed burst utilising the above) is much smaller, but it is still a straight-up you deal X% more damage, as a minor trait.

Tier 1:
Confounding Suggestions: 100% chance to Stun a target instead of Dazing them, with a 5s internal cooldown. Also increases duration of both by 25%. Sounds nice, but in practice there�s no point.

Empowered Illusions: Illusions deal 15% more damage. Great for phantasm builds. Worthless for shatter builds.

Rending Shatter: Shatter skills inflict Vulnerability. Remember what Fragility does. If you�re using Domination with a shatter build, use this. 1 stack, 10 seconds, but again, remember that each illusion is a hit, and most shatters are AoE.

Tier 2:
Shattered Concentration: Shatter skills also remove a boon on hit. One per hit. Note that with 4 clones, that can be 4 hits, and most shatter skills are AoE. Remember stability is a boon, and Diversion is a shatter skill.
Blurred Inscriptions: Signet recharge is reduced, and activating a signet removes a condition and grants 1 second of Distortion. Signet-heavy builds aren�t as common anymore, but this can still be a very strong defensive trait if you have 2 or 3 signets on your bar and know you don�t need Shattered Concentration.

Furious Interruption: Gain Quickness when you interrupt a foe. Quickness is good, but interrupts are never going to be reliable enough to make this trait worth it over the beautiful bastards that are the other two.

Tier 3:
Imagined Burden: Whenever you or a clone uses Spatial Surge (the greatsword autoattack), you gain might. GS skills have reduced recharge. All other GS skills inflict Cripple. The Might gain is significant, 2 stacks for 5s every time you or a clone autoattack, and the cooldown reduction is nice as well. However, you probably shouldn�t be spending that much time autoattacking with clones (note: not phantasms) up Good for phantasm builds in places where you don�t expect to reliably interrupt anyone.

Mental Anguish: Shatter ills deal 15% more damage, increasing to 30% more against inactive foes. The mainstream option for shatter builds, especially in PvE where inactivity is more common.

Power Block: Interrupting an enemy deals damage and inflicts weakness, and interrupted skills have their cooldown increased by 15s (does not affect skills that have no cooldowns). Consider what this can mean in sPvP, with particularly healing skills. Not that useful in PvE (the cooldown isn�t relevant that often), but if you can land your interrupts with any sort of reliability in PvP, use this. If you can�t, use Mental Anguish.

Dueling:
The crit damage line. Used to be practically mandatory due to Deceptive Evasion pre-HoT, but has fallen from it�s lofty position. Lots of on-crit and on-dodge effects. Still great for condi phantasm builds.

Minor traits:
Critical Infusion: Gain vigor for 5s on crit, 10s internal CD. Consider the on-dodge effects later in this line.

Sharper Images: Illusions inflict bleeding on crits. Remember what I said about condi phantasm builds? Only 5s base duration, 1 stack, but some of your phantasms are quantity monsters.

Master Fencer: Gain fury for 5s when you strike an enemy below 75% health. 5s internal CD. You do have other options for Fury upkeep, but this is a decent one.

Tier 1:
Phantasmal Fury: Your phantasms gain 10s of Fury every 10 seconds. If you�re using a power Phantasm build or a non-pistol condi phantasm build, you want this.

Desperate Decoy: Summon a clone and gain 3s of Stealth when you take damage under 50% health. 40s internal CD. Great escape/repositioning trait for WvW roaming and sPvP, sorta nifty in PvE. Note that stealth prevents capture point contribution.

Duelist�s Discipline: Pistol attacks from you and your illusions have a 50% chance to cause a stack of bleeding. This is the trait you run if you�re using a condi phantasm build with a pistol. 50% chance for 1 stack may sound like not much, but remember the Phantasmal Duelist attacks 8 times each time it shoots.

Tier 2:
Blinding Dissipation: AoE blind centred on you whenever you use a shatter skill. An excellent defensive trait in any game mode for any build that uses Duelling, with the added bonus of combining excellently with Ineptitude from the Illusions line for condi shatter builds.

Evasive Mirror: Gain 2s of projectile reflect on successful evasion, with 1.5s internal CD. Enormous fun in sPvP against rapid-attacking ranged classes like power longbow rangers or pistol thieves. Not as useful in PvE where the quantity of projectiles is rarely enough to be worth it or in WvW where the amount of AoEs is generally a bigger concern than direct projectile spam.

Fencer�s Finesse: Gain a stack of Fencer�s Finesse for 6s each time you or an illusion strikes with a 1h sword. Each stack grants you 15 ferocity. Reduces recharge on sword skills by 20%. If you�re using duelling in PvE, you use this. No exceptions, no buts, no using a sceptre in PvE. Love your sword, love your Blurred Frenzy, love your Finesse. Great with the ubiquitous mainhand sword, even better if you have the off-hand as well.

Tier 3:
Harmonious Mantras: Mantras can be activated 3 times instead of 2. Activating a mantra gives a stacking (max 5 stacks) damage buff of 3% for 10s. The first effect makes this mandatory for any mantra-heavy builds. The main drawback is that you would be using mantras.

Mistrust: Whenever you interrupt an enemy, inflict confusion in an AoE centred on them. Small radius, but 4 stacks. If you�re on top of your interrupts, good in condi builds of all kinds, and winner by default for power phantasm builds as well. For power shatter builds, you might as well take Deceptive Evasion instead for more illusions to shatter.

Deceptive Evasion: Before HoT, this trait was practically mandatory for every mesmer build. Thanks to the Chronomancer traits Chronophantasma and Illusionary Reversion, there are now other ways of keeping your illusion numbers up.

Chaos:
Sort of the condi line, mostly the stealth and miscellaneous stuff line. Home of many things that would be really cool if they were just a little better. Lots of random boon or random condition on [trigger] type traits.

Minor traits:
Metaphysical Rejuvenation: Gain regeneration for 10s when your health drops below 75%. 15s internal CD.

Illusionary Membrane: Gain protection for 3s when you gain regeneration. 15s internal CD.

Chaotic Persistence: Outgoing boon and condition duration increase by 3% for every boon on you. This is one of the traits that makes Chaos better in large groups (raids, WvW zergs...) than solo. Still, even with only the 2 or 3 boons that you�ll maintain on yourself, the bonus is nice.

Tier 1:
Descent Into Madness: The mesmer fall damage trait. Creates a Chaos Storm (Staff 5) on fall, with 35s cooldown. Like all fall damage traits, raises the question of how often do you take fall damage while in combat?

Illusionary Defence: Take 3% less damage for each illusion you have in the world. Excellent for phantasm builds, good for others. The usual option for this tier.

Master of Manipulation: Reduce recharge on manipulation skills and gain projectile reflect for 2s when you use one. If you�re in a PvP match against a gimmick team of 5 P/P thieves, maybe, and even then only maybe. All other cases, bring Illusionary Defence instead.

