-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Okay, I really want to try condi ranger with Soulbeast. Considering that I'll be getting my Ascended trinkets from the Laurel vendor and likely be running around in Exotic gear (so I doubt I'll be able to get Viper gear), what should I be looking at getting?
Wow, that story escalated quickly. It'll be interesting to see the general reaction as more people finish it. It certainly felt a good bit shorter than HoT but not dissimilar in execution.
Without approaching anything spoilery, that fight before that other fight can go fuck itself.
Okay, I really want to try condi ranger with Soulbeast. Considering that I'll be getting my Ascended trinkets from the Laurel vendor and likely be running around in Exotic gear (so I doubt I'll be able to get Viper gear), what should I be looking at getting?
Because typical PvE encounters are so short (i.e. not including world bosses, fractals or raids) Carrion (CD, Power, Vitality) or Dire (CD, Toughness, Vitality) will all do superior damage to Viper's gear.
You'll also be significantly tankier in Dire gear in comparison to Viper.
Okay, I really want to try condi ranger with Soulbeast. Considering that I'll be getting my Ascended trinkets from the Laurel vendor and likely be running around in Exotic gear (so I doubt I'll be able to get Viper gear), what should I be looking at getting?
You can start with rabid or carrion, for the most part. I'd probably go with Rabid. I'm running a condition soulbeast right now and it works pretty well. The pets can really help (the iboga is awesome for stacking conditions both in and out of SB form). So far it's been pretty good. I never really liked the druid spec though.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Thanks guys. I'll look at some decent gear tonight. Good to hear about the Iboga, it's my new favorite pet. It's F2 is great - if something is really beating on you it can drag them away from you for a breather. I've been using it with Point Blank Shot on my Longbow to make sure big beaters stay away.
I know I'm a noob at this game (less than 200 hours total) but does anyone have any tips for playing Deadeye? It seems really hard to play in PVE where it's rare to fight single enemies or small groups. I can handle myself okay as a Daredevil, but I'm stumped how to play Deadeye effectively.
I'm thinking I will use my PoF Hero Points to fill out my Daredevil spec first before I think about playing Deadeye again. Or I'll use my other 80 booster on my Warrior or Ranger.
Okay, I really want to try condi ranger with Soulbeast. Considering that I'll be getting my Ascended trinkets from the Laurel vendor and likely be running around in Exotic gear (so I doubt I'll be able to get Viper gear), what should I be looking at getting?
FWIW, the Soulbeast I was grouped with for T4 fractals earlier tonight was sticking with axe/torch and shortbow for weapons. He did use some of the new pets from PoF.
I know I'm a noob at this game (less than 200 hours total) but does anyone have any tips for playing Deadeye? It seems really hard to play in PVE where it's rare to fight single enemies or small groups. I can handle myself okay as a Daredevil, but I'm stumped how to play Deadeye effectively.
I'm thinking I will use my PoF Hero Points to fill out my Daredevil spec first before I think about playing Deadeye again. Or I'll use my other 80 booster on my Warrior or Ranger.
Play sword/pistol, use pistol 5 blind fields to stay alive, when you have over half full malice, switch to rifle and use 5 then 4 to kneel and do a powerful shot with your malice. Never actually fight in rifle for more than 10 seconds if you can help it.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Okay, I really want to try condi ranger with Soulbeast. Considering that I'll be getting my Ascended trinkets from the Laurel vendor and likely be running around in Exotic gear (so I doubt I'll be able to get Viper gear), what should I be looking at getting?
FWIW, the Soulbeast I was grouped with for T4 fractals earlier tonight was sticking with axe/torch and shortbow for weapons. He did use some of the new pets from PoF.
How was he/she doing? It seems like soulbeast would have to REALLY output the damage to justify leaving all that druid goodness on the table.
Okay, I really want to try condi ranger with Soulbeast. Considering that I'll be getting my Ascended trinkets from the Laurel vendor and likely be running around in Exotic gear (so I doubt I'll be able to get Viper gear), what should I be looking at getting?
FWIW, the Soulbeast I was grouped with for T4 fractals earlier tonight was sticking with axe/torch and shortbow for weapons. He did use some of the new pets from PoF.
How was he/she doing? It seems like soulbeast would have to REALLY output the damage to justify leaving all that druid goodness on the table.
