Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone. I’ve been playing mesmer for just under a year now on Maguuma and Dragonbrand. I really like the versatility and challenge of the class, and wanted to share with everyone a new build that I’ve been experimenting with in WvW. It’s designed to be used in a pug zerg to prey on the enemy driver and melee train with focused direct damage. We are operating with all the assumptions we normally associate with zerg vs zerg combat.

These assumptions are:
The enemy force has only one driver
There is no coordinated enemy focus party
Opponents are not perfect, people will die

The Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8flknpMt9pxRNMrNSpBZqfQ6FEgEU6TUujC-TlyAABA8AAS4CAQq6PopEMLlfGt/ge6Aa4IAwxBBYPNDkBgZLA-w

Much of the direct damage from this build comes from the Mirror Blade and Phantasmal Berserker that you will be spewing out. Combined with the dueling grandmaster trait Triumphant Distortion, you will be inflicting tens of thousands of damage on an melee train.

iZerker Damage Numbers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZOJOELPmz1bwoFfuiW8uO3QIipPdyfe1Pb7RHcZrLqc/edit?usp=sharing

Damage mitigation comes primarily from Mimic. This incredibly utility, revamped last year, now allows for excellent survivability in large scale combat. Use Mimic on the enemy driver if he pushes, and you will gain access to every boon in the game. Damage avoidance comes from more traditional abilities like Blurred Frenzy and the various stealth skills at your disposal. Ideally, your primary focus should be putting ranged pressure on the enemy driver, hitting him with Mimic or Moa once cool downs are gone or if he/she overextends. You’ll want to position yourself similar to a zerk necro- close enough to deal damage yet staying out of the kill zone.

I should note that there is a negligible difference between using assassins or berserker’s armor, though Assassins is slightly more optimal due to Might mechanics and Sharper Images. Much more important is staying alive, and to that end, not getting caught by the enemy focus party. Don’t waste your cool downs early and make yourself too obvious of a target with Spacial Surge. Lastly, this build is not viable for GvGs, nor does it try to be.

Thanks for reading!

So this is a reasonable build, but I’m going to have to dispute a couple of your claims and call attention to some pretty crazy statements.

expandas.7051:

Much of the direct damage from this build comes from the Mirror Blade and Phantasmal Berserker that you will be spewing out. Combined with the dueling grandmaster trait Triumphant Distortion, you will be inflicting tens of thousands of damage on an melee train.

This is simply not true. Maybe 10s of thousands of damage if you add up every hit from the aoe, but you’re looking at closer to 3k to an absolute maximum of 4k per person from a small burst like that.

Looking at your spreadsheet, you’re assuming 4 hits per target on the iZerker. This is really incorrect, as you’ll be getting 1-2 hits each. The iZerker retargets the aoe box for every tick of the spin, so as it moves through a zerg, it tends to hit different targets. This is wonderful for tagging…but less wonderful for trying to burst a single target. Additionally, you’re neglecting to consider the effect of protection, which a frontline will have generous amounts of when they clash.

Ok, next.

expandas.7051:

Damage mitigation comes primarily from Mimic.

Hold on, I must have misread that.

expandas.7051:

Damage mitigation comes primarily from Mimic.

…No, I read it right. All of my wat. Well, maybe the next bit will explain.

expandas.7051:

This incredibly utility, revamped last year, now allows for excellent survivability in large scale combat. Simply target the enemy driver and go to town.

Nope, no explanation here. So you first have to identify the enemy driver in a chaotic zerg (possible, but challenging). Then, you target the enemy driver with mimic, hope that they don’t dodge, hope that it doesn’t get obstructed or blinded. Then, hope that you manage to get a couple of boons that somehow provide excellent survivability in large scale combat?

I have absolutely no clue how you arrived at this conclusion. You’ll get, generously, a couple seconds of stability, maybe 5-8 seconds of protection, some regen, maybe a bit of retaliation, unlikely that you’ll copy an aegis, aaaand maybe a bit of might. So, what did you get out of all of that? Well, you’ve taken your incredibly squishy build and it’s now…still incredibly squishy. Protection won’t make a build with less than 2k armor and less than 16k hp survive to any sort of incoming damage. The only way you’re going to survive is by not getting hit, mimic is just a wasted spot on your bar.