Tier 2:
Mirror of Anguish: When disabled by a crowd control effect, reflect the effect back to its source. 60s internal cooldown. Helps make some fo the more CC-heavy PvE zones less annoying, and fearing someone off a ledge in WvW with their own fear is utterly hilarious. Also great for negating that initial burst in sPvP. Not that great in PvE outside of specific areas, but generally the default for this tier.

Chaotic Transference: Gain 10% of toughness as condition damage. Useful for certain WvW condi builds, utterly irrelevant for anything else.

Chaotic Dampening: Chaos Armour grants protection for 4s. Staff skills recharge by an extra 2.5% each second you have Chaos Armour. Good if you�re using a staff and are on top of your combos.

Tier 3:
Chaotic Interruption: When you interrupt someone, they are immobilised and gain one other random condition, and you gain might and a random boon. Durations vary from 3 to 5s. Condition list is all soft CC, not damage conditions, meaning that if you�re focusing on interrupts a lot this can be good even on power builds.

Prismatic Understanding: Heavily nerfed from its short-lived glory day, but still a great buff for stealth-heavy builds. +50% stealth duration from mesmer skills, and gain a random boon every second while in stealth.

Bountiful Disillusionment: When you use a shatter skill, gain a stack of stability for 5s and you and nearby allies gain a bon dependent on which skill you used. Mesmers have very few sources of stability, so even the one stack for 5s helps enormously in WvW, especially on something you�re using as much as shatter skills. Boons are Might, Vigor, Fury, Regen, Resistance in that order, of which the most significant is 3 stacks of Might for 15s on a skill with a 12s base cooldown. Very useful in WvW for all builds because of the stability, and a safe default for shatter builds everywhere.

Inspiration:
The healing and support tree. Don�t take that to mean it�s critical for raid chronomancers or anything like that, it�s not, but it is where your meagre group healing comes from. As a bonus, has a picture of a pink, sparkly unicorn. The star of the line is Restorative Illusions, which add healing and condi clear to your shatter skills, with Inspiring Distortion which makes your Distortion an AoE in second place.

Minor traits:
Power Cleanse: Cast Power Cleanse when you use a healing skill. Effectively adds a 2-condition AoE condi-clear to your healing skill. Actually quite nice especially if you�re using one of the very low CD heals like the mantra.

Inspiring Distortion: Well hellloooo. 5s internal CD, 300 unit range AoE, centred on you. Max 5 targets. When you use Distortion, grant 1s of Distortion to nearby allies. I mentioned his in the Distortion description, because it is awesome. If you can time this right, you can completely negate a big attack for the entire group. Because it Distortion also makes you immune to unblockable effects, this lets you do funny things like save someone who hosed up from Sabetha�s unblockable instakill flamewall.

Healing Prism: When you heal yourself, nearby allies are also healed for a small amount. This can be nice if you have a large number of smaller heals, like from Restorative Illusions. Gain 100 healing power for each illusion. This would be nice if you had skills that heal that aren�t your healing skill or shatter skills.

Tier 1:
Medic�s Feedback: +10% revive speed, 6s projectile reflect dome on you when you revive someone. 32s internal CD. One of the better on-revive traits, especially in places like raid wing 2 where you generally want a lot of projectile reflects.

Restorative Mantras: Even for a mantra trait, this is poo poo. Heal allies around you when you finish preparing a mantra. For one, it requires using mantras. Secondly, its healing happens on a trigger than you reaaallly only want to ever encounter out of combat.

Persisting Images: Phantasms have 20% more health and spawn with retaliation. Great for phantasm builds, less necessary after the changes to AE damage to minions but till the one you�ve made the at best dubious decision of running Inspiration with a phantasm build.

Tier 2:
Warden�s Feedback: Focus weapon skills recharge 20% faster and reflect projectiles. A good trait if you need a lot of reflects, somewhat dampened by the fact that focus 5 already destroys projectiles anyway.

Restorative Illusions: The usual reason for taking this line in the first place. Your shatter skills remove conditions and heal you for a small amount depending on how many illusions you have active. Remember your shatter skills can be used while you�re disabled by CC. Great sustain for shatter builds, and lets you strip off fear or taunt.

Protected Phantasms: Phantasm�s gain distortion for 1s when created, and illusions gain protection for 2s when you use a shatter skill. Sounds good, but then you remember minions take minimal damage from AoEs and realise how little it would actually do for you.

Tier 3:
Mental Defence: Spawns a Phantasmal Defender when you block or evade. A lingering 50% reduction is nothing to sneer at, but in order to actually keep the bonus you have to stop using your shatter skills and not replace the phantasm with one of your damage ones, meaning you either gain no practical benefit from the trait or gently caress over your damage.

Illusionary Inspiration: Phantams grant regeneration to nearby allies. Whenever you summon a phantasm, cast Signet of Inspiration on 30s internal CD. Signet of Inspiration is a core utility skill for support-focused chronomancer builds, and another copy is always welcome. If you�re a mesmer in a raid or fractal group, you�re probably using this for that reason.

Temporal Enchanter: Glamour skills last 2s longer and grant nearby allies superspeed and resistance for 2s when cast. Has potential in open world PvE if you use combat glamours, but tends to not get used because the glamours are outdone by other utility skills. Has a place in portal bombing in WvW.

Illusions:
An oddly excellent trait line, included in most current mesmer builds, both shatter and phantasm. More important for condi than power, but welcome in both builds.

Minor traits:
Illusionary Retribution: Shatter skills inflict confusion on hit. One stack, but remember what I keep repeating about the number of hits.

Illusionist�s Celerity: Reduces recharge on illusion-summoning skills by 20%. Consider that pretty much all mesmer builds are fuelled by summoning illusions, either to fuel shatter skills or to replace lost phantasms, and then consider whether this is a good trait for literally any mesmer build.

Master of Misdirection: Confusions you inflict last 33% longer. Shatter skills recharge reduced by 15%. Well then. This is what makes Illusions the core of condi shatter, and excellent for everything else. There is no mesmer that doesn�t benefit from CD reduction on their Distortion and Continuum Split.

Tier 1:
Compounding Power: Gain 3% damage and 50 condition damage for each active illusion. The winner for phantasm builds of all kinds.

Persistence of Memory: Shattering a phantasm recharges all phantasms by 1s. Note that this is per phantasm. Consider how this could combine with Chronophantasma. An excellent trait for shatter builds, and a good one for phantasm builds in places where you expect to need Continuum Split/Distortion/Diversion regularly since this will help you get your babies back up faster afterwards.

The Pledge: Torch skills remove conditions and recharge faster while in stealth. Since stealth focused builds tend to use torch anyway, this is an excellent trait for its narrowly defined niche.

