Mojo give me 5 minutes and I can explain everything.
On another note, what other NICE guys are going to PAX? 4 day passes gone in 15 minutes...BUT I GOT MINE BUAHAHAHAHA. #braggadocio
That whole system this year wasn't enjoyable, along with 4 day passes being gone in under 10 minutes and everything else gone in what, 6 hours?
My wife and I got two sets of the day passes for each day though.
Yeah that queue system was horrible - 3 times I had to restart and rejoin the queue because the site it sent you to was too slow to process the purchase in 8 minutes. 8 MINUTES! for like 4 pages of HTML! Of course, that may have been because I had to do it from my phone because I was nowhere near a computer at the time.
It must've varied. I think I hopped in line maybe 15 minutes after the sales began and I got through faster than some did who jumped in within a few minutes of sales opening up.
The queue itself wasn't the issue, it was the vendor pages after the queue that were the problem. The only thing that saved my bacon was the fact that once you were through the queue, you could re-access the purchase page without going through the whole queue again. This, of course, would have allowed someone to log in over and over and over again to purchase as many tickets as they wanted, which seems to be what is causing all of the rage.
So, gathering 750 crystalline dust for The Bifrost has been a harrowing experience. So far I have 32. Kill me.
In other news, does anyone happen to know what a good set of exotic armor would be for a Mesmer? I'm using a 20/20/0/0/30 shatter build like I read about on the blog/tumbler thing. I tend to switch my two 1-handed swords with a staff half the time. So, what kind of modifiers should I be looking for? I like to do a lot of PvE and WvW. Knights? Rampagers? Berserkers? I don't know what is good for me. I am like a small child. I need your guidance. :P
On a side note, is there a really awesome build for a Mesmer who likes to use a staff? It seems like a better defensive/support weapon than an offensive weapon.
So, gathering 750 crystalline dust for The Bifrost has been a harrowing experience. So far I have 32. Kill me.
In other news, does anyone happen to know what a good set of exotic armor would be for a Mesmer? I'm using a 20/20/0/0/30 shatter build like I read about on the blog/tumbler thing. I tend to switch my two 1-handed swords with a staff half the time. So, what kind of modifiers should I be looking for? I like to do a lot of PvE and WvW. Knights? Rampagers? Berserkers? I don't know what is good for me. I am like a small child. I need your guidance. :P
On a side note, is there a really awesome build for a Mesmer who likes to use a staff? It seems like a better defensive/support weapon than an offensive weapon.
Soldiers. Power/Toughness/Vit is the bomb, unless you're really focusing on bombing enemies with Confusion, which is absolutely/mostly awful in PvE since enemies attack absurdly slowly.
If you really want to support you could go for something with Power/Toughness(or Vit)/Healing Power and do Mantra Heals and Regenerating Phantasms, but that'll seriously damage your offensive output compared to shatterbombing.
Rainfall on
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
This is the Confusion Mesmer build I use for WvW. It's reasonably applicable to PvE as well.
For a Power build, I'd probably recommend mixing Knight's and Valkyrie gear with a few Berserker's Jewels. Look up "Comparison of numeric vs. percentage attributes" to see where you should be putting your crit damage% values on the gear.
I kind of dig the necro so far. The wells are fun, if I want to change it up, I can bring out a slew of pets, and there seems to be a lot of utility. I assume at some point I become a seething mess of mediocrity or something, but it is enjoyable just to tool around on him right now. I've been doing so many condition heavy builds on character lately, it'll be interesting to try a caster who still basically get up close and stabby with heavy crit and power.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
This is the Confusion Mesmer build I use for WvW. It's reasonably applicable to PvE as well.
For a Power build, I'd probably recommend mixing Knight's and Valkyrie gear with a few Berserker's Jewels. Look up "Comparison of numeric vs. percentage attributes" to see where you should be putting your crit damage% values on the gear.
Sorry, trying to figure this out makes my head hurt, but it's saying jewels not jewellery, and gloves not chest piece?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
So, gathering 750 crystalline dust for The Bifrost has been a harrowing experience. So far I have 32. Kill me.
