Guild Wars 2

I play an Ele and a friend is going to join me on his Mesmer but hasn’t played in a long time and needs some tips on a good current build for a mesmer that is going to work with an Ele.

Apparently my Ele tips aren’t helpful.

He wants a bunker build or at least good survivability.

Anyway… any builds? Anytime I look for builds I can not find anything current.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Builds-Guides/first
The support section has most of your bunker build, but some of the other categories have some good survivability as well. As for being up to date, all builds there are up to date unless they have an asterisk next to them. And the build threads themselves will tell you usually the last patch they were updated on.
Try a few of these:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/SUPPORT-Mesmer-Spotlight/first#post2898258
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Chaos-Maestro-Support-Builds/page/4#post3735013 (has an spvp equivalent somewhere)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Bountiful-Interruption-TPvP/first
And try the build in my sig if condi/survivability is something he wants a shot at.

Check out http://metabattle.com, you will find PvP builds there.

Shatter Mesmer is what you should be using, best boon removal and burst a Mesmer can bring. You can choose different weapons bt with the Sword #3 Nerf its not as good these days.

4/4/0/0/6 (Halting, Boon Removal on Shatter, Distance on Manipulations, Deceptive Evasion, 3% Per Illusion, Extra Bounce, Illusionary Persona)

GS and Staff (Energy+Air, Energy+Battle or Doom) (You can use Fire+Air for GS but its vile)

Traveler Runes

Ether Feast, Decoy/Nullfield, Blink, Portal/Nullfield, your choice of elite.

Coulter.2315:

Shatter Mesmer is what you should be using

If you want survivability, shatter is perhaps the worst possible build to achieve your goal. Shatter is the glassiest of glass builds across pretty much any profession, IMO.

Also Halting Strike on a shatter build is weird. Why would you not take the boost in Mind Wrack damage?

In general though, as a mesmer, your survival rate is going to depend more on actively avoiding combat through stealth (Decoy, Mass Invis, The Prestige) and mobility (Blink, Phase Retreat).

If you want to go for pure survivability you should look up a PU or boonshare build. Boonshare has obvious upsides if you have a partner.

@Veruah: Halting Strike works pretty well in a Shatter build depending on the weapons involved. I almost always take it over Mental Torment because I land quite a few interrupts and it pays off more and offers me an alternate damage source beyond Mind Wrack.

@Wolf: It sounds like your friend wants a condition PU build (Prismatic Understanding: Stealth lasts longer and grants defensive boons) which is one of the most survivable Mesmer builds out there but can be really tricky to play properly since stealth can’t capture points. The goal with the build would be to secure decaps and force the enemy to dedicate 2+ people to stopping you. Good PU Mesmer can come out of a 3v1 fight alive… but probably wont net a kill; the point is that you’re unbalancing teamfights elsewhere since they have to dedicate so much to face you.

More info on that here

Your other option for survivability is a supportive build. Unlike PU, which is easy to learn and hard to be effective with, support builds can be hard to learn… and hard to be effective with. x.x But the payoff can really be worth it. The build I currently run in s/tPvP was crafted specifically for my personal playstyle, so I can’t say how easily your friend will be able to run it, but when used properly can be extremely effective.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PvP-The-Chaos-Maestro-Boon-Support/first#post4236639

This build is capable of handling 2v1s and gives a massive amount of boon support but it can be difficult to learn to do proper damage with it since a lot of the damage is reliant on some of our most inaccurate Phantasms (Focus/Staff). That’s where Chaotic Interruption comes in, manipulating Focus’s pull and Staff’s Chaos Storm to secure immobilizes and hit respectably hard. There’s a sloppy hotjoin video in the comments that displays the build in action with notes on the good and the bad. =P It gives a barebones idea on how the build plays.

Veruah.5302:

Coulter.2315:

Shatter Mesmer is what you should be using

If you want survivability, shatter is perhaps the worst possible build to achieve your goal. Shatter is the glassiest of glass builds across pretty much any profession, IMO.

Also Halting Strike on a shatter build is weird. Why would you not take the boost in Mind Wrack damage?

In general though, as a mesmer, your survival rate is going to depend more on actively avoiding combat through stealth (Decoy, Mass Invis, The Prestige) and mobility (Blink, Phase Retreat).

If you want to go for pure survivability you should look up a PU or boonshare build. Boonshare has obvious upsides if you have a partner.

If you take Staff then Halting Strike is the superior choice. If you use PU or any tanky Mesmer you won’t learn how to play or be useful to your team, Shatter is the build that will teach you more about being a Mesmer.

I don’t really understand the stigma that anything but shatter means you are an unskilled or useless mesmer. Shatter teaches you how to land shatters and hopefully avoid damage long enough to burn the opponent down. Those are some aspects of being a mesmer, but not all of them. Shatter teaches you Shatter, not All of Mesmer.

That said, the OP asked for a tanky build with survivability. Shatter is most certainly neither of those things.

Edit: I don’t mean to come off as antagonistic at all, Coulter. I just don’t want to give the OP the impression that a shatter based mesmer is a “bunker” build or has high “survivability.”

I do think that all pvp Mesmer should learn to play shatter. It forces you to learn all of Mesmer’s mechanics and use them properly to be successful, in fact I usually tell people to play shatter before moving on to lockdown mesmer.

But yeah, for the OPs purposes shatter isn’t what their friend wants.

Just from my personal experience , playing a warrior and thief from the start, with a very in your face aggressive play style , i just recently started a mes with a pu build to just get familiar with the class, but I just went full zerk shatter and that was when I felt how the class should be played, a defensively aggressive play style , if that makes sense…