Guild Wars 2

[Build] StunWay: A perfect balance of control and pressure.

As a Guild Wars veteran, and an avid PvPer, I loved the ability to lockdown opponents and deliver those annoying interrupts causing much frustration to monks and ele’s alike in Random Arenas. Running only Mesmer and Ranger, the feeling of being able to predict the enemy and deliver that well timed sav shot, or a crucial blackout often won games. This I feel, was a major aspect to skill cap with rangers and mesmer in the original series.

This type of play style is one which I have missed, with much lack of interrupts on the ranger, I turned to my mesmer in hopes of developing a substantial CC build, that combines enough solo survivability as well as amazing group control.

Confounding Suggestions has been one of those traits, that I and many other mesmers have just overlooked. However, turning that long duration daze into a stun has been nothing short of amazing and a cornerstone with this build.

Coupling bleeds and pressure from iDuelists and iWarlock and constant and critically timed daze/stuns, this build offers devastating lockdown capabilities and group support.

So here it is StunWay.

Why play a Blackout build?

This build allows you to control the outcome of group fights. Being able to be aware of your surroundings, removing that tunnel vision and viewing the bigger picture, StunWay allows Mesmers to take control of small group skirmishes and turn it in their group favour. Stop that tunnel vision, and communicate effectively and your targets will be blown away with your ability to control (#MHWhip).

What you’ll need.

StunWay being a high skillcap build requires you to be aware of all your surroundings. At first the build may seem daunting and scary, but I urge you to practice, practice, practice. You have to have an open mind, and keen reflexes. Noticing if someone’s going to go invis, heal, revive, finish etc. is critical. You’re going to have to know each class, and effectively know what they’re going to do before they actually do it. Noticing a d/p thief dropping a smoke field at half health? Stun him; because more likely than not, he’s going to HS to stealth. See that Guardian who has blown all his virtues? Haven’t noticed an elite recently and he’s low on HP? Stun him, he’s going to go invuln.

Pros

• Incredible control over the battlefield.
• High skillcap, with even higher rewards.
• Lockdown your enemy while they eat up damage.
• Become a critical aspect to team play (not that we aren’t already.)

Cons

• Although you have amazing control, defensive capabilities and sufficient damage from phantasms, you’re not a god. You can’t tank everyone.
• This build requires practice, and a keen sense of prediction, I’d highly recommend knowing each class, and their corresponding mechanics before undertaking this build. This will not only help you with this build, but you’ll be a better player overall.
• Knowing when to blow a stun is critical.

I hope that I see more and more Mesmers breaking out of phantasm specs and moving to a more CC intensive play, not only will this help develop overall community skill levels, but give those whom are down about the recent nerfs a much needed refreshing look upon the dominating class that is the Mesmer.

:D Keen to see you guys rocking that CC.

Edited: Halting Strike now replaces Empowered Illusions.

I´m also just about to try some similiar Blackout Mesmer for WvW with the AoE Diverion trait. Just like this playstyle too much^^

One question: Is there any need for dmg? Cause I would like to go fully defense.
I mean for PvE: Vit/tough/power.

Am I missing something? You don’t have access to many dazes, was it realy worth focusing your traits and gear on them?

Malinkij.3561:

I´m also just about to try some similiar Blackout Mesmer for WvW with the AoE Diverion trait. Just like this playstyle too much^^

One question: Is there any need for dmg? Cause I would like to go fully defense.
I mean for PvE: Vit/tough/power.

I’ve gone with full PVT armour and jewels, however I’ve gotten a couple Zerker items (namely my staff and sword). The pressure from your iDuelist and iWarlock are enough to deal damage, to take down targets singularly, however, I went with the toughness gear in WvW because I roam with another DPS thief/shatter mesmer. This allows me to take a bulk of the damage while locking people down for the DPS to do it’s job.

