Guild Wars 2

Is there any viable “Tank” build?

I’ve been tinkering around one for a while, and I have gotten… diametrically opposite results: sometimes it works wonders, sometimes I just want to punch myself in the face.

Usually, when I use this build, I focus on group fights and holding points, or having someone from the enemy team stupidly lose time fighting me while my team members are (should be) capturing points.

What are your thoughts about it? I was thinking of releasing a teaser video, but I believe it still needs some hard testing (especially from the pros).

Rationale behind some of the choices I made:

• Retaliatory Shield: with this build you get Aegis a lot of times. Combined with block from scepter 2, this grants you a lot of Retaliation uptime.
• Arcane Thievery: despite the high health pool, you’re very subsceptible to Conditions. Given that you “shouldn’t” be using Signet of the Ether active to heal, I found this spell to be a good compromise, in place of decoy.
• Signet mastery: should you need to heal, you reaaaally want this to have Signet of the Ether back ASAP.

Build Link

This is highly interesting. As everyone in OMFG could tell you, I’ve been theory-crafting a Signet Tank build that I’d love to discuss with you. This build does a similar thing that mine does. I’ll be sure to revisit and give you some critiques.

The first thing I will say is that tanking isn’t good if you are going stealth… it simply isn’t what a tank is supposed to do. It’s only good if you plan on playing more of a support role. More thoughts later, but thanks for posting your build!

The first thing I will say is that tanking isn’t good if you are going stealth

The reason behind this build is not exactly facetanking like a Guardian would do, but more like avoiding and soaking damage with the insane amounts of boons it generates.

I can see the problem in using stealth when trying to hold or capture a point → it doesn’t work.

But to me, prismatic understanding was just too good to pass up. Given that I cannot generate boons through shattering (for obvious reasons), that was one of the effective options I had left. Also, that +300 toughness + 30% boon duration given by Chaos is really handy!

Looking forward to hear your and others’ opinions!

A couple notes.

First, signet of the ether is an awful choice. Since this is a tank build, the healing skill should be chosen based on raw maximum heal output. Ether feast blows every other heal out of the water in this way. There’s literally not a single valid use for signet of the ether in PvP, it’s just awful.

Overall, I’ve found a tank build to be underwhelming most of the time unless I’m on spirit watch running the orb. It’s just…not great. Maybe if you have a coordinated team working around you as the tank, but as one guy tanking it up…you really can’t do much.

First, signet of the ether is an awful choice

I found the passive healing from it to be quite strong, combined with regeneration. Is it really so bad?

This is the build I’ve been playing with lately: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7dnsISpa2oGuqB3aGZ2YMdFr0BKTqpSGQyA-TZBGAB1s/AAXAAnKDUwRAw4HCAA
It seems to be working pretty well so far. It’s weak to condition spammers like necros, and doesn’t have enough pressure to take on a good engineer, but besides that I’ve had no trouble handling things. I just can’t justify not taking feedback, it’s so satisfying when a ranger presses 2 and doesn’t know why he suddenly lost half his hp. I primarily fight with the staff out, but swap to scepter to change it up a bit. With the focus and the torment, it’s also great at chasing down a fleeing foe. This build is especially useful against thieves. Thieves see a squishy mesmer so jump on me, but I survive the burst then apply massive condition pressure to them with 3 staff clones+myself. Null field is great for boon stripping, and is useful to throw down as a very strong supporting skill in a fight. I also use chaos/null field/feedback with staff 2 to get really high uptime on chaos armor.

I’ve been playing around a bit with the masteries, and found this to be the most effective setup so far. The only real essential part is 5 in chaos for toughness to condition damage, combined with runes of the undead it lets you build tanky and still hurt. This also gives you staff mastery, and reduced damage for keeping up your clones. Deceptive evasion helps a ton with clone maintenance in larger fights, and illusory elasticity helps keep the condition pressure up with staff, but you can make good arguments for other traits as well.

As for signet of the ether, to passively heal the same amount of health as ether feast, it would take ~20 seconds (the cooldown of ether feast) if you can keep 3 clones up. I find them to be fungible, and swap them depending on my mood, with a slight preference towards the signet.

Bigbosos.2063:

First, signet of the ether is an awful choice

I found the passive healing from it to be quite strong, combined with regeneration. Is it really so bad?

No it’s not. Pyro and I are going to argue in this thread. “I feel it in my bones.”

MailMail.6534:

Bigbosos.2063:

First, signet of the ether is an awful choice

I found the passive healing from it to be quite strong, combined with regeneration. Is it really so bad?

No it’s not. Pyro and I are going to argue in this thread. “I feel it in my bones.”