In other news, does anyone happen to know what a good set of exotic armor would be for a Mesmer? I'm using a 20/20/0/0/30 shatter build like I read about on the blog/tumbler thing. I tend to switch my two 1-handed swords with a staff half the time. So, what kind of modifiers should I be looking for? I like to do a lot of PvE and WvW. Knights? Rampagers? Berserkers? I don't know what is good for me. I am like a small child. I need your guidance. :P
On a side note, is there a really awesome build for a Mesmer who likes to use a staff? It seems like a better defensive/support weapon than an offensive weapon.
For PVE zerker's gear with some knights thrown in depending on how good you are at dodging seems to be the best gear for most classes. Power, precision and crit damage just scale so much better than other stats.
Here's a breakdown on what pieces are best to replace with toughness from the GW2 Guru forums
As far as gear goes, a balanced build between knights and berserker is based on the below stat comparison on what you lose per 1% of crit damage.
The tradeoff for 1% of crit damage is equal to:
5 stat points - upgrade slot of trinkets and backpack
7 points - Ascended Back Piece
8.5 stat points - Ascended Rings
8.7 stat points - Ascended Earrings
9.4 stat points - Ascended Amulet
10 stat points- traits (not an equipment, but listed for comparison)
12 stat points - glove, shoulder and boots
12.8 stat points - 1H weapons and amulet
13.33 stat points - Earring
14 stat points - Backpack (rare version from guild armorsmith)
14.22 stat points - 2H weapons
14.4 stat points - Coat (Chest)
16 stat points - Ring, helm and legging
This stat breakdown will let you maximize your % crit while balancing for survivability with Knight's pieces. How much toughness you need depends on the group and player. I currently have everything berserker now that I am comfortable with dungeons, the groups I run with, and my own skill level. When I first started playing warrior, I did have the Chest, Helm, and Legs in knights for some added toughness, but slowly switched off of it. You do want to be careful and not wear too much toughness though, because this will cause you to pull agro more which will ultimately make you take even more damage.
TLDR: Use knight's helm, leggings, coat and rings (unless you get ascended) and the rest, including jewels, berzerkers. Then add or drop more toughness depending on how well you are surviving starting at the bottom of the list and going up.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Wouldn't Valk be more effective than zerk for survival?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
edited April 2013
So, when you look at this area of the graph, it's telling you what you sacrifice for 1% of crit damage.
So Jewels (i.e. Exquisite Ruby Jewel) are fantastic: you only sacrifice 5 stat points for 1% crit damage. On the other hand, legs, rings, and backpieces sacrifice 16 stat points for 1% crit damage.
So if you were to put Valkyrie on your Gloves, Shoulder, Boots and Accessory (these are Earrings, generally) slots, and Knight's in all other slots, and then fill all your trinket (i.e. backpiece, rings x2, earring x2, amulet) jewel slots with Ruby Jewels, you'd retain a good selection of offensive and defensive stats, while getting a reasonable amount of Crit Damage.
Final edit: this is really meant as a WvW or PvP-focused build strategy. As Quetz said, for PvE you're looking at Zerk's with a bit of Knight's here and there (or full Zerk's if you're doing high-level Fractals, where defensive stats become meaningless as you progress into the 50s and above).
Bethryn on
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Thanks. I swear I'm not normally this stupid.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
How do high level fractals (over 50) ignore defense entirely? You just die faster don't you..?
Your mitigation at high levels of Fractals is based around a combination of dodging (keeping Vigor up all the time), utility skills, and certain traits, as well as particular methods of group play (i.e. anchoring).
At that point, the returns from having high defences are very limited compared to offensive stats.
Ah, thanks for the suggestions. So, if I am primarily focused on clone spamming and stacking vulnerability followed by mind wrack, I want power and precision for damage, correct? I usually avoid focusing on confusion because it seems to only pay off in PvP because of the rate of skill use by players vs. monsters. However, lately I've been taking a liking to WvW. It seems to me that Mesmers in WvW are really good when using feedback and confusion. I assume that dropping waves of mind-wracking clones are also really effective but I've not used this build in WvW yet.