It’s also pretty cool to note that since phantasms have fury, they’re sitting at roughly 50% crit chance with 50-60% crit dmg depending on how you space your gear out. So the iDuelists and iWarlock hit like a brick (iWarlock especially, if you time it right you can get 6-7k crits off.)

fadeaway.2807:

Am I missing something? You don’t have access to many dazes, was it realy worth focusing your traits and gear on them?

Yes, the trait really is worth it, since the dazes last longer, when they are converted and proc as a stun, they’re a long lasting stun. Stun’s are OP because they root people to the ground. Unlike dazes where you can still move and mitigate damage through dodgerolls and other mechanics (hiding behind objects etc.) stuns secure people into the ground. Go a head and try it out in sPvP, it’s like your very own B Venom on demand, at a much lower cool down. I also sometimes depending on the situation, slot out staff for scepter/sword, for the extra blocks + sword daze (which correlates directly to a stun) However, I use staff for AoE stuns due to chaos field providing dazes.

Problem with Confounding Suggestions is, that every daze will be converted in a 1sec stun. All daze duration bonuses will be ignored. But the 15% sigil bonus seems to be aplied. Could also be more than 15% because it feels like the same duration as the daze with the 33% bonus.

As for PvE:
I think I will never have so much crit dmg. I brought that only up `cause of the new option (through living story update) to go VTP, which is only available through crafting. Of course only to use it in WvW^^

Malinkij.3561:

Problem with Confounding Suggestions is, that every daze will be converted in a 1sec stun. All daze duration bonuses will be ignored. But the 15% sigil bonus seems to be aplied. Could also be more than 15% because it feels like the same duration as the daze with the 33% bonus.

As for PvE:
I think I will never have so much crit dmg. I brought that only up `cause of the new option (through living story update) to go VTP, which is only available through crafting. Of course only to use it in WvW^^

From what I’ve seem to gather, rune of the mesmer does in-fact effect mantra stun. Coupled with the 15% extra, it does seem to effectively stack. That’s just my observation when I began testing out this build a couple weeks ago.

I know how awesome stuns are, I use a traited pistol for 2 sec stun on a 20 sec cd which is amazing.

Besides a chaos storm every 35 secs and a daze shatter every 45 secs, you don’t seem to have any other dazes. So traiting for am extra fraction of a seconds worth of stuns twice a minute or so feels like a waste compared with what you could be doing with those points.

Also a full daze shatter doesn’t stack, one daze/stun causes the others to be ignored.

@Fadeaway: You forgot the Mantra, which provides more dazes than the rest of the build combined (except if MB bounces).

It’s a solid tactic in duels/small group play. In larger groups it kinda loses effectiveness, and you really need to coordinate your targets in team chat. Fairly worthless in zergs unless you can find and target the commander and bring him down.

Gaiawolf.8261:

@Fadeaway: You forgot the Mantra, which provides more dazes than the rest of the build combined (except if MB bounces).

It’s a solid tactic in duels/small group play. In larger groups it kinda loses effectiveness, and you really need to coordinate your targets in team chat. Fairly worthless in zergs unless you can find and target the commander and bring him down.

Oh yes, it’s complete trash in zergs. However, usually I’m rolling with a bunker guardian, and another shatter mesmer/thief (depending on what class they wanna play.) Usually I run shatter, but I decided to create something that’ll compliment the team, being able to lock a target down is priceless, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

@theCOREYCOLAK

Gotta love that Mesmer build diversity. What classes do you find the hardest to deal with in this build and which do you find the easiest? How do you play it in small groups? Is it like a debuffer who hangs in the back ccing certain targets with assisted damage from phantasms?

…Also this is completely off topic but is your guild focused on wvw?
(I’m on FA as well and have been in search of a wvwvw guild that is not too big)

Benji.9203:

@theCOREYCOLAK

Gotta love that Mesmer build diversity. What classes do you find the hardest to deal with in this build and which do you find the easiest? How do you play it in small groups? Is it like a debuffer who hangs in the back ccing certain targets with assisted damage from phantasms?

