New to Mes, should Hybrid mes use GS or Staff?

[EnidLarr.1478]

i use gs & swd/swd and the result was amazing !

[Tinnel.4369]

> @"Curunen.8729" said:

> > @"Tinnel.4369" said:

> > If I was to keep Chaos over Dueling and drop the Traveler's Rune for anything it'd probably be Pack Runes. My power is ok, and ferocity is pushing 200, but crit needs some help without Dueling. The 25% on Mind Wrack from Chaos is nice, but with sword and axe (which is really a pretty legit power weapon) more crit would be nice. The buffed sword damage is no joke, hello cleave!

>

> Tbh if you don't use staff then Chaos isn't that good compared to Duelling+Illusions.

>

> The three main benefits from Chaos for me are Staff trait, Traited Blink and Mirror+Adventurer runes, and Chaotic Persistence. BD is great but I wouldn't say it's build defining. Yes it's nice in addition to Elusive mind with the stability, making it very difficult for opponents to cc you.

>

> Sword is indeed awesome for the ambush and cleave, although strangely I prefer it on Chrono. I just really love staff both from an aesthetic standpoint and the functional mobility.

>

> Also using IA in staff frequently causes opponents to lose you - just standing still after IA and being aware of positioning can give you a few seconds breathing room - it's one of my primary sustain methods.

>

> On reflection as to why I'm not planning to use Illusions, it's from a utility perspective. Illusions provides significant boost to damage output for hybrid, through Shatter Storm, Cry of Pain, Maim, Compounding Power and Master of Fragmentation. However the only utility of note is AoE F3 - very useful for securing a stomp by preventing a res without having to target the right player first. Aside from that while the power/condi damage boosts are fantastic I'm finding it not to be necessary.

>

> Deceptive Evasion on the other hand is powerful utility changing how I play, especially with axe. Sure Duelling doesn't offer much either, though perma vigour and perma fury together with very high reflect uptime is nice to have.

>

> I'm trying out self deception again but I really do miss the perma regen from Renewing Oasis - really makes up for lack of sustained healing like old condi chrono used to have through RI.

>

> Of all of them I can't give up Chaos because the heal/rune synergy and traited staff are crucial to how I like to play. In any case it is wonderful to have several strong options here. I'm sure even Inspiration could be made to work with the new might on phantasm summon, condi cleanse siphon and so on.

 

Agreed on most all points, again it goes back to too many options. I'm still trying to decide if the Quickness in Illusions is worth it.

 

On another note, I just did some math in another post and if you consider Self-Deception in an axe/x (in my case pistol) build with IA, MA/R, and Jaunt you can feasibly generate 11 clones on ~20s cooldown. With SoE passive at say 400 a pop that's 4400 healing every 20s. Add clone on dodge in Dueling with perm vigor and endurance food.......

 

The way I play my build a/p sw/t it's face paced and reliant on teleports, clones, and target drops to remain "invisible" the sheer clone spam makes double Mind Wrack pretty nice.

[Curunen.8729]

Big problems now confusion removed from axe.

 

Did not expect this one to be the thing that threw me.

 

Just struggled against a power mesmer in wvw - couldn't deal sufficient damage to them at all with current hybrid build - where previously it would have been almost a free kill. Torment stacks cleansed and that's it... I had to bail due to insufficient damage output.

 

That's a shocker - going to have to rethink everything now. :/