Tier 2:
Shattered Strength: Shattering illusions grants you a stack of might per illusion for 10s. Power shatter builds, here�s your might stacks.

Phantasmal Haste: Phantasm attack skill recharge reduced by 20%. And for the phantasm builds, here your winner.

Maim the Disillusioned: Shatter skills inflict torment on hit. The condi shatter winner, especially in PvP where enemies are more likely to take the extra damage from torment.

Tier 3:
Ineptitude: Blind also inflicts a stack of confusion. Blocking or evading blinds the attacker for 4.5s. Internal CD of 10s separately for each target. Combines well with Blinding Dissipation from Duelling. Not that useful in PvE, but can be a good defensive trait in PvP (for anyone, with an extra bonus for condi builds). Your blocks and dodges negate two attacks instead of 1, what�s not to like?

Master of Fragmentation: Borderline must-have for power shatter builds, and good for pretty much anyone. Mind Wrack crit chance increased by 10%. Cry of Frustration cripples. Diversion becomes and AoE. Distortion reflects projectiles. Continuum Split slows nearby foes when it ends.

Malicious Sorcery: 20% increased attack speed while wielding a sceptre, and sceptre skills recharge 20% faster. Good if you use a sceptre and don�t need the extra defence from Ineptitude.

Chronomancer:
The current meta, for a good reason. Contains the game�s only sources of alacrity, the couples weapon and extra utility skills are all great, and the traits in the line were good enough to displace the previously-mandatory Deceptive Evasion. Once you have it unlocked, never take it off your list in any game mode.

Minor traits:
Continuum Split: Unlocks access to the titular shatter skill.

Flow of Time: Gain 1s of alacrity for each illusion you shatter. Remember, you count as an illusion, and alacrity applies out of combat as well. If you have skills on cooldown and are not in combat, spam your shatter skills to keep them recharging faster.

Time Marches On: The thing that made traveller runes no longer necessary for doing WvW as a mesmer. Move 25% faster. Duration of cripple, chill, and immobilize on you is reduced by 25%.

Tier 1:
Delayed Reactions: Interrupting a foe slows them for 4.5s. Slow is a good condition, but even if you land your interrupts reliably, this trait is utterly overshadowed by the other two.

Time Catches Up: Activating a shatter skill gives your illusions superspeed. The way to 1v1 a mesmer in pvp is to get away when you see illusions running at you. This makes that significantly harder. For sPvP, you definitely want this. For WvW, you want this for small group or solo stuff.

All�s Well That Ends Well: Wells grant 2s alacrity to 5 allies when they end. If you�re chronomancing for a group, you are most likely running wells. If you have more than one well on your bar (and are not in sPvP), you want this trait. More alacrity means more better.

Tier 2:
Danger Time: +30% crit chance against slowed enemies. Useful, since you have a few different ways of inflicting slow, but again a good trait is overshadowed by exceptional ones.

Illusionary Reversion: Shattering at least 2 illusions generates a clone. A good trait for shatter builds. Take this if you know you will have 100% alacrity uptime in combat without Improved Alacrity.

Improved Alacrity: Alacrity applied to you lasts 50% longer. A holy poo poo awesome trait. More alacrity means more better. You probably want this trait regardless of who and where you are.

Tier 3:
Lost Time: Gain a charge each time you crit. After 5 charges, your next hit slows the target for 3s. This is a cool trait, once again completely ignorable because the other two are excellent.

Seize the Moment: Gain 1s of quickness for each illusion you shatter. Quickness is very strong, and this is a good trait in any game mode, bumping right up to awesome in sPvP and small scale WvW. Bring this if you can keep your illusions up without Chronophantasma.

Chronophantasma: Your phantasms are resummoned the first time they are shattered. Resummoned phantasms are dazed for 1.5 when summoned. This is why Deceptive Evasion is no longer a must-have. This is an incredibly strong trait in any game mode. Bring this if you find that your shattering is limited y the availability of phantasms.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 07:59

Ineptitude: Mar 2, 2010; Heed my words and become a master of the Heart _{(of Thorns)}.

Waci posted:

Ok, next part of my series of pointless effortposts about mesmer mechanics: weapon skills. Next up ~~either tonight or~~ tomorrow, heal/utility/elite skills.

Book of Mesmer - Chapter 3: Weapons

Sword (main hand)
By far the most popular mesmer weapon due to relatively high DPS, a great evasion skill, and boon strip on autoattack. Used in in more builds than not, including (nearly) all power builds. Melee attacks with a short-range gap closer. Relevant trait is Fencer�s Finesse from the Dueling line.

Mind Slash/Gash/Spike: The autoattack chain. Each step can hit up to 3 targets. The first two apply vulnerability and some damage, the third one does larger damage and strips one boon. The damage increases slightly if the target has no boons.

Blurred Frenzy: A 2.5s channel that deals heavy damage in melee, and during which you evade all attacks. Note that unlike Distortion this is evasion rather than invulnerability, and thus unblockable attacks such as Dragonhunter pulls, retaliation, and certain raid boss attacks still affect you.

Illusionary Leap: A triple-purpose clone generator, gap closer, and immobilise. When you use the skill, you create a clone at your target and cripple them. When you use the chain skill, you swap places with your clone and immobilise enemies in melee range of where you end up. The swap (not the initial use) is also a leap finisher. A standard starter for your burst in many builds for the obvious reasons, and the clone creation and leap finisher make it useful mid-fight as well.

Scepter
A mainhand-only medium range condi weapon. Can gain increased attack speed and reduced cooldowns from Malicious Sorcery in the Illusions line. Notable for the autoattack chain spawning clones. Unlike most chain skills, you can advance in the chain without hitting a target, meaning you can in some situations set up your autoattack chain so that your first hit uses the third skill in the chain, which can be helpful for quick burst setup for condi shatter builds.

Ether Bolt/Blast/Clone: The first two attacks fire projectiles that cause Torment. Note that when autoattacking, the chain wont progress until the projectile actually hits a target, meaning your attack speed slows down as your distance from the target increases. Quickness and the Malicious Sorcery trait ignore this limitation. The third skill will either spawn a clone that uses Ether bolt (only Bolt, not the whole chain) or inflict yet more Torment, depending on whether you have unused illusions slots available. Unlike the first two, the last skill in the chain is not a projectile.

Illusionary Counter: 2s block channel that ends after 1 hit. If you block an attack, inflict Torment on the attacker and summon a clone that casts Ether Bolt. You can interrupt the channel to shoot a medium-range line that blinds targets in it.

Confusing Images: Channel a beam between you and your target that inflicts pulsing damage and confusion on the target and others in the beam. Channel lasts for 2 seconds and hits 6 times.

Greatsword
Two-handed long-range weapon. The default ranged option for power builds of all kinds. Damage scales with distance, making it less than ideal to use at short range. The Imagined Burden trait from the Domination line reduces cooldowns, adds Might to Spatial Surge, and Cripple to the other four.

