Guild Wars 2

Scenario: Gunnar’s Hold WvW. Currently fighting Abaddon’s Mouth and Drakkar Lake, facing guild groups running 20+ and zone blobs with 40-80.

First iteration: let me try to switch from Sword/Focus to Staff so I can help eat away some Stability stacks from the enemy.
The build was based on what I was previously running, switching only the Glamours cooldown for the Focus traits.
I really missed the focus pull, but Chaos Storm seems to work decently on the enemy clusters to eat away stacks of stability and make the work easier for my group.

Second iteration: let me see if Halting Strike is better than Empowered Illusions – build
Feels like you are giving up some of your controlled burst (iZerker) to get some random burst on Chaos Storm and a chance for a decent controlled damage on interrupts with iWave. It’s a pretty balanced tradeoff.

Third iteration: let me try something with Boontiful Interruption and Chaotic Interruption
Sounds like a frankenstein-ish build – a weird hybrid Phantasm/Mantra/Interrupt sniper build.

Why 1 in Dueling? Because I can’t play without Vigor, my fault.
5 in Inspiration for the phantasm damage and to keep the handy condi removal and mantra healing.
6 in Chaos to get Boontiful Interruption and Chaotic Interruption (and blink cooldown is always nice).
Why not Mantra of Distraction? Two reasons: it’s a long cooldown and wouldn’t syngergize much with Restorative Mantras, and I don’t think it would make much difference in a group setup (unless I become really lucky and I start finding clustered groups of enemies without stability that are casting something at the same time).

I wasn’t really impressed with the rate of interrupts by random chance with Chaos Storm.
I felt switching BI for Chaotic Dampening was a better choice, because I had Chaos Storm ready on most spikes.

It’s hard to tell the effectiveness of CI in the middle of a zerg fight, and BI didn’t impress me, so that got me thinking that Confounding Suggestions might have been a better option since:

• it’s a 50% chance on every daze instead of random chance that a daze will strike while someone is casting something (still talking about Chaos Storm here)
• to get it, you also get Dazzling that could be very nice on the spike
• while condi removal is widespread in big groups, AoE stun removal is harder to come by, so a Stun might be more effective than Immobilize

Fourth iteration: getting something from both worlds
The build takes both Halting Strike and Empowered Illusions along with Confounding Suggestions and the good stuff in dueling (maybe I’ll switch Protected Mantras to Deceptive Evasion to take advantage of a quick Distortion) and the condi removal on healing.

I plan on testing this last variation tomorrow, maybe messing a bit with the jewels to get a few more HP.

Any other ideas and toughts?
Any other mesmer out there trying to play something else than the focus-party-shatter meta? :P

(I have some footage from the third iteration, I might try to upload it tomorrow)

I made modifications to your ‘fourth’ build to simplify and improve it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdWl0npEtlpxYNUrNiphc6qRXSqAle0lFA-TlBBABRqEEgTBAOq/ki+guU+1z+DkCgJlRA-w

If you want to be able to bomb hard with your team you’re on the wrong class. You can provide heavy ranged spike damage on small groups, but you don’t have aoes like eles and necros.

Since you had already invested in mantras I changed triumphant distortion to harmonious mantras. I also changed your heal to the mantra heal because the mantra heal + harmonious mantras + menders purity + restorative mantras + protective mantras = super synergy, super condi removal, uninterruptable heals with power return and group heals whenever you charge a mantra.

I chose sword focus as your secondary weapon set because being in a guild group you need to think about how your skills not only meet your goals but the goals of your group. With sword you bring defensive capabilities for yourself and immobolize. Immobolize is really overpowered. Focus is also important for interrupting, displacing, pulling enemies. The focus phantasm should be used on downed enemies to put pressure on them and any of their rezzers and the focus pull on walls is an essential part of a ranged bomb.

For your main weapon set you can either use greatsword or staff. I prefer staff in groups because of it’s cover conditions, its low cooldown blink, its chaos armor and etherealfield. Most importantly, chaos storm + halting strike (+ idealy chaotic interruption) placed ontop of a clumped up group of casters will interrupt, damage and apply random conditions. Alternatively, you can place it on your melee train in a location they are about to leap to provide chaos armor to them if they leap or blast, short duration boons and annoyingness to the opposing side.

