Noodle Ant.1605

Sand flare isn’t a 100% selfish heal skill though; it grants that barrier to 4 other allies *and on top that,* converts a boon on up to 5 nearby enemies. Similarly, the heal on fb’s *mantra of solace...*

Having barrier be affected by healing bonus would be nice, but it would likely chain code it to be affected by poison, agony and other heal-related debuffs. Current numbers would have to be altered or even nerfed to compensate. At that point, what would be so special about barrier when it could just be straight up healing instead?

They could at least revise/buff CC-centric elite skills, such as Basilisk Venom and Signet of Humility; while undeniably useful in PvP and against breakbars, they become immediately *useless* against defiant enemies with no breakbar.

When you enter desert shroud, you gain a shroud-like appearance (you turn black), same as core and reaper (but w/o the screen effect). You also have a small funky-looking sand vortex at your feet. Unsurprisingly, ‘shroud’ ends when this animation ends.

**When does it end?**

(normal) Desert shroud: ends on the last torment pulse. There are 7 pulses; this means that shroud lasts for only ~6-7s.

Harbinger shroud: ends when the aoe fills up and the ‘explosion’ occurs. Basically ~3s of ‘shroud time’.

This only applies for *in shroud* traits/effects, *shroud skill x* ones still function outside of desert shroud as your F+{insert x here} skills.

Your numbers appear to be off by 10% (unless you’re accounting for some unknown food/sigil/rune/trait/signet), full asc zerker *only just* breaks 50% crit chance. Similarly, full sins *only just* breaks 70% and it cannot reach 100% w/ fury alone.

But math isn’t all that necessary (maybe aside from reaching crit cap w/o wasting stats). What’s more important to know is:

- power is #1 on *things that allow you to hit it that long for it to even matter*

- the less crit chance you have, the more you subject yourself to RNG

The topic of power vs crit chance can be explained using 2 examples:

- an infinite hp, static golem that you can freely bash up until the end of your days. Power wins. When does this actually happen though?

- a mob with only enough hp to eat maybe 2-3 of your crits before it already dies. Or a boss with a 5s vulnerability window. Each % of crit chance you don’t have is % chance that you might have to spend longer than the mathematical difference between raw power vs crit chance, because when you don’t crit in these critical moments, you lose *a lot* more than just some small theoretical dmg increase (unless you play some otherworldly multihit spec that negates RNG because the sample size of hits/crits is massively inflated).

So there’s a valid reason why capping crit chance first is emphasised in certain places, and how much you let slide is mostly dependent on how pedantic you are in achieving consistent results.

Toughness goes hand-in-hand with high/decent hps (heal per second), which your build doesn’t really focus on. It’s an attrition stat that favours long, drawn-out fights.

Your build/traits are currently built to be very bursty, and statting anything besides zerker/sins (with a mix of marauders being an exception) greatly detracts from this purpose. You might as well run inspiration traitline to complement the statted toughness.

I happen to play a similar build that has even less defenses - my heal skill isn’t even used for healing, and I can hold my own in the lab, even when I aggro a whole bunch of mobs for lols (save for steve/viscount which I mostly pewpew from range; you’d need a very different build to tank any of their direct hits).

sometimes when you go back down to t1/t2, it feels as tho you’re playing solo instead of with a group...

:anguished:

Few comments about the frac outside the obvious boss fight(s) and scenery:

- done t4 and t3 version already, but did t1 version today and felt the trash mobs have way too much hp for t1 fractals

- water trash mobs should just kinda die when you break bar, what is it even for

- could probably cull the number of water trash mobs in lower tiers

- trash mobs should just despawn when you hit checkpoint (fire ones don’t matter cuz you have to kill them anyway)

- there is trash too close to the second mistlock, why even put either of them there

- ~~maybe also add in a special action key or something so you can just port to checkpoint, I can see *a lot* of /gg’s happening on this frac because no one wants to waste time clearing trash and doing entire jp’s. Or maybe the next time you fall off you just get ported straight to checkpoint~~ already exists

- do the trash mobs even drop any loot?