I can't be bothered to run Arcdps so I don't have any real benchmarks. It was overall a bit messier than previous nights but he didn't feel like dead weight or anything. Probably would have been easier with druid though given we were in some scales that have a lot of random conditions but being a Scourge I didn't have too much issues myself. Mind you that even at t4 fractals aren't really damage races and respectable damage while knowing the mechanics and sticking close enough for boons is more than enough to succeed. Certainly seemed to perform better than the condi Mirage who on at least one occasion shadowstepped into me on an axe attack and triggered agony damage from Social Awkwardness and killed me and the Holosmith that blew himself up overheating.
Firebrand is amazing in pvp and wuv, great support with their tomes and mantras, great burning applications. They don't have the instant tomes of base guardian, but super strong tomes and lots of charges. Smaller range on mantras than shouts, but if you're stacked right its super effective.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Okay, I really want to try condi ranger with Soulbeast. Considering that I'll be getting my Ascended trinkets from the Laurel vendor and likely be running around in Exotic gear (so I doubt I'll be able to get Viper gear), what should I be looking at getting?
The previous suggestions are on the money IMO but I believe you can get at least some Sinister ascended trinkets from the vendor and that should be better than carrion/rabid/dire.
I know I'm a noob at this game (less than 200 hours total) but does anyone have any tips for playing Deadeye? It seems really hard to play in PVE where it's rare to fight single enemies or small groups. I can handle myself okay as a Daredevil, but I'm stumped how to play Deadeye effectively.
I'm thinking I will use my PoF Hero Points to fill out my Daredevil spec first before I think about playing Deadeye again. Or I'll use my other 80 booster on my Warrior or Ranger.
Play sword/pistol, use pistol 5 blind fields to stay alive, when you have over half full malice, switch to rifle and use 5 then 4 to kneel and do a powerful shot with your malice. Never actually fight in rifle for more than 10 seconds if you can help it.
Thanks, I'll give that a shot. I made the mistake of taking my fresh deadeye into a story instance and it took forever to kill 4 enemies.
I just unlocked the Springer yesterday and explored most of the Highlands. I really love how fun the mounts are to use and how much fun the new maps are to traverse using them. I had to force myself to continue exploring the HoT jungle maps so the PoF maps are such a relief to me.
Firebrand is amazing in pvp and wuv, great support with their tomes and mantras, great burning applications. They don't have the instant tomes of base guardian, but super strong tomes and lots of charges. Smaller range on mantras than shouts, but if you're stacked right its super effective.
The no instant stability is a core guardian schenanigans changing.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
Firebrand is amazing in pvp and wuv, great support with their tomes and mantras, great burning applications. They don't have the instant tomes of base guardian, but super strong tomes and lots of charges. Smaller range on mantras than shouts, but if you're stacked right its super effective.
The no instant stability is a core guardian schenanigans changing.
Your elite mantra is an instant stability.
Edit: Instant stability, Retaliation, and its a stun break for yourself and allies.
CorriganX on
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Question on using gw2efficiency: So I've made an account so I could save my API. Do I have to keep generating and replacing that API as I gather more stuff/mats, or does having the API let the site just access my current info all the time?
(Also, looking at the costs for what you want to craft is kinda disheartening ^^; ).
Question on using gw2efficiency: So I've made an account so I could save my API. Do I have to keep generating and replacing that API as I gather more stuff/mats, or does having the API let the site just access my current info all the time?
(Also, looking at the costs for what you want to craft is kinda disheartening ^^; ).
Firebrand is amazing in pvp and wuv, great support with their tomes and mantras, great burning applications. They don't have the instant tomes of base guardian, but super strong tomes and lots of charges. Smaller range on mantras than shouts, but if you're stacked right its super effective.
The no instant stability is a core guardian schenanigans changing.
Your elite mantra is an instant stability.
Edit: Instant stability, Retaliation, and its a stun break for yourself and allies.
Also, going firebrand also doesn't stop you from using core guardian skills like stand your ground and hallowed ground depending on how many stabs you want.
Steam: the_deranged_hermit
GW2: Tavalisk.9463
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mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
Firebrand is amazing in pvp and wuv, great support with their tomes and mantras, great burning applications. They don't have the instant tomes of base guardian, but super strong tomes and lots of charges. Smaller range on mantras than shouts, but if you're stacked right its super effective.
The no instant stability is a core guardian schenanigans changing.
Your elite mantra is an instant stability.
Edit: Instant stability, Retaliation, and its a stun break for yourself and allies.
Also, going firebrand also doesn't stop you from using core guardian skills like stand your ground and hallowed ground depending on how many stabs you want.
