Guild Wars 2

Shatter – Our most popular and effective mesmer mechanic. There are so many ways to strategically land shatters and even more methods at our disposal to utilize them uniquely.

It’s a foregone conclusion that most agree many of our shatter traits leave much to be desired, but I have to believe that isn’t stopping many of you from running builds that highlight some of these traits. To that end, I would love to know 1) Are you running a shatter build 2) What style are you running, and 3) How do you implement it strategically? Note I’m especially interested in hearing about builds that fill a very specific or niche role in a team, but also want to hear any other cases!

I know there are some obvious builds, take for example the tried and true, always there for you, never to be outclassed traditional 4/4/0/0/6 shatter. It’s likely no other shatter build (or ANY build for that matter) will outshine it’s effectiveness in our PvP game. Many guides have been written in support of it and most top mesmer PvP players use it.

I mention the traditional build because I think it speaks for itself on usage and strategy and is well documented in an overall sense by Supcutie and other great guides by Osicat, Vash and Jurica

It’s no secret that shatter mesmers are closely married to their traits. Shatters without traits are pretty much useless. But what do our traits allow us to do with shatters? We can inflict conditions, cleanse conditions, strip boons, gain boons and heal ourselves. That’s quite a bit of diversity in effects and applications. Let’s spell them out:

• Rending Shatter. Shattering illusions inflicts vulnerability on nearby foes. Does anyone use this??
• Shattered Concentration. Shatter skills also remove a boon on hit. One of our strongest PvP support traits.
• Bountiful Disillusionment. Gain boons each time a shatter skill is used. Not a bad premise but commonly referred to as underpowered. Still, any uses?
• Restorative Illusions. Heal a small amount when you shatter illusions. Any support mesmers running this?
• Shattered Conditions. Using a shatter skill removes a condition from you and allies around you. Very powerful, but niche?
• Vigorious Revelation. Shattering illusions grants vigor to nearby allies. A powerful, solid support trait for an adept offering.
• Illusionary Retribution. All Shatter skills inflict confusion. Minor trait, very powerful in the good old days before the confusion nerf in WvW. Is this still used as a focus in a build?
• Shattered Strength. Shattering illusions grants you might per illusion. Minor trait, a staple of the traditional shatter build.
• Maimed the Disillusioned. Enemies hit by shatter skills are inflicted with torment. Can be decent in a condition build, but harbors much untapped potential.
• Illusionary Persona. Shattering illusions creates the shatter effect on you as well. The grand-daddy. The one that completes us as mesmers. There is no equal mesmer trait.

Looking over our build sticky, I find very few shatter builds. I’m sure that’s for a reason, but I have to believe some of you are doing wild things with shatter. Maybe you haven’t posted before or maybe you’re a vet on the forums, but if you’ve been playing shatter for a long period of time in ANY game format and have a specific use and strategy for it, I’d love to know. I don’t care if you’ve seen thread after thread debunking these traits. I’ve posted in many of them, but everyone is susceptible to tunnel vision. This isn’t about build criticism. If it works for you and you’ve been at it for awhile, feel free to share. I’d like to keep a running list of uniquely utilized shatter builds.

Happy Shattering!

Reserved for glorious shatter exploits

PU Shatter (Daniel Handler)
Support Shatters (Chaos Archangel)

Year shatter and their traits..

Currently playing a Condi/burst shatter. It works really nice in Small Scale Group Fights, but isnt easy to play. Maybe i will post it Here someday. But i will wait until the Patch comes out. We will see

Btw: Hybrid Builds ftw <3

I’ve been using a typical shatter build (4/4/0/0/6) but with a few changes to be less glassy in WvW. I wear a mix of cavalier and berserker gear and use the sigils of intelligence and perception to compensate for lower crit chance. At 25 stacks of accuracy I have ~40% crit chance. With Precise Wrack and the intelligence sigil charges there’s a ~50% chance that all hits will crit from a full Mind Wrack.

