Guild Wars 2

What is the OMFG WvW Division?

The OMFG WvW division will be an organized, 20 person WvW raiding group composed entirely of mesmers. We will be running designated build compositions designed to fit into the idea and theme behind the function of the group.

What is the goal of the OMFG WvW Division?

The ultimate goal is to have fun. That being said, I’ve generally observed that having fun as a direct correlation with winning. Therefore, the direct goal of this group is to win.

Who will be the driver?

The driver will be myself.

What qualifications does this driver have?

I have no idea what I’m doing. Additionally, I’m certifiably insane.

When will the OMFG WvW Division raid?

Raid times will be determined based on general availability of those that would like to join. We’ll initially try to start with 2-3 raids per week, increasing based on interest and availability. Due to limitations on current Mesmer capabilities, raids won’t begin until after the release of HoT.

What server will the OMFG WvW Division raid on?

I’m currently located on the Fort Aspenwood server. A decent number of other OMFG mesmers are on this server with me, but I’m open to the possibility of a transfer if a convincing argument can be made.

What is the idea and theme behind the function of the group?

The general principle is that of being able to unload enough cc (with judicious boon stripping) onto an enemy zerg that they can be interrupted, locked down, and killed even through stability. In order to do this, we’ll need utility and options that unfortunately won’t be available until the HoT release. My purpose in announcing the raid this early is to allow for plentiful theorycrafting and organization so that we can begin raiding soon after the release of HoT.

How will you accomplish this lockdown of a zerg?

There are several main elements to the amount of control necessary to do this, but it comes in 3 main packages.

The first is shield 5: Tides of Time. This skill is an infinite target attack that stuns all enemies it passes through. If 20 mesmers use this through a group at the same time, this skill alone will chew through more than the amount of stability stacks that most groups have. Additionally, it hits twice per cast; once out and once in.

The second is a tool that we all know well: Chaos storm. Normally chaos storm is limited to being a nice aoe to toss out now and then. However, this changes with the upcoming trait revamp. The staff trait allows us to potentially lower the cooldown of chaos storm (assuming the 5% cd per pulse remains) to 12.72 seconds with permanent upkeep of chaos armor. In a full group of mesmers, permanent chaos armor upkeep won’t be much of a problem. This means that every Mesmer in the group will be able to drop a chaos storm roughly once every 15 seconds. Combined with stun walls moving through an enemy zerg, 20 chaos storms dropped on every single movement is devastating.

The last is tool is Gravity Well. This is the elite well that we’ve seen teased in the Chronomancer information. It is a 5 target aoe skill that pulses a pull towards the center of the well 3 times in a row before delivering some sort of a stronger cc (noted that the current effect may change) with the last pulse. Each gravity well is 4 separate hits of hard cc. Assuming an opposing group of 50 people, each enemy will be hit by 2 wells at any given time, for a total of 8 hits of cc to each person over the duration of the well.

Lastly, since every Mesmer in this group will be specced into chronomancy, take everything and double it, just for fun.

Will somebody still be a veilbot?

No. Nobody in the group will need to be running veil. Every person will be contributing in a meaningful way to the damage and lockdown of the raid.

How will this group accomplish defense and survive being hit?

The entire group will have close to 100% uptime on chaos armor. With that much chaos armor, roughly 50% flat damage mitigation is achieved purely from blinds. Additionally, mesmers using condition removal mantras, mender’s purity, and stability mantras will be dispersed through the group to give us a bit of resistance in the face of an attack.

If you have any questions about this initiative, or would like to join/help out, either toss me a PM on the forums, reply to this thread, or PM me in game.

Edit: If you’re on EU and are unwilling/unable to transfer to NA for this but still want to participate, speak up in this thread. I’ll keep track of people in this situation and if there’s enough interest, do my best to organize a similar raid in the EU region.

This sounds like fun.

I’m currently on FA and am usually on during ocx and sea time. My current guild dx, although waning in numbers after our transfer from SoS a few months ago, usually raids nightly during sea time.

I dont have access to gw2 at the moment due to a broken computer but it should be fixed soon. I’d certainly be interested in joining an all mesmer raid although I am not a member of OMFG.

Yoroshiku.