See.... slightly more offense with team buffs heals and stabs sounds pretty ok.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
I'm really beginning to warm up to these maps as I complete them. I just jumped to a vista with the springer in riverlands and hit F twice rapidly - I was close enough to the edge that I got the vista but fell as well, so the cutscene was of my tiny asuran body falling to his death. Worth it.
I felt a rumbling. Either someone invoked my name in Guild Wars 2 or diarrhea is imminent.
Yes
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mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
edited September 2017
So i do believe firebrand could work for my brand of WvW. Dumping support out while maintaining tank-i-ness.
Shame we are in the expansion honeymoon phase and theres tumble weeds infesting the less than full battle grounds.
On the other hand I died my raptor white. Frost raptors will one day take over!
edit - who thought dead-eye was a thing we needed? a solo dead-eye was harassing 3 of us. You don't get both death touch powers and range.... that is what balance is. :D:D:D i mean he couldn't kill us fully, but it was a like a fly in the room. that if we didn't stop and address each time it would eat us. Well one of us. @WolveSight or poor youreck. Not me. Im an oak.
edit edit - When i first logged in i thought whats the most audacious way for a wvw commander to glide? On a meteorite. And then in the gem store- it was an option.
mojojoeo on
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited September 2017
I remember someone saying in Guild chat that they felt less durable playing Soulbeast than with Druid because of the extra heals Druid gave. This seems to be mitigated a bit with the Jacaranda pet.
When you soulbind to it, you get the usual 3 extra skills. F1 gives you a small radius pulsing AoE damage, which is nice, but the other two skills are where it's at. F2 gives you a 2.7k self heal, with an extra 9s of regen at 700 per second, plus removing two conditions. F3 gives you a 5k heal with a 600 radius to heal others. On top of your normal self heal, this makes for some extra durability.
I used my level 80 boost to pump a Norn Mesmer to 80. I had a level 80 asuran mesmer who I never played because as I got up there I realized I don't really like Asuran animations. I'm trying to move him over to a condi build, but the level 80 stuff defaults to soldier's so I've had to get some trash TP exotics in there to hold me over. I'm only hovering around 860 condition damage at the moment.
I love the mobility and illusions of mesmer, and the animations are so great, but I seem to do a lot less damage than my Revenant. I'm hoping that as I unlock the rest of the mirage tree, fine tune my spec, and get more condition gear, that will sort itself out though.
Even though he kills slow, it's fun coming out of a fight with almost no damage done to me, as the enemy are fully distracted by my illusions.
Can someone remind me the difference between an illusion, a phantasm and a clone? As I recall, illusions look like solid versions of me, but do almost no damage, phantasms look like ghosts but do damage, but what are clones?
So i do believe firebrand could work for my brand of WvW. Dumping support out while maintaining tank-i-ness.
Shame we are in the expansion honeymoon phase and theres tumble weeds infesting the less than full battle grounds.
On the other hand I died my raptor white. Frost raptors will one day take over!
edit - who thought dead-eye was a thing we needed? a solo dead-eye was harassing 3 of us. You don't get both death touch powers and range.... that is what balance is. :D:D:D i mean he couldn't kill us fully, but it was a like a fly in the room. that if we didn't stop and address each time it would eat us. Well one of us. @WolveSight or poor youreck. Not me. Im an oak.
edit edit - When i first logged in i thought whats the most audacious way for a wvw commander to glide? On a meteorite. And then in the gem store- it was an option.
I gotta come with you I think. Scrappers wreck Deadeyes. We have Reflect for days, and one of those Reflects covers the whole party. "Stop shooting yourself! Stop shooting yourself!"
I remember someone saying in Guild chat that they felt less durable playing Soulbeast than with Druid because of the extra heals Druid gave. This seems to be mitigated a bit with the Jacaranda pet.
When you soulbind to it, you get the usual 3 extra skills. F1 gives you a small radius pulsing AoE damage, which is nice, but the other two skills are where it's at. F2 gives you a 2.7k self heal, with an extra 9s of regen at 700 per second, plus removing two conditions. F3 gives you a 5k heal with a 600 radius to heal others. On top of your normal self heal, this makes for some extra durability.
That's the weird looking pet that looks like an oversized mini of a floating root system, right? The soulbeast in that fractal pug was using it. A lot of conditions get thrown at you in t4s (and t3s) so that F2 was probably why.
