Guild Wars 2

Its not working for me. Literally everyone is a tank. I blow my Mind Wrack, even if I hit the squishiest member of the other team they heal it off and turn around and oneshot me. Im unable to do ANYTHING in PvP. To put emphasis this, I just lost another SoloQ match 500 – 0.

Every Mesmer is running PU.
I am told by everyone PU sucks and not to run it.
I get destroyed by PU mesmers (and everything else).

What am I supposed to do to not suck? I read Supcutie’s guide and been trying this for three months and actually got into a horrible depression because of it. Map chat is nothing but trolls and my guilds are all PvErs. Can someone help me?

Shatter works it takes lots more skill than other builds and other professions’ builds. If you want to fight condi builds with it Good Luck! (you probably will never win) Shatter is only good if you catch your opponent off guard otherwise it’s really hard to win with it.

Then what am I supposed to run to not suck? I cant even beat Condi builds because I have no clears. I cant beat tanks and defiantly cant beat Zerker builds. I am always bottom of my team. I need help and cant get any.. Phantasms?

Shatter is a harder spec to play, that’s all. You rely a lot more in your team than some other popular sPvP builds. But believe me, shatter IS the best spec to play as mesmer in sPvP.

Well, I don’t see nowhere as much PU mesmers as I see shatters ingame. A PU will do half of what a shatter can do in a teamfight, and when decapping or dueling, it will be twice the safer but will take twice the time. Enough time for the enemy team work on a rotation and screw you.

You need to keep in mind that shatter is a true glass cannon, unlike glass cannon thieves or glass cannon warriors, for example. You need people ready to peel for you, to cleanse your conditions for you, to buy you time while you set your full shatter combo (full diversion into full mind wrack). So it is a lot harder to play in a solo queue environment, but it is totally worth if you’re in a team queue or just in a voice comms with a partner.

I don’t know how to help you exactly if you don’t show your spec, or any insightful tip if you’re already read Supcutie’s guide. Just keep watching videos and practice,

What weapon sets are you using?

If it’s 1 on 1 I like to try and soften opponents up a bit with phantasms and try build up some vulnerability stacks before going in for the kill.

lmperdigao.2567:

Shatter is a harder spec to play, that’s all. You rely a lot more in your team than some other popular sPvP builds. But believe me, shatter IS the best spec to play as mesmer in sPvP.

Um, shatter is debatably the best spec in pvp. Interrupt/lockdown is a VERY close second in the hands of a talented interrupt mes.

Im unfortunately in SoloQ and all the time, I dont have a team and dont think I ever will. Is it still worth going Shatter? I just dont know if its worth the stress, Im an overemotional person and get depressed very easy.

Neurophen.9738:

What weapon sets are you using?

If it’s 1 on 1 I like to try and soften opponents up a bit with phantasms and try build up some vulnerability stacks before going in for the kill.

S/F and GS. My issue is Im always dying so quickly.
4/4/0/0/6 is the spec.

I’m not sure how useful this will be for you but, I remember someone running a shatter build that was kinda like 2/0/0/6/6. Illusionary Persona and Restorative Illusions were the grand master traits. He did really well for the 4-5 games we played together and against each other. Again, I don’t know how much it helps, but you might wanna give it a try. I think his weapons were scepter+torch, Sword+Pistol. I know for sure he had a scepter+(some offhand), I don’t know what his other weapon was, but try different weapons and see how it works out for ya.

Are you on US or EU? If US I’ll happily meet up with ya and help out however I can.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Are you on US or EU? If US I’ll happily meet up with ya and help out however I can.

US.

Try staff and sword + pistol and grab null field. Lots of chaos armor combos should help you a bit with survivability.

I just run Knights and dodge well. Not a huge damage loss but the survivability gain, while running Ether Feast, is pretty significant.

Also, run boon rip for the second tier trait in Power line. Lots of boons with the current meta.

So to begin with, I’ll say that in my personal experience, PU conditions is by far the best spec to be running in solo queue as a mesmer for most maps. I use a different build for skyhammer, different build for spirit watch, and I use a modification of my phantasm build for khylo. Other than those 3 changes though, PU conditions is definitely superior. When played properly it can perform multiple functions that allow your team to win.

If you’re team queuing alone, this stays true. PU conditions is still the best spec to play (changing it for khylo).

Proof of this is my being able to rather easily maintain top 200 on both leaderboards by only playing the above.