Edit: Im also available to help train and give advice especially during ocx time when Im most bored and spend my time in pvp or roaming. My mesmer main’s in game name is Nero Vane.

@fluxit:

Sounds good, I’ll mark you down. What times during the week will you be available? Keep in mind that this raid won’t launch until HoT, which likely is coming in late august.

As an SoSian, will surely enjoy to fight you on the battle ground

I’ll get in on this~ Though its been a while since I’ve WvW’ed, I feel I just need the gear and I’ll be good.

And, on that note, how do you plan we deal with the “pirate ship” meta people are always crying about? We have Distortion, so that’s something, but we might want something more to be able to break through CC wards. Maybe use Signet trait in Domination for more Distortion, or perhaps stun-break mantra[which’ll help the whole squad].

There are various other things possible if we’re looking at all of Mesmer’s potential possibilities, but that’s probably the most important bit to solve first.

Holy amaze-OMFG-balls… this is the most exciting things ever! Will you be driving on OMFG or FA ts? I’m envisioning choreographed portal bombing, multiple parties blasting unsuspecting guilds with Tides of Time from every direction, and then reigning Chaos.

Count me in!

My character name is Orywwn and I’ll join and help out however I can. My schedule varies, but generally weekdays 4-6pm and weekends 9-11am PST

Exciton.8942:

As an SoSian, will surely enjoy to fight you on the battle ground

I’d join you! Actually need to rejoin OMFG though… Left due to guild slot pressure and no one being online during Australian time zones

@Fay: During the week, usually between 6pm-12pm (UTC +9:00) unless I’m busy. Guild raids usually start at 10-11 for me though.

Dondagora.9645:

And, on that note, how do you plan we deal with the “pirate ship” meta people are always crying about? We have Distortion, so that’s something, but we might want something more to be able to break through CC wards. Maybe use Signet trait in Domination for more Distortion, or perhaps stun-break mantra[which’ll help the whole squad].

It’s difficult to get a full raid through a choke that’s being sieged up. It’s easy for one stealthed mesmer carrying a portal to get through. This isn’t usually done because there’s not usually a mesmer able to do that, but it’s quite easy with PU and blink. Once one person is through, everyone is through.

Ponyboy.6145:

Holy amaze-OMFG-balls… this is the most exciting things ever! Will you be driving on OMFG or FA ts? I’m envisioning choreographed portal bombing, multiple parties blasting unsuspecting guilds with Tides of Time from every direction, and then reigning Chaos.

Count me in!

My character name is Orywwn and I’ll join and help out however I can.

That’s more or less what I’ve been thinking of myself. Good to count you in.

If everyone that would like to join could post general weekly availabilities, that would help me enormously, thanks.

If you have trouble imagine how ridiculous and fun it can be, see the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSOweID-oO8

Anyway, I wish I could join, but I’m in NSP. Good thing is we don’t face super size zergs, generally roaming squads. Maybe its good for raiding?

Exciton.8942:

As an SoSian, will surely enjoy to fight you on the battle ground

Ditto, except I think it’ll be less “fight you” and more “get steamrolled by you”, in my case.

I’m down. Though it’ll depend on the raid times being that I’m oceanic and the bulk of you guys will be filthy NA.

That said it’ll require some unique commanding to be most effective. The CC is there, but applying enough damage pressure for downs, and subsequent pressure to kill those downs might be a challenge. Given the pirate ship meta, it’d be interesting to see how it goes.

With a 20 man guild raid it might be most effective to play in tandom to a regular force in a sort of hammer/anvil motif. That way a standard friendly force could push their melee train, and you could drop a guild sized CC effort to disrupt and hold the enemy in place. That’d also allow the mes team to use the melee as an object to kite around (would suck to get one pushed by a superior sized force).

All this said, transfer costs will be a kitten :p

Oh and I’m available every day during oceanic, otherwise id only make NA for sure during the weekend.

This sounds really fun, too bad it’s only for NA (i might transfer my other account to get into this :p). Definetly make sure to record it when you do the raid ^^

Ah this would be fun but I’d have to transfer from EU – that is unless there’s enough demand for a sister initiative over here, maybe we could have an EU division and an NA division (and China as well, if anyone playing over there reads this).