This is a simple math-based statement of fact.

The passive healing from the signet is far less than the healing you obtain from ether feast.

I can go through and post a whole bunch of math if you really want me to, but I’ve done this before multiple times. This is not something that can actually be argued. Ether feast is far stronger healing output than any other heal we have.

Now, the additional argument can be made that the phantasm refresh is worth the far lower healing. This is a different thing with different arguments though. The healing amount is not an argument, it is math.

In your calculations did you also consider the active healing that the signet grants?

Anyway no need to redo them again, but if you have a link available I’d be glad to read them. Btw, one of the arguments for having signet of ether, was the 3x condition cleanse on activation.

On a side note:

Now, the additional argument can be made that the phantasm refresh is worth the far lower healing.

I’m sorry, I didn’t get this point: which phantasm refresh are you talking about?

Bigbosos.2063:

In your calculations did you also consider the active healing that the signet grants?

Active healing is tiny and puts the signet on a 35(28) second cooldown where zero healing is provided. The pure passive effect is significantly worse than ether feast, actually activating the signet puts you far far below it.

Bigbosos.2063:

Anyway no need to redo them again, but if you have a link available I’d be glad to read them. Btw, one of the arguments for having signet of ether, was the 3x condition cleanse on activation.

I really have no idea when the last time I did the calculations were, I’m not sure how far buried in this forum it would be. As far as the condition removal goes, taking that trait is an awful idea. Your only other signet is signet of illusions, which you should not be activating at any point ever. Additionally, that trait shares a spot with Chaotic Dampening, which would reduce all of your staff cooldowns by 20% and increase your toughness. The gain you get from that trait is massive by comparison.

Bigbosos.2063:

On a side note:

Now, the additional argument can be made that the phantasm refresh is worth the far lower healing.

I’m sorry, I didn’t get this point: which phantasm refresh are you talking about?

The active of signet of the ether instantly refreshes the cooldowns of all of your phantasm skills…I figured that’s one of the reasons you took it.

EVERY single heal has a lower healing output than Ether, but each other heal has additional effects that make them more viable for different builds.

In general, it’s my opinion that signet heal is better than Ether for all phantasm builds, and especially builds that utilize iDefender or iDisenchanter.

The active of signet of the ether instantly refreshes the cooldowns of all of your phantasm skills…I figured that’s one of the reasons you took it.

…. do you believe me when I say I didn’t read that part……

God I wanna punch myself in the face xD

MailMail.6534:

In general, it’s my opinion that signet heal is better than Ether for all phantasm builds, and especially builds that utilize iDefender or iDisenchanter.

While it’s potentially arguable to be the case in an offensive phantasm build (It still turns your build into an absolute 1-trick pony that can be punished severely), it doesn’t hold true for a tank build.

Remember that for a tank build, your primary concern is staying alive. The defender is just such an underwhelming phantasm for a tank build in a normal PvP point defense environment. I mentioned that I only use a tank build in spirit watch for orb running. This means that I’m constantly mobile, moving out of aoes/pressure and using the defender for additional damage reduction and overall sustain.

For a point defense, the defender squishes within seconds of casting it, and that’s really not an exaggeration. There’s so much aoe pressure on the point that the defender basically dies from a combination of eating all the random aoe hits AND eating all the random aoe hits that every nearby ally takes. It’s basically useless, even with the signet and phantasm hp trait boosting the health it has.

So overall, what are you getting from the signet in this build? The pDefender is essentially useless in a point-control environment, and that’s one of the biggest reasons that nobody ever uses it. It’s handy and even fantastic in a mobile fight where you and it can avoid strong pressure, but on a point…it’s just a wasted utility on your bar that could contain some stunbreak or condition removal or whatever. With the pDefender being awful…that makes the signet awful as well. In a mobile fight where the defender is good…you still don’t want that refresh super often in a tank build. It’s far more valuable to have consistent healing output that’s not tied to having illusions up 24/7…because you’re not taking DE in a tank build. No DE = no 24/7 3 illusions, and that makes the signet absolute trash.

Fay.2357:

MailMail.6534:

In general, it’s my opinion that signet heal is better than Ether for all phantasm builds, and especially builds that utilize iDefender or iDisenchanter.

For a point defense, the defender squishes within seconds of casting it, and that’s really not an exaggeration..

If you’re going to say stuff like this, there’s no point arguing with you. I’m going to learn how to do videos this weekend so I can show you how kitten ridiculous of a statement this is.

Sorry OP. I won’t hijack your thread with yet another quarrel between Pyro and I whom I really do love despite our differing opinions!

