Guild Wars 2!

[Morty]

Would you say that Scepter + Pistol or Sword + Sword is a better weapon set for a Mesmer? I'm thinking about changing my secondary set (the primary being a staff).
Speaking of weapons, I wonder if any new ones will be introduced in one of the updates. It would be nice, but it would potentially throw balance out of kilter unless done just right. I'm glad that no new professions are being added. It didn't work terribly well in GW1 and the existing ones have pretty much all bases covered.

[Hullabaloo]

I go staff/Sword+Pistol, but have seen alot for Sword&Sword. IMO the #4 skill for Pistol is very strong for ranged dmg, as well as a combo finisher. The # 5 is a 3 person CC, which works nicely for me.

Typically I stay with staff the majority of time, but the the sword/pistol to save myself while in melee range of numerous guys and Chaos shield is on CD.

Ie
Chaos Storm
Sword #3 for Chaos Shield
#2 for invulnerable and some dmg
#5 to slow them down
f3 or f4, then #4 pistol and back to my staff. At that point Chaos storm and phase retreat are back up, or Chaos shield itself and I have a high DPS clone out unloading his second round of shot.

I used septer a bit, but did not really enjoy it. If you are going pure shatter/confusion it can be useful, but I focus more on boons and conditions. The #2 skill is pretty weak, the auto attack is weak, unless you focus on shattering, then the extra clone can be nice. Again the #3 can be strong if you focus on stacking confusion (expecally in PvP).

I just found staff much more powerful, so would switch to septer/pistol, use #3, 4 and 5, then use a utility waiting for my swap CD to come up.

[Toastkart]

THANK YOU for the info. Did not realize the zeal 30 was such a low heal. The Zeal 25 adds 10% dmg to symbols, but the actual dmg from the mace (and lesser extent GS) symbols is quite minor, and I think the main benefit are the boons and conditions, as opposed to raw dmg, so going to 20 Zeal might be a good idea.

Agree about signat of resolve, I use that most of the time and swap to breeze in specific situations. Blind Exposure gives 3 stacks for 5 seconds (AoE), and with Justice being renewed every kill, it actually is up a fair bit.

I swap between Signant of Bane and Judgement a fair bit, depending on how it goes. I was thinking of dropping Spirit weapon for "save Yourself" to be spammed as a boon adder, and the condition removal of others as a nice side effect.

I ended up adding 5 to valor for Aiges and 5 to virtues for better consecrations. (can swap in sanctuary for useful situations.)

That sounds like a pretty good plan. Glad I could help.

[Shadow]

Hull likes s/p, I prefer s/s.

Hull's argument for /p is that #4 is strong ranged damage as well as a combo finisher (but it's a projectile, which is by far the worst finisher) and that #5 is a 3 mob CC.

My argument is this:
Copied from two posts from a thread on another forum:

The Phantasmal Duelist from pistol is indeed powerful, but it's stationary. The tooltip lists damage as (8x)144. The second ability is Magic Bullet, which stuns/dazes/blinds targets that it hits (in that order - it bounces). MB is a projectile finisher.
The Phantasmal Swordsman's damage is listed as 487 (which is obviously less than (8x)144), but he attacks almost twice as fast so that makes up most of the difference right there. He also leaps in to attack, then leaps back again, keeping distance between himself and the target. This means when the target moves out of range of the Duelist he becomes useless. The Swordsman follows his target, but stays at range enough to survive it. This keeps him in the fight longer, which makes up the rest of the difference in damage. It is also a leap finisher, which is far better than a projectile finisher. The other off hand sword skill is a 2s block, which you can turn into a ranged Daze in a line AoE.
Better survivability for your Phantasm, similar damage from him, more utility/survivabilty for you, and a better finisher. Dual swords are better than sword/pistol in my eyes. No question about it.

I'm not sure about this - I watch the duelist move into position when you summon him out of range. Do you mean once he stops moving he doesn't move anymore - cos that I'm not sure of, new to mesmer and all.

Yeah, once he's in position he stays there. If he draws aggro and the mob runs up to punch him in the face, he stays there, takes it, and usually dies.