Furthermore, instead of empowered illusions and confounding suggestions (I think you just chose these because you want too much out of your build) I went further in the inspiration line to provide similar buffs and more. The minor grandmaster trait ‘Phantasmal Strength’ increases your phantasm’s damage by 15% anyway. As an added bonus you can then decrease the cooldown/add reflection to your focus and provide 2.5K heals every time you charge a mantra which should be a lot considering you want to use mantra of pain. Mantra of pain vitually has no cooldown, so the faster you spam it the more group heals you give when you need to charge it up again.

This version of your build I believe will provide what you wanted and even more.

Personally, as a mesmer who raids with a T2 guild almost every night, I prefer to go full zerker. You seem uncomfortable with that based on the gear that you chose, but really, blink + phase retreat + distortion + not getting out of position + your team you are way more survivable than most other caster classes.

I’ve tried a lot of stuff that’s very similar to some of your iterations. All of my experiments ultimately end in more or less the same way though: frustrated at the complete and total lack of any reliable aoe pressure that has less than a 30 second cooldown.

Yeah, you can drop chaos storm in a zerg and it’ll do some decent work…once every 35 seconds. Then you’re left with spamming iZerker and mind stab off cooldown. iZerker spins once then smushes, spins in a random direction, and requires a target to use. Mind stab really is still awful considering the cooldown and just doesn’t do much.

Then you’ve got glamours that you can toss down…which do some stuff I guess. Null field is nice of course, for what it does, and feedback can be great…but more often is worthless as most zergs are not projectile-heavy.

Ultimately I just end up with the distinct impression that I’d be contributing far more by spamming random buttons on a staff ele.

Fay.2357:

I’ve tried a lot of stuff that’s very similar to some of your iterations. All of my experiments ultimately end in more or less the same way though: frustrated at the complete and total lack of any reliable aoe pressure that has less than a 30 second cooldown.

Yeah, you can drop chaos storm in a zerg and it’ll do some decent work…once every 35 seconds. Then you’re left with spamming iZerker and mind stab off cooldown. iZerker spins once then smushes, spins in a random direction, and requires a target to use. Mind stab really is still awful considering the cooldown and just doesn’t do much.

Then you’ve got glamours that you can toss down…which do some stuff I guess. Null field is nice of course, for what it does, and feedback can be great…but more often is worthless as most zergs are not projectile-heavy.

Ultimately I just end up with the distinct impression that I’d be contributing far more by spamming random buttons on a staff ele.

Lol, I know right. But to be fair we can provide
certain utilities that other classes cant which is why at least 1 mesmer is always welcome in any guild group but at the end of the day we serve as an extra utility bar for the driver basically.

We had a fun build before the glamour nerfs…but oh well. Lets not derail ops post with moaning though. Lets try to help him improve what he has and just work with what weve got.

Fay.2357:

Ultimately I just end up with the distinct impression that I’d be contributing far more by spamming random buttons on a staff ele.

I’ll add: ..so much so that, despite being a full time mesmer main, I’ve gone to the trouble of fully ascending my zerk staff ele.

After being so intimiate with Mesmer, it’s just SO satisfying having that affair with the ele. It’s orgasmic.

fluxit.8247:

I made modifications to your ‘fourth’ build to simplify and improve it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdWl0npEtlpxYNUrNiphc6qRXSqAle0lFA-TlBBABRqEEgTBAOq/ki+guU+1z+DkCgJlRA-w

This is a variation of what I was playing before, with some different choices that I don’t agree with.

fluxit.8247:

If you want to be able to bomb hard with your team you’re on the wrong class. You can provide heavy ranged spike damage on small groups, but you don’t have aoes like eles and necros.

We have heavy ranged burst on 5 targets, that’s more than enough for an organized group… there’s no need to carpet a wide area when you manage to kill 3-5 people on the spike…

fluxit.8247:

Since you had already invested in mantras I changed triumphant distortion to harmonious mantras. I also changed your heal to the mantra heal because the mantra heal + harmonious mantras + menders purity + restorative mantras + protective mantras = super synergy, super condi removal, uninterruptable heals with power return and group heals whenever you charge a mantra.

I’d rather have an invulnerable iZerker that can hit for up to 8k than another MoP that can hit or 2-3k…

fluxit.8247:

I chose sword focus as your secondary weapon set because being in a guild group you need to think about how your skills not only meet your goals but the goals of your group. With sword you bring defensive capabilities for yourself and immobolize. Immobolize is really overpowered. Focus is also important for interrupting, displacing, pulling enemies.