…Also this is completely off topic but is your guild focused on wvw?
(I’m on FA as well and have been in search of a wvwvw guild that is not too big)

Hey! Yeah, Corp’s a very small guild (5-6) active members, and we love WvW Send myself or Holy Pickle a message in game. Also while this build is fairly CC intensive, I usually sit around mid-range (600) mark, firing off CC and clones, going in for shatters to removal any boons that may be effecting our potential damage. I sit at roughly 1.5k toughness, so it’s still very tanky, while delivering big spike damage and consistent CC, so don’t feel as if you can’t push up further and get in peoples faces. I’m trying to get some videos recorded but I’ve got a couple mid-semester exams + assignments due in the next few days so it won’t be for another couple days.

As for class difficulties, Necromancers would have to be the only real class I find difficult. Only the tanky condition damage ones. And also tanky Mesmers specing into 200% Increased Defenders.

Edit: It’s also important to note that we’re usually using voice comms while roaming, so I generally call out targets and spikes and time chain lockdown on foes who are generally below 50% HP, while DPS finishes them off. Baby sitting downed players while we continue fights is also another one of my priorities, if we don’t have the time and/or it’s unsafe to attempt a stomp, I will generally keep a stun ready for someone who attempts to revive an ally.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaiawolf.8261:

@Fadeaway: You forgot the Mantra, which provides more dazes than the rest of the build combined (except if MB bounces).

It’s a solid tactic in duels/small group play. In larger groups it kinda loses effectiveness, and you really need to coordinate your targets in team chat. Fairly worthless in zergs unless you can find and target the commander and bring him down.

Oh yes, it’s complete trash in zergs. However, usually I’m rolling with a bunker guardian, and another shatter mesmer/thief (depending on what class they wanna play.) Usually I run shatter, but I decided to create something that’ll compliment the team, being able to lock a target down is priceless, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Looks like your other teammate needs to make up his mind on what to play. -COUGHS-

Escthiil.3210:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaiawolf.8261:

@Fadeaway: You forgot the Mantra, which provides more dazes than the rest of the build combined (except if MB bounces).

It’s a solid tactic in duels/small group play. In larger groups it kinda loses effectiveness, and you really need to coordinate your targets in team chat. Fairly worthless in zergs unless you can find and target the commander and bring him down.

Oh yes, it’s complete trash in zergs. However, usually I’m rolling with a bunker guardian, and another shatter mesmer/thief (depending on what class they wanna play.) Usually I run shatter, but I decided to create something that’ll compliment the team, being able to lock a target down is priceless, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Looks like your other teammate needs to make up his mind on what to play. -COUGHS-

;) Tell me about it.

“Also a full daze shatter doesn’t stack, one daze/stun causes the others to be ignored.”

It’s only ignored when the 2nd illusion shatters on your target when he’s still under daze. Positioning can be done in such a way that you can chain them if done properly.

Tried out a variation on this setup today. I don’t have any PTV gear right now, so I went with my knights gear loaded with ruby orbs. This made this very powerful, although a little more glass cannon since you don’t have as much vital.

For zergs, the best I can see the CC doing is pinpoint shutdown of a key enemy player … for example, that Guardian trying to cause havoc in your lines or that Thief trying to gank the glass cannons in your backfield.

fadeaway.2807:

Am I missing something? You don’t have access to many dazes, was it realy worth focusing your traits and gear on them?

Unless he changed his build link since you posted this, he has 5 Dazes and 2 Stuns, on 20s – 45s cd’s. Should be plenty.