Try the Swordsman and watch him work against a stationary mob. Then watch him work against a mobile mob.
They do similar damage, but the swordsman will survive longer than the Duelist because of his AI. You can summon him from 1200. He attacks, then leaps back to about 300. His leap in works like Spring Attack, where he jumps in (range of about 500), attacks, then jumps back out. If the mob moves out of his leap range, he moves to stay at the edge of that range. During his leap in he's evading. If the mob moves too close, he leaps back out of melee range.
He only does slightly less overall damage than the Duelist due to a higher attack rate, but survives much longer because of his AI, so on paper the Duelist is better, but in play the Swordsman will usually do more damage.
The only time I think the Duelist is better is against hard hitting mobs (bosses, Exp dungeons, etc) and even then it's a wash because you lose that second block (on a 15s cd).
Between Blurred Frenzy on a 8-10s cd, Illusionary Riposte on a 12-15s cd, and your dodges, dual sword Mes is extremely survivable in melee for a light armor profession once you get the hang of using the skills properly.

edit:
The swordsman also works better for shatter builds because he stays at a fairly consistent range of 300-500 from the target at all times, so while the duelist might have to run a marathon to shatter the swordsman never will.

[Hullabaloo]

Lot of good points, but I have one main question (or comment that I dont quite understand?)

(8x)144 is not 144*8 dmg, ie 144 for each of the 8 bullets it fires. (similar to Whirling Wrath Damage (9x): 1,251) right? because it is not that in actuality, with each shot being more then the last.

So does 8x 144 mean
first shot 1x144
second shot 2x144
ect
eighth shot 8x144?

the /S #5 does survive longer, but from what I have seen /p#4>/s#5 in raw single target dmg, but flips for multi target correct? I mainly keep to staff for multitarget fights with my extra bounce on the #1 attack and chaos storm.

[Shadow]

Lot of good points, but I have one main question (or comment that I dont quite understand?)

(8x)144 is not 144*8 dmg, ie 144 for each of the 8 bullets it fires. (similar to Whirling Wrath Damage (9x): 1,251) right? because it is not that in actuality, with each shot being more then the last.

So does 8x 144 mean
first shot 1x144
second shot 2x144
ect
eighth shot 8x144?

the /S #5 does survive longer, but from what I have seen /p#4>/s#5 in raw single target dmg, but flips for multi target correct? I mainly keep to staff for multitarget fights with my extra bounce on the #1 attack and chaos storm.

The Duelist's "unload" is the equivalent of what would be a channeled skill for you.
You're not seeing each attack doing more damage than the last. You're seeing the cumulative damage up until that point.
So the first one does 144 (obviously not, but as an example).
The second one does 144, but it displays 288 because that's the cumulative total.
The third one does 144, but it displays 432, etc etc etc.

It's just like a warrior's hundred blades. Each number isn't an individual damage tick, it's the total that the skill has done up until that point. So it is indeed 144 (approximate base) for each of the 8 bullets fired.

So the iDuelist does approximately 1052 every 7.5 seconds, while the iSwordsman does approximately 487 every 4.75 seconds, and he does it with much better survivability due to his AI. That small difference in damage is often negated, or even surpassed, because of his higher survivability.
This is in addition to offering more survivability to yourself via another block on an extremely short cd; losing only a fraction of the CC (which is even debatable because this one, while not having a stun, can hit more than three targets and when traited has half the cd of MB); offering a much better finisher; and being superior for a shatter build because of his proximity.

[Toastkart]

What makes it confusing is that most multi-hit skills use the format: damage(number of hits): Total damage of all hits. Illusionary duelist seems to be listed as damage(number of hits): Damage per hit. Though since I don't have a mesmer that's hard for me to check.

[Hullabaloo]

Figured I'd post my Mesmer build here too. Seems Radiation Field is not one of the option to pick for utilities. I typically switch the signant around depending on what I wanna do.

Have not really put any thought into it since I hit 80, but it preforms pretty well. Just got the full CoF set (mix of Power/Vit/Condition and Power/Perc/Condition) and if I get motivated to run some more with him ill get some Superior Runes of the Nightmare from TA.

[Toastkart]

On that builder, there's a row of icons just above your second weapon set, on the same row as the profession icons. Clicking on those chooses a race and allows racial skills to be chosen.

[Morty]

Say, is the Summon D-Series Golem skill worth it? I'm wondering which Tier 2 Epic SKill to pick for my Asura Mesmer.

[Hullabaloo]

It's fun but not very strong. Time Warp is all I use, with moa every now and then for sPvP.

[Morty]

Hrm. I'll think about it, then. Maybe I won't take a Tier 2 Elite skill at all. It doesn't look like Mass Invisibility will be terribly useful for me unless I team up with a bunch of thieves someday.