Another minor change is that I like to use Illusionary Elasticity. It allows Mirror Blade to potentially hit an enemy 3 times which does decent damage with the sigil of intelligence. I also use Phantasmal Fury since iBerserker is helpful in finishing off some enemies.

I do PU conditions, but instead of going blackwater I go 0,4,6,0,4. As a result I can do crazy bursts of confusion. e.g torch phantasm + Confusing images+ cry of frustration = 10+ stacks of confusion. If maimed is buffed I might switch out of PU and do 0,4,4,0,6.

skcamow.3527:

• Rending Shatter. Shattering illusions inflicts vulnerability on nearby foes. Does anyone use this??

really feels unnecessary, considering we can easily stack vulnerability (and that there are many ways of stacking vulnerability in game, in general) on a single target

yes, this is AoE, but it’s only a few stacks for only 8 seconds and you probably want to burst one target at a time anyway…

skcamow.3527:

• Restorative Illusions. Heal a small amount when you shatter illusions. Any support mesmers running this?

tested it for a bit in a build I was using while commanding, but I don’t think it’s really worth it in WvW. Not sure about other game types, but there are better traits in that line IMHO (and a lot better traits in other lines)

skcamow.3527:

• Shattered Conditions. Using a shatter skill removes a condition from you and allies around you. Very powerful, but niche?

if only it worked with Illusionary Persona… as it is, it’s very hard to use properly in WvW

skcamow.3527:

• Vigorious Revelation. Shattering illusions grants vigor to nearby allies. A powerful, solid support trait for an adept offering.

but it’s hard to pass over mender’s purity for it…

skcamow.3527:

• Shattered Strength. Shattering illusions grants you might per illusion. Minor trait, a staple of the traditional shatter build.

still, it feels a bit underpowered as a grandmaster…

skcamow.3527:

• Maimed the Disillusioned. Enemies hit by shatter skills are inflicted with torment. Can be decent in a condition build, but harbors much untapped potential.

I’m not a big fan of condi builds, I tested it a bit but doesn’t really feels like it can provide enough condi pressure to make it worth going 6 points in illusions

my 2 cents

Here’s a weird might stacking/celestial shatter build ive theorycrafted

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAraRlknpRtlpxWNcrNCuBZqJg6fMkTW6A8rBA-TJxHwADOFAa2fAwTAoYZAA

Thoughts?

I’m currently using the standard 4/4/0/0/6 GS/Staff shatter for WvW roaming and doing quite fine. I use Blink, Decoy and Mantra of Resolve.

There are a few Matchups that are very hard to unwinnable (Power Necro, most Thief builds, …) but at there very least i usually manage to get away by exploiting terrain and/or our underwater mobility.

Playing this in WvW really requires to be able to pull off About Face -> Phase Retreat consistently, though.

It’s in my signature. It’s great in tPvP. Awesome things can be pulled off with portal, burst, putting pressure on people from high range ect.
I swap null field for decoy and illusion of life depending on how we all are feeling and the enemy composition. It’s mostly decoy but I’ve started using illusion of life a lot as a utility skill.

I use a boon share support Mesmer which can be viewed here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdWlknpCtlqxANcrNCuxY6JaIkTOyJlMgfB-TJxHwADeCALLDoa/BAnCAA

Very rarely, I sometimes take out Chaotic Interruption for Shattered Conditions. This isn’t a shatter build, but I shatter often for the vigor to my allies. If we’re facing necros and engis, I sometimes switch it out. It’s not a bad trait, and considering I run Null Field as well, it helps to support my team that much more.

Only issue is that going 6 into Inspiration usually means you can’t take another awesome gm trait. CI offers a lot in terms of offensive support to the team.

Sorry for the double post, but I will say I’m pretty upset that Restorative Illusions isn’t for you and your team like Shattered Conditions. I so want that trait to get a buff.

I burst my opponents down to ~40-50% then hit shatter and immediately start summoning more phantasms.

