Scleameth

Yikes prices have gone up!! I think I payed about 70 or 80 silver back in Oct/Nov 2012 via a buy order. But prices are dropping now and might be around 1.5 gold in 2 weeks or so. Looks like we have the christmas holidays to blame for the high prices... many people probably worked on reaching level 80 and tried to get their hands on one of these. I'll have to go sniff through my bank and see if I still have the focus that had this sigil equipped. If I do, then I'll pass it on...

So Mantra of Recovery the clear winner in your opinion?

Mirror: 1x 3915 heal - Not a strong heal, but reflects projectiles for 2 seconds. Not really a good option in my opinion, reflecting projectiles is the least of my problems when trying to heal against sword attacks or condition damage. 15 seconds cool down 1.25 seconds casting time 16.25 between heals Ether Feast: 1x 5560 + 640 per illusion = possible 7480 heal. Some argue this is the best heal to use for the mesmer since it's grants the largest health restoration. 20 seconds cool down 1 second casting time 21 between heals Mantra of Recovery: 2x 2620 = 5240 heal. Not as much as Ehter Feast but my argument comes into play with the cool down. 10 seconds cool down. 3.25 seconds casting time. 13.25 between heals + the fraction of time between the #1 and #2 power return. I think it's .5 seconds = total 13.75 seconds between heals. So to get all heals on an equal playing field, let's look at the total health gained between 3 casts to get Mantra of Recovery's CD into play. And from a state of rest with mantras charged. And getting 3 heals off in one battle is probably a good upper limit. Mirror = 1.25s for 3915 + 2*16.25s for 7830 = 11745 over 33.75 seconds Ether Feast = 1s for 7480 + 2*21s for 14960 = 22440 over 43 seconds Mantra of Recovery = 0s for 2620 + 0.5s for 2620 + 2x13.75s for 10480 = 15720 over 28 seconds To match it all up nicely let's compare all against Ether Feast: Ether Feast = 22440 health in 43 seconds Mirror = 11745/33.75 * 43 = 14964 health in 43 seconds Mantra of Recovery = 15720/28 * 43 = 24141 health in 43 seconds Mantra of Recovery wins the race over Ether Feast in this scenario by a large margin only just, but bring it down to a good average of 2 heals per skirmish in WvW and look: Mirror = 1.25s for 3915 + 16.25s for 3915 = 7830 over 17.5 seconds Ether Feast = 1s for 7480 + 21s for 7480 = 15680 over 22 seconds Mantra of Recovery = 0s for 2620 + 0.5s for 2620 + 13.75s for 5240 = 10480 over 14.25 seconds Compare again against Ether Fest: Ether Feast = 15680 health in 22 seconds Mirror = 7830/17.5 * 22 = 9843 health in 22 seconds Mantra of Recovery = 10480/14.25 * 22 = 16180 health in 22 seconds !!! WOW - 338% improved healing EDIT: not so WOW So Mantra of Recovery wins the race no questions asked in my opinion. Any arguments against it? I'm not that familiar with the gains to +health and +power have on the 3 healing skills, but calculated at base values Mantra of Recovery appears to be the obvious choice? Why then do so many builds opt for Ether Feast? The only issue of Mantras is that I sometimes forget to charge it, but I'm rather used to using my healing skill retrospectively now and is actually messing up my game play when playing with my guardian. EDIT: Flaws in my calculations. EDIT: Mantra of Recovery's CD starts when the 2nd charged heal is spent. And not after it is cast, so my calculations had a very fundamental flaw. End result: Mantra of Recovery is still better but not by such a WOW factor. Only about 3.2% better. So it turns out that this post will be to prove that Mirror is useless and not that Mantra of Recovery is so great... sry about that!

Oh, and something that actually works nice (although I only used it for a short while during my tanky guardian build) is Sigil of Energy - if you don't mind dropping the 3% crit chance on your focus... Basically a free dodge roll when swapping to your mace/focus and thus allows for one more round of group healing if you trait Selfless Daring. EDIT: another thing that works wonders in cahoots with Altruistic Healing is the staff #4. But it needs large groups to really shine. But with the orb no healing allies it passes through, and #5 can be cast on the move, it's maybe better suited for WvW zergs.

Nice read and build there! Solid as a rock tank I also found a bit of love for the hammer, but I need to invest in a better hammer because my GS still provides better DPS at the moment in WvW.

last post I made there was at 1:30 am so I was tired and went to bed. this morning it was deleted already so I don't really know how nasty it got. Something had to be said though.

