Guild Wars 2

3D modified & updated

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8OncfClqBuqBEgilej6cDKhQwMAugMqeUX1XF-TpAIABOXGAgnAAA

The blank utility goes for your preferred well.
Blank sigil is for quickness on swap
Blank runes is for either Chrono runes or the new Toughness with 6th bonus + 150HP which gives you almost 30k (!!!) HP total. Not to be overlooked

thoughts?

If this is a Chrono build, I say neither. Go Insp-Illu-Chrono for amazing Block uptime and self-healing.

You can use Chaos instead of Insp but I personally think self-healing (and condition cleansing) is better for sustain than Chaos Armour Protection and one stack of Stability on Shatter.

Right, maybe I should explain where this question comes from.
I started from the tank build advertised by Pyro and tried my own variation. Atm I am running chrono/insp/duel, because I feel blind helps so much vs melee. But as point holder you do not want to be cced too much, hence the question on stability.

You say I should go illusions, but besides shorter cd on shatter, which isn’t a big deal with all that alacrity going on, and shorter cd on phantasms, there is not much direct mitigation. On top of that I’m no condition so I wouldn’t take MtD

My question still stands. Blind or stability?

I think you cannot sustain long in a fight without stability. If you get stun locked, despite the instant heal on shatters, you won’t last long.

You can probably work fine for a hybrid offense/defense with dueling/inspiration/chrono or (like I’m doing currently) dueling/chaos/chrono, but you won’t be bunkering as well as chaos/insp/chrono.

Thank you. Point taken.

In reality, I knew the answer but pretended that blind is as good (for a tank).
Going dueling for blind, I could grab DE, which although it can be replaced by several traits, I say it is still the best clone-creation trait we have, unfortunately.

And that would have helped me with StM, since I am trying to fit it in the build. Reason? I am running with 3 wells and 2 glamours and I hate the casting time. Quickness helps so much with it.

Furthemore, as a power tank with Sentinel amulet, damage from staff and shield phantasms is almost negligible amd thus CP almost worthless, except for the extra illusion fodder. In my case, the best GM trait as a chrono would be StM.

Hence, I tried to build around it by taking Chrono runes and quickness on swap sigil. This way I now have so much quickenss flying around which is crazy and almost convinced me I could coin a build: fast & furious

However, by not picking DE will limit my clone creation and not sure StM will be as effective. I will try taking IR instead of IA in the master tier to compensate and see how it goes.

The website is not updated, yet the fast & furious build looks like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8OncfClqBuqBEgilej6cDKhQwMAugMqeUX1XF-TpAIABOXGAgnAAA

The blank utility goes for your preferred well.
Blank sigil is for quickness on swap
Blank runes is for either Chrono runes or the new Toughness with 6th bonus + 150HP which gives you almost 30k (!!!) HP total. Not to be overlooked

Sorry for the rant

Thoughts?

The primary benefit of Illusions is Persistence of Memory. Together with Chronophantasma, every CD cycle of Echo of Memory grants 8s CD reduction to every Phantasm skill, including Echo of Memory itself. This puts a kitten Block on a 16s CD right off the bat. With permanent Alacrity, this can go down to an amazing 6.4s, meaning you’ll be Blocking more often than not.

And the above isn’t even taking into account CD reduction from other Phantasms you Shatter, or the offensive potential of having extremely low CD Phantasms.

With so much uptime on defence you barely need Stability. If you do get CCed, pop a stun breaker and you’re good to go.

Mmh…. interesting.
I did use it in my phant/condition build and surely was impressive. I did not think of it in terms of a tank PoW, which would be more inherent than to a condi spec, tbh.

So, you say that such increadible blocking capability can reliabily replace a tree like chaos. That means sitting in sw/shield for most of the time, which could be fine, being a tank.

However, can you conferm quickness affecting the duration of any channeling skill? In which case, my goal of stacking quickness would work against, for it would shorten the channel length. Mmh… I just started experimenting with StM and I really like all the fast action I can achieve, especially when casting glamours and wells. I am not sure I want to go that route… Also, spending 1/2 of the time blocking isn’t so appealing. Tanking is fine, doing little damage can be accepted. Not doing damage at all is different though.

I will have to try it, but I still think that BD could suits the idea I have in mind better.

You don’t have to stay in Sword/Shield all the time. I use a Staff as my second weapon, Phase Retreat is basically a low CD pseudo-stunbreak and Chaos Storm is an awesome defensive skill. Warlock having the lowest CD of all Phantasms is a nice bonus.

