Guild Wars 2

I hope you like those three words, because you’ll be hearing them a lot if you use this build.

—A quick note before we begin: If this build already exists or there is something similar out there, then good. Because that means we’re adapting. Link it to me and then we can keep discussing various things, and bringing attention to Mesmer tanking.—

Anyways. It’s really simple. Really, there are only two major things needed for this build.

1. Restorative Mantras — You will be casting Mantras. a lot. Mantra of Pain is the wondrous ability that makes Restorative Mantras worth it all. As you all know, MoP has a 1 second cooldown. At level 80 with 642 Healing Power, every time I ready a Mantra I heal myself and others around me for about 2.7k. That is pretty decent. For good support.
2. Prismatic Understanding – - You will be stealthing. a lot. When you stealth you get to drop target off of you and can cast a Mantra while waiting to pop out of it. So you take PI to get a metric ton of defensive buffs and make your cloaking last longer. Pretty simple.

I use this build in WvW and in when doing dungeons without friends, as I do not trust random dungeonmates.

It’s fairly flexible, and I’m still trying different things, mainly it’s the playstyle that you have to go to.

Gear and Sigils
I use Power/Vitality/Toughness gear, with Sigil of Dwayna runes. Alternatively, someone should throw on some Carrion or other such Condi gear and tell me how they do, seeing as your weapons are primarily condi. Dwayna runes are nice because you will have a ton of Regeneration. Step near a phantasm? There’s some regen. Hit 75% health? Have some regeneration. Get hit? 5% chance of regeneration. Use Mantra of Recovery? Have some more. Take a kitten? Hell, why not slab some regeneration on.

Recommended Utilities

1. Mantra of Pain. Duh.
2. Decoy is also mandatory. More stealth means more life. And it’s a stunbreak.
3. is up to you. Depending on your food, playstyle, or the situation, this slot is really up for debate. I use Blink for snatching downed players and for general utility (and teleporting thieves, which you can blink after midstomp). If you’re having trouble with Conditions, then throw up Power Cleanse. If you just want to be more tanky, go with Phantasmal Defender.
4. The elite should be Mass Invisibility, 6 seconds of stealth is pretty good.
5. The healing spell will be Mantra of Recovery. 10 sec cooldown, every time you cast a charge it will remove a condition (trait) and apply regen once every 10 sec (Dwayna). Then you can recharge it and heal again.

Weapons
Use the Staff and ?/Torch. Pretty much this could also work as a Condition build, maybe if you use Carrion or something to be a little tanky at the same time. Staff is just too good for Mantras, as you can use #2/4 while charging them, and Torch for the stealth. I use Sword to catch stragglers and for the evasion.

Why.
Do you ever want to kitten off a lot of people? Want to heal your allies? Go tank them, kill one or two. Get your allies back to full hp while doing minimal damage to the enemy. Get around half health? Make sure Mantra of Pain is down, hit The Prestige, or Decoy, or Mass Invisibility, then charge up MoP. Come out of stealth 2.5-3k~ hp higher and with prot, regen and aegis stacks. Blow MoP and do it again. and again.

Want to cast MoP without stealth? Do it. Put on your staff and #2 midway through the cast. Apply #4 while casting MoP. Stand in Chaos Storm while casting MoP. Situations permitting, of course.

I don’t like Deceptive Evasion.
Don’t use it. Put the points into something else. (Although I’d recommend keeping Protected Mantras.) I use it because with the extra stealth time, I can roll midway through the duration and enemies think I’ve popped out of stealth.

In Conclusion

This is a kittenty guide. But it’s 2 AM and I just wanted to throw this on the forums for everyone to be reminded of the insane durability we can have, and that Mantras aren’t useless. Try it out.

X. For future use if I decide to update this further. Also, I’d have a video up but my computer’s not available. So that will have to wait.

Well, your build has some similarities with mine. Except I use the Dueling line instead of PU. In PvE I don’t like stealthing, but I haven’t tested PU yet.
So compared to you, I use Focus offhand and a “random” skill instead of decoy.

But well, to your build

• I don’t like to go full defense with the equip. Mesmer is not the damaging class, but an evasion one. So you shouldn’t neglet all of your damage from equipment … unless you intent to be mainly a healer/ buffer for your party.
• Protected mantras … is just bad. Get far reaching manipulation for blink or phantasmal fury
• Deceptive Evasion … you said you don’t like it, but have it in your traits. Better go for reduced mantra CDs there. It really helps healing mantra, but makes it faster than Dwayna runes (btw, their CD is more like 15s, not 10)
• reduced damage from illusions. I really wonder … don’t you intend to evade attacks? You stack up toughness and vitality, reduced damage … but then you’re a mesmer with stealth build. I assume that’s because you wanna go WvW. In dungeons you’re supposed to be able to dodge, especially when you go for stealth build.
• Sigils … you use three sigils with cooldowns … Do you know that those block each other ? I know, two of them are on weaponswap, but once the sigil of water triggers, it’s unlikely that the sigil of engery in the second weaponset triggers … ever … and that’s the most expensive one.

Relax dude, I’m not trying to compete with your build.

A) Then don’t. I just compliment my evasion with tanky gear and live a lot longer.
B) 400 Toughness is not that bad?
C) That was to be a remark from the reader, not myself.
D) I’m not going to answer any more of these, because you’re starting to not make sense. Except for the sigils, which I just threw on there.

Besides, you’re completely missing the point. You don’t go with a Mantra build if you’re looking for damage. This is clearly a defensive spec. So, in truth, your build probably doesn’t have as much in common as you thought with mine. You don’t even stealth.

Stranger.2039:

Relax dude, I’m not trying to compete with your build.

A) Then don’t. I just compliment my evasion with tanky gear and live a lot longer.
B) 400 Toughness is not that bad?
C) That was to be a remark from the reader, not myself.
D) I’m not going to answer any more of these, because you’re starting to not make sense. Except for the sigils, which I just threw on there.

Besides, you’re completely missing the point. You don’t go with a Mantra build if you’re looking for damage. This is clearly a defensive spec. So, in truth, your build probably doesn’t have as much in common as you thought with mine. You don’t even stealth.

I’m not comparing your build(‘s effectiviy) to mine(’s). Just meant that I know about several features since I’m running a similar one.

1. I just meant that your build deals no damage at all. You collect boons … for what ? Sharing them with the signet ? then you should probably trait signets (Domination 10) and stack more boon duration (runes). Your build is designed to collect boons, tank and bit aoe heal, so it’s a 70% survival + 30% heal build. Is thakittens intended path ? Like a support guardian, you will not be able to kill anything alone.
2. I don’t find 400 toughness attractive enough over phantasmal fury or far reaching manipulations. Unless you’re using MoP as auto-attack (ctrl + right mouse). For survival you could also use Desperate decoy or Blade training, basically almost anything but protected mantras.
3. misunderstood it, but yeah, you tried to format it as a “if you don’t like …”
4. better check the wiki if you do not believe me. You’re using 3 sigils with cool downs …
5. as I said … instead I traited mantra CD and precision (for perm vigor). I don’t need to stealth to survive, though boons would be nice to have, but for me not for 30 points.