As I said, I did miss my focus pull. I don’t 100% agree with the immobilize being OP, because most of the times your clone will die before you can swap. When you land it, sure, it’s powerful. But you can’t rely on that.

And the whole point experimenting with Staff was about consuming Stability stacks with Chaos Storm. I won’t give up my gs: playing SW/Focus + Staff doesn’t give you any decent ranged damage.

fluxit.8247:

Most importantly, chaos storm + halting strike (+ idealy chaotic interruption) placed ontop of a clumped up group of casters will interrupt, damage and apply random conditions.

That was the whole point of having a staff, and I’m not really impressed so far

fluxit.8247:

Furthermore, instead of empowered illusions and confounding suggestions (I think you just chose these because you want too much out of your build) I went further in the inspiration line to provide similar buffs and more.

If you even bothered to check the first build, that’s basically what I’m already playing ^^

fluxit.8247:

Personally, as a mesmer who raids with a T2 guild almost every night, I prefer to go full zerker. You seem uncomfortable with that based on the gear that you chose, but really, blink + phase retreat + distortion + not getting out of position + your team you are way more survivable than most other caster classes.

I am playing 2-6-0-6-0 in a mix of zerk and assassin gear. Some of the builds I tried have 3 jewels switched to knights for a bit more toughness to survive bigger blobs, but I’m perfectly comfortable playing zerk most of the time.

Fay.2357:

I’ve tried a lot of stuff that’s very similar to some of your iterations. All of my experiments ultimately end in more or less the same way though: frustrated at the complete and total lack of any reliable aoe pressure that has less than a 30 second cooldown.

Yeah, you can drop chaos storm in a zerg and it’ll do some decent work…once every 35 seconds. Then you’re left with spamming iZerker and mind stab off cooldown. iZerker spins once then smushes, spins in a random direction, and requires a target to use. Mind stab really is still awful considering the cooldown and just doesn’t do much.

Adding Mantra of Pain to the mix gives a bit more options, but still, requires a target, and has a long recharge time…

Fay.2357:

Then you’ve got glamours that you can toss down…which do some stuff I guess. Null field is nice of course, for what it does, and feedback can be great…but more often is worthless as most zergs are not projectile-heavy.

I don’t think giving up MoP for Null Field of Feedback is worth it, as you said, they are both nice, but situational, and with long cooldowns…

Fay.2357:

Ultimately I just end up with the distinct impression that I’d be contributing far more by spamming random buttons on a staff ele.

I don’t know.

Ele has a lot of damage, but not “bursty” as our combos (iZerk + MoP / Mind Stab + MoP / Mirror Blade + Mind Wrack), same is for Necro wells and Life Transfer.

What I really envy from them is access to reliable (as in “non-RNG-based”) Chill and Poison and field control (walls, static fields, fear), and access to a variety of AoE effects, instead of just a few skills, and class mechanics that work well in big groups, instead of our broken clone/shatter system.

Playing on mesmer feels like you need to triple your effort to have the same results

Posted a few clips – not my best fights, but that’s all I got from yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgaDn13r6yo

If I wanted to go for tagging, I would run something like this with MoP on auto-attack:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJARWlknpMtloxYNUrNipBdqqQ6AkgBU6SchiC-TFDBABdpsYUVcqU9gzUCilSMJeAAAcBA8SpQe6CKa/BGOCAbcIACAgAczbmNvZghO0hO0hO0uuNH6NH6NLFATCjA-w

Menaka.5092:

This is a variation of what I was playing before, with some different choices that I don’t agree with.

For the record there are very distinct differences between the modified build that I created and any of your four builds. For example, one difference is that I chose to use exotic gear (with ascended trinkets) as a more accurate representation of your actual stats. If you do actually have all of that ascended equipment along with all those infusions then you wasted a lot of time, money and laurels.

