Guild Wars 2

For the past week and a half, I’ve been buildcrafting. I wanted to see if I can have a build that can 1) focusing on shattering with some stealth and 2) using signets. I couldn’t combine them, but instead made 2 different builds yet use same weapons and gears. I’ve tried using both builds while exploring various areas in open world, including using them during meta Scarlet’s invasions, to see how they fare. Surprisingly, I’m having a lot of fun with these builds and possibly more fun than my Flowing Images builds that I’ve posted awhile back. What my concern is if there is something that missing or doesn’t sync within these builds.

These are the builds:

Smoke n’ Mirrors

Rings on My Fingers

Both have more in-depth guides of the builds as well as some alternatives that I’ve tried out so far. Now, I haven’t tested them in dungeons yet, but it seems like they can work. If I can get some constructive feedbacks on how to improve these builds, that would be wonderful.

Posting to bump this. Condition damage and hybrid builds aren’t quite my thing, but I’m sure someone’ll throw in some detailed info.

But please, even if you’re running signets, Signet of Midnight is buttche- … Oh, actually it’s your stunbreak/blind/distortion. OK, so not so bad. Signet builds have a bad rep though, I’d like to hear your experiences with it.

Exploring the open world with both builds were fine although different.

The Smoke n’ Mirrors does require a lot of moving around while making sure I am nearby the target to trigger Illusionary Persona but also be within range of iMage’kitten. However, it does allow me to tag more mobs in a zerg. I’ll admit that this build need some tweaking since this is my first using the torch (and I’ve been so used to scepter + pistol or OH sword).

The Rings on My Fingers was definitely new. With higher toughness and extra defense with each illusion, I can take a hit or two without problem. In addition to what you said, Chaos, about Signet of Midnight, it is also my quickest condition removal/shortest signet cooldown and it boosts my boon duration up to 40% (which helps extend the swiftness on heal when I travel); in battle, I activated that signet the most while Signet of Domination is kept passive majority of the time unless I really need another interrupt somewhere.

I’ve tested both builds during Scarlet’s invasions and the aetherblade fights were the most intense of the waves (in my opinion). With the signet build, I survived more (and not get downed actually) when facing them, but I won’t be able to tag many mobs as frequent. The signets were proven very useful to me with that distortion to get out if things get dicey and getting rid of that huge stack of vulnerability/confusion that I sometimes get. I also was able to be a bit supportive thanks to Signet of Inspiration and can use my dodge more freely.

As for the illusion/stealth build, it was more reckless to be honest. I find myself dodging and making clones left and right and shattering nearby mobs which makes it easy to get loot, but also gives mobs a chance to target me. I’ll admit that I’ve been downed several times and a couple defeats due to inappropriate dodge timing and landing on an enemy AoE. The Prestige did help me maneuver around and removing condition; same with iMage except I sometimes won’t get the retaliation (which is no big deal).

I haven’t give these builds a try in a dungeon, but I feel more confident with the signet build than the stealth/illusion one, but I’ll let you know how both went.

Edit: I gave the signet build more testing and I’ve updated the guide for it. Please check the revision.

It’s good to see someone exploring Signets more. Signet builds get a bad rep because, in theory, they don’t really come together too well and the traits don’t seem too worth it. But I reserve judgement because I haven’t heard of many people trying it very much.

Since you run staff and need to produce clones quickly and often in ‘Rings on my Fingers’ I’d suggest taking the 10 points out of Illusions (the 3% damage per clone trait only affects power damage anyway) and throwing them into Dueling for Deceptive Evasion so you’ll have a constant clone stream.
You only have 3 forms of blocks, and one is RNG (Chaos Storm), plus your retaliation damage is gonna be kitten poor with no power. Retaliatory Shield (Dueling III) may as well give way to Desperate Decoy (a nice escape and emergency clone to shatter for distortion) or Blade Training (faster counter ftw).

Edit: My bad, I hadn’t noticed that some of the gear had power stats. The build looks better suited for full condition to me, which means the 10 in Illusions may be a bit more worthwhile to hold on to…

As for ‘Smoke & Mirrors,’ eh, I’m not sure. It looks like it suffers from the same problem most hybrid Mesmer builds do: Trying to do too much at once, and ends up being lackluster at both. I see what you’re going for.. but I’m not so certain you’ve hit that sweet spot between power damage and condition damage. Lets have the testers in the guild give it a shot and see what they come up with

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback! I know I’ve talked to you ingame about why there’s power in the build, but I’ll explain here in case anyone else is reading. I originally was using scepter/pistol + greatsword and since iDuelist and GS go well in power, I had Carrion weapons, a few trinkets, and food to boost some power so that I have at least 2500 while still having over 1100 condition damage. With OH sword, it still uses power, but with staff it is more condition oriented.

I wanted to make a hybrid build, but I can understand that I may be spreading out too much. With the scepter getting torment, I hope Anet would do something about its autoattack (maybe give back confusion or even apply chill/poison or certain random condition with each hit).

I’m gonna try your suggestion and use 10/30/30/0/0 with full rabid gear (unless the magic find gears changes to something like ‘condition/precision/vitality’, ‘precision/vitality/toughness’, ‘condition/vitality/toughness’, or similar along the line) and go more condition/tanky to see how that goes. I’ll let you and everyone else know how it goes!

Edit: I’m gonna also try using Torch since it’s more condition oriented. With Deceptive Evasion, iMage can be a bit useful with giving retaliation to me and illusions and giving confusion to foes (wish it was back to 5 seconds or even grant burn condition). Since I have the Meteorlogicus, I’m stuck with Soldier’s for that until Sept. 3rd, but thankfully, it’s not too far away.

I wanted to give an update that I’ve changed Rings on My Fingers build and made two variants of it and giving it new names:

Ringbearer – without Torch

Ringbearer – with Torch

As for Smoke ‘n Mirrors, I *haven’t adjusted or changed anything yet*. For now I’m just focusing on the Ringbearer builds.

I’m not sure if I can pose this, but I do also want to see if I can improve my Flowing Images builds. I’ve made a thread about it so I’m just gonna put the link to that thread here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Builds-Flowing-Images-Aug-12th-update/first#post1821367

Bear in mind that since it was my first build post, it has gone through several revisions due to updates and feedbacks. The latest revisions haven’t gotten much feedback. Since both builds are posted on Fay’s list of builds, I wanted to see about improving them, or just one of them even. It’ll help me decide if they’re worth keeping in the list of mesmer builds or not.

Thank you all in advance for reading my posts and helping me to become a better mesmer.

Edit: Bah! Stupid typo of url link.

Edit2: With the new Dire stats (Condition damage, Toughness, and Vitality) coming on Sept. 3rd, I may do half Rabid and half Dire for the Ringbearer builds and retest the builds. Will be continuing testing more in PvE and dungeons. I may try roaming in WvW with them. Also, restated my Smoke ’n Mirrors statement and will try it once I have tested Ringbearers more.