The potential overlap synergy for chaos/inspiration/chronomancy is insane.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Anyway, I wish I could join, but I’m in NSP. Good thing is we don’t face super size zergs, generally roaming squads. Maybe its good for raiding?

Feel free to transfer over to FA when the time comes

Ross Biddle.2367:

With a 20 man guild raid it might be most effective to play in tandom to a regular force in a sort of hammer/anvil motif. That way a standard friendly force could push their melee train, and you could drop a guild sized CC effort to disrupt and hold the enemy in place. That’d also allow the mes team to use the melee as an object to kite around (would suck to get one pushed by a superior sized force).

I’ve considered this. I’m fairly certain that from a numbers perspective, we shouldn’t need another group to lockdown even a fairly large opposing force, given that we use our mobility and stealth for a proper opening attack. It certainly would be handy to do though. The main reason for picking 20 people is because 20 people fit through a portal, and that’s a large component of rapid mobility for an engage on a bigger group.

trado.2571:

This sounds really fun, too bad it’s only for NA (i might transfer my other account to get into this :p). Definetly make sure to record it when you do the raid ^^

Remember that we won’t start raiding for several months yet, plenty of time to get some transfer money or figure out what you want to do.

Ross Biddle.2367:

That said it’ll require some unique commanding to be most effective. The CC is there, but applying enough damage pressure for downs, and subsequent pressure to kill those downs might be a challenge. Given the pirate ship meta, it’d be interesting to see how it goes.

With a 20 man guild raid it might be most effective to play in tandom to a regular force in a sort of hammer/anvil motif. That way a standard friendly force could push their melee train, and you could drop a guild sized CC effort to disrupt and hold the enemy in place. That’d also allow the mes team to use the melee as an object to kite around (would suck to get one pushed by a superior sized force).

If we were going to structure raid builds to mimic well established gvg roles we would need tanky frontliners with cc, support, cleave, and access to stability. I would imagine they’d need to take at least the healing mantra and stability mantra. Bountiful Disillusionment will be receiving a buff by giving us a boon + stability per shatter. Furthermore, 2 of the new wells provide stability to allies. Sword is good at cleave and shield would provide cc. You would just need some form of decent disengage. Blink? Staff Phase Retreat? Portal (Actually portal would be the most amazing disengage in the game for frontline)?

Edit: Now that I think about it, Bountiful Dissillusionment might actually be useful for once. With IP being baseline now, right before an engage, if 5 mesmers in one party hit F2, they each share 3 might stacks with their allies. That’s 15 might instantly plus stability. There are probably ways to improve that.

The midline could be full of cc/damage heavy chronomancers dropping wells and chaos storms perhaps they could use a mixture of shields and foci to pull targets and send out tides of time to give quickness to the frontline and cc enemies. . The backline could focus on focusing down people with greatswords and aoe cleaving large groups of people with a million illusionary berserkers with the distortion on summon trait. Then have a few roaming shatter/mesmers to gank.

I think mesmer is versitile enough to achieve this especially with the new trait system. BUT I don’t know how many members from OMFG would be able to join 20 seems very optimistic. I think any raid would mainly be the size of a havoc group where the focus is less on the gvg meta. An organised all mesmer havoc group could be very annoying for anybody to deal with.

@fluxit: Let me lay out the specifics of what I’ve been thinking.

The reason for 20 people is that it’s a really nice number. It’s big enough to reasonably take on the larger zergs that roll around, but small enough to fit through a portal. Since there’s still upwards 3.5 months before this raid will actually roll into action, I’m fairly confident that we can gather up 20 mesmers for the cause.

Weapons

Every Mesmer uses sword+shield/staff. There’s a couple reasons for this, so I’ll take it by weapon.

Staff provides a number of big things. First, the staff trait causes chaos armor to apply protection. This means permanent protection for everyone in the group, along with the massive damage reduction that chaos armor causes due to blinds. Chaos storm is an incredible aoe that does interrupts, nasty conditions, and strong damage. The damage from a chaos storm is almost the same as the damage from an iZerker spin. Additionally, chaos storm provides a bunch of aegis, which is another important defensive boon. Lastly, with the staff trait and chaos armor, chaos storm will be on a ~15 second cooldown; comparable to that of iZerker.