Spatial Surge: Shoot a purple laser at your target, dealing damage that increases with distance from your target. Can hit two additional targets within the line.

Mirror Blade: Throw an illusionary greatsword that bounces between enemies and allies (including yourself). Deals damage and applies vulnerability to enemies, applies might to allies. Spawns a clone at the first target. Bounces 3 times. Each bounce towards an enemy counts as a projectile finisher with a 100% success rate. The attack is unblockable.

Mind Stab: Ground-targeted AoE damage skill, also strips one boon from each target hit. Note that this actually has a 0.25 second casting time, which is interrupted by movement.

Phantasmal Berserker: Summons a phantasm that leaps through the target in a whirling AoE attack. The attack cripples enemies, and also counts as a whirl finisher. Because the phantasm moves during its attack, the actual damage dealt to a target varies depending on the target(s)'s position(s) and and the size of their hitboxes, varying from very high if all 4 spins hit something to not much at all if only one does. The movement is perpendicular to the line between you and the target, and covers a distance of roughly 720 units.

Illusionary Wave: Deals minor damage to and knocks back enemies in a 450 unit range 90� cone in front of you. The knockback distance is one of the longest in the game (though multiple Launch skills have equal or greater range).

Staff
The other two-handed ranged weapon. Used to be common in PvP as a defensive weapon even in power builds, still the premier long-range option for condi builds of all kinds. The Chaotic Dampening trait reduces cooldowns and buffs Chaos Armor, which the weapon has multiple sources of.

Winds of Chaos: Shoots an orb that bounces between enemies and allies (the first target is always the one you cats it at, after that it will bounce to the closest enemy or ally) for 2 bounces. Allies randomly gain fury or might, enemies randomly gain bleeding, burning, or vulnerability. Note the range of the bounce is based on the previously touched target rather than on you, meaning as long as the first target is within 1200 units of you, consecutive bounces can reach targets that would normally be out of range.

Phase Retreat: Teleport away from your target for 400 units and summon a clone that casts Winds of Chaos. The clone is summoned at your initial position. If you have an enemy targeted, you teleport directly away from the target. If you have no target, you teleport backwards base don your characters facing. If you use staff, I recommend binding a key for 180� turn to allow you to easily switch your characters facing. Note that like most teleport skills, this can allow you to travel over certain ledges, which can be useful particularly in sPvP.

Phantasmal Warlock: Summons an illusion that attacks one target and deals damage depending on the number of conditions on the target. With no or very few conditions, the damage is quite low, noticeably behind other phantasms, but can scale to be very high. Note that the warlock�s projectiles travel along the ground, meaning they will be stopped by unwalkable ledges or gaps unlike most projectiles.

Chaos Armour: You gain Chaos Armor for 5 seconds. The aura gained is identical to the one gained from an ethereal field+leap/blast combo, but the aura is a good defensive buff. You gain a random boon from protection, regeneration, or swiftness every second, and each time an enemy hits you, they gain a random condition from weakness, confusion, and cripple.

Chaos Storm: Ground-targeted AoE that persists for 5s. Each second, enemies within the AoE take a small amount of damage, and gain a random one of chilled, poison, weakness, and daze. Allies within the field gain a random boon from aegis, retaliation, and swiftness each second. The AoE is also an ethereal combo field, meaning it can serve as a source of chaos armour when combined with the leap finisher from Phase Retreat.

Sword (offhand)
A popular offhand choice in PvE, especially for power phantasm builds due to the excellent phantasm. Benefits from Fencer�s Finesse just like the mainhand version.

Illusionary Riposte: 2.5s channeled block that ends on the first hit. When you get hit, you deal a moderate amount of damage and summon a clone. During the channel, you can use a chain skill to end the channel early (ie before blocking the single attack) to shoot a medium-range line towards your target that dazes enemies hit by it for 1s. Note that when you block, you also teleport a very short distance in a random direction (you�ll be in melee range of where you were before), which can be worth remembering if you�re in a place where your positioning is very precise, like standing in a small gap between red circles.

Phantasmal Swordsman: Summon a phantasm that hits your target with a sword. Counts as a leap finisher on you when you use the skill and on the phantasm when it attacks. Generally the highest-DPS phantasm (exceptions apply due to certain other phantasms� damage scaling off various things that aren�t easy to standardise).

Focus
Off-hand only utility weapon, with an AoE pull and an anti-projectile dome. The Warden�s Feedback trait from Inspiration makes both skills reflect projectiles.

Temporal Curtain: A line-shaped ground-targeted AoE that grants swiftness to allies and cripples enemies. Is also a light combo field. One second after casting, you can use a chain skill to end the effect, pulling enemies within 600 units of the field�s centre towards it. Pulled enemies always travel the same distance (450 units), regardless of their distance from the centre, meaning you can pull enemies past the line if they�re close enough to it when you do so. Excellent for pulling people off cliffs or walls in WvW, one of mesmer�s precious few sources of swiftness. Note that while the curtain�s cripple and swiftness have no limit on the number of targets, the pull can only affect a maximum of 5.

Phantasmal Warden: Summons a phantasm that does a stationary whirling attack with 12 attacks over 5 seconds, with max 3 targets. Every attack counts as a whirl finisher. Good damage if all 12 attacks hit. The attack also destroys projectiles that pass through its AoE (unless Warden�s Feedback is active, in which case they�re reflected instead) .

Pistol
Long-range offhand, with a bouncing hard CC skill and a good condi damage phantasm. Used to be used for condi phantasm builds and occasionally for interrupt-heavy gimmicks. Now uncommon due to bugged damage on the phantasm. Duelist�s Discipline from the Dueling line causes both your and the phantasm�s pistol attacks to have a chance of causing bleeding, and causes interrupts to partially recharge your pistol skills.

Phantasmal Duelist: Summons a phantasm that attacks 8 times. The damage in itself is decent, made better by combining the large number of attacks with Duelist�s Discipline and Sharper Images in condi phantasm builds. Currently out of fashion due to bugged damage scaling.

Magic Bullet: A bouncing projectile attack that stuns the first target (2s), dazes the second (2s), blinds the third (5s), and confuses the fourth (5s, 1 stack). Is also a projectile finisher.

Torch
The offhand weapon for stealth and condi builds, and reasonable common especially in sPvP and WvW roaming for other builds as well due to having stealth on a weapon skill. The Illusions trait The Pledge causes both skills to remove conditions and to recharge faster while in stealth.

The Prestige: Blind enemies around you in an AoE and stealth for 3s. When the stealth ends, deal moderate damage and inflict burning on enemies around you. The end of stealth is also a blast finisher, the only one that mesmers have. Note that the damage at the end of stealth technically occurs before the stealth ends, causing you to get the Revealed effect if an enemy is within range to be damaged by it.

