A/Me perma problems

A/me can no longer use arcane echo to keep up shadowform. The recharge time and duration has changed for shadowform and no longer works for mesmer secondary. A/e is the only class combo that can manage SF without cons.
Timewise A/Me can still maintain at 16 Shadow arts as long as nothing slows cast times down (such as nature's renewal). I don't like the build enough to use it that much so other than trying out the timing I haven't done much with it.

I tried ToPK with the A/E build tonight. I have not done that since the most recent nerf. It is still doable (at least through level 2 where I ran out of time) but seems to require a much more conservative style of play. You have to be careful not to agro too many grasps at once, use zealous weapons and maybe throw critical agility into the mix, hide energy for emergencies, and make sure you are attacking the grasp taking damage from sliver so that no other use "fear me." As long as I did that, I did not seem to have too much trouble. So. still doable but a bit challenging.

And i would say the answer about the staff would be correct. The half recharge time would cause you to cast the echoed SF a little too soon so that you would not have enough time to allow echo to recharge. It's only a 17% difference (about 3 or 4 seconds) so you probably would not realize you had received the boost. But the timing is crucial. You only have a second or two leeway. So casting the echoed SF even a couple of seconds too early would make it very difficult to finish recharging echo in time. That would be a problem that would not be noticed with the A/E build since DP and GoS already cut recharge to the %50 maximum.

try to take a staff without one Good luck finding a staff without an HSR mod .

Half the people say its possible, the other half dont. Personally I dont know, or care but i wish someone would post proof one way or the other for it.

there you go - this one was taken just after casting the recharged arcane echo. I hit Prt Scrn and SF at same time. Notice the old SF is still just barely up - just enough time to hit the new one.

Although, the fact that the OP had already stated he had used the build and was simply having occasional trouble (as has been pointed out, with the staff) should be pretty good evidence that SF is maintainable with A/Me and that the build is still functional.

A/me can no longer use arcane echo to keep up shadowform. The recharge time and duration has changed for shadowform and no longer works for mesmer secondary. A/e is the only class combo that can manage SF without cons. As for the energy pressure? That was on purpose. ANET wanted to make speedclears for UW much harder. All they really did was make everyone run sins LOL. Your post is wrong. Plain and simple. A/Me can run Perma with the current duration and 60 second recharge. So you fail, and you're one of the countless masses that can't do the simple math of recharges and echo'd casts.

OT: Your problem is that you're using a staff with HSR 20% (spells). You should be casting the echo'd copy when the bar of your current Shadow Form is about 1/4. For me, this means casting the echo'd copy when the recharge hits the bottom corner (left or right, I can't remember since it's been about a week) on normal recharge, and just above the halfway mark on the left side on Halved recharge.

I figured we'd see this problem when people returned to A/Me Perma (or went there for the first time because they're posers), because it actually requires thought to maintain.

P.S. I hope they revert it to the way it was before the buff. 21s duration, 60s recharge, no damage reduction. Just the way it was. Makes Perma an art, not a commonplace tactic.

P.P.S. At 16 SA, SF is 22s, 26s with +20% enchanting. DP brings recharge from 45s to 30s. Since AE holds SF for 20 seconds, the perfect cast would be exactly at 19 (or less, since DP reduces activation time as well), but 18s is a more plausible cast. So on the 30s recharge of SF, you get 19s out of the original, given an assumed 1s cast time. Immediately after this, AE will drop SF and begin its 20s recharge. So SF1 goes from 0-19 seconds, and SF2 goes 19-45 seconds. Since AE recharges 20 seconds after it releases the copy, it recharges exactly at 40 seconds. DP and SF have long-since recharged at this point. It takes ~3 seconds to cast the chain, given AE's 2s cast time and an assumed (though in actuality it's less) 1s time for SF. So 43 seconds to have recast the original DP-->AE-->SF chain when all skills are recharged at 40s. Seems pretty maintainable to me.

Good luck finding a staff without an HSR mod . Good point.

Martial weapon with +5 energy and enchantments last 20% longer and focus.

Your post is wrong. Plain and simple. A/Me can run Perma with the current duration and 60 second recharge. Err confusing when sf isnt 60 secs recharge anymore which you point out later becomes 45 secs -