My modified build also has a focus: the focus being mantras. As I said in my previous post your build is trying to do TOO much. In fact, all of your builds are.
For instance:
- You want halting strike but you lack a lot of reliable interrupts.
- You want glamour mastery but all you have is veil. Why not take null field as well?
- You invest into mantra buffing traits but all you have is mantra of pain which you admittedly would rather not have in the first place. _
- _You want mender’s purity for condition removals but you use ether feast. This is okay, but think of it like this. You have been loaded up with soft control conditions like chill, blind, cripple and immobilize and you’re getting focused down by a thief or two in the backline. You blink but it was useless anyway, you are moving like a turtle and those thieves are running circles around you. You’re gonna have to blow your 20 second cd heal but oh kitten, the thieves interrupted you. DEAD. You have already invested into mantras, the mantra heal + menders purity is perfect for a quick uninterruptable top-up of health and condition removal, and the charge time is not a problem. You have plenty of time to charge your mantras when the driver calls for water/reset. _
- _You want triumphant distortion for its 1 second of invulnerability on yourself and your phantasm when you cast one. This is okay, but its not a game changing trait. Remember that there is a delay between when the phantasm spawns and when the phantasm attacks. Meaning your phantasm gets at most half a second of invulnerable damage time in before it becomes vulnerable to damage again. You phantasms do damage with or without this trait. The most important thing is WHERE you cast it.

So I watched your video and I didn’t see any 8ks from your berserker, lol. Your build is fine as a veil bot and your ranged damage is okay but a zerker necro and zerker ele would do mountains more damage than you’re currently doing.

Think about how much more damage you would bring to your guild group if you pulled targets together ready for a bomb so they don’t all escape out of your groups aoes and hammer train. Or imagine how many more bags your group would get if you immobilized and pulled targets as they were trying to retreat from your group. Imagine how much havoc you could cause if you focused your range pressure on the opposing team’s casters. Or imagine how useful a few timely reflects would be to mitigate ranged damage for a short time.

All I’m arguing is that, you are not important in a team fight. Its not about how much single target damage you alone can pump out. It’s about how you can support your group to improve everybody’s damage and or mitigate the damage everybody receives.

These are the reasons why I chose the traits and skills that I chose when I modified your build. I don’t care if you’re not impressed by my critique.

This is what I personally run when running with my guild.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdWl0npGtFrxMNUrRipxY6eiJnTVFpCokhMOA-TlBBwAYV+B4UAgT9nU6D6t/wZlgkCgJlRA-w

The goal of this build is to do damage yes, but more importantly cause choas, pull and interrupt people and generally be a giant nuisance, especially when they try to reset and pull out, to catch people out of position and lock down people before your driver goes in for a bomb. It constantly reaps 25 stacks of might almost instantly and thus can churn out some much bigger numbers than what I see in your video.

I’m not trying to suggest that my build is better, but just that it has a very clear focus. It’s a lockdown build. I hope it gives you some interesting ideas to play with some other traits.

fluxit.8247:

Menaka.5092:

This is a variation of what I was playing before, with some different choices that I don’t agree with.

For the record there are very distinct differences between the modified build that I created and any of your four builds. For example, one difference is that I chose to use exotic gear (with ascended trinkets) as a more accurate representation of your actual stats. If you do actually have all of that ascended equipment along with all those infusions then you wasted a lot of time, money and laurels.

The build was made with what’s my actual gear, yeah. I have more than 5k hours played and I crafted ascended armor and weapons and bought ascended trinkets; I fail to see how it is “wasted” since I use it every day

Also, I have Bolt sitting in my inventory.

fluxit.8247:

My modified build also has a focus: the focus being mantras.

As I said, I’d rather have an invulnerable iZerker than another MoP, because it provides more burst.

fluxit.8247:

As I said in my previous post your build is trying to do TOO much. In fact, all of your builds are.
For instance:
- You want halting strike but you lack a lot of reliable interrupts.

Your build used focus and staff, my builds are using GS and staff, these weapon sets both have one “reliable” interrupt (focus pull vs iWave) and a RNG-based one (chaos storm). Actually, I could argue that Mirror Blade + Diversion is another “reliable” interrupt, but I won’t.

fluxit.8247:

- You want glamour mastery but all you have is veil. Why not take null field as well?

What should I give up for Null Field? MoP? Losing a lot of damage for a long cooldown skill that might or might not be of any use against an organized group that will move away from it in 1 or 2 seconds…

Glamour mastery would allow me to use veil again in mid fight in some scenarios, and that would make a huge difference for my group.

fluxit.8247:

- _You invest into mantra buffing traits but all you have is mantra of pain which you admittedly would rather not have in the first place. _

Where did I say I would rather not have MoP? It’s a main source of damage for these builds and really good on the spike.

