Guild Wars 2

Original Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsc8cl4zionRTlGZ9IhJF923nUAdnX6RsvtsB-jkCBojDimCEm4IQEJg5cFRjtKqIasqlYqYER1WzCymzKrSBcxyI-w

The Nirvana

Previously named the Swordsman-tra, this was an attempt to make a full mantra build, or the “Full-Mantra Mesmer”. Why? Because I heard it was hard/impossible and wanted to give it a shot. At any rate, the Swordsman-tra is a tank-ish build with good damage output and able to get some good stacks of Might. Unlike other builds, though, this one only has a single weapon set, or more accurately both the weapon sets are dual swords. This was because after building into the mantras, I found it would be better to create a build that would make the mantras more useful as well, and so dual swords would give good damage output and also make sure the target was always in range and sight for the mantras to activate. This also helps put a lot of non-stop pressure on the opponent. This build seems best for roaming in a small group[1-4 others], hitting hard, taking damage, and healing a bunch.

Weapons

-Dual Swords: The swords are all Cavalier with the main hand of both sets having a Superior Sigil of Intelligence. The off-hands of both sets are different, one having the Superior Sigil of Nullification, and the other of Generosity. The off-hands are both on crits, and with the SoI on the main hands making it a 100% crit on swap, this will become a good source of condition removal and boon removal. The Cavalier gives a good bonus to the critical damage, which helps on swap.

Skills

-Mantra of Healing: Auto-healing for in combat

-Mantra of Pain: For auto-damage, of course. Has a 1-second CD, making it perfect to use with other mantras.

-Mantra of Distraction: For dazing and interrupts

-Mantra of Concentration: The main stun-break of this build

Traits
0/30/20/20/0

Dueling
-Protective Mantras: Gain 400 toughness while channeling mantras, good in the breaks of melee when running after or away from opponents.

-Mantra Mastery: Reduced recharge on mantras[20%]

-Empowering Mantras: 4% extra damage for each readied mantra, which gives 16% at the beginning of the fight

Chaos
-Illusionary Defense: 3% reduced damage per illusion. Not so mantra-based, but it helps give more purpose to the extra clones and phantasms.

-Bountiful Interruption: Good with the Mantra of Distraction and Illusionary Riposte. Together with the Diversion shatter, you should be able to get a quick 5 or 25 stacks of Might in the crunch time of a fight.

Inspiration
-Mender’s Purity: -1 condition when you heal, a good way to remove two conditions with the Mantra of Healing

-Restorative Mantras: Heals allies when channeling a mantra. With this build, you’ll be able to heal allies 4 times at the least per battle, thus making it very good for support.

Equipment

Armor: Full Sentinel and Superior Rune of Lyssa. With upped Power, Toughness, and Vitality, the build becomes more tank-ish with better base damage combined with the auto-criticals the weapon-swap provides. The Rune of Lyssa gives some precision, which helps a bit with the normal crit-rate, which is good, but the best part is the [#6] in which using an Elite Skill provides all boons. Combined with Moa-Morph, this skill will both debuff opponents beyond help and gives the means to smash them on the final stretch of the battle after all the mantras are used.

Accessories: Full Cavalier with 3 Power Infusions and 2 Precision Infusions.

Back: Knight with Precision Infusion

Buffs:
-Spicy Marinated Mushroom: Pushes the Power into the 3000s, which feels nice, and gives a good bit of Toughness.

-Potent Superior Sharpening Stone: Power equal to 6% Toughness and 4% Vitality.

Play Style

Strong at 1-on-1, but best in taking out small groups in a small group. Focusing on a single target, preferably melee, maybe a warrior or guardian, the Swordsman-tra will strike with his sword a number of times, using his full set of skills, until one charge of each mantra is used[You can use Mantra of Pain whenever], with the exception of the Mantra of Concentration as that is more situational. By this point, make sure all your sword skills are used and on CD before switching to your second dual-sword set for an auto recharge and repeat the process, using up all your mantras[minus MoC]. Once done, switch again, tap the opponent a bit to get the critical, and roll away. Use Illusionary Leap before channeling Mantra of Pain[or another if it’s ready] and use it as a quick getaway if they close the distance too fast. While the other Mantras CD, just fight the opponent like normal, using Moa-Morph only in the stickiest situations to turn the tide. Once the Mantras are ready to be channeled, just roll away and do it, using Mantra of Pain while channeling to keep the damage rolling without breaking the chant.
When using Moa-Morph, there’s no point in wasting your Mantras since you have a major boost for that time, unless it’s Mantra of Pain.
With this style, your teammates will be healed numerous times through the use of mantras and the high damage and steady crits help beat the opponents down with them unable to touch you with your constant dazing, blocking, evasion, and stability in the middle of combat. Their boons and conditions won’t last long given the crit-rate and your damage and defense will likely wear them down enough to kill.

This is untested and would benefit from any constructive criticism or advice.

Interesting. Have you thought of going 20 into domination instead of chaos for some vulnerability stacking, Empowered Illusions and possibly Halting Strike?
Also it seems odd that you have 2 sets of swords, but don’t pick up reduced cooldowns for them.

Anyways, looks pretty good for groups and will be even stronger after dec. 10 patch.

Oh, BTW all your sigils share the same cooldown timer.

