Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing a guardian since I started the game about a year ago. But after watching a samurai show recently, I was looking at my chaos sword and I decided, kitten , I have to dual wield these.

So I made a mesmer because I like them more than warriors. I tried a few builds in pvp, and didn’t like phantasm builds because my sword phantasms kept dying and the gameplay was rather passive. After bursting my first opponent with the standard shatter build, I decided shatter was the way to go.

But the standard shatter build lacks condition removal, which really irks me. It’s not the condition bombs that I’m annoyed about, as we have null field and arcane thievery, it’s the single stacks of chill, cripple and fear that aren’t worth blowing a long CD on yet prevent me from doing what I want to do. So I came up with this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAscRl0npMtNqxGNcrNyqxcqlQ9WdlWpHJ7AA-TJBFwAy3fYxTAoaZAAnCAA

It’s quite like the standard shatter, but I’ve given up some damage for better heals and condition removal. I have mantra of distraction in the third slot now, which is great for stopping heals, rapid fires and such but I also run the stability mantra sometimes for the stunbreaks and guaranteed stomps.

On the upside, I’ve found that I can handle conditions much much better, and I rarely run into situations where I’m bogged down by them (only against engineers at a point, necros or when i’m zerged). The mantra heal also heals more than ether feast, and if I’m dying I can disengage and reengage fairly quickly.

On the downside, I’ve lost quite some damage. It’s not just from the loss of the power traits, but also because I need more time to recharge my mantra when I use it up, and I won’t be pressuring my opponent when I’m doing that. Sometimes when I lose duels I wonder if I’d have been able to kill them with the standard shatter build, but I often find I have better results with my current build.

I’m new to mesmers so I’m hoping you more experienced people can comment on the build. It’ll be great if you could recommend more sword/sword builds too I’m aware of the interrupt builds but I’m a bit apprehensive of using them because I’m not really that good, and I sometimes play from asia where my ping is more than 200ms. Thanks!

Hey dude, I’d actually recommend you stick to the standard shatter build for now.

What you’re experiencing is just part of the bumps along the road to learning shatter Mesmer, dealing with conditions, especially control conditions, is going to be a pain but you’re going to have to tough it out until your positioning and awareness improve to the point where you really won’t be running condition removal much at all beyond, maybe Lyssa runes (speaking of which, pleeaasse drop those travelers runes. You’re stunting your damage for unnecessary movement speed runes that are far better suited for WvW) .

While the build you posted definitely can work, it is essentially a weaker version of the standard shatter, and loses out on the main things that make a shatter build work: Damage and boonstripping.

Those 20 points in Domination are crucial. Boonstripping ( Domination VII, Shattered Concentration) is one of the things shatter Mesmer outclass just about every other build at, and shatter Mesmer live and die off the killer bursts they drop. Taking that away makes you a .. sort-of-shatterish-but-not-quite build that ends up essentially acting as training wheels.

Conditions will be your weakness, do not doubt, but skill will compensate with time. Sticking with the standard shatter over the one you posted will make you a better player faster.

(Also, props for Sw/Sw, it’s the one of the rarest sets but my favorite)

Edit: Also, check out Supcutie’s awesome Comprehensive PvP Shatter Guide that is guaranteed to step your game up!

If you want to play standard shatter just take cleanse mantra. It’s a lot less expensive than Null Field and you can get rid of small conditions you’d otherwise tough out.