In some builds I invested one trait in mantras, in others I invested 2 traits, and they both synergize perfectly with a low-cooldown mantra like MoP (providing toughness and healing in tight situations).

fluxit.8247:

You have already invested into mantras, the mantra heal + menders purity is perfect for a quick uninterruptable top-up of health and condition removal, and the charge time is not a problem. You have plenty of time to charge your mantras when the driver calls for water/reset. _

Doesn’t work for me. Maybe it’s my playstyle, but I’d rather have one big heal with a short cast than MoR. Of your suggestions, that’s the only one I would consider, but it would work only with the triple mantra, and I’m not open to take that trait over TD.

fluxit.8247:

- _You want triumphant distortion for its 1 second of invulnerability on yourself and your phantasm when you cast one. This is okay, but its not a game changing trait.

Did you even bother reading the trait? Doesn’t work like that. I’m not gonna discuss this further with you since you don’t know what you’re talking about.

fluxit.8247:

Think about how much more damage you would bring to your guild group if you pulled targets together ready for a bomb so they don’t all escape out of your groups aoes and hammer train. Or imagine how many more bags your group would get if you immobilized and pulled targets as they were trying to retreat from your group. Imagine how much havoc you could cause if you focused your range pressure on the opposing team’s casters. Or imagine how useful a few timely reflects would be to mitigate ranged damage for a short time.

If you even bothered watching one of the dozens other videos I published, you would have seen that that was pretty much what I was doing.

I’m testing new things, and this thread is about what I’m seeing testing these new things.

fluxit.8247:

All I’m arguing is that, you are not important in a team fight. Its not about how much single target damage you alone can pump out. It’s about how you can support your group to improve everybody’s damage and or mitigate the damage everybody receives.

What I am arguing is that… that is exactly what I’m looking for.
I wanted to try and see if chaos storm stripping stacks of Stability, stunning or immobilizing and applying vulnerability on the spike was a better option that what I was previously running.

fluxit.8247:

These are the reasons why I chose the traits and skills that I chose when I modified your build. I don’t care if you’re not impressed by my critique.

I never said I was not impressed by your critique, I said I don’t agree with some of your choices, based on my playstyle and my experience with my group. In fact, the “I’m not impressed” line was referring to CI and BI, and I stand by it, at least for the WvW group/zerg busting scenario.

fluxit.8247:

This is what I personally run when running with my guild.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdWl0npGtFrxMNUrRipxY6eiJnTVFpCokhMOA-TlBBwAYV+B4UAgT9nU6D6t/wZlgkCgJlRA-w

The goal of this build is to do damage yes, but more importantly cause choas, pull and interrupt people and generally be a giant nuisance, especially when they try to reset and pull out, to catch people out of position and lock down people before your driver goes in for a bomb. It constantly reaps 25 stacks of might almost instantly and thus can churn out some much bigger numbers than what I see in your video.

I’m not trying to suggest that my build is better, but just that it has a very clear focus. It’s a lockdown build. I hope it gives you some interesting ideas to play with some other traits.

Do you have any video of you playing this?
I’m very curious about these big numbers you are talking about, since your only source of damage are Halting Strike and the sword autoattack.

My apologies, I offended your ego. But if you dont like my critique then I guess you werent looking for advice. Let me make this easy by no longer posting in this thread. I dont want to turn this into a contest.

fluxit.8247:

My apologies, I offended your ego. But if you dont like my critique then I guess you werent looking for advice. Let me make this easy by no longer posting in this thread. I dont want to turn this into a contest.

This isn’t a contest indeed, it is a thread about the builds I was testing to see if those are more effective than what I was previously running.

I explained why I don’t agree with some of your choices or why I think those wouldn’t work for me and my group. It’s nothing personal.

You say your build is a lot better both damage and control wise, I asked for any video proof, because I cannot envision it working at all. Is it too much to ask for?

I have plenty of videos on my channel that show my gameplay because I know I’m not the best mesmer out there and I am open to critique, advice and suggestions.

Menaka.5092:

Doesn’t work for me. Maybe it’s my playstyle, but I’d rather have one big heal with a short cast than MoR. Of your suggestions, that’s the only one I would consider, but it would work only with the triple mantra, and I’m not open to take that trait over TD.