- some of the stairs are annoying because you can’t just walk up some of them for some reason (you hit an obstruction which you have to jump over... with an absolutely unnecessary charged jump)

- there’s a section in the water jp part where you have to jump onto a cliff face; imo the path should all be flat ground or stairs and shouldn’t force the player to smash their jump key just to get up.

> @"Blackrystal.3508" said:

> 2 i am a solo player (pve boss)

>

> 3 i like burst from mid - close range and have high mobility and survival

> 4 i have berserker stat

> 5 i like power damage than Condition

Just working with what you’ve given.

I see a strong preference for power, and I feel as though you already know what you want, but I’ll pretend that I don’t. You actually have three straight-up options for power:

- power chrono

- power core

- power mirage

I’ve listed all these since you supposedly want to solo bosses, but want bursty dmg. You also mention some degree of mobility. Sadly, they don’t mix very well. However, I can tell you that:

- core and mirage are burstier than chrono, but fall off significantly on bosses

- mirage has trash dmg and is majority only useful on trash mobs

- mirage is probably the only one with any useful (and convenient) mobility

- chrono and power in general isn’t good for soloing bosses if you need additional survivability, dmg plummets as a result (power is best played as glass)

- none of the these truly fight at mid-range. They are either in melee or kiting from long range

Ironically, if you are able to sacrifice bursty dmg and run condi, condi mirage satisfies most of the other criteria, can be built tanky and can actually function at mid range (depending on build ofc). Condi chrono is niche but is also similar. In fact, condi is usually advised whenever considering soloing group content because it is fairly lenient and flexible.

We can only help as much as how you give us.

So far it looks like power chrono.

Preferences could be a bit better elaborated. Examples:

> 2 I want to solo bounties/legendaries / I’m just interested in ‘solo content’ (story, non-group open world events/mobs) / I’m a solo player queuing on lfg rather than in a group / etc.

> 3 I like being highly mobile / I’m lazy and prefer to spam #1 / I don’t like dying / I prefer range/melee / I enjoy being glassy and bursting down trash mobs / etc.

> 4 I have ‘x’ stat gear(s) atm / I have rare/exotic/asc gear / I do/do not have the money to spend on new gear, this is (roughly) how much money I’m can spare / etc.

> @"Blackrystal.3508" said:

> Is it better the chrono or the mirage?

Better at what?

Gonna copy this from leo:

> 1 tell us if you are open to playing mirage only, or if you can play core/chrono too.

> 2 tell us what content you are interested the most, build that works in open world might not work in fractals/raids

> 3 tell us your general playstyle

> 4 tell us if you have gear

> 5 tell us if you prefer condition damage or power damage

For the wells specifically, I’d suggest some form of a radius increase on the last pulse.

Unlike alacren where you you have to remain within 360 range of them ~40% of the time, you only have to commit to being in the well for the last pulse for a ~10s chunk. Additionally, one of the problems with current wells atm is its size, which makes it hard to manoeuvre around - consider: with 240 radius wells, a player who camps the middle of the well can miss out on the last pulse if they perform a dodge roll (300 units) in *any direction*.

I feel as though pulsing wells wouldn’t work as well as 1) it would require players to actually remain in them, and on top of that, 2) it would force players to remain in an absurdly small playspace to get all the boons. IMO moving wells, and other suggestions, will suffer from the same problem as long as the range/radius stays at or below 240 units.

> @"Yoci.2481" said:

> > @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

> > - Screen clutter

> > - Imagine hitting into 4+ auras at once

> > - Is spammable/appears frequently on certain builds (making points above worse)

> >

> > Unless you’re referring only to staff #4/trident #3.

>

> Have you ever pointed your GS at an enemy blob?

???

Now imagine all that you hit are clones with aura effects because a mesmer got an aura from one of dozens of possible sources, and now all their clones get a free copy?

Or simply instead of hitting only 1 legitimately gained aura, you instead hit 4 auras?

Wouldn’t work ‘just visually’ as clones and phantasms CAN get working auras themselves. Imagine having a fake full counter and real full counter, with no way to tell which is which w/o hitting into it... I don’t think many would like that.