When picking stats I am concerned that taking vitality and toughness are wasteful. I keep hearing that as a Mesmer, dodging and skillful utility use make up for it and it is better to stack for damage. Part of me agrees with this because of the Zerg nature of WvW and being a light armor class seems like stacking for health and toughness would be pointless.
I'm in a tough spot because I am saving for a legendary and I want to buy one set of armor to get me by for a long time. I'll be doing a lot of WvW because I need the 500 badges and I kind of enjoy it. PvE wise, the most challenging thing will probably be higher level fractals. I have some friends that want to start running those with me on occasion.
I feel like I am at a point where I need to make a commitment to my gear and I am unsure what is best for all of the things I want to do. Do I need the toughness and vit or should I just go without and focus on learning to play better to make up for it?
If anyone is planning on doing Reset Night WvW, Zoel has invited NICE to party in Eternal Battlegrounds. He's a pretty cool commander, so hop in the Fort Aspenwood teamspeak if you want to join in.
When picking stats I am concerned that taking vitality and toughness are wasteful. I keep hearing that as a Mesmer, dodging and skillful utility use make up for it and it is better to stack for damage. Part of me agrees with this because of the Zerg nature of WvW and being a light armor class seems like stacking for health and toughness would be pointless.
Absolutely not.
If you go down in WvW and are stomped, you res every enemy who hit you. This is why it's very important, if you're actually fighting large groups of enemy players, that you have a baseline of Tough/Vit (I would recommend a minimum of 1300, and I try to aim for around 1500 in both on my characters).
So there really is no point in having defensive gear in end tier fractals?
It's certainly useful when you're learning. But if you're really dedicated to pushing into the upper echelons, most of the people I know who've done that have advised against defences. I personally don't play at that level, but I occasionally catch some of the guys streaming 60-70 Fractals, who put more stock by tactics than gear for their defence.
@Bethryn that concept of tactics over defense makes perfect sense. I would far prefer to avoid damage entirely than to take it, mitigate it, and hope to outlast it. I'm finding it harder as I get up to 30 or higher and may need to re-look at my strategy.
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citizen059hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered Userregular
I kind of dig the necro so far. The wells are fun, if I want to change it up, I can bring out a slew of pets, and there seems to be a lot of utility. I assume at some point I become a seething mess of mediocrity or something, but it is enjoyable just to tool around on him right now. I've been doing so many condition heavy builds on character lately, it'll be interesting to try a caster who still basically get up close and stabby with heavy crit and power.
The seething mess of mediocrity really isn't when you are running around leveling. You can pretty much do any fun build and still be good. I was a scepter / dagger condition death machine till 70. And it was absolutely fun and fine. But then I switched to a power build dagger / dagger to do damage in dungeons. Yeah, it does a metric shit ton more single target damage. But I very rarely needed to use any other skill other than 1. And the interesting utilities are all on pretty long cool downs.
So the moral of the story is do what you like. You'll be fine with most fun builds. But be warned that going full on power necro usually is a double edged sword of holy shit damage but reducing your skills to 1 or 2 buttons most of the time.
When picking stats I am concerned that taking vitality and toughness are wasteful. I keep hearing that as a Mesmer, dodging and skillful utility use make up for it and it is better to stack for damage. Part of me agrees with this because of the Zerg nature of WvW and being a light armor class seems like stacking for health and toughness would be pointless.
Absolutely not.
If you go down in WvW and are stomped, you res every enemy who hit you. This is why it's very important, if you're actually fighting large groups of enemy players, that you have a baseline of Tough/Vit (I would recommend a minimum of 1300, and I try to aim for around 1500 in both on my characters).
So there really is no point in having defensive gear in end tier fractals?
It's certainly useful when you're learning. But if you're really dedicated to pushing into the upper echelons, most of the people I know who've done that have advised against defences. I personally don't play at that level, but I occasionally catch some of the guys streaming 60-70 Fractals, who put more stock by tactics than gear for their defence.