Now, that being said, the problems that you raised about shatter in the OP are quite odd and imply that you’re doing something very wrong. When playing glkittenter you can absolutely wreck most builds/classes if you play it correctly. Killing glassy builds should be your bread and butter, as your burst generally hits harder and comes with more built in defense than theirs does. I usually take sword/torch to give me more inherent defense that stealth brings, and I also take the condition removal mantra to help on that front. However, since you’ve mentioned that you have difficulties taking down even glassier builds, I think it would be wise for you to seek ingame help from someone that knows what they’re doing, so they can advise you that way.

Pyroathiest.4168:

So to begin with, I’ll say that in my personal experience, PU conditions is by far the best spec to be running in solo queue as a mesmer for most maps. I use a different build for skyhammer, different build for spirit watch, and I use a modification of my phantasm build for khylo. Other than those 3 changes though, PU conditions is definitely superior. When played properly it can perform multiple functions that allow your team to win.

If you’re team queuing alone, this stays true. PU conditions is still the best spec to play (changing it for khylo).

Proof of this is my being able to rather easily maintain top 200 on both leaderboards by only playing the above.

Now, that being said, the problems that you raised about shatter in the OP are quite odd and imply that you’re doing something very wrong. When playing glkittenter you can absolutely wreck most builds/classes if you play it correctly. Killing glassy builds should be your bread and butter, as your burst generally hits harder and comes with more built in defense than theirs does. I usually take sword/torch to give me more inherent defense that stealth brings, and I also take the condition removal mantra to help on that front. However, since you’ve mentioned that you have difficulties taking down even glassier builds, I think it would be wise for you to seek ingame help from someone that knows what they’re doing, so they can advise you that way.

Chaos and I actually just helped him out with shatter so perfect timing haha. I do like pyros suggestion of running a more defensive based shatter like s/t gs and then going s/f gs when youre more comfortable with shatter.

Do you have illusionary invigoration? If yes then don’t be afraid to pop distortion and diversion early (as intimidating as their cd be). Its one of the best trait for shatter mesmer and it can make a major difference to your battle. Pop distortion when you anticipated a deadly combo and can’t escape, not after you received it. Diversion provides lots of options because you can use it both offensively or defensively. If you have a thief that you can’t shake off or you get stun by warrior pop diversion to protect yourself. Same with blurred frenzy, it may sound like a waste to use it purely for evasion but it’ll buy you some time for other skills to cd.

There’s no clear rotation on using active defensive skills as you’ll be in situations where you have to adapt. However if used and timed correctly you’ll always have some skills to help you survive, be that blink, decoy, distortion, diversion, mass invis, blurred frenzy, illusionary wave, temperal curtain/void, or just healing etc.

As for attack combo I think it would be best for you to practice with someone, or even watching videos help a lot.

Try one of osicat’s build. Honestly, I find his sword/sword – staff the most dynamic and versatile. It gives you a lot of mobility, reduced CD on both main and offhand TWICE, a block, a nasty phantasm that deals high spike damage and often and the staff saves your kitten many many times.

I’m currently running this and doing very fine kittenter. Your shatter combo has got a CD of 11s. You just have to insist and survive everytime, try it out:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAscWlknpMtNqxTNcrNCrxg6uy6MSOQAlMkrB-TZBBABAcGAA5QAI4+DlVGIgHAAA
I’m currently running with shattered concentration because of guardians or eles with 29383 boons; I usually blow off shatter2 to remove boons then pop images and iLeap for the real combo (which will remove any other remaining boon). When you wait for your shatter1 to go off CD, switch to staff, range, use chaos armor, use retreat inside chaos storm for an additional chaos armor, go invisible and switch again to sword, summon your ugly phantasm and prepare to block.

Greatsword – sword/pistol is a lot offensive but I die a lot using that. With sw/sw – staff I survive often and can spike people down.

Im a total rookie at mesmer but ive been trying a mantra build and seem to be doing verry well with it.
If you have been playing for a while on one build and not succeeding then its time to try a.new.one.

Here’s my take on this, it will probably be a very long post but please do read through it.

I’ve been playing PU condi since I got my mesmer to 80. It is a VERY strong spec, that is very true. I was at the point where I could take on 5 people at a time and come out victorious every 3 fights but you know what? I. Was. Bored. I wanted to quit as I didn’t enjoy the game, I kept wasting gold because I was bored to maybe make the game more fun – It made it worse.

I’ve always wanted to try out shatter but I thought to myself: “Why would I do that? PU Condi is so powerful and I am very good with it!”

Around two weeks ago I set my mind of doing some PvP for a change and trying out shatter and lockdown playstyle. I tried to play lockdown, it isn’t for me really. You need to be way to aware of your surroundings which I’m not comfortable with. I decided to get good at shatter mesmer.