To summarize, chaos storm and staff contain literally everything that the group needs. Interrupts, control conditions, strong defensive boons, and good damage.

It might end up being worthwhile to have a couple people run greatsword, but it’s going to be hard to beat what staff provides.

Now for the shield, this is pretty straightforward. Tired of time is an infinite target stun. The importance of this can’t be over stressed. From what we’ve seen in the videos, it also appears to do some rather decent damage. On top of all that, it’s also a projectile barrier and provides quickness. I really can’t think of any solid reasons to take focus over shield in this type of group composition. The fact that the phantasm is 2 blocks and provides the slow condition is just icing on the cake.

Elites

My thought is that 18/20 people will take gravity well, and the last 2 will trait PU and take MI. Since MI has a 10 target limit, 2 mesmers can stealth 2 people. With the PU stealth duration boost and the potential to double up with F5, that should be all the stealth we need.

Gravity well is an obviously strong choice, but so is time warp. In this case though, since Tides of Time will be providing a bunch of quickness, I think time warp might end up being superfluous, and more cc+damage will be better.

Utilities

My thought is that everyone runs blink and well of calamity. The choice of blink is pretty clear. The well of calamity is going to be our main aoe sustained damage. It also pulses cripple and weakness, which are fantastic control and defense conditions. Additionally, it’s an ethereal field, which means more chaos armor.

The last utility will vary. I was thinking something along these lines per party (4 parties):

1 stab mantra
1 condie cleanse mantra and heal mantra with mender’s purity
1 well (probably alacrity well, but perhaps not)
1 glamour (2 portals, 2 null fields)

This spread provides pretty much everything we need: stab, cleanse, boon strip, portals, and whatever utility we need from more wells.

Traits
I was thinking 3 main trait sets: frontline, backline, and support. These all take chrono and chaos, and then the last line would vary.

The backline would be taking domination. They’d grab all the interrupt traits, so power block, CI, and maybe even FI and CS. When they unload their interrupts, it should stop the group in its tracks.

The frontline would be going tanky shatter dps.i was thinking possibly inspiration for these folks, picking up shattered conditions, restorative illusions, and mender’s purity. This keeps them alive and kicking, and should be tanky enough for a frontline.

The supports will sorta have to vary depending on what they’re doing. This is the part I’ve sorta thought the least about.

All of this is open to discussion for sure, this is just my original vision and thoughts on how this composition can work effectively.

Sounds like fun. Too bad I’m a hermit and in EU.

sound nice

i got 2 account 1 eu 1 us . isee if i got enough money to transfer….

too bad this is US i’d be up chronomancer is gonna be awesome in WvW

I am so down for this. WvW is something I really want to get into because of how much you can customize. While I think it’s a taaadd early to be nailing down hard strategies, it couldn’t hurt to maybe do some smaller (5- or 10-man) group runs to get into some WvW basics, right?

I’m on FA, so count me in.

Looking back at what I theorycrafted months ago for a mesmer-only raid mocking the current meta, a few notes:

• torch might be a valuable option for spike damage and blasting all those ethereal fields
• same goes for focus pulls (on a far lower CD than well of gravity)
• null field coupled with mirror images + shattered concentration/shattered conditions and mender’s purity is a lot of condi and boon removal
• some members of the raid can go full zerk and run shatter or interrupt/harass builds and work as a focus party

Also, consider organizing raids (maybe once per week?) in EOTM. People on other servers of the same color can join you there

I’ve got an FA account so I’m in. I’m on almost every night from about 10PM-12AM central time, a bit later on the weekends.

If we’re talking a Saturday or Sunday afternoon that would be tougher for me, but I may be able to coordinate if given advanced notice.

My two biggest concerns:

1. Cleave/Rez protection. We could have part of our contingent save tides of time specifically for this, otherwise without large stability access I can see us having a really tough time. Mantra of concentration, Bountiful Disillusionment and/or Illusionary Inspiration is going to be important.
2. Damage. We’re going to need to really think this one through because with so much utility we’ll need to sustain ourselves, I’m thinking damage may suffer a bit. Between our shatters and hard cc I’m hoping enemy stability won’t be too much of an issue so we should be able to wreck with interrupts/Power Block. I’m really loving the idea of Imbued Diversion and the other merged traits in master of fragmentation as well. Should be decent in this group.