Phantasmal Mage: Creates a phantasm that uses a bouncing attack that inflicts burning on enemies and grants fury to allies. All around decent damage phantasm, current standard for condi phantasm builds alongside Phantasmal Warlock due to not being bugged like Phantasmal Duelist.

Shield
Chronomancer only offhand, with a very good block skill, a phantasm that grants alacrity and slows enemies, and an AoE stun and quickness. Has no weapon-specific trait outside the one that unlocks its use. Common for builds of all kinds across all game modes.

Echo of Memory: 1.5s block channel. Unlike other mesmer weapon blocks, this one does not end after the first blocked hit. Instead, if the skill is allowed to channel for its entire duration, summon a phantasm that grants alacrity to allies and applies slow to enemies (both 2s every ~8s, in an AoE around the target). If the skill blocks an attack, an identical chain skill becomes available for 10 seconds, allowing you to effectively use the skill again before the cooldown starts.

Tides of Time: Launches a small moving AoE towards the enemy, which grants quickness to allies it touches and stuns enemies. The AoE travels 600 metres, and then returns to you, having the same effects on the way back. Touching the returning AoE reduces the skill�s cooldown by 10s. Note that targets blocking the skill or colliding with impassable environment cause the skill to end immediately, without turning back. One of the few AoE hard CC skills without a limit on the number of targets that can be affected. Targets with very large hitboxes like many champion and legendary mobs may be hit more than once as the AoE passes through them. Is also an ethereal combo field.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 07:59

Ineptitude: Mar 2, 2010; Heed my words and become a master of the Heart _{(of Thorns)}.

Magres posted:

Mesmers, Raiding, and You! Something something time traveling and illusions shutup I can't think of a clever tagline right now

I'll mostly be calling Mesmers "Chronos," shorthand for Chronomancer, their Elite Specialization that everyone always uses in every raid ever, because there's no reason to ever not use it. Chronos' job in raids is mostly to get as much Quickness and Alacrity onto their teammates as possible. Quickness makes people cast abilities 50% faster, and Alacrity makes their abilities recharge 33% faster (if someone has permanent Alacrity, their abilities will take 75% as long to recharge as they would without Alacrity). Doing a good job of pushing out tons of Quickness and Alacrity can increase your group's overall DPS by something like 30%, so it's a huge boost to your group's damage.

Build

There's actually a plethora of choices to be made when building a Chrono, so we'll start with the stuff that's fairly stable.

Weapons - Your weapon sets will be Sword/Shield and either Empty/Sword or Empty/Focus. Your mainhand slot in your second set remains empty so you can use your mainhand Sword in both sets. This is because you'll want a rather expensive Superior Sigil of Concentration (46g as of my writing this) in that sword. It gives you a big pile of Boon Duration (making your Quickness last longer) every time you swap weapons. You can, in theory, do Sword/Shield and Sword/(Sword or Focus) and have two Sigils of Concentration if you're rich and want to, but it's a waste of money. I generally run X/Focus because the 4 skill on Focus has an extremely good pull that is incredibly useful in a variety of situations, but for Matthias you essentially have to run Sword. Sword gives you better Illusion generation once you get good at it, because its 4 skill pops out a Clone when you block with it, and its 5 skill generates a Phantasm, where Focus only generates a Phantasm on its 5 skill. User preference!

Armor - you have two basic setups, Berserker or Commander. Commander armor is a more involved build that means you'll always be tanking and will deal even crappier damage, but also means you don't need a Revenant to hit 100% Boon Duration. (Sidenote, Revenants and Chronomancers are often paired together because Rev can hand out 50% boon duration). Commander armor is also a huge pain in the rear end to make and not really worth it (imo) so I'll be focusing on the Berserker setup. You'll want full Berserker armor with 6 Superior Runes of the Chronomancer in it. The 6th thing on Chrono runes helps you spit out extra Quickness.

Trinkets - depends on whether you're tanking or not. If you're tanking, run enough Toughness to break 1400 Toughness and whatever you want past that, otherwise run full Berserker.

Traits - things get a little more contentious here. My quick summary default setting is Chronomancer 333, Inspiration 122, and Illusions 222. Domination instead of Illusions is also viable I prefer Illusions to Domination, but take your pick. Illusions works around a 2 quickness push cycle where you'll do a Continuum Split (CS) push, then a non-CS push, then a CS push, etc etc. Domination does a 3 quickness push cycle where you do a CS push then two non-CS pushes. For Inspiration, all three traits can change, but I prefer 122. Some people like Persisting Images for the first trait, but I think Medic's Feedback is significantly better (faster revives, protective bubble when reviving). Second trait is between Warden's Feedback and Restorative Illusions. Warden's Feedback is very important for specific fights (ie Slothasor) for the reflect on focus skills, but outside of that I run Restorative Illusions because extra healing is very good. For the third trait, some people like Mental Defense because the Phantasmal Defender can help you stay alive longer, but in my opinion Illusionary Inspiration is much better, because having an extra Signet of Inspiration to proc can let you push out a lot of extra Quickness if you do it right. Finally, I run 222 for Illusions. I like Illusions because it reduces your Phantasm and Illusion summoning cooldowns, as well as the cooldown of all your shatter skills.

Skills - almost always the same, but there are a couple variations. For starters, you will always run Well of Action (aka Quickness well) and Signet of Inspiration in your utilities, and Time Warp for your elite. After that, you can pick between Signet of the Ether (healing signet) and Well of Eternity (healing well) for your heal skill. The Signet of the Ether is a little easier to play, Well of Eternity lets you push more Quickness. I highly recommend Healing Well, personally. For your third utility slot you want to run Well of Recall (aka Alacrity well) unless you need Feedback (used for Slothasor and Matthias).

Food - any 20% boon duration food, and your maintenance item is whatever you feel like, really, though I use Superior Sharpening Stones.

Rotation(s)

I'm going to be assuming anyone reading this is running the Illusions build, cause the Domination rotation is different. For a quick guide to the Domination rotation, watch the youtube video of it on qT's Raid Chrono build guide. Additionally, there are two actual rotations, depending on Continuum Split vs non Continuum Split, and I'll be talking about them separately.

Continuum Split Rotation - If starting in Sword/X (ie not Sword/Shield), it'll be Weapon Swap, Continuum Split, Time Warp, Well of Action, Well of Recall, Well of Eternity, Tides of Time (ie Shield 5), Signet of Inspiration. You want to buffer cast them all (ie hit the next skill while the current one is casting so the next one starts casting the moment the current one ends) because you don't have the time to spare to mess around with waiting for reaction time and latency. One way to buy yourself a little bit of spare time is to Continuum Split while casting Time Warp. CS has no cast time and can be used mid cast, and if you pop it during the Time Warp cast you can buy yourself an extra ~0.15 seconds to get your rotation off, and it actually matters sometimes. Just be careful and make sure you actually pop CS before Time Warp finishes, or you've just blown a 180s cooldown you didn't need to blow.