Can someone remind me the difference between an illusion, a phantasm and a clone? As I recall, illusions look like solid versions of me, but do almost no damage, phantasms look like ghosts but do damage, but what are clones?
Illusions are the overall category that includes both phantasms and clones.
Phantasms are the ones that look like ghostly versions of yourself that have a special attack.
Clones are the ones that look exactly like you but usually spam the #1 attack of the weapon that spawned them.
Phantasms do good damage, and are a significant part of a rotation if you're not shatter. Clones do almost no damage on their own, but some skills will use them in other ways. Because they don't do a lot of damage, its better to shatter clones than illusions if possible.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
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mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
So i do believe firebrand could work for my brand of WvW. Dumping support out while maintaining tank-i-ness.
Shame we are in the expansion honeymoon phase and theres tumble weeds infesting the less than full battle grounds.
On the other hand I died my raptor white. Frost raptors will one day take over!
edit - who thought dead-eye was a thing we needed? a solo dead-eye was harassing 3 of us. You don't get both death touch powers and range.... that is what balance is. :D:D:D i mean he couldn't kill us fully, but it was a like a fly in the room. that if we didn't stop and address each time it would eat us. Well one of us. @WolveSight or poor youreck. Not me. Im an oak.
edit edit - When i first logged in i thought whats the most audacious way for a wvw commander to glide? On a meteorite. And then in the gem store- it was an option.
I gotta come with you I think. Scrappers wreck Deadeyes. We have Reflect for days, and one of those Reflects covers the whole party. "Stop shooting yourself! Stop shooting yourself!"
A reflect you say.... >:}
We will set something up next week ish. Ill post times here like the lunatic that I am.
mojojoeo on
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
So i've been having fun with my mirage, so much so that I spent a bit writing up a build for her. Figured I should share it with some people, and explain some of my choices so I can look over it and see if I notice anything im missing out on.
Focus of this build: Open world Bounties, being able to put out serious sustained damage on a single target, getting better with buffs and group support. SEVERELY lacking in survivability and supporting others, purely for damage. Performs poorly in large groups of enemies.
Mirage/Dueling/Inspiration: Mirage works extremely well with the other two spec lines as a phantasm using specialization. While a lot of the buffs are there for when you shatter, I wanted to focus on building up phantasms and letting them do the damage.
Mirage: 3/3/3 Taking Renewing Oasis is an option, but its a defensive perk. Riddle of Sand gives you stacks of Confusion at the start, but as you are not shattering it wont refresh during the fight. Still a slight boost. Nomad's Endurance, the minor trait, gives you Vigor when you shatter, and makes Vigor give you a boost to condition damage. Works out amazingly well with duelist's spec. We take Mirrored Axes for a cooldown reduction on the skills, and an extra axe when using the ambush skill. The final minor trait and Major trait both give us bonuses for using evasion when in combat, even if not needed for defense.
Dueling: 3/2/1 Critical Infusion is super important, vigor from critical hits means that our Mirage trait will trigger more often giving us more condition damage. Duelist's discipline is the backbone of our offhand weapon choice. Our pistol phantasms will trigger this, and every time we use a pistol skill theres a chance for a long duration bleed application. Minor trait gives us bleeding on Phantasm crits, which is always useful for more condi. Evasive Mirror is just an extra defensive boost, nothing else in this line will help us offensively so we take more defenses. Master Fencer gives us more fury when attacking mobs below 75%, and then we come to Superiority Complex. More crit damage is always a good thing, considering past 75% we'll always have fury and we'll have some precision for our crit rate.
Inspiration: 1/2/1 First minor trait doesn't really help us much, but if you shatter sometime it can add a bit of damage. Compounding power is important, giving us even more damage for each phantasm we'll have out. 2nd minor is useful for reducing the cooldown on our phantasm skills, letting us get them out faster in the fight. Phantasmal haste is super great for us, letting the pistol phantasms shoot more often, which means more bleeds. Next minor trait gives us longer duration on confusion, which is a large part of our damage. Both our utility and Elite focus on confusion damage, so its helpful for that, even with our high base duration for conditions. Phantasmal Force is there to increase our phantasm's damage, whenever they attack they'll gain stacks of might, and they'll be attacking faster due to traits, meaning they'll be stacking faster.
I went with all Vipers armor, weapons, and accessories. 4 Nightmare, 2 Trapper runes. This puts us at 97.2% duration with our signet equipped. With this setup the extra confusion duration is a bit wasted, but you can swap out some Sinister pieces to get more pure condition damage and take more advantage of the trait for more confusion duration.