I recently deleted ALL my gear (due to being very unhappy with the game, my mind wasn’t grounded, if you’re familiar with that phrase, so I was not thinking well). I was desperate to get going with shatter.

I had a friend I met on the forums (massive shoutout to serialkicker) to do some dungeons with me. I made some gold, bought a lot of gear. I was missing a little bit of gold so I went to eotm to farm it up (even though I hate farming) after around an hour in eotm, I got a Zojjas Chest and an ascended ring from a rank 77 (I’m rank 102 now) chest. I was extremely happy. I equipped it all and went to WvW to try it out.

I tried out over 10 different weapon combinations. I am now running either sword/focus + staff, sword focus + greatsword, sword/pistol + staff or staff + greatsword. I sucked badly. I got killed by an upleveled ranger, trashed by level 80 players. BUT I had fun! I wasn’t feeling super overpowered, the combat was very fast, one mistake and you were killed, it was a nice adrenaline rush.

Later that week, I played with Pyro against two of my guildies. Both me and Pyro were trashed badly by them every time (Pyro had massive lag, I sucked with shatter), basically we kept loosing. I went to sleep feeling discouraged and even gave up my teacher spot in OMFG because I felt like I was not worthy of it. After a while, I started winning. First 1v1 felt great, 1v2, 1v3 ect. I can now take up to 3 people if I’m running staff + sw/f.

Now I am enjoying the game immensely.
Basically: Ask people for help, bore the kitten out of Pyro, Supcutie, Osicat, anyone you know that plays shatter, with a kittenload of questions and soak it all in. It’s what I did. From there what you need to do is practice.

It may seem impossible at the start but get out of that mindset. Repeat in your head the following:
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ’I’m possible!’

It has a learning curve that you need to go through, and it will be frustrating, you will feel hopeless at times.

I think you really want to play PU, but don’t want to because of people placing a moral judgement on it.
You care about other people’s opinions too much!
They =/= You
Play what you find fun, what makes you happy. People do not know how to fight PU and don’t have any valid arguments to why it sucks so they talk bad things about it which is very immature and something I’d expect a 10 year old to do. Kitten people, you matter. You are the one that is playing the game.You are the one that is supposed to enjoy the game!

Society is a very kittened thing that sets up rules that are veryunrealistic and no one wants to follow, but we do for xyz reason. Society is the reason we have guilt (which you would feel if you played PU and you’re trying to avoid that). It’s a product of a moral judgement interfering with something you want to do, something that is natural to you, what makes you who you are, your feelings. I don’t want to go down this road as I could write a book.. I’ll keep it short and here is a video if you want more information

http://tinyurl.com/societygw2

“People who play PU suck. They should feel bad, they are bad people.. Don’t play it. You’re not as important, as worthy, skilled as those who do not play it. "

That is an example of moral judgement we get a lot here on GW2 regarding mesmer builds.
You want to go against that maybe (I feel like you do according to your post)

So: wanting to play PU + Society telling you not to play PU, that you’re less worthy if you do = guilt.

natural feeling + moral judgement against that feeling = guilt

If you don’t play PU, you won’t feel guilty, but there will be that urge within you pulling you to PU which you will not get rid of. Go ahead and play PU!

Have a wonderful day my friend, happy mesmerizing!

~Monns

If they nerfed PU right now I wouldn’t cry too much about it. But as it is , it would be crazy for me not to use it. I played without PU for a long time. In the end I switched to it after losing 6 straight duels to a PU mesmer. I chatted with him and found out we run more or less the same build but he use PU and torch and I don’t. In the end the extra stealth made all the difference. Shatter is fun but I find for it to work for me I have to stick with areas that I can trap people in small space so I can land the spike damage. However after playing with shatter I find my self use shatter more in my current none shatter setup. Even untraited, shatter is a nice bit of spike damage that can finish a fight when used at the right time.

I agree with the above post in the end F what other people have to say play what you want to play.

4/4/0/0/6 Shatter/Boon Removal is great for Team Play. Use all your shatters (F2, F3) to remove boons before using a 4-clone shatter F1 shatter. I find it stronger in a group fight than 1 vs 1.

If you’re having issues with condis, you might consider arcane thievery.

This is what I use for my shatter spec:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsaRlknpRttpxMNcrRSrxYqXQ9WXVGpCokTUNA-TpRBwAROCAfOEAE3fgcZgHnAAAPAAA

This is the build I use in WvW, though I’ve just redone it in the sPvP mode. Some of the choices may not be optimal since I don’t really use my mesmer for tournament play.

It’s similar to the other ones, but it traits more into manipulations. The advantages this affords you is a 1200 range blink on a 24 second cooldown (personally I can’t stand a 900 range blink after using this for so long), and arcane thievery for condition transferring and boon removal.