For the CS rotation, your goal is to have 3 illusions out and be sitting on Sword/X (ie not Sword/Shield), so you can swap to Sword/Shield to proc your Sigil of Concentration before starting the rotation. If you only have two illusions out and everything's on cooldown though, you can switch to Shield, use your 4 skill, then begin the rotation and you'll have enough time before Sigil of Concetration's effect ends.

As a side note to the rotation, if you find yourself stuck in Sword/Shield when you're wanting to pop out a CS rotation, you can do Continuum Split, Tides of Time, Weapon Swap, Time Warp, Well of Action, Well of Recall, Signet of Inspiration. You have to skip something to make time for the Weapon Swap, and Well of Recall is a more important Well to double up on than Well of Eternity. Additionally, at the end of your rotation you want to immediately drop into your non-Continuum Split Rotation as soon as possible, because all of your Quickness skills come back up as soon as Continuum Split ends.

Non-Continuum Split Rotation - Starting in Sword/X, Weapon Swap, Well of Action, Well of Recall, Well of Eternity, Tides of Time, Signet of Inspiration, Phantasm Skill. Don't use Time Warp! Only use Time Warp during CS pushes so you can turn that 3 minute cooldown into a 76.5 second cooldown. If you're starting in Sword/Shield, your rotation will be Tides of Time, Weapon Swap, Well of Recall, Well of Action, Well of Eternity, Signet of Inspiration, Phantasm Skill. For clarity, by Phantasm Skill I mean either Shield 4, Focus 5, or Sword 5. You have a 30s cooldown trait that procs Signet of Inspiration when you summon a Phantasm, and managing it properly (ie lining it up with your non-CS rotations) will let you push a ton of extra quickness (like 40% more).

Regarding skill order, it's not super important as long as Time Warp and Well of Action are early and Signet of Inspiration is last. Time Warp and Well of Action both take a while to put Quickness on you and you want to give them as much time to work their mojo on you as you can before sharing the Quickness. Signet of Inspiration goes last because it doubles up everything you've already done, and putting it last lets you double up more stuff.

Outside of pushing quickness - spam illusions, shatter them for quickness. Use abilities, don't die! For tanking, use your dodge rolls, Sword 2, Shield 4, and Sword 4 (if you have it) to mitigate damage. Just keep an eye on your cooldowns for your wells and CS and plan accordingly - when your Wells are getting to ~15 seconds left on cooldown, switch to Sword/X to be to Weapon Swap to Sword/Shield when appropriate, and when CS is getting low on cooldown try to crank out some illusions to be ready for it to come up.

Learning to do this nonsense

I highly recommend not starting tanking unless you've already tanked a lot on other classes and are extremely comfortable with the bosses. Chrono rotations take a lot of focus until you've done them for a while, and so does tanking, and trying to do them both at the same time means you'll probably wind up screwing both of them up a lot. For boss specific advice, read boss guides! If anyone has boss specific questions I'll try to answer them, but I'm not a terribly good tank.

A drill you can do to just get used to how pumping quickness feels and playing that fast for bursts of time is to walk up to a random person and do the following rotation, with no illusions at all: Time Warp, Chrono Split during Time Warp, Well of Action, Chrono Split Ends, Well of Action (again), Well of Recall, Well of Eternity, Tides of Time, Echo of Memory (Shield 4, it spawns a phantasm and triggers your traited Signet of Inspiration), wait a second or two, Signet of Inspiration. The reason to wait for the second Signet of Inspiration is because, on the back end of GW2, even though Quickness stacks in duration it actually keeps track of your stacks of quickness. I don't know all the details, but from what I understand you can only have 9 stacks of Quickness at a time, and by waiting a couple seconds to recast Signet of Inspiration you let a couple of them expire and then refill those slots with more, longer duration stacks.

Beyond that, go play Chrono in the open world stuff out there and try to pump quickness out onto people, and play fractals and pump quickness. I adore a good chrono in fractal groups because having quickness and alacrity is really fun.

E: Oh, a note on Keybindings.

Playing with default keybindings makes Chrono more or less impossible to play well. Your rotation has to be fast enough to make it fit that the time it takes to move your hand across the keyboard to hit 6-0 actually matters, a lot. I'd say it's more or less impossible to do a good CS split on default keybindings while also handling boss mechanics. Everyone has their own setup so if you have your own customized keybinds that let you reach all your stuff comfortable, carry on. If you use default keybindings, PLEASE redo them or you're pretty much crippling your ability to play Chrono well (and, imo, default keybindings are just really unpleasant because not having your heal and utilities and elite within easy reach sucks). My setup for keybindings is as follows:

Movement keys: WASD (forward, back, and strafe side to side)
Turning character: hold right click and move the mouse

Weapon Skills, 1-5 changed to QERFZ
Heal Skill, 6 changed to X
Utilities, 7-9 changed to CVT
Elite, 0 changed to G
Profession Skills, F1-F5 changed to 1-5
Dodge: Mouse 4 (rear thumb button)
Weapon Swap: Mouse 5 (forward thumb button)
Special Action: Tilde (~ key, left of 1)

You can definitely make due without a 5 button mouse, but it does make life easier. Without mine I'd do something like Ctrl for Dodge and Mouse 3 (middle mouse button) for weapon swap. If you don't have a 5 button mouse and want one, I use the Logitech MX518 and love it because it's the only mouse big enough for my enormous hands, and my fiance uses the Anker Gaming Mouse and really likes it, though I'm not a fan of its thumb buttons.

Waci posted:

Note that in addition to giving you a little more of that ever-precious alacrity, the healing well also has built-in condi clear (holy poo poo vital in wing 2), and is an AoE heal instead of healing just yourself. It wont make you a druid, but every bit helps. I would also say that even for Slothasor, you should only replace the alacrity well with Feedback if you're noticeably lacking in reflects from guardians. Both guardians and mesmers can reflect, only mesmers can hand out alacrity.

Maintenance item should be bountiful sharpening stone if you can at all afford them (at something like 70s each last time I mathed). Your personal DPS isn't that relevant on a raid scale compared to the group DPS boost from your boons, and you'll get better DPS anyway by using boon duration consumables and DPS gear than the other way around.

I'd recommend starting your CS rotation with Well of Recall (remember Alacrity isn't a boon, so losing the weapon swap bonus for that one skill doesn't matter) and using CS right before the casting time for it is finished, since it has a longer casting time than Time Warp and you have a smaller risk of lag loving things up, as well as using the shorter skill during your precious few CS seconds and the longer one outside of them.

