Guild Wars 2

Hi folks

I’ve been seeing a lot of builds lately, and amongst them I’ve been inspired by Natsu Dragneel’s Blackwater build and the build I’ve been drawing the most inspiration from, in my latest build Chaos Archangel’s lockdown build

Some may have seen my many references to the Blackwater build and indeed I do believe it is great!
However, it didn’t take long until my lust for big numbers reared it’s ugly head!

Drawing inspiration from several sources, such as the famous Osicat (props to you man, you made me want to make my mesmer in the first place!) and Sensotix with some serious shatter dueling skills, I wanted to make a shatter build that suited me. It’s always good to browse the forums, however, I’m one of those people who only ever solo roams in WvW, like, literally it’s the only thing I do! Maybe once in a blue moon, I might do a sPvP match, but very rarely. I enjoy roaming in WvW for some good dueling matches. With that in mind, I wanted to mesh the survivable nature of the Blackwater build, with the awesome pew pew shatter dmg builds.

After using the exact same trait point allocation as the Blackwater build (20/20/30) just with zerker gear and some slight alterations in trait choices, I’ve finally settled to a variation I really enjoy playing:

Confusing Shatter Damage

Trait Choices

Domination
- Halting Strike – This build has many sources of daze and thereby can proc this trait many times. Sword#4, F3, and Mantra of Distraction. It can become a source of lots of dmg.

Dueling
- Blade Training – Sword mainhand and offhand, this trait is selfexplanatory.

- Deceptive Evasion – A good source of clone production, you all know it

Chaos
- Debilitating Dissipation – Sometimes clones are just produced in excess, instead of having them go to waste, it’s better to have them inflict a random condition. The more conditions, the better it is for you. This is not to be seen as the main motivator for the build, it is a nice extra trait that makes up for it, when you overproduce clones.

-Bountiful Interruption – Again, lots of dazes means lots of might stacks. 5 might stacks per interrupt is just godly.

- Prismatic Understanding – The one trait that I find myself having the hardest time letting go. This is not without reason, in a squishy build I find it is absolutely life saving to have 1 extra second of stealth (of which I have 3 sources), and 1 boon per second. Not only this, but once per 15 seconds you can proc protection off of regeneration, and you proc regeneration at 75% health. So there are lots of boons proccing and with this trait line you also get 30% boon duration, which is just in perfect harmony in conjunction with what is happening. Not to forget 300 toughness.

Illusions
- Compounding Power – This is a very nice trait, 9% extra dmg a lot of the time. Upon shattering, you still get 9% extra dmg on the first clone, 6% on the second and 3% on the last. When shatters are on CD, you do a constant 9% extra dmg!
Honorable mention to Illusionary Retribution, applying confusion on shatters. Though there isn’t a whole lot of condition dmg, it adds to the stress level of your opponent. Seeing lots of conditions can freak many people out

Utility Choices
- Mirror – I use it both to proc centaur runes, for fast running across the map, whilst looking for a fight. In a fight I love to reflect all kinds of projectiles! If you don’t like this one, it is easily swappable for Ether Feast.

- Decoy – A source of stealth and a definate must. Clone production and a defensive skill all in one.

- Blink – I can’t live without this utility. Stunbreak and the ability to disengage on a low CD. It’s awesome!

- Mantra of Distraction – More daze, more interrupt dmg, more vulnerability, less dmg on you since your opponent can’t use skills. If, however, you are not comfortable jumping in and out of stealth to avoid conditions, you can swap this to either Mantra of Resolve or Null Field.

- Mass Invisibility – You know it, it’s great and it’s another source of stealth, meaning more boon procs off of Prismatic Understanding.

Weapon Choices
- Scepter/Torch – AA is more clone production (not fast though). A very nice block with torment is extra damage, and a beam that hits quite hard and an added confusion bonus. Torch is an added source of stealth and more boons. I use this to both blind and exploded on enemies for burst, when possible, or just run away out of harms way when in trouble.

- Sword/Sword – Main hand sword, you all know it, it rox, don’t need to say much here. Offhand sword, an extra daze and if you block instead it does good dmg and produces another clone. The phantasm does crazy good dmg, at least I love it!