You know what I’ve always loved?

Support Shatters (Link)

A friend of mine (dat berrulos!) suggested the above build (0/4/4/6/0) as a “more-optimized” variant to my support build, sacrificing CI for condi-removal shatters. I must say, this build works surprisingly well for a support Mes. I’ve always liked Vigorous Revelation because Vigor is a boon that can only reliably be provided by Mesmer, which is why I feel it’s so key to boonshare builds, and adding Vigor + Condi cleanse is really niiice, will have to get a clip of it up at some point.

If only the cleanse is on shatter activation rather than when the clone shatters. =[

I still like to play my crazy tank shatter/mantra build that uses 6/6/0/2/0, Empowering Mantras & HM, using usually Cavalier Amulet. It relies on SoIntelligence for huge shatters and Mind Spikes (MoP). Using Staff & GS, so it’s almost a hybrid Phantasm/Shatter/Mantra build.

You can spike for very big damage on a single enemy using shatters right after swapping weapons (turn off AA!), and the Phantasms still do very good damage as well, but I have a ton of Toughness and good condie removal & heals via MoR.

This build is looking forward to the patch too! AoE Mind Spikes, and I would probably run AoE Daze Mantra as well along with Halting Strike.

I run a Bountiful Shatter build, 0/4/4/0/6

Sword Pistol and Staff.

The boons, the 3300 power and the 16k 3 clone+IP shatter

Been playing the standard 4/4/0/0/6 shatter for 1+ years in spvp/wvw. In the last 8+ months have been running gs/staff. No condition removal…usually like to run decoy/blink and for fun throw in something random for the last utility slot like portal or Moa to mix things up.

Standard traits: Mental torment, Shattered Concentration, Far-Reaching Manipulations, Deceptive Evasion, Compounding Power, Illusionary Elasticity (Can’t wait for that buff!) and Illusionary Persona.

In spvp/wvw, I don’t really have a problem with most thieves if I have mirror images for the counter burst but lately I’ve been running a lot of portal for fun. I think with thieves it is mostly about the muscle memory of staff distancing that helps me pull back from the burst I know when I try to troll with Moa (Which is fun for minion master/power necros) I will always lose against thieves if I don’t have Mass Invis.

Some interesting builds. Looks like most are using standard shatter and common traits with slight variations here and there. I definitely agree with building a little more tanky for WvW to avoid getting insta-gibbed by thieves. Regarding IE, it’s actually considered meta for GS/Staff builds right now (vs illusionary invigoration). With the upcoming change to IE, shatter mesmers using staff are going to get a decent buff as well.

@ carpboy: I’ve always thought that hybrid might work with maimed to provide a semblance of “burst”. I’m also of the opinion that if celestial is taken in a build, bountiful interruption needs to be there to keep might flowing. You could easily take 4 out out of dueling and take that. You’d maintain higher might overall and your resulting conditions and mind wracks will hit much harder. To that end, I would probably switch to precise wrack. GS is an interesting choice and will stack bleeds well enough, but not much else. It’s definitely strong in shatter builds though, so let me know how that goes. I also suggest experimenting with staff.

@ mandj: Looks interesting, feel free to post at your leisure.

@ mailmail: Looks very similar to one chaos posted recently, but I think his was more shatter focused. Why take DE if you’re not shattering often?

@ windwalker: I remember thinking that was interesting. Can you post your build link?

Matt Stacey.7415:

I burst my opponents down to ~40-50% then hit shatter and immediately start summoning more phantasms.

Yeah this something easy to forget for many PvE mesmers, even when running phantasm builds.

Hamster.4861:

I run a Bountiful Shatter build, 0/4/4/0/6

Sword Pistol and Staff.