I’d definitely recommend taking another look at MoR, particularly if you’re using mender’s purity. It works really effectively with the ebb and flow of group fights in WvW. When you’re engaging, you’ve got instant heals and condition removals that you can hit as necessary. The engagement will usually cool off about 15-20 seconds later; allowing you to recharge it for the next engage. It’s a very efficient skill, and lets you put more time into actually dealing damage/other offense since it has no cast time until the recharge.

I’ve always felt that Portal is just to invaluable for an organized group to not have.

• Initiate with portal
• Jump out for heals and jump back in
• Bypass a larger group

If you watch some of the organized play from Osicat (yes, I know, older videos), you’ll see he did that quite a bit. Most often portal was used to allow his small group to take on larger groups as it gave them the mobility to cut deep, portal out, heal up, portal in, cut deeper. Between portal and Mass Invis, you provide invaluable tools that can enable a smaller group to take on a larger one.

For fighting in zergs I’ve always found Greatsword and Scepter/Focus to be quite useful given:

• Greatsword spawns its clone and phantasm in the middle of your opponents for shatter and/or on-clone-death to hit
• Greatsword provides some pushes which can be situationally useful
• Greatsword can’t be reflected … just watch out for retaliation
• Greatsword adds another boon removal
• Focus summons phantasm in the middle of your opponents … pairs will with pulls, immobs, etc.
• Focus phantasm blocks/reflects projectiles
• Focus traited provides another reflection as well as good pull CC
• I prefer Scepter over Sword due to being ranged so I can be more flexible with positioning.
• Scepter block can be used on the move while Blurred Frenzy roots you
• Scepter 3rd auto-attack, if you’re getting it off, spawns the clone in the middle of your opponent’s … good for shatter and/or on-clone-death.

Fay.2357:

Menaka.5092:

Doesn’t work for me. Maybe it’s my playstyle, but I’d rather have one big heal with a short cast than MoR. Of your suggestions, that’s the only one I would consider, but it would work only with the triple mantra, and I’m not open to take that trait over TD.

I’d definitely recommend taking another look at MoR, particularly if you’re using mender’s purity. It works really effectively with the ebb and flow of group fights in WvW. When you’re engaging, you’ve got instant heals and condition removals that you can hit as necessary. The engagement will usually cool off about 15-20 seconds later; allowing you to recharge it for the next engage. It’s a very efficient skill, and lets you put more time into actually dealing damage/other offense since it has no cast time until the recharge.

Still unconvinced, but I’ll give it a try. I’m not really feeling like conditions are a big problem: when I end up using my heal is usually because I had to go through some AoE field and didn’t have or didn’t want to use blink.

Sebrent.3625:

I’ve always felt that Portal is just to invaluable for an organized group to not have.

• Initiate with portal
• Jump out for heals and jump back in
• Bypass a larger group

If you watch some of the organized play from Osicat (yes, I know, older videos), you’ll see he did that quite a bit.

I know, I love Portal! When we have the luxury of having two mesmers in our raid, I usually run Portal, in all other cases I switch from Veil to Portal when I see it fit (there are some Portal videos in my channel).

Sebrent.3625:

For fighting in zergs I’ve always found Greatsword and Scepter/Focus to be quite useful

I tested Scepter/Sword and Scepter/Focus ages ago (when Scepter was still a “hybrid” weapon), but never got around the clumsyness of Scepter autoattack. Now it’s more of a condi weapon and I wouldn’t take it in a power build.

Posted a new video of me playing the Iteration 4 build (66020).

What’s good:

• Damage
• Stability stacks stripping with Chaos Storm
• Applying Vulnerability with Chaos Storm/Daze
• Phase Retreat

What’s bad:

• Even with TD, you feel very squishy
• Retaliation will eat you alive
• I miss Restorative Mantras

What I can’t tell:

• How effective Confounding Suggestions is

Next iteration (iteration 5)
I’ll try to give up CS and get back RM (and 1k HP), and I’ll give a try to MoR.

Didn’t raid much in the last few week, but I tested Mantra of Restoration a bit and it worked nicely in most fights, but I felt really under pressure when we were heavily outnumbered (thinking back to it, it would probably have been the same with Ether Feast).

Something I really loved was to be able to cast Power Return while recharging Mantra of Pain (with Restorative Mantras).