Heh, glass canon indeed. More so than I would actually like, and cooldowns are my worst enemy. With the nerf of Curry Omnom Pies not proccing health regen per hit so much anymore, this build need some serious attention. But it's still fun to play but with a little more caution (and learning caution is a real hard thing for me to do )

Yes the exploit was reported in-game by just about all on map at that stage. It started with the SF zerg suddenly taking over SM in a jiffy and continuing to clean up the entire BL. Now that might not be totally unexpted of a zerg and I showed up in EB when all was just about green. Then they moved on the ET BL where FC had a few towers and 2 keeps. That suddenly got turned green as did the entire ET BL map. We all moved over to FC BL to prepare for the impending invasion. It started with a few good contested fights in the Bay camp, but suddenly the whole zerg showed up and took the camp. Soon after the fully upgraded Bay fell with people complaining that the door was at 100% health and just burst open. So they burst open outer, zerg in, burst open inner and take the keep. Rinse and repeat on the entire FC BL map until about an hour later the whole map was green without using a single siege. Basically somebody figured out how to destroy a gate from 100% to 0% with one shot and it seems that the whole zerg was OK with that... Edit: since the topic was deleted, I post images here (6 seconds apart) of gate going from 100% to 0%. EDIT: any and all posts of mine referring this matter on the GW2 forums (even the slightest little mention in the lines "sry SF for implying the whole server as cheats" gets deleted). I guess as far as the mods and devs on the GW2 forum is concerned, this incident never happened. I knew I was posting the wrong thing on the wrong forum, but I just had to get as much attention to this in as short as possible timeframe... You all know me, I don't really lash out at anyone ever. Generally a nice guy, but I guess our whole wvw situation has just pushed me right over the top for the last time.

I created a new topic in GW2 forums... this is a real nasty exploit costing us (FC) a lot of money in upgrades just to find that SF can take any keep/tower/SM without siege in 5 minutes flat with their zerg. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/WvW-gate-destruction-exploit-5secs/first#post1570865 ^ Topic has been deleted...

heh - ye-ol-moa... one of the most fun skills in the game - can it be blocked or negated with stability?

Heh, ty - I hope I don't disappoint well at the moment I'm still playing around and very low level but it would be power, precision and crit damage. I like the Feedback skill - always a fun spoiler when I run into that one with my guardian in WvW. Since I have to mash so many buttons with my current guardian build, the confusion is my worst enemy. (and of course the "Windows Key" right below my "Z" remapped 7 button) Blink looks to be right up my ally. I'll use blink and sword 2 just as I'm using Judge's intervention and sword 3 with my guardian atm. Very, very effective burst damage for my guardian. But the mesmer sword does Area of Effect damage on #2, so that's even better!! As a third skill... dunno, maybe Arcane thievery or Decoy. But Illusion Of Life certainly seems to be a good WvW option? Elites - well all mesmer elites are nice really. But I think mass invisibility is probably a better suited in WvW rather than PvE or dungeons?

I created new mesmer last night. My first one was deleted because it was the lowest level out of all my characters and my daughter played "dress up". I never took the mesmer out for a serious drive, but after last night's play I'm thinking I have a new main... pity that my guardian is now stuck with the karka\christmas loot, but I'm definitely not putting my guardian in the bottom drawer. The crit guardian just got me so intrigued, that I thought other than a crit thief, the best would probably be a crit mesmer. Since I really don't like the thief mechanics that much, I thought I'd look at the mesmer with a fresh perspective. Now I'm not really critting the world on fire at level 5, but just getting used to the play style. Funny enough the mesmer is a lot (imo) more survivable than the guardian. I even rez'd a few guardians in the lower levels while almost taking no serious damage at all! If I played properly I really had no need for the healing skill. I think I first used my heal at about level 3 and then only took interest in how much it heals and what the cd is. Now not taking away anything from Lujate's excellent gameplay - I can now understand why he is the last man standing 90% of the time. So in queensdale starter zones I ran into the bandit caves, did a little mopping and headed to the champ. there I got stopped in my tracks. The first encounter caught me still unlocking torch skills and a guardian who I rez'd 3 times in the encounter. The second time I should have brought the GS to the fight but had my staff equipped. I had the champ at about 50% before he got me milli seconds before staff #2 could save my skin. So there goes my "80 with zero deaths" tap on the back. But this boss/champ is a real tough one and even my level 80 guardian has a hard time soloing this guy. The fight is hard because he takes a lot of damage and dishes out a lot of damage all on a little platform where there is no room to dodge or kite without falling to your death or resetting... I still have to unlock sword, underwater weapons but the mesmer is actually not as complicated as it looks at first glance. Does very good damage and has very good evasive tactics. The engineer and elementalist both have excellent survivability builds, but at the cost of damage (*let's not got the route where a tanky ele triumphed my guardian twice in a row*), but I'm talking burst damage here and not the tank-ele just constantly healing, keeping distance with speed and slowly picking away at yer health. It's a looooong way to go for me yet and with my limited play time these days I'm not sure how many months it will take to reach a fully geared level 80 mesmer, but I'll get there. And then SF will pay... oh yes my preeeeciouuus, they will paaaay!!!