I went with Malice/Accuracy on my weapons, as I wanted more duration and Critical hit. I need to get my critical chance high to give myself higher Vigor uptime, which is translated to more condition damage from the mirage trait. Staff as the secondary set, for some aoe tagging, and a bloodlust rune in there for extra condition stacking. You'll mainly be using the axe/pistol during fights, but the staff offers some options from ranged when needed.
I use the signet heal to get 2 pistol 4 phantasms out early in the fight, and then have slight regen sustain after it refreshes. Because you use your heal early for an offensive push, you will not have any heal if something goes wrong in the first 30 seconds which means you must be VERY good with your dodges and positioning to survive. As I said in the beginning, this build is SEVERELY lacking in survivability.
First two utilities are your condition damage and duration signets. You should never use the condition damage signet, but the duration can be used to break a stun if absolutely required. Your third utility is crystal sands, a ground targeted skill that applies a lot of stacking confusion if you aim it correctly. Elite is jaunt, for applying more confusion and also slight movement if needed in fights. Also a leap finisher, so keep that in mind.
if you're interested in a high condi damage, really low survivability mirage build look it over. Also if you have any suggestions let me know, im always down to revise it if needed.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
That's pretty close to what I am currently running and had pretty good success with outside of always being the first one to go down in every bounty fight (screw you, Butch!) As advertised, it is low survivability! Sometimes I get lucky with dodges and evades, but there is also a definite element of "git gud" on my part.
I've lately been thinking about trying to go with a full-blown shatter build to see how that does. It would work well with either axe or scepter. In my head.
That's pretty close to what I am currently running and had pretty good success with outside of always being the first one to go down in every bounty fight (screw you, Butch!) As advertised, it is low survivability! Sometimes I get lucky with dodges and evades, but there is also a definite element of "git gud" on my part.
I've lately been thinking about trying to go with a full-blown shatter build to see how that does. It would work well with either axe or scepter. In my head.
Not having Sword 2 or the blocks from sword 4 or chrono shield 4 lowers Mesmer durability a bit.
Bounties tend to be messy in general though given how many players swarm in and make things a mess visually. One of the desolation bounties is a clone of Subject 6 from the Thermanova Reactor fractal and it was almost impossible to see it go into its shield form until it killed 2/3 of the players with its counter attack.
I haven't been convinced to buy POF yet so have decided to jump back into fractals. I'm working towards seeing how high a difficulty I can get to and am at 41 now. Are the rewards that much better at higher difficulties that it is worth investing in the agony resistance?
I haven't been convinced to buy POF yet so have decided to jump back into fractals. I'm working towards seeing how high a difficulty I can get to and am at 41 now. Are the rewards that much better at higher difficulties that it is worth investing in the agony resistance?
Even excluding the ascended boxes for gearing up alts or setting up alternate builds, I get a pretty regular supply of 10-15 gold per day just from vendor junk from doing 3 t4s plus a good chunk of t5 materials, the occasional ascended material, AR infusions, and stabilizing matrices.
They do make you work for it though. T3s are much, much harder than T2s where you can still ignore a lot of the mechanics (eg, Molten Boss fractal goes from being a faceroll farm to something where it is a very good idea to understand what happens to both bosses every time the one being focused loses another 25% of health and projectile destruction/reflection and boon strip/corruption are very good things to bring) and the Instabilities get much more noticeable. All are still PuGgable though Shattered Observatory may break some groups.
I remember someone saying in Guild chat that they felt less durable playing Soulbeast than with Druid because of the extra heals Druid gave. This seems to be mitigated a bit with the Jacaranda pet.
When you soulbind to it, you get the usual 3 extra skills. F1 gives you a small radius pulsing AoE damage, which is nice, but the other two skills are where it's at. F2 gives you a 2.7k self heal, with an extra 9s of regen at 700 per second, plus removing two conditions. F3 gives you a 5k heal with a 600 radius to heal others. On top of your normal self heal, this makes for some extra durability.
That's the weird looking pet that looks like an oversized mini of a floating root system, right? The soulbeast in that fractal pug was using it. A lot of conditions get thrown at you in t4s (and t3s) so that F2 was probably why.
Yeah that's the one.
I was using it last night during bounties. The F2 is a real life saver, and the F3 is nice to fire off in a group to give out extra heals. Combined with Healing Spring you can give yourself some big heals and regen while also spreading the love. It's kinda like being a Druid-lite.