Overall
This build is unbelievably squishy, and you have pretty much nothing keeping you alive aside from the inherent slipperyness that mesmer brings. This isn’t necessarily an awful thing, it’s just something to be aware of. The other thing to note is that you’re not going to be actually killing the enemy driver with this. There’s too much protection/healing/etc to actually take them out unilaterally. As a matter of fact, you really won’t be damaging the front line in any particularly harmful manner with this, and that’s just the nature of the beast.

On the other hand, you could do really nasty damage to the back line if you targeted them with this, and that’s what I usually use similar builds for. The iZerker is unique that it spawns right on target and does a load of damage really quickly, and sticks around to do it again if they’re not careful. This can decimate backlines, and that’s where I’d recommend you aiming this build.

Thanks for the quick reply. I suppose I’ll go down the line.

While it is true that iZerker will trail behind the target slightly, the hits are calculated independently. If it doesn’t hit the driver, it will certainly hit the rest of the melee train behind him. These four hits, multiplied by the target limit of five, give us a total of 20 opportunities to inflict damage. I was routinely able to get at least a dozen if not more hit marks in live testing, many hitting for critical damage.

I couldn’t help but laugh while reading the bit about Mimic. I definitely could have done a better job of explaining the purpose of the skill and its use case. For anyone that doesn’t know, Mimic now copies all the boons on an enemy target (range: 900) onto yourself. It has great synergy with enemy drivers, simply because those VIP targets are constantly saturated with great boons like might, regeneration, protection, and swiftness. It is not not hard to pull off a successful Mimic. The skill is unblockable, so the only thing you realistically have to worry about is the skill range and whether the driver is dodging or using renewed focus. Most pugmanders are easy to identify because they’re often highly ranked, running guardian, and at the front of the pack. Even if the wrong player is selected, chance are you’ll still get the same complement of boons, albeit in lower durations and stacks. I really think this is more of a L2P issue in positioning, considering that there are also people that go zerk staff ele for ZvZ combat.

I think you make a good point about the low toughness/vitality of the build. Swapping in pieces of Soldier’s trinkets is always a good idea if one is having trouble with positioning. Sometimes I’ve even swapped Moa for the Sylvari racial elite Take Root just for the guaranteed invuln. Fortunately we don’t have to worry about retaliation in this build as much as other classes would, so I’m strongly considering mixing in some Cav to get that toughness stat up.

Lastly, I think this build would lose out to some sort of 44600 or 44006 power phantasm build if I focused the backline instead. The benefits of Triumphant Distortion and Mimic wouldn’t outweigh the negatives- costly trait points, difficult timings.

expandas.7051:

While it is true that iZerker will trail behind the target slightly, the hits are calculated independently. If it doesn’t hit the driver, it will certainly hit the rest of the melee train behind him. These four hits, multiplied by the target limit of five, give us a total of 20 opportunities to inflict damage. I was routinely able to get at least a dozen if not more hit marks in live testing, many hitting for critical damage.

Sure, I’m just saying that the damage to any individual person in the melee train will have a minimal impact on anything.

expandas.7051:

It has great synergy with enemy drivers, simply because those VIP targets are constantly saturated with great boons like might, regeneration, protection, and swiftness.

So I already actually discussed this. You’re going to get a bit of might, some regen, a bit of protection, maybe a few seconds of stability. All these are going to provide you close to zero in survivability. You’d be far better off with the stability mantra or condition removal mantra or feedback or really anything other than mimic. It’s just not going to do anything for you at all. A couple seconds of random boons is going to almost nothing in any way, much less give you any survivability at all, that’s laughable.

expandas.7051:

Most pugmanders are easy to identify because they’re often highly ranked, running guardian, and at the front of the pack.

In a chaotic zerg environment, finding and targeting the enemy commander is absolutely very difficult. Just finding the commander is potentially difficult, especially if they use a veil to engage. On top of that, actually targeting the right person is quite difficult to do. There’s a very good reason why cleaving aoe and ground target aoe are the primary ways of dealing damage in a zerg, and it’s because it’s incredibly difficult to select any given target that you want in a big zerg.

expandas.7051:

Lastly, I think this build would lose out to some sort of 44600 or 44006 power phantasm build if I focused the backline instead. The benefits of Triumphant Distortion and Mimic wouldn’t outweigh the negatives- costly trait points, difficult timings.

There is no benefit to mimic, so that’s besides the point. There is plenty of reason to take triumphant distortion though. There’s still residual aoes, things that could interrupt the zerker like lines of warding or unsteady ground, triumphant distortion is well worth it. Additionally, it’s nice to use with the iWarden to let it get spinning before it dies.

