Guild Wars 2

I’ve been smashing my head against the wall, trying to find a decent aoe spec, for WvW on my Mesmer. I thought I would write down some of the ideas I’ve been bouncing around to see if others have had some insight.

My first thought is that I don’t feel like glamours really get it done anymore. I know people still say they have there use. But for me, there situational, I wouldn’t mind them as part of a build, but they cannot be the focus anymore in my opinion. So that took me down some different paths.

My first thought, and the one I still lean towards, is using shatters at range for aoe. The theory on it sounds correct, but in practice I’ve really struggled with it. I noticed that my clones half the time were not making it to the zerg. I thought “maybe there dying before they get there”. So I mixed in some clone death traits. Hoping that one way or another, the clones would proc some kind of aoe damage. I’m still not successful with this, tho it may be a need to practice issue. I know shatter without DE is frowned upon. But with phase retreat on a 6 sec cooldown, and scepter, I think clone generation is fine.

AoE possibility
Feedback
Null Feild
Chaos Storm
Mind wrack
CoF
Sceptre 2 bolt confusion in a line

It looked like this
http://tinyurl.com/kyle2rd

I also thought of the possibilities in the lockdown builds. Halting strike adds a nice boost anytime we daze. And imbued diversion can give us an aoe daze. It again requires shattering at a distance. But unlike the above build, where I would make illusions and launch them in like projectiles. This build would require me to create the illusions next to the large groups.

Possible aoe
Feedback
Null field
P.Zerker (situational)
Mind wrack
CoF
Diversion
Sceptre 2

It wen’ t like
http://tinyurl.com/pd32xz5

So an improvement. But still not working great for me. I also had the possible crazy idea, that If I could somehow keep my Phantasms alive, they would be very decent in a zerg. Some of them hit a variety of targets. I always try to make a build, where if I’m caught alone, I wont be a complete waste, and this felt closer then the above two, since it doesn’t rely on glamour’s at all.

Possible AoE
Disenchanters 6 bounce
Chaos storm
WoC
Illusionary riposte line attack

It looked like this
http://tinyurl.com/mbgczmt

I feel so close all the time to having a great idea. But I just can’t see it. So if I can inspire anyone elses thought process, maybe we can put our minds together. I feel like all the pieces are here, I just can’t put them all in the right order.

Jester

In my experience with zergs is that by far our best AoE attacks are glamours, Chaos Storm, reflects and (to a much lesser extent) the iBerserker. As you’ve seen, problem is the berserker dies so quickly it doesn’t always work. Glamours (although they suck) remain by far the easiest way to deal AoE damage. You can get some decent damage from reflects in some cases, but many higher level organized zergs don’t use projectiles as much anymore.

One thing I’ve done in the past is use an Imbued Diversion clone bomb (see Chillruption in my signature). The issue with this is always opposing zerg stability but if it’s ripped or even a couple don’t have it, it’s highly satisfying with halting strike traited. The viability of running something like that though again highly depends on how sophisticated your foes are (which typically correspond to the server tier you’re playing in).

There is always picking off the back line, ganking, or other troll-ish activities to take part in with shatter specs. I’ve seen a few heavily tanked builds doing that type of thing. Mesmer has some very unique capabilities as well with invulns/evades (BF/F4/Blurred Inscriptions) to be able to blink in and out of zergs to get some AE damage off. These aren’t the easiest to pull off but I’ve seen builds that specialize in that sort of thing (see build sticky).

That’s the problem though, you really have to work at it to inflict nice AE damage. This touches on something that’s frustrated many a mesmer for awhile in zerg vs zerg play, which is our immense lack of AoE capability when compared to other classes.

I’m sure many others who WvW a lot more than I can weigh in on this one. I’ve definitely played my fair share but not nearly as much as some others who post here.

I don’t zerg a lot, but greatsword can be nice for AoE. Zerker has to survive for a couple seconds, but can hit multiple. The auto-attack is three-target pierce. Mirror-blade is two-target bounce (and then is right next to the opponent for a shatter). Mindstab is 5 targets, but the ring is small.

Another thing to consider is Sigil of Fire. That’s an AoE damage on crit with a 5-second cooldown.

iWarden can hit multiple, but they have to stand in the same spot.

trait for blind for glamours, confusion when they get blinded, confusion when entiering or exiting glamour
viel, nullfield, feedbak and toss them in middle of zerg and hope to god they button smash enuf thru confusion to get ur tags

OP seems missed GS as a source of AoE damage. To maximize GS #1 Spatial Surge damage in a crowd setting, I try to target the one in the back and then kite. The channel lighting will act as an extended GS and cut through multiple enemies and I can see the numbers popping up constantly.

Thanks for some of the replys

For those who suggested glamour’s I did use them in some of the builds above. But as I noted in my post, it never seems like enough. I do use spatial surge, and scepter 3’s line aoe as well. I think there is something with imbued diversion. I’m going to revisit chillruption and see if I can use the ideas there, to supplement what I’m experimenting with. I think mirror blade + immediate f3 in a zerg with the right trait, could provide interesting results.