That pet is probably going to be my permanent number 2. I'm getting used to swapping between beast mode and normal mode so having an option to swap, go into beast, heal/condi remove, drop a pulsing AoE and swap back to the other pet is really nice.
I remember someone saying in Guild chat that they felt less durable playing Soulbeast than with Druid because of the extra heals Druid gave. This seems to be mitigated a bit with the Jacaranda pet.
When you soulbind to it, you get the usual 3 extra skills. F1 gives you a small radius pulsing AoE damage, which is nice, but the other two skills are where it's at. F2 gives you a 2.7k self heal, with an extra 9s of regen at 700 per second, plus removing two conditions. F3 gives you a 5k heal with a 600 radius to heal others. On top of your normal self heal, this makes for some extra durability.
That's the weird looking pet that looks like an oversized mini of a floating root system, right? The soulbeast in that fractal pug was using it. A lot of conditions get thrown at you in t4s (and t3s) so that F2 was probably why.
Yeah that's the one.
I was using it last night during bounties. The F2 is a real life saver, and the F3 is nice to fire off in a group to give out extra heals. Combined with Healing Spring you can give yourself some big heals and regen while also spreading the love. It's kinda like being a Druid-lite.
That pet is probably going to be my permanent number 2. I'm getting used to swapping between beast mode and normal mode so having an option to swap, go into beast, heal/condi remove, drop a pulsing AoE and swap back to the other pet is really nice.
If nothing else, soulbeast looks to make the pet choices more interesting/variable. Like, cats are great and all but while merged it looks like you'll get more damage out of iboga, bristleback, and possibly warthog (of all things). Electric wyverns are still top notch for CC but rock gazelle is absolutely competitive. Jacaranda has great healing but quite a few pets now have a heal on f3 while merged. It's really cool how lots of different pets have a unique niche in their balance of merged/unmerged damage/tank/utility.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Yeah that's why the Jacaranda will be my number 2. Bristleback and Iboga are both great for ranged builds, so I swap between those as my primary pet. The Jacaranda is the fallback 'oh shit I'm being hammered' pet.
A lot of the pets add melee attacks, so I don't use those as often.
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Without approaching anything spoilery, that fight before that other fight can go fuck itself.
Because typical PvE encounters are so short (i.e. not including world bosses, fractals or raids) Carrion (CD, Power, Vitality) or Dire (CD, Toughness, Vitality) will all do superior damage to Viper's gear.
You'll also be significantly tankier in Dire gear in comparison to Viper.
You can start with rabid or carrion, for the most part. I'd probably go with Rabid. I'm running a condition soulbeast right now and it works pretty well. The pets can really help (the iboga is awesome for stacking conditions both in and out of SB form). So far it's been pretty good. I never really liked the druid spec though.
I'm thinking I will use my PoF Hero Points to fill out my Daredevil spec first before I think about playing Deadeye again. Or I'll use my other 80 booster on my Warrior or Ranger.
FWIW, the Soulbeast I was grouped with for T4 fractals earlier tonight was sticking with axe/torch and shortbow for weapons. He did use some of the new pets from PoF.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Play sword/pistol, use pistol 5 blind fields to stay alive, when you have over half full malice, switch to rifle and use 5 then 4 to kneel and do a powerful shot with your malice. Never actually fight in rifle for more than 10 seconds if you can help it.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
How was he/she doing? It seems like soulbeast would have to REALLY output the damage to justify leaving all that druid goodness on the table.
I can't be bothered to run Arcdps so I don't have any real benchmarks. It was overall a bit messier than previous nights but he didn't feel like dead weight or anything. Probably would have been easier with druid though given we were in some scales that have a lot of random conditions but being a Scourge I didn't have too much issues myself. Mind you that even at t4 fractals aren't really damage races and respectable damage while knowing the mechanics and sticking close enough for boons is more than enough to succeed. Certainly seemed to perform better than the condi Mirage who on at least one occasion shadowstepped into me on an axe attack and triggered agony damage from Social Awkwardness and killed me and the Holosmith that blew himself up overheating.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
The previous suggestions are on the money IMO but I believe you can get at least some Sinister ascended trinkets from the vendor and that should be better than carrion/rabid/dire.
Thanks, I'll give that a shot. I made the mistake of taking my fresh deadeye into a story instance and it took forever to kill 4 enemies.