Signet 1s
Mantra 2d
Magic Bullet (1d + 1s)
Chaos Storm 1d
Diversion 1d (or up to 3 if you count per illusion)

Very cool to see people experimenting with Daze/Stun builds. Every time I look at Mesmer builds, ANet’s emphasis on Daze/Stun and expectation we play that way at least some of the time is clear:

Runes of the Mesmer 6x set bonus
One of our four main class skills, Diversion
All the Daze/Stun – related traits

It’s been on my todo-list to experiment with this some as well, but haven’t gotten past just theorycrafting builds. My biggest problem with it is you pretty much have to give up Illusionary Persona to make a Daze/Stun focused build, and I’m just too addicted to the utility + dmg IP provides.

But maybe if I start getting pwned by Daze/Stun mesmers I’ll change my mind.

kurtosis.9526:

Very cool to see people experimenting with Daze/Stun builds. Every time I look at Mesmer builds, ANet’s emphasis on Daze/Stun and expectation we play that way at least some of the time is clear:

Runes of the Mesmer 6x set bonus
One of our four main class skills, Diversion
All the Daze/Stun – related traits

It’s been on my todo-list to experiment with this some as well, but haven’t gotten past just theorycrafting builds. My biggest problem with it is you pretty much have to give up Illusionary Persona to make a Daze/Stun focused build, and I’m just too addicted to the utility + dmg IP provides.

But maybe if I start getting pwned by Daze/Stun mesmers I’ll change my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my shatter builds! Soooo much! However, my small roaming group of 3 came across a problem, singling people out, and focusing them when there’s 5-6 other enemies around them became a hassle. Killing felt like a chore, so I came up with a means to prevent them from running away, whilst containing those other elements of groups (thieves and necros) from blowing off their massive spikes.

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Tried out a variation on this setup today. I don’t have any PTV gear right now, so I went with my knights gear loaded with ruby orbs. This made this very powerful, although a little more glass cannon since you don’t have as much vital.

In WvW I run full PTV jewels + zerker weapons and an armour combination of clerics and rabbid (however I will be replacing the rabbid chest piece/mask and legs for PTV or the new VPT.)

A stun is basically daze+immobolize in one?

Play around with Mantra of Diversion and watch the subtle shake up in your foe’s rotation as their skills keep “randomly” going on cooldown for a second

@Phira: yes, stun = daze w/ an immobilize component. However, a condition removal will not help against it as it isn’t truly immobilize.

something funny about this build:
i see no ways to counter another ‘stunway’ mesmer if you are a stunway mesmer.
or a way to counter a warrior with a shield, or a thief with a pistol offhand, etc, etc.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Tried out a variation on this setup today. I don’t have any PTV gear right now, so I went with my knights gear loaded with ruby orbs. This made this very powerful, although a little more glass cannon since you don’t have as much vital.

In WvW I run full PTV jewels + zerker weapons and an armour combination of clerics and rabbid (however I will be replacing the rabbid chest piece/mask and legs for PTV or the new VPT.)

I never run PTV in wvw. I’m always running either knights (for my power/crit builds) or rabid (for my cond tank). I’ve gotten use to running with 17k health so it’s no biggy to me.

now that confusion and glamours are nerfed,

aoe diversion trait + daze gives 5 stacks of vulnerability is probably one of the most effective tools in breaking up stacked up zergs on the battle field. aside from static field.

Nordic Natedog.4360:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Tried out a variation on this setup today. I don’t have any PTV gear right now, so I went with my knights gear loaded with ruby orbs. This made this very powerful, although a little more glass cannon since you don’t have as much vital.

In WvW I run full PTV jewels + zerker weapons and an armour combination of clerics and rabbid (however I will be replacing the rabbid chest piece/mask and legs for PTV or the new VPT.)

I never run PTV in wvw. I’m always running either knights (for my power/crit builds) or rabid (for my cond tank). I’ve gotten use to running with 17k health so it’s no biggy to me.

yeah, that’s how I feel, however under the circumstances I’ve been running this, our group usually finds ourselves in 2-3v6-10’s a majority of the time. Since I have less invis’ as opposed to my shatter counterparts, and if we go against groups more than once, I noticed that I get targeted first, and thus need the extra 7k HP to survive, (No point in being group support and control if you’re dead right?)

wads.5730:

now that confusion and glamours are nerfed,

aoe diversion trait + daze gives 5 stacks of vulnerability is probably one of the most effective tools in breaking up stacked up zergs on the battle field. aside from static field.