Np, all’s good what’s good, as long as we reach a conclusion about survival builds yes/no.

Here’s your general idea with some tweaks
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7dlknpItVqxANUrNiuxY6D6IiT+yIlMgdB-TJxFwAJeCAAuIAJ3foZZAA

Though there’s many various tweaks you could make depending on a variety of situations.

OK, so here’s my in-depth critique:

First off, my opinion on the “tank Mesmer” is that you’re less effective at team fights unless you have supportive capabilities. This would include glamours, phantasms that give regen, Chaos Storm, chaos armor via blast finishers, boons via S. Inspiration, iDisenchanter, Mantra Cleanse, Illusion of Life or Portal. Your build gives your team no support whatsoever outside the phantasms and blasting your chaos storm which is very undependable.

So if you’re going to not be supportive, you need to have a linear focus on survivability and be a good home-point defender. This is the role of the pure “tank Mesmer”.

Prismatic Understanding counteracts your goal

• When home point is being assaulted, your goal is to keep the point under your control. If a “bruiser” type enemy comes like cele engi/engi/war you will decap your own point in order to just survive their assault. Mission failed.
• I think most tank builds should go 6 into Chaos. Taking the cooldown on Staff gives you just as many boons over time as PU gives you from using Prestige or Mass Invis. You get more phase retreat, more chaos armor and more chaos storm plus 50+ more toughness. There’s no competition between this and PU.
• PU would only be good if you’re at a mid fight. And if the enemy team is focusing a tank PU Mesmer at the team fight, odds are your team should win ANYWAY, because that’s just horrible gameplay from the enemies.

Better Weapon = Focus

• My next issue is related to the previous issue of PU. Torch is not good here in my opinion, because Prestige will decap the point.
• iMage is rarely thought of outside of condition builds. Your goal isn’t to kill other enemies, but to survive. iMage doesn’t help you survive anything, and you aren’t killing anyone.
• iWarden reflects projectiles, which will not only help you survive on point longer but guess what, it also supports your team if you happen to be in a midfight!
• If you’re getting jumped at home, and the point is slowly being decapped, you can yank enemies off of it using the pull. This helps a lot to keep points in your favor.
• Conversely, if you want to wreck havoc on far, this can be a strategy as well to decap their point slowly but surely.

Other Changes

• You are not going to kill anything with a cele amulet unless you are stacking might, so you might as well go full tank and take Clerics or Settler’s.
• Take away your trait for retal. Again, you only want retal if your goal is to kill enemies. Your build isn’t set up in anyway to do such a thing. Take those 2 points and take the Reduced CD on Focus, which also makes your curtain reflect as well. More support there!

That’s my big run down, and my take on what a “tank Mesmer” should actually do. exhales deeply

Here is my take on the “support tank Mesmer”. Unlike the “tank Mesmer”, you should be roaming wherever there are team fights. A home-point guard you are not!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWnsISjaWqGGqB3aGx1IM9Xd5pz7/JVAA-TJxHABOVGo2nAAK7PAwpAAA

It’s essentially a glamour build. It supports your team in several ways:

• Medic’s Feedback creates reflects for 8 seconds.
• Null Field clears condis on your team. Boon strips enemies.
• With the many ethereal fields you have access to, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t time your Presitge to blast AOE chaos armor for allies.
• Mercy runes in conjunction with medic’s feedback ensures a good chance at rezzing teammates. I usually save Decoy/Prestige for rezzing so that if an enemy gets through Feedback, I’ll have an aegis to not interrupt my rez.
• iDisenchanter clears condis from allies. Boon strips enemies.
• It’s worth noting that all of the above also helps you as the Mesmer to sustain itself, but add PU to this, and you’ll never die.

There’s a lot you change with this general build of mine. Sometimes I take iDefender instead of iDisenchanter if I’m not too worried about condis. I also play around with sigils. If the enemy team isn’t dps-heavy, I drop Illusionary Defense for Debilitating Dissipation to add AOE pressure during team fights for my allies to capitalize on.

Like most builds the Mesmer can play, none of this is particularly good in top tier play, but it’s fun and generally effective in other realms.

http://i.imgur.com/hFxaCeB.jpg
also mantra with hm is better heal output than ether feast

Last post, but here is the Signet Tank build I’ve been theory crafting for over a week now. Expect a large post soon since I think it’s pretty original. I’m hoping to learn how to make vids so I can show off some of my awesome gameplay and also great taste in music. Here it is:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArdWnsISFa2hGGqB3aGx1QM9nZ1Odxj7IVAA-TJRJABIVG41nAAAHCgd3fAA

There’s plenty of sustain here due to 70%+ health for phantasms and plenty of condi removal, which is the only thing that will deter you. Focus in this build was blessed by Dwayna herself. Lots of Aegis. The only downfall is lack of stability which will always be your downfall when being 2v1ed or 3v1ed. However, it’s worth noting that Mesmer was NEVER designed to ever be a tank anyway, so these are just fun builds to try out!