I get that to an extent but not sure how much I love it. I mean it makes perfect sense to take as little damage as possible. I get that. But I'm also not a huge fan of "Play this way or tough". Plus I loathe multiple gear sets. Hated in WoW ... hate it still
What levels does this start getting noticable again?
So there really is no point in having defensive gear in end tier fractals?
As I've gone hogher and higher in fractals I've converted to more and more PVT gear for survivability. Sure, the IDEAL situation is to avoid damage altogether, but if you do get hit by something it's good if you can absorb one or two hits before you lay down dead on the ground. Sustainability is a lot more important than DPS if you ask me.
Posts
The queue itself wasn't the issue, it was the vendor pages after the queue that were the problem. The only thing that saved my bacon was the fact that once you were through the queue, you could re-access the purchase page without going through the whole queue again. This, of course, would have allowed someone to log in over and over and over again to purchase as many tickets as they wanted, which seems to be what is causing all of the rage.
I will prolly be around.
Edit: Scratch that, Nap turned out to not be enough to let me stay up late today.
In other news, does anyone happen to know what a good set of exotic armor would be for a Mesmer? I'm using a 20/20/0/0/30 shatter build like I read about on the blog/tumbler thing. I tend to switch my two 1-handed swords with a staff half the time. So, what kind of modifiers should I be looking for? I like to do a lot of PvE and WvW. Knights? Rampagers? Berserkers? I don't know what is good for me. I am like a small child. I need your guidance. :P
On a side note, is there a really awesome build for a Mesmer who likes to use a staff? It seems like a better defensive/support weapon than an offensive weapon.
Soldiers. Power/Toughness/Vit is the bomb, unless you're really focusing on bombing enemies with Confusion, which is absolutely/mostly awful in PvE since enemies attack absurdly slowly.
If you really want to support you could go for something with Power/Toughness(or Vit)/Healing Power and do Mantra Heals and Regenerating Phantasms, but that'll seriously damage your offensive output compared to shatterbombing.
For a Power build, I'd probably recommend mixing Knight's and Valkyrie gear with a few Berserker's Jewels. Look up "Comparison of numeric vs. percentage attributes" to see where you should be putting your crit damage% values on the gear.
Sorry, trying to figure this out makes my head hurt, but it's saying jewels not jewellery, and gloves not chest piece?
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
For PVE zerker's gear with some knights thrown in depending on how good you are at dodging seems to be the best gear for most classes. Power, precision and crit damage just scale so much better than other stats.
Here's a breakdown on what pieces are best to replace with toughness from the GW2 Guru forums
As far as gear goes, a balanced build between knights and berserker is based on the below stat comparison on what you lose per 1% of crit damage.
5 stat points - upgrade slot of trinkets and backpack
7 points - Ascended Back Piece
8.5 stat points - Ascended Rings
8.7 stat points - Ascended Earrings
9.4 stat points - Ascended Amulet
10 stat points- traits (not an equipment, but listed for comparison)
12 stat points - glove, shoulder and boots
12.8 stat points - 1H weapons and amulet
13.33 stat points - Earring
14 stat points - Backpack (rare version from guild armorsmith)
14.22 stat points - 2H weapons
14.4 stat points - Coat (Chest)
16 stat points - Ring, helm and legging
This stat breakdown will let you maximize your % crit while balancing for survivability with Knight's pieces. How much toughness you need depends on the group and player. I currently have everything berserker now that I am comfortable with dungeons, the groups I run with, and my own skill level. When I first started playing warrior, I did have the Chest, Helm, and Legs in knights for some added toughness, but slowly switched off of it. You do want to be careful and not wear too much toughness though, because this will cause you to pull agro more which will ultimately make you take even more damage.
TLDR: Use knight's helm, leggings, coat and rings (unless you get ascended) and the rest, including jewels, berzerkers. Then add or drop more toughness depending on how well you are surviving starting at the bottom of the list and going up.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
So, when you look at this area of the graph, it's telling you what you sacrifice for 1% of crit damage.