I tried going full mantra 2 days ago in Spvp, and I was horrible :P

10/30/0/30/0 with sword, pistol/scepter, sword/greatsword.

For the first time, it felt like I lost all Mesmer related skill, and lost nearly every 1vs1, or I get zerged and have no means of escape xD.

I spent more time watching my coolowns and mantra charges than I was watching the combat :P. it had alot of healing though, its funny.

It was a traumatizing experience x.x

Maybe you’re more lucky than me :P

Noss.4105:

Interesting. Have you thought of going 20 into domination instead of chaos for some vulnerability stacking, Empowered Illusions and possibly Halting Strike?
Also it seems odd that you have 2 sets of swords, but don’t pick up reduced cooldowns for them.

Anyways, looks pretty good for groups and will be even stronger after dec. 10 patch.

Oh, BTW all your sigils share the same cooldown timer.

I created an alternative version now with Halting Strike, though I still seem to be leaning more towards the original.
I also felt that, having two sets of swords, if you start from the back and move up with your attacks, you just have to swap weapons to get all the skills cooled down. This also works with the sigils, since swap CD is around 10 seconds, so if you swap every 11 seconds or so, you should be able to activate the sigils each time.

@Alissah: Yeah, a full-mantra build doesn’t let the mesmer be very… mesmer-like, but is more like a combat-mesmer than anything else. But that’s also why I chose dual swords with mantras. Dual swords allows more normal combat than magical, which would probably feel more easy to adapt to the mantras with.

This build seems to be very useful in small groups (5 to 10 people), but there are huge problems when we’re talking about roaming (alone).

Talking about general use, full mantras is not the best option. When you use all mantras stacks, then you’re useless for entirely 11s. And with no Harmonious Mantras, this situation will come very fast.
Also, Moa skill is extremely good for 1vs1 to 4vs4. But when the groups are larger, the effect of this skill on the battle gets redundant, I thinkboth Mass Invisibility and Time Warp can be more useful.
Your build depends only in iSwordman. In your supposes, iSwordman is always alive, but you don’t have alternatives. A secondary weapon set would solve this.

Talking about roaming alone:
- There’s no ooc speed or traveler rune and no blink. Without any of this things, roaming becomes harder and less enjoyable.
- No stealth skills. This is a huge disadvantage when roaming. Mass invisibility has taken me out of trouble uncountable times.
- No burst damage. You run a tanky build without any phantasm-dps boost. That makes Moa useless. Even in spvp I have managed many times to survive after I was Moa’ed. Also in WvW I can’t remember any time I was killed by Moa.
Also, Moa is a very dependent skill. When a mesmer gets used to kill enemies through Moa, they tend to lose ability when it doesn’t work. So they have much problems when facing skilled enemies, who are able to survive againt Moa.
- Mantras when dueling is not optimal, lesser when not having any stealth skill. Cause you need to spend a lot of seconds casting them.

Here’s my version:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAscRl4zipHQTkGa9IiJFBnvdSB05clegb82FC-jUCBojCiEEAkIRM7pIasVRFRjVbDTFjIq2aWQ2cWZVKgIWGB-w
- Soldier armor. Sentinel is not optimal for mesmers, as we already have medium base health and using them means a quite loss of power.
- Greatsword/Staff. GS is for more pressure on the enemies. Staff is for more support to your allies. I prefer GS in small groups, as it is a much faster weapon.
- Mantra of resolve. It is more helpful for your small team to clean conditions than giving stupidly 4s of stability every 27s.
- Signet of Inpiration. As you already have Lyssa runes, this is a huge combo. All your party has all boons for 6s. And in a small group, this is awesome.
- Phantasmal Fury. As you have low precision and high critical damage, this trait means a huge boost to phantasms dps.
- Sword trait. Both mantras you use, have low CD. It is much better to bump all your primary weapon set CD.
- Deceptive Evasion and debilitating Dissipation to have more pressure via clone deaths. Also, Empowering Mantras gets useless if you’re running only 2 mantras in a such tanky build.
- Blink for self survive and to cover the break stuns from Mantra of Concentration.
- Time Warp. Is it the best way to support your small team and the best way to use the power of Lyssa runes.
- Sigil of Bloodlust and 2 sigils of Battle to have more damage. Note that phantasms don’t activate the sigils. This make the sigils you put quite useless. Also, with such low precision, critical hit sigils won’t activate very much.
- Lemongrass Soup (More defense against conditions) or Sweet and Spicy Butternut Soup (more damage) are better options for food.
- Cavalier backpack. I think 5% of critical damage and is much better than simply 56 of precision

Dondagora.9645:

…This also works with the sigils, since swap CD is around 10 seconds, so if you swap every 11 seconds or so, you should be able to activate the sigils each time…

I meant the “on weapon swap” -sigils share the same cooldown timer with “on crit” -sigils. So after you swap weapons, your “on crit” sigils can’t proc for 9 or so seconds, and if your “on crit” sigil procs after those 9 secs, your “on swap” -sigil can’t proc for next 10 seconds.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

edit: Also about that alternative build. I wouldn’t bother with domination unless you go atleast 15 points into it to get Dazzling. That’s 8x vulnerability on interrupt and helps your buddies too. :P