Like Magres pointed out, you should pay attention to your signet of inspiration from Illusionary Inspiration. As I said, your DPS doesn't matter anywhere near as much as your buffs, so just stick to clones for shatter fuel between rotations.

I'd also like to add a point about paying attention to WHEN you use your buff rotations. If your CS rotation comes up right when VG is about to split or a breakbar phase in any fight is about to come up, it's better to wait a couple of seconds and use it when the group is back at DPSing. Even more importantly, pay attention to when the group needs to move (e.g. running for the walls on Gorseval or avoiding Sabetha's flame wall, right as a boss is about to die on bandit trio, dodging ghosts on keep construct). Delaying your CS rotation by 5 seconds sucks, but using it right when the group needs to move and wasting it completely sucks even more.

You can also reach 100% boon duration with only partial commander's gear (the trinkets are much easier to get than the actual armour, though you'll need a couple of pieces of armour as well. I recommend the pick-your-stats raid loot you can buy with magnetite shards), but realistically, you usually want to bring a revenant anyway since they can do other things as well in addition tot he boon duration so there's really no reason to go for 100% boon duration instead of 50% other than "because I can" cred (consumables should give you 30%, so get a couple commander's jewels or a piece of armour or two to bump it up to 50% if you want to raid chrono regularly).

Also, non class specific advice for everyone: bind a key to about-face. Do not be the guy who RP walks out of the red circles.

Magres posted:

I don't run Bountiful Sharpening Stones cause with a Rev, a Sigil of Concentration, and 20% Boon Food you're already at 100% Boon Duration.

Well of Recall first for CS Split is interesting , I'll have to try that. I think I like it a lot better than Time Warp first. You might lose a shred of Quickness from not putting Time Warp first, but it should make the rotation a lot easier and more reliable.

Waci posted:

You lose about a second of quickness, but I find the extra leeway during CS worth it especially since I play with a less than perfect connection. It also buys you enough extra time that if you need to, you can dodge int he middle of your rotation and still get everything important off in time.

I don't like relying on the sigil for boon duration because it limits what else you can do with your weapons by making weapon swap a part of your rotation. Sucks if you're relying on shield to survive or using focus for reflects or pulls. I think that might be a stylistic difference though, I like dumping my CS rotation and non-CS rotation right after each other (ie before weapon swap comes off cooldown) to make sure as much of the buffs as possible is around during DPS phases, but that might just be me being weird about the sigil. Not needing the sigil as a part of your rotation also lets you swap to a ranged weapon if you need to, which depending on group may or may not be useful for some fights. Still though, good point that if you're aiming for 50% by yourself you can do it with the sigil if you pay attention to it.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 08:01

Ineptitude: Mar 2, 2010; Heed my words and become a master of the Heart _{(of Thorns)}.

My longest posts on this webpage and they are quotes...
Thanks Waci and Magres for your effortposts!

I'll admit they are not 100% relevant for me as i don't raid. I do find mesmer very interesting but the build i am playing right now (Redshifts "100%" quickness chronotank) is not very fun for the content i am doing, more or less nothing but HoT open map meta events.
Could either of you mesmer experts (or anyone else for that matter) help me out with a build for open world meta events? These types of builds are very difficult to find, it seems the "meta" of this game is that open world = easy and/or doesn't require builds and tactics. I have seen way too many failed Chak Gerents or Dragon's Stands to agree with this.

On my mesmer I feel really loving useless on any event i go to as i deal very little damage and the quickness rotation is nigh impossible to set up with all the cc, conditions and aoe damage flying around on meta events. I think literally every single boss has a wide area gently caress melee type of attack so getting in there and dropping wells so they both benefit me and do some damage is out of the question. I haven't been able to find other perma quickness builds that doesn't rely on revenant.
Is there any point in bringing a mesmer if it is not to provide perma quickness? If you have a random build how much quickness/alacrity do you provide compared to a dedicated such build?

Ineptitude fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Aug 12, 2016

# ? Aug 12, 2016 08:16

Focacciasaurus_Rex: Dec 13, 2010

Ineptitude posted:

My longest posts on this webpage and they are quotes...
Thanks Waci and Magres for your effortposts!

I'll admit they are not 100% relevant for me as i don't raid. I do find mesmer very interesting but the build i am playing right now (Redshifts "100%" quickness chronotank) is not very fun for the content i am doing, more or less nothing but HoT open map meta events.
Could either of you mesmer experts (or anyone else for that matter) help me out with a build for open world meta events? These types of builds are very difficult to find, it seems the "meta" of this game is that open world = easy and/or doesn't require builds and tactics. I have seen way too many failed Chak Gerents or Dragon's Stands to agree with this.

On my mesmer I feel really loving useless on any event i go to as i deal very little damage and the quickness rotation is nigh impossible to set up with all the cc, conditions and aoe damage flying around on meta events. I think literally every single boss has a wide area gently caress melee type of attack so getting in there and dropping wells so they both benefit me and do some damage is out of the question. I haven't been able to find other perma quickness builds that doesn't rely on revenant.
Is there any point in bringing a mesmer if it is not to provide perma quickness? If you have a random build how much quickness/alacrity do you provide compared to a dedicated such build?

Something like Domination/Dueling/Chrono is pretty solid. Good general skills have always been null field, feedback, and a signet of your choice, either illusions or inspiration. Heal is usually eather feast. Elite is always time warp, because time warp is amazing and if nothing else you want to double it with Continuum Shift when you can. Weapons are greatsword and sword/shield.

I'm not an optimal player by any stretch unless you count market analysis, but it gets the job done well enough for PvE content.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 08:56

dad on the rag: Apr 25, 2010

You are better off using signet for healing when you are doing solo play. It means you can poo poo out more phantasms and you have enough survivability with shield, distortion, etc.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 13:01

TeaJay: Oct 9, 2012

I've been running a variation of Greatsword / Sword+X shatter build pretty much for years on my mesmer. Sometimes I've tried the big boys' preferred sword/sword build, but for open world tagging and stuff - and for the situations I don't want to be in melee - I like the GS build more. It might not be the pinnacle of DPS all classes considered, but it's very reliable, and now with chronomancer added, you can provide lots of alacrity to your team as well. It's just fun to play.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 13:56

Waci: May 30, 2011; A boy and his dog.

Sword in both sets for raids and such is so that you can trigger on weapon swap sigils as soon as their cooldown resets without worrying about your actual weapon skills changing. For open world PvE, you generally want a ranged option on a mesmer. Having a ranged weapon also makes it much easier to put your wells somewhere useful, like on a clump of elementalists, instead of on the Lonks and Aruses of the world.

Don't try playing a tank in open world pve, tanking as a concept only exists in raids. You'll never feel like a DPS monster in PvE, but you can switch to a build with more damage stats on your gear. Your survivability comes from your ability to not stand in red circles, and to occasionally ignore them by pushing F4.