Quickness works against Blocks, but for PoM to work well you need Chronophantasma anyway so Sieze the Moment is off the table. As a bunker though I’m not sure why StM is so important, it’s really nice for stomps and resses but otherwise Mesmer DPS isn’t improved very much by Quickness; especially as a bunker.

If you really want Quickness without StM you can try Runes of the Chronomancer with Wells… IMO Eternity, Precognition and Gravity are great for bunkering, and Calamity and Action are pretty good for sustain too.

The key to doing damage with a build like I mentioned is to go with a Condi Bunker. You have insane Illusion generation, and every single Shatter can be used to inflict Confusion and Torment, and you can Shatter while Blocking too. It’s perfect.

Here’s my build.

Theoretically Inspiration can be replaced with Dueling or Chaos if you’re looking for Blinding or Bountiful, but IMO it’s not worth losing constant Shattered healing and condition cleansing.

We are looking at two different things. While all you say is fine, my goal is different.

I have 3 wells and 2 glamours. When focused/fired on mid (and with no stability), I some times find difficult to cast those utilities/elite because of the casting time. My build is aiming at making easier to cast such skills by abusing quickness, which I have plenty from different sources: Chrono runes, sigil on swap, StM, Shield 5. Quickness also helps with ressing (I already have ressing trait), stomping and last dps.

Having two glam, and not taking Temporal Enchanter is a crime, so Inspiration is a must. Having 3 wells and not taking all is related to wells, it is a crime too. But casting them with lag, when being focused etc, and dying because the heal didn’t come off, or failing a ress because the elite didn’t cast is frustrating as hell. Hence, I need quickness. A lot. And I think I achieved it with an intersting build.

I was now only deciding whether blinds help more vs stability. Now I also have blind vs stability vs blocks… thank you sir

Well if you want to use Quickness then investing in Blocks probably isn’t the best idea… although you could simply withold Quickness while Blocking, I suppose.

Another thing to consider is that Blocking isn’t an absolute defence, Revenants and Necromancers in particular are very capable of ignoring your Blocks (especially Necromancers who can easily break your Blocks with Unblockable CC). So with all that in mind, probably better to ignore me and choose Blinding or Bountiful.

Personally I’m with Silverkey, I think Bountiful is more useful than Blinding; and the Chaos spec in general is better for Bunkering. With all the Wells and Glamours you’re using, Protection on Chaos Armour is no joke.

I’m wrong. I tested Echo of Memory with Quickness and it seems like it doesn’t reduce Block duration at all.

I seem to get the best results with duel/chaos/chrono than chaos/insp/chrono. This means dropping a glam, feedback most likely. No point in running with two and no trait for it

I have to say I really like all the quickness I can pump out. It helps in so many things. Also the new sigil with quickness and swiftness on swap are great. I wish anet could have added it before HoT. I think mesmers would have benefited soo much

That is unfortunately the sad state of inspiration. I do also feel I have better result without inspiration. Dueling is just so good… and inspiration while nice is just subpar. It feels like inspiration has good ideas but is not strong enough:

• mender’s purity: great with mantras, good but not amazing with other heals.
• medic’s feedback: the feedback is too situational. The danger is usually the cleave, not the projectiles. I would prefer null field (would protect the rezzers and potentially strip stability)
• restorative mantras: please better scaling with healing power
• persisting image… as if 20% would change the life expectancy of illusion
• inspiring distorsion: good except it uncaps. would prefer “when you gain distorsion, give blur to allies”
• warden’s feedback: too situational in PvP
• Restorative illusion: arguably the best trait in inspiration. would prefer if it was AOE and scale a bit better with healing power
• protected phantasms: as with persisting image. can have its uses… maybe
• healing prism: the healing power gain is nice. The heal is lackluster. Please make it a percentage of your own heal
• Mental defense: useful
• illusionary inspiration: useful
• temporal enchanter: please make it so that this trait applies when you cross veil/portal

I think the problem is that we are pigeon holed to choose dueling for DE.
It’s an old debate but still very actual. We now have so many traits that rely not only on shatters but on how many illusions you shatter and if you cannot produce enough, those traits become subpar or not worth considering. Some may argue and say they can do without, that they are not dependant on DE. The truth is that any mesmer with DE is a better mesmer. The same could be said before IP was given baseline and I think that DE is such an important talent that could turn an average build into a good one, or at least in to a viable one.

Inspiration is a good treet, I like it, but because of the bad scaling of healing with the mesmer profession then is often left as last choice

Embolism, would your build work for WvW Roaming?

Sure, but it will suffer from the same problems PU Condi Mes suffers: if your opponent ignores you, there’s basically nothing you can do about it.

The difference is that my build can actually hold points, which makes it useful in sPvP (unlike PU Condi Mes).