I just unlocked the Springer yesterday and explored most of the Highlands. I really love how fun the mounts are to use and how much fun the new maps are to traverse using them. I had to force myself to continue exploring the HoT jungle maps so the PoF maps are such a relief to me.
The no instant stability is a core guardian schenanigans changing.
Your elite mantra is an instant stability.
Edit: Instant stability, Retaliation, and its a stun break for yourself and allies.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
(Also, looking at the costs for what you want to craft is kinda disheartening ^^; ).
the one API key is all you need.
Also, going firebrand also doesn't stop you from using core guardian skills like stand your ground and hallowed ground depending on how many stabs you want.
GW2: Tavalisk.9463
See.... slightly more offense with team buffs heals and stabs sounds pretty ok.
Yes
Shame we are in the expansion honeymoon phase and theres tumble weeds infesting the less than full battle grounds.
On the other hand I died my raptor white. Frost raptors will one day take over!
edit - who thought dead-eye was a thing we needed? a solo dead-eye was harassing 3 of us. You don't get both death touch powers and range.... that is what balance is.
edit edit - When i first logged in i thought whats the most audacious way for a wvw commander to glide? On a meteorite. And then in the gem store- it was an option.
When you soulbind to it, you get the usual 3 extra skills. F1 gives you a small radius pulsing AoE damage, which is nice, but the other two skills are where it's at. F2 gives you a 2.7k self heal, with an extra 9s of regen at 700 per second, plus removing two conditions. F3 gives you a 5k heal with a 600 radius to heal others. On top of your normal self heal, this makes for some extra durability.
I love the mobility and illusions of mesmer, and the animations are so great, but I seem to do a lot less damage than my Revenant. I'm hoping that as I unlock the rest of the mirage tree, fine tune my spec, and get more condition gear, that will sort itself out though.
Even though he kills slow, it's fun coming out of a fight with almost no damage done to me, as the enemy are fully distracted by my illusions.
Can someone remind me the difference between an illusion, a phantasm and a clone? As I recall, illusions look like solid versions of me, but do almost no damage, phantasms look like ghosts but do damage, but what are clones?
I gotta come with you I think. Scrappers wreck Deadeyes. We have Reflect for days, and one of those Reflects covers the whole party. "Stop shooting yourself! Stop shooting yourself!"
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
That's the weird looking pet that looks like an oversized mini of a floating root system, right? The soulbeast in that fractal pug was using it. A lot of conditions get thrown at you in t4s (and t3s) so that F2 was probably why.
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Illusions are the overall category that includes both phantasms and clones.
Phantasms are the ones that look like ghostly versions of yourself that have a special attack.
Clones are the ones that look exactly like you but usually spam the #1 attack of the weapon that spawned them.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
A reflect you say.... >:}
We will set something up next week ish. Ill post times here like the lunatic that I am.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAnaWnsICNohVoB2LDMMjlVDz/A2AngobhzQVosDccCAA-jRCBQBbZfAHq+DAOBA0UJ4zeCAeU5HDOEAobhB/pvhUAPqsC-e
Mirage/Dueling/Inspiration: Mirage works extremely well with the other two spec lines as a phantasm using specialization. While a lot of the buffs are there for when you shatter, I wanted to focus on building up phantasms and letting them do the damage.
Mirage: 3/3/3 Taking Renewing Oasis is an option, but its a defensive perk. Riddle of Sand gives you stacks of Confusion at the start, but as you are not shattering it wont refresh during the fight. Still a slight boost. Nomad's Endurance, the minor trait, gives you Vigor when you shatter, and makes Vigor give you a boost to condition damage. Works out amazingly well with duelist's spec. We take Mirrored Axes for a cooldown reduction on the skills, and an extra axe when using the ambush skill. The final minor trait and Major trait both give us bonuses for using evasion when in combat, even if not needed for defense.
Dueling: 3/2/1 Critical Infusion is super important, vigor from critical hits means that our Mirage trait will trigger more often giving us more condition damage. Duelist's discipline is the backbone of our offhand weapon choice. Our pistol phantasms will trigger this, and every time we use a pistol skill theres a chance for a long duration bleed application. Minor trait gives us bleeding on Phantasm crits, which is always useful for more condi. Evasive Mirror is just an extra defensive boost, nothing else in this line will help us offensively so we take more defenses. Master Fencer gives us more fury when attacking mobs below 75%, and then we come to Superiority Complex. More crit damage is always a good thing, considering past 75% we'll always have fury and we'll have some precision for our crit rate.