I voted yes, but it's merely a matter of family matters convenience for me. I don't mind the time at all - it's just easier to have my full focus on the game when the kids are already asleep...

not exactly my greatest moments there... just caught in conditions and AoEs the few seconds I was actually on my feet... could... not... get... away... death!!!!

Well, let's see if we can get 5 together first... if not then perhaps we can meet in-game and see where it goes from there?

does any later suit everyone? I have no problem with 5/6/7 hours later even?

Just a polite request if we could perhaps move the time on with about 4 hrs?

heh I still smile about my rush into death there at the very start... in my defence: with my gfx toned down for dungeon runs, I did not see the swarms inside the red Area of Effect circles and thought it would just trigger some condition on me which I can easily negate... but I just made a mental note about dungeons - red = bad for your health. ^^

hmm under water I'm yet to try... so far I found that dodging work best for me against deer or goats. Their initial attack is to rear up and sissy fight you with their hoofs. Often times I get 2x "evade" with one dodge move when they do that, and their standard attacks are easy enough to dodge once you get the hang of their "tells".

My gear is not 100%, but just about there. I'd say about 98% of what I want.... I could perhaps add a little more toughness and health. I'm going to change my major traits for the next run a little. I don't think the added 70 toughness I added to the party really counted for much. I'm going to drop the great sword and go with staff for dungeons as well as choosing major trait Altruistic Healing for a little more health income. I'll get there - I just need to be a little more careful with my actions in dungeons, but I don't want to be "the guardian at the back" neither... need to find the happy medium.

1st dungeon run in Arah = not so good With the lower survivability I got stuck facing the grashoppers eye-eye waaay sooner than I was able to react to. But I don't think there are many builds or characters that can survive stun locking in some nasty boss AoEs... Granted I was stuck with a bad connection and ol' Murphy was just not on my side that day. I'm going to give this 'core' build one more chance in dungeons and call a final verdict.

A little bit of a dragged out affair with some seriously OP mobs and a lot of UP mobs (especially right at the end). My connection also did not play it's part... I checked out on speedtest.net that on a few tests, my ping would spike to over 200!!!! No wonder I'd sometimes stand and spam my keys with my poor old guardian just standing there like a mannequin taking heavy, heavy damage. My fail (my main of many), was when Lujate aggro'd gorillas and I just leapt at them with my greatsword thinking that I'm gonna slice and dice a little here... I got stun locked between 3 of them and just died in a matter of seconds, leaving me out of reach and out of action for the remainder of the fight. Dodging out of one Area of Effect and into another was another thing that worked against me far too often... excuses, excuses, I know.... but next time 'round I'll prove my worth!

My ranger is supposed to be a condition damage ranger. Kind of a mid-range ranger, since I don't really use bows that often. But her gear is far from complete and not at exotic level....

I'd like to join, but will offer my spot to anyone else when we have more than 5 interested again. (that's if the group would have me after my dismal Arah performance!)

I think that second link might not contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The whole selling feature of Sacred 3 is that it is a co-op based game. That means that as a single player you are "forced" to have 1/2/3 other AI players with you. That would not exclude the option from having 2 local co-op players with 2 AI players? I mean, if you're thinking co-op you and building the game focussing on PS3 (this is where the developer challenge lies) then certainly you can't exclude the couch co-op from development? EDIT: Just to further my argument in favour of couch co-op: http://www.co-optimus.com/article/8871/sacred-3-eyes-on-impressions-from-pax-2012.html From the above it really gives the impression that 2 people played on one PS3?