Running this with GS, S/F and feedback, you’re able to run a pretty solid shatter-like build with constant AoE vuln. It’s rather effective, keeping 20-25% more damage for your group.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Tried out a variation on this setup today. I don’t have any PTV gear right now, so I went with my knights gear loaded with ruby orbs. This made this very powerful, although a little more glass cannon since you don’t have as much vital.

In WvW I run full PTV jewels + zerker weapons and an armour combination of clerics and rabbid (however I will be replacing the rabbid chest piece/mask and legs for PTV or the new VPT.)

I never run PTV in wvw. I’m always running either knights (for my power/crit builds) or rabid (for my cond tank). I’ve gotten use to running with 17k health so it’s no biggy to me.

yeah, that’s how I feel, however under the circumstances I’ve been running this, our group usually finds ourselves in 2-3v6-10’s a majority of the time. Since I have less invis’ as opposed to my shatter counterparts, and if we go against groups more than once, I noticed that I get targeted first, and thus need the extra 7k HP to survive, (No point in being group support and control if you’re dead right?)

Certainly. I love to roam and tried this out by switching out the sig for decoy. It considerably helped. I also change that slot out for feedback when capping. But I do understand you want to be as durable as possible in the above situation.

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Certainly. I love to roam and tried this out by switching out the sig for decoy. It considerably helped. I also change that slot out for feedback when capping. But I do understand you want to be as durable as possible in the above situation.

Yeah, when I want a little more survivability I swap out my sig for a blink. However lose a guaranteed almost 3 second stun… I dunno ahahahaha.

Hi. I want to ask about the 2nd effect of Magic Bullet since u are using Pistol.

Magic Bullet 2nd effect = Daze 2sec.
Confounding Suggestions = 50% chance to cause a 1-second stun whenever you daze a target.

So the Confounding SUggestions will change the 2sec daze into 1sec stun or 2sec stun? If only 1sec would using Dual Swords better? Not to mention Sword #4 has quick CD.

The confounding suggestions will apply a 1 second stun in addition to the 2 second daze. So they will be stunned for 1 sec, then dazed for 1 sec after that (because they’re dazed and stunned during the stun).

Interesting, I never really thought about AoE Diversion and Confounding Suggestions.

fadeaway.2807:

Am I missing something? You don’t have access to many dazes, was it realy worth focusing your traits and gear on them?

We have access to a lot of dazes, it’s just they seem to be so rarely used. MoD is super underrated, especially against classes that require windup (like Eles) to be effective. Even on a plain shatter you can use Diversion to great effect since it interrupts stomps.

Nevhie.6079:

Hi. I want to ask about the 2nd effect of Magic Bullet since u are using Pistol.

Magic Bullet 2nd effect = Daze 2sec.
Confounding Suggestions = 50% chance to cause a 1-second stun whenever you daze a target.

So the Confounding SUggestions will change the 2sec daze into 1sec stun or 2sec stun? If only 1sec would using Dual Swords better? Not to mention Sword #4 has quick CD.

When using a sword 4, everything hit in a line has a 50% chance of daze, so it’s kind of good, however I use pistol with condi duration food for long lasting bleeds (stacks up to 8, with staff field 8 stacks of confu too) so it’s all about pressure. In regards to Magic Bullet, the initial shot will stun the first person (2seconds) , and then the second person hit will be daze (50% chance of being stunned.) Overall, I’d recommend using pistol with this build, due to the increased pressure from iDuelist. However that being said, you can run offhand sword if you want

Esplen.3940:

The confounding suggestions will apply a 1 second stun in addition to the 2 second daze. So they will be stunned for 1 sec, then dazed for 1 sec after that (because they’re dazed and stunned during the stun).