We have all the tools to accomplish the job, just going to take a fair degree of planning and coordination to pull it off.

I reckon 2 stab mantra mes will be needed. The initial clashing will quickly burn thorough first mesmer’s stab charges so the second mesmer need to keep the group going.

Against pirate ship meta you could try to get feedback rotations, and if temporal curtain isn’t so short you can probably get support mesmers to do that.

Idk if this is a good thing or not, but support mesmer can gear for soldier or knight, since we have high base healing but crappy coefficients to healing power lol. In a way this makes support mesmer both tanky and alright healing while dishing out damage.

How about Temporal Glamours? Feedback is pretty strong against zergs, and the cross-map mobility can be useful. Plus, combine it with Veil and we’ll be able to close gaps and blitz easily. Of course, not all the time, but more so an option to switch to for certain situations

OMG! I guess i need to get my second account moved to FA and get a new Mesmer leveled.

How would a Mesmer zerg deal with CC? Stability is not our strong suit.

lujate.5432:

OMG! I guess i need to get my second account moved to FA and get a new Mesmer leveled.

How would a Mesmer zerg deal with CC? Stability is not our string suit.

I feel like we’ll just be trying to avoid it. We’ll all probably have a stun break, the rest we’ll try to avoid fields with our stealth and blinks. Though, if nothing else, we can break through CC fields with Distortion and easily bait CC out of the opponents with Continuum.

Fay.2357:

I have no idea what I’m doing. Additionally, I’m certifiably insane.

I can back up this statement!

Dondagora.9645:

How about Temporal Glamours? Feedback is pretty strong against zergs, and the cross-map mobility can be useful. Plus, combine it with Veil and we’ll be able to close gaps and blitz easily. Of course, not all the time, but more so an option to switch to for certain situations

Temporal glamours could be a good choice for the people running null field. I’m actually not a huge fan of feedback though. I’ve used it a lot in big groups, and it’s just incredibly unreliable in terms of what you get out of it. I feel that tides of time will be plenty of projectile mitigation.

lujate.5432:

OMG! I guess i need to get my second account moved to FA and get a new Mesmer leveled.

How would a Mesmer zerg deal with CC? Stability is not our strong suit.

Dondagora.9645:

I feel like we’ll just be trying to avoid it. We’ll all probably have a stun break, the rest we’ll try to avoid fields with our stealth and blinks. Though, if nothing else, we can break through CC fields with Distortion and easily bait CC out of the opponents with Continuum.

Yeah, so basically I’ve got a couple thoughts on that.

Firstly, whenever we engage, we’ll leave a portal behind us. If we really get smashed on, we can open up that portal and pull an instant and complete disengage.

We’ll have a least 1 person with the stab mantra in each party, and this will provide a pretty solid buffer of stability. Enough of a buffer for us to initiate a lockdown, at which point further stability shouldn’t be too necessary.

Most of the time, I’m anticipating an engage from stealth, potentially even using blink to gap close while in stealth. If executed properly, we should be able to get the jump on groups a lot of the time, avoiding the whole issue in the first place.

skcamow.3527:

1. Cleave/Rez protection. We could have part of our contingent save tides of time specifically for this, otherwise without large stability access I can see us having a really tough time. Mantra of concentration, Bountiful Disillusionment and/or Illusionary Inspiration is going to be important.

Yeah, probably having 2 or 3 people saving the majority of their CC just in the event of people needing resses will be a good idea. Generally though I’m not too worried about it. If we’re CCing the rest of their group effectively, ressing shouldn’t be all that dangerous.

skcamow.3527:

1. Damage. We’re going to need to really think this one through because with so much utility we’ll need to sustain ourselves, I’m thinking damage may suffer a bit. Between our shatters and hard cc I’m hoping enemy stability won’t be too much of an issue so we should be able to wreck with interrupts/Power Block. I’m really loving the idea of Imbued Diversion and the other merged traits in master of fragmentation as well. Should be decent in this group.