Working auras on illusions can actually pay off as you deny those who attack them to go off freely. You can suggest things such as clones performing leap finishers on more clone weapon skills, but ‘all clones get a free copy whenever the mesmer gets an aura’ is on the excessive side.

- Screen clutter

- Imagine hitting into 4+ auras at once

- Is spammable/appears frequently on certain builds (making points above worse)

Unless you’re referring only to staff #4/trident #3.

I think the title is a bit misleading.

What the OP’s post reads is something along the lines of, “Should I build pretending that I have all the buffs, or none of them (besides my own)?”.

This becomes somewhat clear when the OP mentions “perma-slow for Danger Time”, which is responsible for 15% of the meta setup’s total crit chance. Spotter and banners is also roughly 5% each. Without any of these, the OP could be looking at a build which is stuck at ~70-75% crit chance, or 80-85% in fractals (w/ fury). If OP was considering playing support, they could ignore all of this.

When the OP says, “gear statted with those buffs in mind, etc.” they are likely referring to the zerk:sins stat ratio, or the possibility of using off-meta runes/sigils such as eagle/thief over scholar. Their follow-up post asks whether they should be playing the standard raid build of Domi 2-2-1 Duel 1-3-1 and Chrono 2-1-3, or some other build with alterations (because a raid build is optimised for organised raids, not necessarily for pug strikes or fractals). They don’t really mention anything about playing support themselves.

**tl;dr**

OP sounds as though they are planning on playing *DPS*. They are asking *how they should optimise this role, when they expect frequent gaps from support* (mainly unique buffs such as banners/spotter, slow-uptime etc.).

> @"Antioche.7034" said:

> > @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

> > > @"Antioche.7034" said:

> > > > @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

> > > > I just wanted to comment here to ask how would you determine this if you had a little bit of latency/ping? (let’s just say in the 300-400ms range)

> > > >

> > > > Just getting up to 80% of a benchmark is actually a struggle (save for the ping-friendly ones, though it’s unclear which specs fall under this category anymore), and I don’t think would be appropriate to assume that other similarly affected people would be able to achieve this normally (i.e. people who don’t mash buttons to queue skills). However, I seem to be keeping up more than OK with a lot of other people I see, but I don’t know or can’t see how benchmark % translates in this case.

> > >

> > > Pretty certain you can still achieve 80% bench on most things with that ping. However in some actual fights it might be difficult due to being impacted by mechanics etc. I play with 70-150 ms (~100 average with spikes let's say), and I'd say 80% should be doable with 300. Better if you can fix it ofc.

> >

> > I feel like 80% is within the upper limit (you could probably push up to 90% with ‘ping-friendly’ specs but then again, we don’t know what they are). It’s *doable*, but when people are claiming that 80% is what *should be achieved*, it becomes a bit disingenuous, no? Perhaps a better question to ask is: if I know that I suffer from this problem (geographical location is not something I can easily fix), is it acceptable for me to aim for a lower standard?

> >

> > I’m guess fortunate that I’m able to reach 80% myself, but that ‘80%’ for someone else with a similar problem could possibly look like 65-70%, which otherwise I feel many people here would consider ‘not enough’.

>

> With >20 FPS and <200 ms ping, I think you should be able to achieve 80% on pretty much all the specs. Of course if you are playing with 5-10 FPS or >500 ms you'll have troubles, but at that point you'll pretty much be weighting your group down regardless of DPS, not to mention how tilting it must be to play in such conditions.

>

> All of this is kinda out-of-thread aswell I suppose.

Well you have objective goals such as minimum amount of dps to avoid this mechanic, or clear boss before enrage timer, or basically for x to happen.

Everything else is kind of subjective or just ‘depends’, such as this 80% benchmark requirement where I guess anyone could stretch or make exceptions if they really wanted to, so long as they keep up with the group or something like that.

Edit: players who play with >200 ping have likely adapted to such conditions (dodging early is a common example) so it isn’t as bad as it seems. Optimal performance however, is impacted and so we won’t be able to perform as well as those with <200 and especially those <50. We are still able to pump out heals and fart boons as well as any other player, as there’s an actual limit to that.