The boons, the 3300 power and the 16k 3 clone+IP shatter

I was wondering if someone was going to post this one. I’ve been testing a 0/4/4/0/6 spec but with GS/Staff. I posted recently on it here. As I mentioned in that post, the biggest issue is lack of boon strip. This may not be as crucial for WvW roaming but it’s pretty important for sPvP. Arcane Thievery is decent but unfortunately can’t replace shattered concentration. The shatter bursts with high might stacks, though – amazing. I’m hitting up to 3k ea in PvP – sounds like you’re at 4k in WvW. I’m also trying a weird retaliation spice with confusing cry and thinking about adding more interrupt spice for BI synergy. What traits do you take besides the obvious?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8alknpRtlqxMNcrNCuxYyJaA1LN0TlMgfB-TlSDwA53f4pyvXq/U5BAAX3AATQKUCO4IAA5gAI5CAEAABgbezbezbmUARsMC-w

Phantasmal Fury, Deceptive Evasion
Debillitating Dissipation, Bountiful Interruption
Masterful Reflection, Illusionary Elasticity (getting ready for the buff! =D) and Illusionary Persona

Teefs are no match!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsaRlknpGtlpxRNcrNipxg6yqbOSFQpLZ8OA-TJhFwAAOFANeCA+2fYaZAA

When I feel like mixing it up a bit from the normal 2/2/0/0/6 shatter. Combo it right if your enemy will have never died so fast.

Hamster.4861:

I run a Bountiful Shatter build, 0/4/4/0/6

Sword Pistol and Staff.

The boons, the 3300 power and the 16k 3 clone+IP shatter

ahh, is this what was causing the wrekage last night. good build, much props.

so preparing myself to post patch with condition shatter
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7alknpMtFpxTNcrNCuBZqJg6fMkTW6AMgfB-TJRHwAFeCAJLDA4iAEa/BA

so far d/p thieves and meditation guardians are main problem but maybe after patch ie will stack faster conditions

in wvw i go with perplexity runes (torment just make duration longer so while perplexity stack confusion)
i usually do 10 torment and confusion

consider mod mantra with good aoe conditions dmg and cc

I like the standard 4/4/0/0/6 power osicat build for soloq/tpvp and 4/4/0/0/6 condi shatter for hotjoin fun. Looking forward to the changes w/e they may be.

@kaamau: I never really warmed up to furious interruption, but that looks like a really fun shatter variant.

@hamster: Interesting trait choices. I run the same 0/4/4/0/6 build idea, shatter bursts with might, but generally different other choices. Why DD (esp post patch)? Seems you might get more out of manipulation CD’s.

The rest look like condi-shatter, which I’m sure we’ll see a lot of post patch. With our coming changes, the 4/4/0/0/6 build (or other variants) certainly have some potential.

Any other shatter builds out there?

I’ve updated the OP with the unique builds seen so far in the thread. Would love to hear of more.

I think the problem with shatter build diversity is that, to get the most out of it, you’re almost forced to trait x/4/x/x/6. Traiting 6 into Chaos or Inspiration for the support shatter traits makes you a mediocre support that probably shouldn’t be slotted in over a guardian.

Shatter’s team utility seems shoehorned into two roles: high aoe burst and boon strip. If a shatter mesmer didn’t perform these two roles, I’d probably opt to take another class. To that end, you’re almost forced to take Deceptive Evasion, Illusionary Persona, and (probably) Shattered Concentration. Other shatter variants are probably viable for niche circumstances, but suboptimal for high-level group play.

@skcamow Yeah, it’s almost identical to the one chaos plays, but I much prefer S. Midnight as a stunbreaker than Decoy in this type of build. I guess when I think about it, I shatter more often than not! haha The only time I don’t is when I want to keep a phantasm alive for a burst.

I also changed that boon support Mesmer into a might stacking one. It’s been fun on my other Mesmer. You just switch out Vigorous Revelation for Glamour mastery, rune of pack for strength and S. Inspiration for MoD. I usually have on average 15+ stacks from all the AOE interrupts.

I’m obsessed with sword/focus+Staff.

MailMail.6534:

I’m obsessed with sword/focus+Staff.

/cackles

Just as planned..