Guild Wars 2

Sup guys!

In preparation for the interesting new traits and the inevitable increase in lockdown Mesmer, we in the Mes forums have been working on putting together a massive guide to playing a lockdown build. While this will obviously benefit mostly Mesmer (and thieves, and everyone else to a lesser extent) I was hoping to extend the invitation to anyone who’d like to help us fill it out. It won’t be as big as the Super-Ultra-Mega Mesmer Guide but I want it to be extensive and detailed with as much info as possible, topics include:

• List of all skills sorted by class and easy/medium/hard interrupt difficulty and how important it is to interrupt them
• Psychology & techniques of a lockdown player
• Video guides
• Building your own lockdown Mesmer

This is not simply about interrupting. I want this guide to cover chain-dazing, reflects/absorbing, soft CCs like Weakness/Chill/Blind, and more. Since I only play Mesmer and Elementalist, I don’t know other class rotations as well as I’d like to and thus why I’m hoping other classes would help give insights on what to look out for when fighting against them. Also, if anyone is good with formatting and data presentation, any and all help would be welcomed! To give an idea of what I’m thinking of, I’ll copy what I wrote in the original thread.

(Please note this isn’t just for versus high-end players and builds. I want this guide to be able to be useful for all players in any versus format, be it hotjoin, Solo’q, team’q, or WvW)

Again, any and all assistance will be much appreciated and you will be credited in the guide. Some thieves have already pitched in and have been a huge help. Thanks again!

BlackDevil.9268:

What is qualified as ‘’easy, medium and hard to interrupt’‘? I suppose this is based on the casting time or if it’s a channeling skill, though how long would the casting time be if it’s qualified as easy, medium or hard?.

I’m actually a bit torn on how I’ma divide it. At first I was thinking

1/4s – 1/2s Difficult
3/4s -1s Medium
>1s – Easy

But there’s also a bit of a pattern to weapon categories and how easy they are to interrupt. For example, in general Greatsword (Guardian, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer) and Hammer (Guardian, Warrior) abilities tend to be easier to interrupt. I’m not sure if I want to do something like a general overview of the class and their abilities or go into the specific tactics versus the weapon.. Or both. Something like this

GREATSWORD

• Mesmer
  - Mesmer’s greatsword auto-attack is essentially a free interrupt. If you’re running BI/CI, this means an easy opportunity to gain boons and immobilize the opponent.
  The most important skill to interrupt on the greatsword is it’s Phantasm summon, iZerker, which many GS mesmer like to lead with. It is absolutely worth spending a Mantra charge to interrupt the Phantasm, and important to keep in mind that since the skill is on a relatively short cooldown the Mesmer can usually summon a new phantasm each time they switch back to the GS.

• Guardian
  - Guardian’s greatsword is extremely predictable and it’s skills are relatively easy to interrupt. You can essentially tell what the Guardian’s going to do depending on your range. Out of melee range, they’ll use Leap of Faith or Binding Blade and when up-close and intimate they will almost always spin to win. While interrupting Leap of Faith (the epic leap) is both hilarious and useful, the main skill you want to stop is Whirling Wrath (the epic spin) for two reasons. The obvious reason is that it’s the most damaging skill on the Guardian’s GS, but you also want to interrupt it because you want the Guardian to try to use whirling wrath as much as possible. Whirling wrath is similar to Mesmer’s GS autoattack in that it’s essentially a free interrupt; easy to notice and plenty of time to stop. It’s usually used after Binding Blade which has a somewhat similar start-up animation.

I’m thinking maybe I should categorize it by class rather than weapon. It’ll be longer, but maybe it’ll work as an easier read.. Something like this:

GUARDIAN
/Greatsword
- Whirling Wrath – Easy **
- Leap of Faith – Medium
- Symbol of Wrath – Hard
- Binding Blade – Medium *

(** = Important skill to interrupt.)

Guardian’s greatsword is extremely predictable and it’s skills are relatively easy to interrupt. You can essentially tell what the Guardian’s going to do depending on your range. Out of melee range, they’ll use Leap of Faith or Binding Blade and when up-close and intimate they will almost always spin to win.

• While interrupting Leap of Faith (the epic leap) is both hilarious and useful, the main skill you want to stop is Whirling Wrath (the epic spin) for two reasons. The obvious reason is that it’s the most damaging skill on the Guardian’s GS, but you also want to interrupt it because you want the Guardian to try to use whirling wrath as much as possible. Whirling wrath is similar to Mesmer’s GS autoattack in that it’s essentially a free interrupt; easy to notice and plenty of time to stop. It’s usually used after Binding Blade which has a somewhat similar start-up animation.