I think you’re selling Mimic short.

A successful Mimic in this scenario gives the mesmer every boon in the game on a 24s cool down. Nearly every boon stacks in duration, so you are looking at significant uptime in useful, life-saving boons like protection and regeneration, the same things you stated would make it more difficult to cleave down an enemy melee train.

On the other hand, Mantra of Concentration shares the same cool down duration with Mimic, gives no other boons besides stability, and overlaps with the stun breaking function of blink and decoy. Mantra of Resolve is also redundant in the current meta of passive condition cleanse through poultry food buffs and Hoelbrak runes.

Learning how to identify drivers in a zerg is a skill that will come to players naturally with experience. I do want to repeat again that, from a survivability standpoint, it’s not the end of the world if you can’t pinpoint the exact player since other members of the melee train will also have defensive boons that can be copied.

I honestly can’t think of a more optimal use case for Mimic.

Not so sure about mimic. Even full of protection, aegis, regeneration, you will still die in 3-4 big hits. It’s stupid to go with such stats, when necros can autoattack for 7k, and a few boons do nothing is an environment where you can be hit 10 times in a second.
Survivability comes from good positioning and a lot of healing and condi cleansing from your team, not a few boons on you.
Also, even in pug zergs, veil is used quite a lot, specially if the commander if from a dedicated guild. Veil is a must, no matter what.

And finally, your damage is not that big as you may thing. I can get 2680 power (no might and guard stacks), 209% crit damage and 45% precision (no fury), while having 2360 armor and 18k base health.

Mimic won’t give you permanent boon uptime, but it will give you burst damage mitigation and stability. It’s a safety net in case you get threatened by the enemy front line. The 33% damage reduction from protection makes getting hit on a 2000 armor build feel the same as getting hit with 3000 armor in a full PVT setup. It’s just that with this build, you have to actively use Mimic to get the extra survivability, it doesn’t come for granted.

Now, in a typical engagement you’ll be kiting the enemy melee train from range. This reduces the need for increased toughness in the build since you aren’t being attacked constantly. The need to have extra vitality is mitigated by Defense Against Guards and the defensive food. Where things get interesting is when you get focused by direct damage and condi-bombed.

The main thing thing that I worry about when I play this build is getting hit by a full glass thief with daze on steal or by a corrupt boon/signet of spite from a condi necro. Due to power-oriented zerg meta, you don’t really see the second as much as the first, and I usually just use Blink, Decoy, or even Take Root to stay alive in those instances. Where it does become a problem is when you face an organized guild that has it’s own focus party.

When I was running this build in early January with a friend, the UhOh pugmander that was tagged up came across Agg on one of the Borderlands. We won the first engage and forced several banners due to two successful Moas on the driver and larger numbers. Subsequent engages never worked out this well because their focus party would specifically target the mesmers first. But you’ll never come across that kind of focused pressure in a normal setting fighting other zergs. It’s really no different than eles that normally run more celestial in GvGs but switch to near or full zerk when bag farming.

Regarding your comment about veil; when I was crafting the build, I envisioned the third utility as being more of wild card for players to swap decoy with signet of midnight/veil. This is because I often ran the Sylvari elite skill Take Root instead of moa as a specific counter to glass thieves. If you happen to be Sylvari and have that skill unlocked, then it makes a lot of sense to pick veil. Heck, you might even want to run Lyssa runes if the conditions are really bothering you.

Lastly, I ran your build numbers through the spreadsheet. Assuming no might and guard stacks, your iZerker 4-hit cleave will do an average of 3700 damage to a target with 3000 armor and no protection. Compared to this build which deals closer to 5400 damage, the damage in your build is roughly 30% less. If we add Guard Killer and Phantasmal Fury, the damage difference is around 18% less. I could see where the decision to bulk up makes sense, but it’s not like you’ve found a way to have your cake and eat it as well.

Based on my experiences in wvw, the phantasms and clones hits once, and then die in enemy mass. Immediate F1 could be better. Have to try that TD but too good to be true holds every time – mesmer is not a lawnmower.

Finding the commander of enemy zerg is possible, but targeting is a bit more difficult – done it once. But mimic works with any ppl in the enemy zerg – just target to the main blob. But mimic is not for me, because I don’t use any food, boons etc.; eventually positioning and movement is the big thing.