> @"Hibiskus.8294" said:

> > @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

>

> >

> > The old phantasms weren’t particularly all that useful, they kinda did what they do now (except weaker), and then they just afk’ed for 5 (swordsman) to 10++ seconds (every other one). I don’t think they were any tankier either.

> >

> Again: I never saw someone afk as a mesmer with a phantasm, they always got fast destroyed in pvp and in pve if they took to much dmg OR their target died, they always died if their target died (big difference to necro minions) and of course you could use them FOR short term tanking (or to say: the phantasm attacked after summoning while you yourself with very low hp stopped to attack so the aggro from the enemies swapped for a short time to the phantasm, now you gained the needed seconds to cast your heal (wich maybe was on CD seconds before), now with clones it feels like a hit and run, because no clone is really able to take aggro away (to low self dmg, just good for shatter dmg) and IF it takes aggro it is an instant dead for the poor clone (i mean: they are one hit).

No, what I meant was after the phantasm does their first attack, they did *nothing* for the next 5-10 seconds, in which we know in this day and age, they would be cleaved to death in competitive game modes *because they were just standing there*. It wasn’t great for PvE either, as people here say you could keep them for sustained dmg... in reality (maybe apart from ONLY swordsman), they all practically performed a lv1 shatter burst under basically the same CD. Mirage clones work much better for this aspect because they’re much more active.

Phantasms aren’t/weren’t particularly great at tanking either, if by any chance your clones are being oneshot, then any phantasm (save for defender) will get oneshot as well, or twoshot if you’re lucky. And aggro is not based off that much from dmg - if your phantasm is even able to draw aggro, then it is likely a clone summoned in a similar way will also draw the same aggro. It’s essentially the same as throwing another player or minion with low hp and some dmg into the fray for both cases, and illusions do not have any hidden special aggro properties that make them better at doing so.

> @"Antioche.7034" said:

> > @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

> > I just wanted to comment here to ask how would you determine this if you had a little bit of latency/ping? (let’s just say in the 300-400ms range)

> >

> > Just getting up to 80% of a benchmark is actually a struggle (save for the ping-friendly ones, though it’s unclear which specs fall under this category anymore), and I don’t think would be appropriate to assume that other similarly affected people would be able to achieve this normally (i.e. people who don’t mash buttons to queue skills). However, I seem to be keeping up more than OK with a lot of other people I see, but I don’t know or can’t see how benchmark % translates in this case.

>

> Pretty certain you can still achieve 80% bench on most things with that ping. However in some actual fights it might be difficult due to being impacted by mechanics etc. I play with 70-150 ms (~100 average with spikes let's say), and I'd say 80% should be doable with 300. Better if you can fix it ofc.

I feel like 80% is within the upper limit (you could probably push up to 90% with ‘ping-friendly’ specs but then again, we don’t know what they are). It’s *doable*, but when people are claiming that 80% is what *should be achieved*, it becomes a bit disingenuous, no? Perhaps a better question to ask is: if I know that I suffer from this problem (geographical location is not something I can easily fix), is it acceptable for me to aim for a lower standard?

I’m guess fortunate that I’m able to reach 80% myself, but that ‘80%’ for someone else with a similar problem could possibly look like 65-70%, which otherwise I feel many people here would consider ‘not enough’.

I’m honestly looking forward to an espec where I don’t have to rely on phantasms (and clones to an extent) anymore.

Your suggestions sounds like what mirage already has tbh (illusions that hang around and do some meaningful stuff), you can see how that’s been complained about and nerfed. Still seems to be doing fine in PvE if that’s what your concerned about (still has 2 dodges there).

The old phantasms weren’t particularly all that useful, they kinda did what they do now (except weaker), and then they just afk’ed for 5 (swordsman) to 10++ seconds (every other one). I don’t think they were any tankier either.

If you wanted an army of illusions, chrono has that ‘clutter-your-screen-magic’; it just requires you to be actually somewhat active about it and the downside you mentioned doesn’t actually exist anymore.