[Hullabaloo]

Ya that one can be useful as well but there are so many sources of invis, and so few of Time Warp effect. You are never capped in skill points, so you can pick them all up to play with in time.

[Morty]

Perhaps, but gathering enough points for the higher-ranked skills does take a while. I can never decide which skills to equip, too, regardless of which character I play.

[Flickerdart]

I've a question about the game - how is the performance on laptops? Specifically integrated cards (Intel HD4000 on an i3 or i5 or equivalent)? I'm considering getting it, but if I won't be able to run it on a laptop, it's a bit of a deal-breaker.

[Karen Lynn]

It plays reasonably well. What are the specs you're looking at? My lappy is pretty mediocre.
Dual core Intel at 2ghz
4gb ram
Integrated graphics

[Turalisj]

Go to canyourunit.com

That should let you know if it'll run. For comparison, I can run it fairly easily and have an i7 processor with a 555m nVidia GT video card.

[Shadow]

It's fun but not very strong. Time Warp is all I use, with moa every now and then for sPvP.

I disagree. I think it's actually quite strong considering it's a racial. Obviously Time Warp and Moa being two of the best elites in the game (for any profession) far outshine the D Series. But the D Series isn't weak in and of itself. As far as racial elites go, it's one of the better ones.

edit:
It's problem comes not from it's power level, but from the fact that it's an elite. Elite skills are saved until you need them, which usually happens mid fight. No one wants to pop an elite right off and put it on cooldown when you may not need to.
But this is a tank elite. Tanks need aggro, which it will not get in the middle of a fight because you already have aggro locked down by then.
This summon absolutely SHINES when you *know* that you're about to do something that you shouldn't. In other situations it seems mediocre because by the time you decide to use it, it usually can't perform it's function/purpose properly. But that's fine. It just makes it another one of those "swap it in as you need it, and then back out again afterward" type skills. But in those situations, it's pretty damned good.

Go to canyourunit.com

That site is crap.
It compares against minimum requirements, and we all know how well games play at min specs.
My old/secondary PC gets a near perfect rating from that site in regards to Gw2, and yet it is all but unplayable in large scale DE and completely unplayable in WvW on that "rated great" system.
That site is useless. Going to the game's site to read the recommended specs and comparing them to what is in your system (even when guessing at that point) will probably be more productive.

[mucco]

There is a huge gap between minimum settings and medium settings in the game, both for requirements and for quality. This it because there is a setting called "sampling" that, when set at minimum, makes your game all blurry and awful and improves performance dramatically.

Time Warp >> all, always. Except when you have to look pimp then Lich Form wins.

[Shadow]

I suppose I should have pointed out that my old PC, which got a "great" rating from that site, had 2-3 seconds of lag in dynamic events. It would freeze for 8-10 seconds and become responsive for 3-4 seconds before freezing again in WvW. This was when running at absolute bare bones minimum settings.
How is that worthy of a "great" rating in any way, shape, or form? I stand by my statement. That site is worthless.

[Turalisj]

And, yet, I got a "great" rating as well, and I can run it perfectly with no issues.

[Shadow]

And, yet, I got a "great" rating as well, and I can run it perfectly with no issues.

That's exactly my point. It's unreliable and basically useless. It's even less useful than simply reading the recommended specs, because it compares against minimum specs... and then gives unreliable results even after the comparison.

[Morty]

Damn, but the Order of Whispers storyline sure seems to love throwing giant, undefeatable hordes of undead at me around level 50. >.< After the unbelievably idiotic part with the magic-draining rifle, I thought it couldn't get any worse, but the vision trip to Orr and the grub-throwing Risen giant proved me wrong.

[Flickerdart]

It would be ideal if I could play it on settings better than "N64 game" and frame rates better than "slideshow", so minimum specs are probably not going to cut it.

[Karen Lynn]

>.< After the unbelievably idiotic part with the magic-draining rifle, I thought it couldn't get any worse, but the vision trip to Orr and the grub-throwing Risen giant proved me wrong.

May I Sig this?

[Morty]

May I Sig this?

Sure, go ahead.

[Hullabaloo]

So messing around with my guardian build again, see here

I felt I was leaving alot on the table with my previous build, and if I wanna go more DPS, Ill use a different Profession. The above focus on Altruistic Healing, using the symbol from the Mace auto attack chain, as well as the staff symbol and shouts to keep myself constantly being healed, whiled providing good DPS and support.