Since the new meta is really punishing for the melee group and they can’t stay much in the enemy and make use of Timewarp, I started playing with Mass Invisibility, using it mid-fight, and switched to Portal. I also tried switching Protected Mantras to Far-Reaching Manipulations so I could blink behind the enemy to drop the portal – iteration 6

Now I’m testing how it feels like having Deceptive Evasion – iteration 7 (it’s always nice to be able to Phase Retreat/Dodge + Distortion…)

I posted 2 videos in which I’m playing these last 3 iterations:

• Babysitting
• Thinking with portals in the new meta

Menaka.5092:

• Babysitting
• Thinking with portals in the new meta

Some quality work with Portals there.

It’s hard to tell without stepping through in slow motion, but Triumphant Distortion does seem to be helping quite a bit — pretty sure I saw one phantasm actually last long enough to attack twice?

I’m still not really sold on Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Pain, to be honest. In the videos, you spend a lot of time more than 360 away from any allies. How often were you actually getting group heals out of it?

There’s something else I noticed about your group’s tactics. Might be worth thinking about, might be superfluous… You all obviously focus fire on tag effectively, but when an enemy player is out of position and vulnerable, it often seems to turn into a 1-on-1 chase. Whereas I think ideally you’d see several people focus them down quickly so you don’t have to break off from the engagement so much yourself to pursue.

ASP.8093:

Menaka.5092:

• Babysitting
• Thinking with portals in the new meta

It’s hard to tell without stepping through in slow motion, but Triumphant Distortion does seem to be helping quite a bit — pretty sure I saw one phantasm actually last long enough to attack twice?

TD will kick in and spare you randomly, and let your iZerker get a round off. Two though? I mean, I thought of the iZerker getting a spin off, and then a second however many seconds later. My following thought was my full zerk staff ele dropping a meteor storm with rock hitting 5 targets for 5k damage on the lower end -_-u.

I’ve all but abandoned my mes in large scale. It’s just more rewarding playing the zerk staff ele.

Ross Biddle.2367:

I’ve all but abandoned my mes in large scale. It’s just more rewarding playing the zerk staff ele.

Well, large scale is such a horrific laggy mess right now that I try my kitten dest not to contribute to it at all.

(In all seriousness, though, I’ve found a niche I like in WvW, and that’s a ranged-heavy havoc team. We also provide fire support in ZvZ, picking off anyone who’s out of position. So I basically get to enjoy every aspect of WvW running a dirty havoc build.)

ASP.8093:

It’s hard to tell without stepping through in slow motion, but Triumphant Distortion does seem to be helping quite a bit — pretty sure I saw one phantasm actually last long enough to attack twice?

I’ve seen it happen, but it’s very rare and only happens on guild groups that focus their AoE fields on a single place. Against zergs you’ll find AoE scattered everywhere and the phantasm will die after the first attack.

Still, TD is really helpful: each time it pops you can go through CC fields and/or recharge your mantras “for free”

ASP.8093:

I’m still not really sold on Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Pain, to be honest. In the videos, you spend a lot of time more than 360 away from any allies. How often were you actually getting group heals out of it?

When the fights are tighter (severely outnumbered) I’ll go back on every regroup (or even more) to fill my heal in, in these fights I was focusing more on the portals and picking off targets.

ASP.8093:

There’s something else I noticed about your group’s tactics. Might be worth thinking about, might be superfluous… You all obviously focus fire on tag effectively, but when an enemy player is out of position and vulnerable, it often seems to turn into a 1-on-1 chase. Whereas I think ideally you’d see several people focus them down quickly so you don’t have to break off from the engagement so much yourself to pursue.

We rarely have the luxury of a focus party
Yeah, it’s way more efficient when you can finish a bad positioned target quickly.

ASP.8093:

Ross Biddle.2367:

I’ve all but abandoned my mes in large scale. It’s just more rewarding playing the zerk staff ele.

Well, large scale is such a horrific laggy mess right now that I try my kitten dest not to contribute to it at all.

(In all seriousness, though, I’ve found a niche I like in WvW, and that’s a ranged-heavy havoc team. We also provide fire support in ZvZ, picking off anyone who’s out of position. So I basically get to enjoy every aspect of WvW running a dirty havoc build.)

Ok, this I can accept. I’ve head up the sniper team in my guild raid too. All power mes/rangers/and whatever trash classes are at play such as engies :p

Really enjoyed the videos, some good fights there!

Kazhiel.8194:

Really enjoyed the videos, some good fights there!

thanks! more to come