> @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

> From December 11th 2018 patch:

> Following up on the previous balance release, we're continuing to update weapon traits to offer more meaningful options **when players are not using the related weapons** while also enhancing those weapons' playstyles if the player is using them.

>

> Also devs:

> Bountiful Blades (NEW): Mirror Blades bounces 2 additional times. Phantasmal Berserker summons an additional berserker and they each deal less damage (33% instead of 25% less damage.

>

> Looks useful on non-GS setups /s.

Was a nice sounding idea while it lasted, I guess.

I just wanted to comment here to ask how would you determine this if you had a little bit of latency/ping? (let’s just say in the 300-400ms range)

Just getting up to 80% of a benchmark is actually a struggle (save for the ping-friendly ones, though it’s unclear which specs fall under this category anymore), and I don’t think would be appropriate to assume that other similarly affected people would be able to achieve this normally (i.e. people who don’t mash buttons to queue skills). However, I seem to be keeping up more than OK with a lot of other people I see, but I don’t know or can’t see how benchmark % translates in this case.

Due to the lack of (reliable) upfront +dmg% traits on either espec, core can be built to quickly dish out more dmg before the opponents stops afking.

The advantages pretty much end there.

I personally built my mesmer ‘despite the team’ (without the aforementioned buffs/conditions in mind).

The choice might’ve been a bit easier for me since it was simply the act of retaining the old chrono build. When Danger Time got omegabuffed into existence, it was something I never got used to, and so I’ve been running technically ‘off-meta’ mesmer builds all this time, including the aforementioned core mesmer build.

Looking back, it made sense as I never brought my mesmer to raids, instead leaving it for fractal content where having those specific buffs was rare and horribly unreliable. Furthermore, boon management (and healers lol) wasn’t as prevalent back then, so having a ridiculously self-sufficient build was a massive boon for me and any casual pug group I happened to join. This is obviously somewhat different now, but the point where I benefitted more from not playing the meta build because I wasn’t going to use it the manner it was expected still stands.

So from my experience, I would say:

- If you plan to take said mesmer to raids, run the ‘meta’ build/gear, not being 100% optimised for fractals/strikes shouldn’t be that much of a big deal.

- Otherwise, go for off-meta (i.e. take the meta build, but deviate from it to /suit your needs/what you get/optimise it to what you expect) because there’s no point having wasted potential when it can be replaced by something useful.

- Or, you could simply play what you enjoy more or find yourself most effective on - e.g. I found replacing Illu with Domi clunky so I stuck with Illu (because I was ‘better’ at it, despite supposedly doing less dmg) until I meme’d on core mesmer and eventually ended up playing that instead (because I’ve fallen out with chrono at this point :smile:).

There is no definite ‘right’ answer because it’s a choice that you ultimately have to choose between.

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

> > IMO the context is very broad. The 'best' classes will greatly vary depending on the situation - each for pugging/soloing/speedclearing dailies/recs/fractal CMs and pugging/fast/safe/speedclearing raids/raid CMs (could also be more).

> >

> > e.g. Fractals at a high level is all about burst. The 3 best (and only relevant due to other classes lacking similar burst) classes are:

> > - DH

> > - power weaver

> > - power Slb

>

>

> I've done daily fractals, recs, and CM's for years and literally never seen someone sign up as weaver. I've also gotten maybe a dozen soulbeast this entire time, it's DH or warrior pugs 99% of the time.

Quoting me from 8 months ago :tired_face:

Either way, the main point was:

> IMO the context is very broad. The 'best' classes will greatly vary depending on the situation

So were you speedrunning? Or just pugging? The list was just an example (which may have been inaccurate) to show that it can change depending on what you are trying to look at.

I’d slot inspiration traitline (with the traits you’ve chosen) if I want some form of sustain; I’d be building glass (and as such, might as well go the whole way) otherwise.

Both options exist, both options play differently/have different strong and weak points.

I don’t know which specific builds are being considered so I really can’t comment further than that.

I assume weaver doesn’t appear on metabattle because it isn’t very ‘ez to play’ but the weaver open world domination thread (somewhere on forum) proves that it isn’t exactly ‘hard to play’ either.