+100% boon duration without a herald requires either loving with sigils (annoying), commander's gear (expensive), or leadership runes (grindy), or some combination of the three. You don't NEED +100% boon duration, especially by yourself. In a pinch, just consumables and a herald will get you to 80, while consumables, herald, and either the sigil or platinum doubloons on your trinkets will get you to 100%. If you're doing open world events, any situation where you might conceivably want to tryhard your boon duration that much (ie where you're trying to apply your buffs to more than 5 people, including yourself) will also have a herald around. Tell them to get in your party and keep their buff up.

For what you're doing, your utilities are always going to be the alacrity and quickness wells, and either Signet of Inspiration (if you can survive with Distortion, shield 4, and positioning) or Blink (if you need to sacrifice a significant chunk of quickness output for a button that unfucks your positioning and thus keeps you alive). Other utilities have their place, but none of those places are the build/playstyle that was asked about.

For the healing skill, Ether Feast is your best heal for self-healing, the signet is cool but should generally be unnecessary because you should have enough phantasms from chronomancer traits and being able to make your burst ever so slightly bigger doesn't matter in PvE, and the healing well actually lets you heal other people as well as having condi clear and granting a couple seconds extra alacrity. Use the well if you can survive with it, it does hell you for less than the others do, but the extra party support is worth it if you can make do with less healing for yourself.

Waci fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Aug 12, 2016

# ? Aug 12, 2016 16:31

nickhimself: Jul 16, 2007; I GIVE YOU MY INFO YOU LOG IN AND PUT IN BUILD I PAY YOU 3 BLESSINGS

I just found out I can actually get a Chaos Axe from the TP rather than wait fourteen years for salvage scraps to build up enough to convert into 5 tickets.

I just want to recreate my GW1 W/Mo who had pure white dyed exotic armor, and req 8 Chaos Axe + Aegis Shield equipment.

I've got the shield, and I could dye my armor mostly white, just not Radiant which will happen in approximately never with how slow achievement points build vs how many I need for Radiant.

228g on the TP, though. Lol that's not gonna happen anytime soon either, so =[

# ? Aug 12, 2016 17:40

Generic Octopus: Mar 27, 2010

nickhimself posted:

GW1 W/Mo

# ? Aug 12, 2016 17:47

Waci: May 30, 2011; A boy and his dog.

nickhimself posted:

pure white dyed exotic armor

I'm not sure this is one of the things you should want to recreate.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:00

Adhesive Gamin: Sep 29, 2010; Meatoberfest is in full swing.

You'll be happy to know that ArenaNet took W/Mo popularity into account for GW2 and made Mending a Warrior skill.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:19

Waci: May 30, 2011; A boy and his dog.

Lol if you didn't play Mo/Me with Ray of Judgement and Arcane Echo.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:28

JohnnyCanuck: May 28, 2004; Strong And/Or Free

My main in GW1 was a W/Ele. My secondary was a Mo/...something. Mesmer? Ranger?

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:29

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007

I was a wammo (suck my god drat balls) until Nightfall but then I played a dervish until eternity, the best class ever made in any game ever.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:32

nickhimself: Jul 16, 2007; I GIVE YOU MY INFO YOU LOG IN AND PUT IN BUILD I PAY YOU 3 BLESSINGS

I did all of my running on my w/mo, had a real fun time farming with 55 mo/rt, and enjoyed everything with dervish because that class did totally own

spinning skirt mans

my first ever youtube video was farming on my 55 at cave trolls and it's always a nice walk down memory lane to check it out from time to time

edit: lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn6IZUqoGsM

nickhimself fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Aug 12, 2016

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:38

Waci: May 30, 2011; A boy and his dog.

Paragons were and are the superior skirtmen.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:40

Generic Octopus: Mar 27, 2010

I liked Derv, Ranger/Derv (and ranger in general; I want my rainbow phoenix in GW2), and Assassin.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:41

Serenade: Nov 5, 2011; "I should really learn to fucking read"

Y'all should have been Mesmer that way you can do DoA and nothing else

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:49

Waci: May 30, 2011; A boy and his dog.

Mesmers in GW1 were awesome and make me miss the Factions PvP modes.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:51

TeaJay: Oct 9, 2012

Waci posted:

Mesmers in GW1 were awesome and make me miss the Factions PvP modes.

If you're referring to the PvPvE stuff like Fort Aspenwood / Jade Quarry and Alliance battles, I did those a LOT even though I'm not usually much of a PVP'er. I tried getting into GW2 WvW and stuff but it just doesn't click now.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 19:17

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007

Waci posted:

Paragons were and are the superior skirtmen.

paragon was my 2nd favourite, I was a random arena master with paragon

# ? Aug 12, 2016 19:23

Xun: Apr 25, 2010

I really liked my assassin. And also the days where I'd run weird gimmick A/rt builds with my friends and somehow cheese endgame stuff

# ? Aug 12, 2016 19:42

malhavok: Jan 18, 2013

That Mesmer write up made me want to play my mesmer a whole lot.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 20:57

jjac: Jun 12, 2007; What time is it?!

I liked ritualists more than any of the other expansion classes, the skill aesthetics were so soothing.

Minion bombers was the best playstyle though.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 00:39

nickhimself: Jul 16, 2007; I GIVE YOU MY INFO YOU LOG IN AND PUT IN BUILD I PAY YOU 3 BLESSINGS

# ? Aug 13, 2016 01:48

snograt: Jul 18, 2013; rattus rattus
senile old twattus

nickhimself posted:

(Troll cave snip)

Aww, such sweet memories! I was so proud of myself when I learned to farm the troll cave with my wammo. Even more so the first time I 55'd hydras.

My all-time favourite farm, though, was echo-dusting in Stygian Vale with my ranger.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 03:59

Johnny Joestar: Oct 21, 2010; Don't shoot him?

...
...

jjac posted:

I liked ritualists more than any of the other expansion classes, the skill aesthetics were so soothing.

Minion bombers was the best playstyle though.

i miss the minion master playstyle from gw1 a lot. the ones in gw2 are complete trash

# ? Aug 13, 2016 05:38

Inzombiac: Mar 19, 2007; PARTY ALL NIGHT

EAT BRAINS ALL DAY

"Complete trash" is a stupid thing to say.
It's quite different but a Necromancer with a team of Peta is good and viable.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 05:42

Johnny Joestar: Oct 21, 2010; Don't shoot him?

...
...

i'm sorry, but it's established now. just horrible. a shame

# ? Aug 13, 2016 05:44

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 10, 2024 00:29

jjac: Jun 12, 2007; What time is it?!

Between the pet update that made them unkillable to 'Rise!' it's pretty good actually.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 08:30

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > Guild Wars 2 - my colon was impacted because we were raiding for so long

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