For Honor 20, I'll swap a fair bit. 2H mastery where i want more DPS, and Empowering Might when i want more survivability. But going all out in Precision would make Empowering Might and the mace hugely powerful (1s internal cooldown) as each might granted would be a heal.

To gear this guy up a bit, I am thinking of using the karma vendors that sell the 42k pieces. But all my current Karma is on another guy. Since these are bound on acquire, that means I'm out of luck right? Been getting a fair bit of Ectos, might just craft a nice set.

This is where I got the idea for the build, although it is focused more on PvP then PvE (which is my ONLY focus for my guy).

Also, second version, Mace/Shield instead of staff. Shield CD and Toughness Traited. Would be very very hard to kill this guy

[Toastkart]

So messing around with my guardian build again, see here

I felt I was leaving alot on the table with my previous build, and if I wanna go more DPS, Ill use a different Profession. The above focus on Altruistic Healing, using the symbol from the Mace auto attack chain, as well as the staff symbol and shouts to keep myself constantly being healed, whiled providing good DPS and support.

You've got a solid build for group play, but less so for solo. It's also kind of boring, but that's just me. To get the most out of AH you'll be spending most of your time standing in place and auto-attacking with your hammer.

This is basically the guardians big meta build. There's nothing wrong with that, but you could get just as much, if not more, out of a build that is tuned to your personal playstyle and preferences. I tried the AH build out for a while, and while it was effective it was, as I said, boring. The build I use now, the same as I showed you before, is just as effective for everything that I've tried to use it for.

To gear this guy up a bit, I am thinking of using the karma vendors that sell the 42k pieces. But all my current Karma is on another guy. Since these are bound on acquire, that means I'm out of luck right? Been getting a fair bit of Ectos, might just craft a nice set.

I'm not very familiar with the stats on the karma vendor pieces, but I just finished crafting my own exotic armor set (still need to do weapons and accessories) and I mixed valkyries and knights for stats. seems to be working pretty well so far.

As for karma items and transferring between characters, I haven't tried to do this, but I occasional see people talking about it on the official forums. Basically you take a soulbound item, transmute it with a white item and leave it in the bank. Then you switch to the character you want to receive it, and transmute it again. You might want to look it up to see if I missed a step.

[Morty]

A thought about the storyline at level 55...

Spoiler

Show

Unsurprisingly, it looks uniting Tyria's heroes will be more like persuading a bunch of big children to stop bickering over who did what to whom and do something useful for a change.

[SanguisAevum]

A little late to the party, but as I have both a lvl 80 full exotic geared mesmer, and a lvl 80 full exotic geared guardian, I figured I could offer some more perspective on these two classes builds.

First of, my Mesmer.

Here is the build...

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAs...yWkrIZRLRGiMLB

Soldier (Pow / Vit / Tou) armour (combination of WvW gear and Orr Karma Gear)
Beserker (Pow / Crit / C-Dam) trinkets / weapons

The gear provides the best balance between offence and just enough defence to keep me out of trouble till the phantasms have done their work. It can put out a surprising amount of burst if things are timed correctly. A Zerker / Duelist / blurred frenzy / shatter combo is enough to instantly drop most glass cannon specced players.

Survivability comes from 2 stealths, a teleport, and the feedback field and clones on dodge, and reduced cooldown on clones i have no trouble keeping most people confused enough to give me breathing room when i need it.

On the subject of pistol vs sword... the main reason use pistol is for the duellists synergy with ethereal combo fields. a single iDuellist puts EIGHT stacks of confusion on a target if it shoots through an ethereal field. Even without investing in +condition damage at all, that is a SIGNIFICANT amount of damage your forcing the opponent to take if he wants to continue attacking (and lets be fair... MOST players will continue to attack regardless of confusion, before they realise wehats happening). When timed correctly with the feedback field, it is deadly. I have lost count of the number of rangers that have killed themselves buy trying to fire at me through the feedback field, whilst taking hits from a combo fielding iDuelist. And even vs classes not using ranged weapons, if you can get 2 duellists up and then drop the feedback field as they both fire, 16 stacks of confusion will obliterate most melee classes swinging at you. Duelist + feedback is the number one reason i favour pistol over of hand sword.

Here is the first video I made of my solo wvw playing on my mesmer... hope it helps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0zsehE5uQg