Inspiration: 1/2/1 First minor trait doesn't really help us much, but if you shatter sometime it can add a bit of damage. Compounding power is important, giving us even more damage for each phantasm we'll have out. 2nd minor is useful for reducing the cooldown on our phantasm skills, letting us get them out faster in the fight. Phantasmal haste is super great for us, letting the pistol phantasms shoot more often, which means more bleeds. Next minor trait gives us longer duration on confusion, which is a large part of our damage. Both our utility and Elite focus on confusion damage, so its helpful for that, even with our high base duration for conditions. Phantasmal Force is there to increase our phantasm's damage, whenever they attack they'll gain stacks of might, and they'll be attacking faster due to traits, meaning they'll be stacking faster.
I went with all Vipers armor, weapons, and accessories. 4 Nightmare, 2 Trapper runes. This puts us at 97.2% duration with our signet equipped. With this setup the extra confusion duration is a bit wasted, but you can swap out some Sinister pieces to get more pure condition damage and take more advantage of the trait for more confusion duration.
I went with Malice/Accuracy on my weapons, as I wanted more duration and Critical hit. I need to get my critical chance high to give myself higher Vigor uptime, which is translated to more condition damage from the mirage trait. Staff as the secondary set, for some aoe tagging, and a bloodlust rune in there for extra condition stacking. You'll mainly be using the axe/pistol during fights, but the staff offers some options from ranged when needed.
I use the signet heal to get 2 pistol 4 phantasms out early in the fight, and then have slight regen sustain after it refreshes. Because you use your heal early for an offensive push, you will not have any heal if something goes wrong in the first 30 seconds which means you must be VERY good with your dodges and positioning to survive. As I said in the beginning, this build is SEVERELY lacking in survivability.
First two utilities are your condition damage and duration signets. You should never use the condition damage signet, but the duration can be used to break a stun if absolutely required. Your third utility is crystal sands, a ground targeted skill that applies a lot of stacking confusion if you aim it correctly. Elite is jaunt, for applying more confusion and also slight movement if needed in fights. Also a leap finisher, so keep that in mind.
if you're interested in a high condi damage, really low survivability mirage build look it over. Also if you have any suggestions let me know, im always down to revise it if needed.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
I've lately been thinking about trying to go with a full-blown shatter build to see how that does. It would work well with either axe or scepter. In my head.
Not having Sword 2 or the blocks from sword 4 or chrono shield 4 lowers Mesmer durability a bit.
Bounties tend to be messy in general though given how many players swarm in and make things a mess visually. One of the desolation bounties is a clone of Subject 6 from the Thermanova Reactor fractal and it was almost impossible to see it go into its shield form until it killed 2/3 of the players with its counter attack.
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Yes.
Here's someone's pastebin of the results of 250 of each tier of fractal reward box: https://pastebin.com/i3tszGdj
Even excluding the ascended boxes for gearing up alts or setting up alternate builds, I get a pretty regular supply of 10-15 gold per day just from vendor junk from doing 3 t4s plus a good chunk of t5 materials, the occasional ascended material, AR infusions, and stabilizing matrices.
They do make you work for it though. T3s are much, much harder than T2s where you can still ignore a lot of the mechanics (eg, Molten Boss fractal goes from being a faceroll farm to something where it is a very good idea to understand what happens to both bosses every time the one being focused loses another 25% of health and projectile destruction/reflection and boon strip/corruption are very good things to bring) and the Instabilities get much more noticeable. All are still PuGgable though Shattered Observatory may break some groups.
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Yeah that's the one.
I was using it last night during bounties. The F2 is a real life saver, and the F3 is nice to fire off in a group to give out extra heals. Combined with Healing Spring you can give yourself some big heals and regen while also spreading the love. It's kinda like being a Druid-lite.
That pet is probably going to be my permanent number 2. I'm getting used to swapping between beast mode and normal mode so having an option to swap, go into beast, heal/condi remove, drop a pulsing AoE and swap back to the other pet is really nice.
If nothing else, soulbeast looks to make the pet choices more interesting/variable. Like, cats are great and all but while merged it looks like you'll get more damage out of iboga, bristleback, and possibly warthog (of all things). Electric wyverns are still top notch for CC but rock gazelle is absolutely competitive. Jacaranda has great healing but quite a few pets now have a heal on f3 while merged. It's really cool how lots of different pets have a unique niche in their balance of merged/unmerged damage/tank/utility.
A lot of the pets add melee attacks, so I don't use those as often.