Playstyle
- I always start off in Sc/T, with torch #4, cast torch #5 and switch to S/S, you do this without having the CD to weapon swap go off. Then sword #3, dodge in and sword #3 again for immobilize and sword #2 + F1. Anytime along this route you can use the mantra of distraction for a daze and use sword #4 for daze, after the rotation. The mantra should be up for use again shortly after this, locking down your opponent a great deal of the time, while dealing massive dmg. At anytime, you can swap to Sc/T again, where sigil of hydromancy will proc chilling your opponent, Sc#2 for block and Sc#3 for dmg and confusion.

A major Con/Drawback
- If you play the build like I do, you will quickly notice there are no, absolutely no sources of condition removal. This is, however a calculated risk. I use my stealths and burst to kill, before I can get enough conditions on me, also the dazes help reduce their casts. “Well you can’t avoid conditions endefinately!!!” And yes, this is all to true I jumped two necros in WvW and it didn’t take long before I had to stealth and retreat, the conditions were just too much for me. Luckily this build allows for picking and chosing your fights. I can take a condi necro most of the time, it is a tough fight, of course, if he gets the jump on me, or if he lands enough condis on me. Luckily a necromancer has long cast times on many of their abilities, so with the many sources of interrupt it helps to win the fight.
If, however, as noted earlier you can use either Null Field or Mantra of Resolve to alleviate this issue.

Runes & Sigils
- These are really interchangeable, and you can switch as you feel fit. Sigil of paralyzation though, is a good thing to have on each set, as it lenghtens the duration of your many dazes. You can though, switch out hydromancy and energy for battle, to get more might stacks.

Conclusion
Anyways, this is what I have been running the past few days, and it’s been working really well for me. A good mix of offense and defense. Good burst, good source of protection/regeneration.

If I figure out, how to set up video capturing, I will upload videos to accompany this build.

You should totally enter this build into the BotM contest.

One thing though; you’d be better served taking the points out of Illusions and throwing them into…
Domination: The extra 100 power will make up for Compounding Power / Dazzling is a huge boost to builds that use dazes and Bountiful Interruption / Mental Torment, Rending Shatter, Torch Cooldown would be a bigger bost.

Dueling: 100 Precision rocks of course, and also adds another condition to your clone-deaths. / Warlord of Chaos (Rytlock) has been experimenting with Furious Interruption to some pretty interesting results (with Greatsword though) / Mantra Mastery makes your most reliable interrupt more consistent / Far-Reaching Manipulations makes you uncatchable when trying to escape Blink / Also consider Desperate Decoy & Phantasmal Fury for more offense or defense.

Inspiration - Medic’s Feedback adds more zerg viability and another source of damage. / Since you’re gonna be shattering often Vigorous Revelation will add more team utility, I’m pretty sure most other classes can’t apply AoE Vigor as easily as we can.

Just some food for thought there. Have fun!

Nice build man. I had the same trait set up in my thread that got banned lol

Check out “plz give feedbacks on my builds”

Anyhow, pretty aweseom build, although I have already tried it out. Anyways, I hope you enter on BotM.

This build and my build have the same purpose, being DPS, so that’s a coincidence!

@ Chaos – Thanks for the feedback, I had considered that statspread, i.e. 20/20/30 or 10/30/30, but I felt it was too similar to the many builds out there already. I kind of thought to myself, “hey if you’re gonna post something, make it somewhat unique”. I’m constantly switching around to see what works and what doesn’t, and I often use the traits you suggested I don’t quite know bout entering the competition, I haven’t got a testing partner :/
@ Menace – thanks for replying. But did you just promote your own build, through my post? I mean… really? Again, I appreciate you replying to my build, but we’ve all seen your build posts, since “someone” is continually keeping it at the top of the forum. Sorry for sounding ungrateful though, I really do appreciate any and all feedback on my build

Well, the weapon and trait setup is definitely unique for a lockdown style so I don’t think you should worry much about that, especially since all the above options will serve you better than the 10 in illusions anyways.
With your offhand weapons and the current setup (all shatters inflict confusion) the build does look like it’d make a good hybrid if you went Rampager’s too. Hybrid builds are harder for Mesmer to pull off, but definitely an avenue worth exploring (even MORE reason to grab an OMFG tester and try out some different trait combos)

Enter the frickin’ contest! You’ve got nothing to lose, lots to gain, and I’m sure ya can nab a tester in time.

(Edit: And yes, Menace did just shamelessly use you to advertise himself.)