These signet builds screem for blurred inscription to me. I know distortion isn’t good for contest modes, but you are not using or abusing stealth anyway so, a little 1 sec of distortion is not going to alter the outcome of the match, is it?
It seems a pity not to pick such good talent when having three signets in your utility bar.

Quadox.7834:

http://i.imgur.com/hFxaCeB.jpg
also mantra with hm is better heal output than ether feast

After the charges, no. Since you will still have that charging delay that will lead to all sorts of problems

MailMail.6534:

-snip-

What you said, with the addition of:

You absolutely should be using sword, not scepter. Scepter is a ranged condition weapon used for the fantastic torment burst from the block and the decent condition pressure from other skills.

Sword is a weapon with an unbelievably strong defensive skill on a low cooldown, and an immobilize/leap finisher/stunbreak.

For a full tank build, there’s simply no better option than the sword.

Don’t love any Tank build that doesn’t:

1) Use Staff and Sword/X
2) Stability (preferably 3 charges)
3) Heal on Mantra
4) Illusionary Membrane

So I guess 06440?

trooper.2650:

These signet builds screem for blurred inscription to me. I know distortion isn’t good for contest modes, but you are not using or abusing stealth anyway so, a little 1 sec of distortion is not going to alter the outcome of the match, is it?
It seems a pity not to pick such good talent when having three signets in your utility bar.

Actually in my experience with my Malignant Inscriptions build, it DOES decap the point using blurred inscriptions. That’s why that build is meant as a roamer and not a home point guard. In any long battle of attrition, you don’t want to decap the point yourself.

That build actually does better as a home point guard, because at least you have enough condi dmg output to kill your opponent quick and reclaim your point, but that isn’t the case with a tank build. You don’t really want to ever have to use S. Illusion or S. Heal except in times of emergency.

And besides, taking blurred inscriptions means you have to take away other survivibility mechanics. 6 points in both Inspiration and Chaos are important here imo.

edit: you are probably absolutely right, pyro and alanis. I guess sometimes, I become afraid of potentially not being able to summon enough clones, and scepter is definitely superior in that aspect. I’ll switch to sword and see how it does. Scepter has been decent thus far.

When I’m dueling using a non-PU condition build against a good shatter Mesmer, I’ll actually use sword instead of scepter even though I lose so much pressure. The key is that the block is simply non-functional as a defensive skill against any multi-hit damage. In the case of a shatter Mesmer, that’s the shatters. In the case of a bunker build, that’s the…everything.

Not having enough clones isn’t really actually a problem generally. I guess if you’re using the signet heal then it becomes a massive problem, and that’s one of the reasons I avoid that heal if I’m doing a bunker build.

StickerHappy.8052:

After the charges, no. Since you will still have that charging delay that will lead to all sorts of problems

“all sorts of problems”
Care to clarify? ^^

Well duh Pyro, it’s a signet tank build, so you’d be using the signet heal. Since S. Heal is necessary in this iteration of a tank, do you still think sword is better even with less clone production?

MailMail.6534:

Well duh Pyro, it’s a signet tank build, so you’d be using the signet heal. Since S. Heal is necessary in this iteration of a tank, do you still think sword is better even with less clone production?

Yeah, it is.

1. It has boonstrip, so that’s something.
2. Just sorta think about the damage mitigation. You’ve got 1 bit from scepter, or all incoming damage for 2.5 seconds. If used appropriately, that’s close to what the signet output in 20 seconds of 3 clone healing.

Additonally, the scepter isn’t actually good at making clones. You have to sit there spam in an autoattack with an animation almost as brutally slow as a hammer guardian, hoping that you don’t need to do anything between now and 4s later when the clone lands. The scepter auto produces clones only marginally faster than spam in phase retreat traited for cooldown.

Yeah, the boonstrip is actually amazing on sword and goes pretty unnoticed by many Mesmers. There’s also dmg mitigation in smart swapping with ileap. I’ll try it out.

Does “Sigil of Renewal” count towards the “Mender’s purity” talent? Or is it just for the “heal” skill?

Bigbosos.2063:

Does “Sigil of Renewal” count towards the “Mender’s purity” talent? Or is it just for the “heal” skill?

Mender’s purity only works for the activation of the actual heal skill.