There is no daze after the 1s stun. Try it on the golem dummies.
Interestingly though, the 5-stack vuln from daze is still applied.

What are you saying? Prediction? Keen sense?
I´m using this build for 3 months now and its easymode as hell. just chain up the stuns/dazes and take care of no stabillity icon popping up.
Inbetween spawn phantasms and thats it.

Blimm.5028:

What are you saying? Prediction? Keen sense?
I´m using this build for 3 months now and its easymode as hell. just chain up the stuns/dazes and take care of no stabillity icon popping up.
Inbetween spawn phantasms and thats it.

I’m sorry, I was only trying to help you, is all. And by all means, go and chain them stuns instead of using them smart, and rupting important skills. Phantasm builds are easy mode, this used correctly is not. You wanted a stunning build with all the traits that go together. This is as close as you’ll get, even since GW1, mesmer’s rupting ability has been purely a team utility. Never has it been something that you just roll with and clutch RA 4v1. It’s that same mentality that has been carried over to here, otherwise mesmer CC would become over powered.

I was just about to make a thread theorycrafting a PvP lockdown build but I realized

“Wait… Didn’t I see something called Stunway?”

This looks really interesting, and I’d love to see a video of it in action. My idea was similar, but more damage/mantra-focused.

30/30/0/0/10 – Domination: IV,VII, XI / Dueling: IV, VII, XI / Illusions: III

Full set of Mantras besides MoPain. Sword-Sword / Staff and Knight’s Amulet (Berserk Jewel). with Runes of the Mesmer.
—
My idea was more with Dazes in mind rather than Stuns. I figured 6 dazes (with 2 multi-target dazes) should be enough to get the job done while I have a boosted 25% damage to beat down my opponent with 3 clones and 4 readied mantras, though I was really tempted to experiment with Illusions (XII) mixed with Deceptive Evasion.

I also had a Retal/Heal/Daze bunker in mind.

0/0/20/30/0 … Not exactly sure of traits yet, thinking Cleric’s amulet for the power and healing power, iDefender for double retal procs and mantra heals.. Squeezing dazes in there somehow would allow me to charge my mantras in relative safety but the entire concept is still in its infancy.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I was just about to make a thread theorycrafting a PvP lockdown build but I realized

“Wait… Didn’t I see something called Stunway?”

This looks really interesting, and I’d love to see a video of it in action. My idea was similar, but more damage/mantra-focused.

30/30/0/0/10 – Domination: IV,VII, XI / Dueling: IV, VII, XI / Illusions: III

Full set of Mantras besides MoPain. Sword-Sword / Staff and Knight’s Amulet (Berserk Jewel). with Runes of the Mesmer.
—
My idea was more with Dazes in mind rather than Stuns. I figured 6 dazes (with 2 multi-target dazes) should be enough to get the job done while I have a boosted 25% damage to beat down my opponent with 3 clones and 4 readied mantras, though I was really tempted to experiment with Illusions (XII) mixed with Deceptive Evasion.

I also had a Retal/Heal/Daze bunker in mind.

0/0/20/30/0 … Not exactly sure of traits yet, thinking Cleric’s amulet for the power and healing power, iDefender for double retal procs and mantra heals.. Squeezing dazes in there somehow would allow me to charge my mantras in relative safety but the entire concept is still in its infancy.

While Dazes are nice, I’d much rather have a smaller number of stuns over dazes. Simply since the lockdown is ridiculous, and synergises incredible with group play (ie, another shatter mesmer, or warrior running +50% crit chance against stunned foes.)

I’m attempting at putting together a video of it in action, however, I’m running GW on my macbook pro, so screengrabbing software is limited, and clunkiest. Not to mention I don’t have the best graphics

Edited for post patch. Halting strike now does significant damage, save those mantra dazes for shutting down enemies trying to heal.