This is really the one thing that I’m most concerned about. Chaos storm certainly does good damage, I think tides of time will do solid damage, and we’ll be able to do a lot of shatter comboing for solid damage. Well of calamity is a bit of an unknown as of yet. We know it does some damage, but it’s hard to say really how much. I think that once you put everything together with damage on interrupts and such it’ll be enough, but this is definitely what I’m least confident about.

Can I ask why everyone should be running Chrono/Chaos? And those weapons specifically? Obviously the shield comes with the Chrono line, but you don’t think you may want two or three people to be dedication to spike damage? Downing outliers and the like?

Tealots.6095:

Can I ask why everyone should be running Chrono/Chaos? And those weapons specifically? Obviously the shield comes with the Chrono line, but you don’t think you may want two or three people to be dedication to spike damage? Downing outliers and the like?

Primarily because I’m not worried about outliers. If this group wipes, it’ll be due to getting smushed by a hammer train, not because of a couple stray people. To that effect, the more group cc and defense (both of which staff provides) we can pump out, the harder it’ll be for a hammer train to run us over. Every chaos storm provides more aegis and lockdown for everyone in the area, and that’s a massive defensive (and offensive) bonus.

It may end up being the case that we can afford to have a couple people running some spike builds for a bit of focused damage, but it’s not a necessity for a group.

Now I understand. My main theory is that when you have a group of people all playing the same build on the same class, whatever the weakness is of that group will become VERY apparent. Diversity is usually the remedy (even if a little bit).

Especially with certain Dom/Illusions traits, we may want some GS-Shatter spike people. Even if one or two, the AoE from Mental Torment, Master of Fragmentation and the fact that everyone has IP now could probably down some people very quickly. Hell, if some are able to live without DE, our PU people could be our spikers with something like 6/0/6/0/6, and still hold onto their GS/Sword-Torch.

Tealots.6095:

Now I understand. My main theory is that when you have a group of people all playing the same build on the same class, whatever the weakness is of that group will become VERY apparent. Diversity is usually the remedy (even if a little bit).

Normally I agree quite wholeheartedly with this statement. In this case though, I’ve been drawing a blank on what exactly the weakness is. The main weakness I’ve identified is if the group ends up getting steamrolled by a stability-laden hammertrain, and the solution to that would be more cc/boonstrip.

Tealots.6095:

Even if one or two, the AoE from Mental Torment, Master of Fragmentation and the fact that everyone has IP now could probably down some people very quickly.

You’re right about this though. When the majority of an enemy group is in the high-amped realm of the mental torment trait, shatter spike will be very potent. It may well be worth having a couple people running a more shatter focused traitset, even if they still bring staff for it.

Like a lot of people, I still haven’t settled on a class for HoT.

However I want to make a suggestion on a funny strategy. Call it “Gopher Up”. Have everyone scatter and drop portals, the zerg then moves from portal to portal that are scattered everywhere. Looking like the old game of whack a mole. It would be funny to hear, and funny to watch. Good luck with your group, and I hope I get to see it. (I’m on FA too)

Apparently Team Legacy did that during WvW against a very organized guild group at one time as a counter to their deathball tactic as the deathball could never run over the Team Legacy zerg as it kept porting around … back when there wasn’t a limit.

Loboling.5293:

Like a lot of people, I still haven’t settled on a class for HoT.

However I want to make a suggestion on a funny strategy. Call it “Gopher Up”. Have everyone scatter and drop portals, the zerg then moves from portal to portal that are scattered everywhere. Looking like the old game of whack a mole. It would be funny to hear, and funny to watch. Good luck with your group, and I hope I get to see it. (I’m on FA too)

Sebrent.3625:

Apparently Team Legacy did that during WvW against a very organized guild group at one time as a counter to their deathball tactic as the deathball could never run over the Team Legacy zerg as it kept porting around … back when there wasn’t a limit.

I actually believe that the first group to do this was Kylia’s guild Avatar. I’m trying to remember the deathball zerg guild, but I can’t quite remember it. They were always rather suspected of using a botting program due to the compactness of the deathball.

I don’t pay much attention to calls of “First” :-p

I do remember the claims of botting though … can’t remember that deathball guild’s name though.