I actually tested sword a little bit with my Signet Tank build last night and here are my results:

• Felt 10x more helpful in team fights with the immob lockdown as well as knowing I was stripping a few more boons than usual on the enemy bunker.
• Able to escape burst attacks a lot more often.
• Didn’t notice the boon strip increase when 2v1ing and defending home. I already have iDisenchanter with 70%+ health dealing 2-3 attacks minimum.
• Less clone production = less healing from signet = 3-6% less damage mitigation from Illusionary Defense = less overall survivability. Mission Failed.
• Less pressure against bursty dps classes with few condi cleanses. My goal isn’t to kill enemies, but Confusing Images and torment can definitely rack up dmg over time considering my cond dmg is high. I usually chase thieves away soon after they confront me 1v1. With sword, there’s no pressure on a thief.

Soooooo honestly, I’m thinking scepter wins like I originally thought, but I’ll do some more testing since I only played like 8 matches.

Bigbosos.2063:

Does “Sigil of Renewal” count towards the “Mender’s purity” talent? Or is it just for the “heal” skill?

If you want to maximize mender’s purity, I believe each activation of the heal mantra will give you the cleanse. Mixed with the 3 mantra cast trait, that’s a ton of heal/cleanse, although you may have trouble slotting for that on a tank build.

In my experience extensively testing my own bunker-ish type build (Utility Wizard), my conclusion is that if you’re after a pure tank – immovable from a point – as your first and foremost goal, sword is the correct choice leaving little doubt. That’s what I started with on mine.

However, I wanted to play my build and actually do some damage. Back then I changed three small things. A trait swap, scepter vs sword and settlers vs clerics. All of the sudden I had a resemblance of a build that could keep the sustain of clerics but actually damage people with conditions while staying alive.

Then came the buffs to celestial amulet, torment on scepter and confusing images. After the cele buff, I changed the amulet from settler’s to cele and haven’t looked back. It’s a very effective build, good sustain and damage (once might stacks build, which they always do).

And so to OP and anyone wanting to play a tanky, hard to bring down build I would say – choose your primary role. For bunker I would swap that cele ammy for settler’s and really get rid of any stealth you have in there. If you want to do a little damage and become more of a hard to bring down bruiser, cele would work fine in that build, though I would probably make some tweaks either way based on the decision you make there.

I think if you want a tanky mesmer spec you should experiment with Mantras on a Sword/Focus Staff setup.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fzeromisbunker

Zeromis has a pretty cool bunker spec.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fzeromisbunker
Zeromis has a pretty cool bunker spec.

Tried this one. It’s pretty fun! Although, the damage output / outgoing condition is pretty lackluster, a lot less than the build I proposed.

Gotta say tho, that I asolutely love the cleanse on mantras (swapped out illusion of life in favour of Mantra of Resolve for more condition cleansing!), and the stability.

I strubble a bit vs some rogues tho, as there’s basically nothing I can do against them, besides standing there and soaking damage. Nevertheless, a good build!

However, I have one doubtw: how the flop is the sword+focus combo meant to be used? Do you lay temp courtain above iWarden? Is iWarden supposed to be used offensively or defensively? I’m pretty confused about this weapon :/

Bigbosos.2063:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fzeromisbunker
Zeromis has a pretty cool bunker spec.

Tried this one. It’s pretty fun! Although, the damage output / outgoing condition is pretty lackluster, a lot less than the build I proposed.

Gotta say tho, that I asolutely love the cleanse on mantras (swapped out illusion of life in favour of Mantra of Resolve for more condition cleansing!), and the stability.

I strubble a bit vs some rogues tho, as there’s basically nothing I can do against them, besides standing there and soaking damage. Nevertheless, a good build!

However, I have one doubtw: how the flop is the sword+focus combo meant to be used? Do you lay temp courtain above iWarden? Is iWarden supposed to be used offensively or defensively? I’m pretty confused about this weapon :/

Sword/focus combo,

Lay curtain, begin casting iWarden, activate Into the Void right before iWarden is summoned. Target is pulled, iWarden summons on target. iLeap/iSwap to imob target. BF during iWarden spin.

Example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hIeIboimsiM#t=20

Chaos Archangel.5071:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fzeromisbunker

Zeromis has a pretty cool bunker spec.

I’ve reached in EU soloq, around 6-7 month ago top 50 with a similiar build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8dl0npWtVpxQNMrNyqxYqWO9S/cUpzI7AA-TJxGwAAuIASLDIc/BCPBAA

PS: i’ve alternated with celestial amulet sometimes.

Portal in a bunker build is amazing, you can protect 1 base and in same time you can support your ally to attack other base.

sorry for bad english

bye bye