So Jewels (i.e. Exquisite Ruby Jewel) are fantastic: you only sacrifice 5 stat points for 1% crit damage. On the other hand, legs, rings, and backpieces sacrifice 16 stat points for 1% crit damage.
So if you were to put Valkyrie on your Gloves, Shoulder, Boots and Accessory (these are Earrings, generally) slots, and Knight's in all other slots, and then fill all your trinket (i.e. backpiece, rings x2, earring x2, amulet) jewel slots with Ruby Jewels, you'd retain a good selection of offensive and defensive stats, while getting a reasonable amount of Crit Damage.
Final edit: this is really meant as a WvW or PvP-focused build strategy. As Quetz said, for PvE you're looking at Zerk's with a bit of Knight's here and there (or full Zerk's if you're doing high-level Fractals, where defensive stats become meaningless as you progress into the 50s and above).
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I haven't done any but from what I understand it's a combination of reflection, aegis and grouping up mobs and killing them fast.
EDIT - it amazed me in the Frac 30's range at times how little I can actually take playing a shouthealing 1500 toughness warrior.
At that point, the returns from having high defences are very limited compared to offensive stats.
When picking stats I am concerned that taking vitality and toughness are wasteful. I keep hearing that as a Mesmer, dodging and skillful utility use make up for it and it is better to stack for damage. Part of me agrees with this because of the Zerg nature of WvW and being a light armor class seems like stacking for health and toughness would be pointless.
I'm in a tough spot because I am saving for a legendary and I want to buy one set of armor to get me by for a long time. I'll be doing a lot of WvW because I need the 500 badges and I kind of enjoy it. PvE wise, the most challenging thing will probably be higher level fractals. I have some friends that want to start running those with me on occasion.
I feel like I am at a point where I need to make a commitment to my gear and I am unsure what is best for all of the things I want to do. Do I need the toughness and vit or should I just go without and focus on learning to play better to make up for it?
If you go down in WvW and are stomped, you res every enemy who hit you. This is why it's very important, if you're actually fighting large groups of enemy players, that you have a baseline of Tough/Vit (I would recommend a minimum of 1300, and I try to aim for around 1500 in both on my characters).
It's certainly useful when you're learning. But if you're really dedicated to pushing into the upper echelons, most of the people I know who've done that have advised against defences. I personally don't play at that level, but I occasionally catch some of the guys streaming 60-70 Fractals, who put more stock by tactics than gear for their defence.
YOU ARE NOT MY MOM DRAYGO
Well, now that you mention it...
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
So the side-scrolling platformer in the SAB commercial is a real thing you can play now. See above link.
You gave me no choice. I did suggest nicely to you in TS that you should put that important info in the title.
The seething mess of mediocrity really isn't when you are running around leveling. You can pretty much do any fun build and still be good. I was a scepter / dagger condition death machine till 70. And it was absolutely fun and fine. But then I switched to a power build dagger / dagger to do damage in dungeons. Yeah, it does a metric shit ton more single target damage. But I very rarely needed to use any other skill other than 1. And the interesting utilities are all on pretty long cool downs.
So the moral of the story is do what you like. You'll be fine with most fun builds. But be warned that going full on power necro usually is a double edged sword of holy shit damage but reducing your skills to 1 or 2 buttons most of the time.
I get that to an extent but not sure how much I love it. I mean it makes perfect sense to take as little damage as possible. I get that. But I'm also not a huge fan of "Play this way or tough". Plus I loathe multiple gear sets. Hated in WoW ... hate it still
What levels does this start getting noticable again?
But I was playing Dark Souls and I kept dying
Kickoff is 2 hours earlier than normal starting today, so that would be at 3pm PDT or 2.5 hours from this post.
I'm going to be so out of practice.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
As I've gone hogher and higher in fractals I've converted to more and more PVT gear for survivability. Sure, the IDEAL situation is to avoid damage altogether, but if you do get hit by something it's good if you can absorb one or two hits before you lay down dead on the ground. Sustainability is a lot more important than DPS if you ask me.
Cough