To add to the all Mesmer shenanigans …

Mass Invis has a base cooldown of 90s.
Mass Invis has a base duration of 5s and works on up to 10 targets.
With Prismatic Understanding, Mass Invis lasts 10s.

10 Mesmers can apply 100s of Mass Invis if all of them have Prismatic Understanding … which is 100s of boon [re-]application and stealth and gives 10s of leeway for recasting perma-stealth.

… even more leeway if you take whatever trait ends up reducing the cooldown by 20% for whatever Skill Type of Mass Invis ends up being.

Just saying … why even let them stack up stability when you can pop out of stealth fully loaded with boons and stunlock them with shields of death :-p

You’ll likely want to look out for the classes with teleporting stunbreakers (Thieves and other Mesmers) or Invulnerability stunbreakers (Elementalists) … even Guardians could possibly break and then channel invuln quick enough to get out of the stunlock from the shields.

Fay.2357:

Loboling.5293:

Like a lot of people, I still haven’t settled on a class for HoT.

However I want to make a suggestion on a funny strategy. Call it “Gopher Up”. Have everyone scatter and drop portals, the zerg then moves from portal to portal that are scattered everywhere. Looking like the old game of whack a mole. It would be funny to hear, and funny to watch. Good luck with your group, and I hope I get to see it. (I’m on FA too)

Sebrent.3625:

Apparently Team Legacy did that during WvW against a very organized guild group at one time as a counter to their deathball tactic as the deathball could never run over the Team Legacy zerg as it kept porting around … back when there wasn’t a limit.

I actually believe that the first group to do this was Kylia’s guild Avatar. I’m trying to remember the deathball zerg guild, but I can’t quite remember it. They were always rather suspected of using a botting program due to the compactness of the deathball.

Did he/his guild quit gw2? Would have been the perfect guinea pigs for this kind of thing.

Sebrent.3625:

Just saying … why even let them stack up stability when you can pop out of stealth fully loaded with boons and stunlock them with shields of death :-p

This is pretty much exactly what I have in mind, though more from a temporary stealth for engage perspective than a permastealthed mesmer zerg.

…that’s a scary thought.

Curunen.8729:

Did he/his guild quit gw2? Would have been the perfect guinea pigs for this kind of thing.

Yeah, he’s moved on to star citizen, and his guild has mostly scattered. That reminds me though, I should contact Selan, she’d be all over this idea.+

Edit: The more I roll the concept of permastealthed mesmer zerg around the more I like it. That might have to become a thing.

Fay.2357:

Sebrent.3625:

Just saying … why even let them stack up stability when you can pop out of stealth fully loaded with boons and stunlock them with shields of death :-p

This is pretty much exactly what I have in mind, though more from a temporary stealth for engage perspective than a permastealthed mesmer zerg.

…that’s a scary thought.

Curunen.8729:

Did he/his guild quit gw2? Would have been the perfect guinea pigs for this kind of thing.

Yeah, he’s moved on to star citizen, and his guild has mostly scattered. That reminds me though, I should contact Selan, she’d be all over this idea.

Ah, now that you mention it I thought I recognised this org:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs/AVTR

That’s a shame – I’m kind of playing both gw2 and SC arena commander side by side (well… the latter is on hold until I upgrade my machine), and even when the PU (persistent universe, not prismatic understanding!) goes live I don’t think I’ll be dropping gw2.

Heh, I recall selan always moaning about lack of AoE – funny now we get a whole load of Wells. xD

Is this one of those things that will be cool for a week or two then die out? I would be willing to buy a transfer but not if this is just a fad. I have been wanting to main my Mesmer for some time now and would love to learn from seeing a lot of them in battle.

Dabrixmgp.4758:

Is this one of those things that will be cool for a week or two then die out? I would be willing to buy a transfer but not if this is just a fad. I have been wanting to main my Mesmer for some time now and would love to learn from seeing a lot of them in battle.

I fully intend on driving this raid as long as there are still people that want to run.

Sebrent.3625:

Mass Invis has a base cooldown of 90s.
Mass Invis has a base duration of 5s and works on up to 10 targets.
With Prismatic Understanding, Mass Invis lasts 10s.

10 Mesmers can apply 100s of Mass Invis if all of them have Prismatic Understanding … which is 100s of boon [re-]application and stealth and gives 10s of leeway for recasting perma-stealth.

I was under the impression that the new PU 100% trait only affected the mesmer. I’m confused. I can’t wait for them to finish balancing everything and release the final traits for each class so we can get a better idea of what we’re working with.

So if everyone were to run sword/shield and the main focus of our strategy would be to cc the enemy to death we would really have to come together and train to sync and coordinate our CCs. This strategy won’t be as effective if everyone spams their cc’s whenever they feel like it or if we all just blow our cds at the same time.

One of the biggest mistakes I see from disorganized zergs following a pugmander is many players blow their most useful cool downs on the first push. Often against organized guild groups the first push will be a fake because they know all the players with itchy fingers will waste all their skills. Then the guild group pretends to retreat back, yolo puggies begin to chase and in an instant the guild group turns and these unfortunate players are caught out of position and dead.

It’s more efficient to use a limited but focused amount of cc to control an area to spike down stability stacks quicker and lockdown all the targets caught in the aoes followed closely by focused wells of calamity and gravity wells for further aoe damage and cc.

During a coordinated well of calamity + gravity well spike we could then safely begin to steam roll through all the (by then) low and downed enemies still caught in immobilizes and chills, auto-attacking through with sword and blurred frenzy and immobilizing targets that are trying to escape with the sword immobilize. It would be safe for us because many targets would be locked down and gravity well pulses stability. Then, when the enemy hammer train starts moving through to protect their remaining downed players we could simply portal out (or blink out if caught out of position).

If our coordination were really good, we could drop one portal at the beginning, charge and purposefully get caught in an initial static. Then the enemy commander calls “Yes! All damage here!” Necros drop their wells, eles drop their meteors and ice bows and just as the hammer train leaps in, we stun break and blink to their backline destroying all their squishy damage dealers, then portalling back to safety when the job is done. Perhaps this strategy might be too difficult to coordinate but wouldn’t it be grand.

I think as a strategy, focusing too much on stealth is not good. The only effective use of stealth I think would be if we find ourselves too scattered or in need of a reset, 2 mass invisibilities would allow us breathing room to gather back onto the driver. Stealthing in for the element of surprise is sometimes useful but a group that has their whits about them will just back away until we unstealth. A group that blindly charges into the enemy without knowing where they are would be killed just as easily without stealth IMO.

Now about damage: although some might worry about the damage coming from our wells, chaos storms and halting strike interrupts I think if it’s focused we won’t have to worry. I still think the backline would be most efficient with greatswords, traited into illusions for the phantasm distortion trait or just pure shatter. Currently in full zerker gear, with full might and Triumphant Distortion the Illusionary Berserker tears through the middle of zergs hitting 5-6 and i’ve even seen 7k damage. Just imagine if there were 4-5 illusionary berserkers training through the middle of a zerg.

But alas in group pvp it’s not always about individuals pumping out the best damage they can, but about coordinated damage spikes, focusing everyone’s damage in a single area so greatswords might not be needed. If we find our groups damage isn’t enough (although I doubt it) the previous paragraph might be something to think about.

This might just be my reason to come back to the game!

I used to be a WvW raider till my guild died, and I have always been interested in an all Mesmer raiding team and I’m currently on FA. I’m most definitely interested.

Burakkurozu

For anyone who is inspired to join the mesmer cause but not confident in their ability to run around in a zerg as a mesmer, an amazing player “Caos Danzante” took the time to make a series of training videos. He goes through the basics, positioning, skill usage and enemy movement awareness mainly from the perspective of a mesmer but not always.

Even if you consider yourself able to hold your own and support your team members it’s still nice to refresh your memory of the basics every now and again.

How To Play WvW as a Group

• Lesson 1 – What the hell is going on?
• Lesson 2 – Why do people die? Positioning
• Lesson 3 – Like gods walking among mere mortals
• Lesson 4 – Hit ’em where it hurts

Bear in mind that this is pre-stability changes.

Kaamau.5341:

This might just be my reason to come back to the game!

I used to be a WvW raider till my guild died, and I have always been interested in an all Mesmer raiding team and I’m currently on FA. I’m most definitely interested.

Burakkurozu

Good to hear it, I’ll mark you down.