While shattered concentration is very useful, I find that having the boon removal strapped to the shatters can be disadvantageous in some situations, particularly if a person is good at avoiding the shatters (i.e. dodges and blocks), or you need to remove particular boons at a particular time. Using this trait also means that people will do 0-1 clone shatters just because it removes boons, meaning they won’t be able to use them for something else that’s useful. For instance, diversion is a great tool for interrupting someone’s heal skill (i.e. ether renewal, consume conditions), but simply using it to strip a boon or two can be a bad choice. Cry of frustration is probably ok to use for that though since it’s not high damage. It’s always possible to reassign the 10 I have in inspiration back to domination to get that trait though.

Arcane thievery is also incredibly useful against certain opponents. For instance, against a hambow, you can deliberately let your self get hit by pin down for no other reason than to dump the condis back on them while taking their SoR buffs/stability away. It also has a very fast cast time with barely any animation, and is unblockable.

I’ve also used illusion of life instead of decoy in some situations, but that’s definitely a very situational utility whereas decoy is more or less universally useful.

I have runes of the pack in there since it provides fury uptime, mobility, and some support for allies, although some other runes might work out better for you. I also have this set up with pistol, although that’s a matter of personal preference. OH sword and focus should work just fine as well.

Anyways, since you were saying you have issues with condis, you might consider something like arcane thievery.

A bit of constructive criticism on your build.
Use what you want regarding boon removal, all it is there for is when you shatter and the opponent has protection, instead of a 3 clone MW doing 6,6k it does 10k damage, as the protection gets ripped off. That compared to CD on blink = worth it by far IMO. You can take null field or mantra for condition removal or keep arcane thievery, even though it’s an awful amount of CD for a simple 3 condition transfer. 20s CD on mantra which will remove 4 conditions.. There is no boon stealing or ripping but that would get ‘compensated’ for by the shatter boon removal.

It’s not what I wanted to tell you.
I think you should really think about your traits in Illusions.
10% crit chance on MW compared to something like Illu elasticity is not worth it.
Illu elasticity will stack 3 more stacks of might on you, 3 more stacks of vuln on your enemy + will do around 3k more damage when you use Mirror Blade, it will give your pistol bullet one extra bounce as well
You do not have energy sigils which are SUCH great sigils, almost a must in shatter specs. Fire sigil is meh, air is the same but a bit better. Force I don’t think is great, it’s not bad either, Nullification is such a bad sigil IMO… Way better used for something else.
Runes wise, I’d suggest hoelbrak.. Same amount of might stacking as strength runes, only difference is you get -20% condition duration on yourself which helps deal with conditions a lot. It will take you around 30 gold to get a set of hoelbrak runes.

my take on arcane thievery is that it’s a much better offensive skill than a defensive condi remove skill. I used it for a looooong time and I still run it in spvp . The casting time and the fact that it’s not the most reliable skill make it a poor choice to depend on for condi cleanse. But as an offensive skill stripping 25 stacks of might or stability from people is amazing. If only they made it insta cast and doesn’t require a target….

Mogar.9216:

my take on arcane thievery is that it’s a much better offensive skill than a defensive condi remove skill. I used it for a looooong time and I still run it in spvp . The casting time and the fact that it’s not the most reliable skill make it a poor choice to depend on for condi cleanse. But as an offensive skill stripping 25 stacks of might or stability from people is amazing. If only they made it insta cast and doesn’t require a target….

I would use arcane thievery more if it wasn’t so buggy and misses 1 million times. Otherwise, it is a really good skill if it was fixed.

Manipulation CD reduction is nice but boon stripping is one of our strongest traits, I don’t think it’s worth the trade especially since you loose 5 stacks of vulnerability on daze too.

Likewise arcane thievery vs null field really isn’t a hard choice, particularly in a team fight.

I felt a lot like the OP the last couple of weeks leading up to the big patch, and for a week after. I felt very pigeonholed into PU, because almost any build I tried, simply worked better if I modified it to incorporate PU.

It isn’t so much that I feel bad when I play PU, I simply got bored with the play-style it kinda forces on you. It’s silly not to play a good spec, just because others deem it cheesy. Those people who proclaim builds as “cheese” really just want you do be the idiot that plays a sub-par spec on a rather average profession, so they can get on their FOTY Thief/Warrior and slap you around like a little girl. Most of the time they’re wrong anyway, just following a herd mentality, rather then thinking & experiencing for themselves. (Which is why almost none of the supposedly OPd/cheese builds ever seem to end up at the very highest level of play. )

Anyway, I wanted to play my Mesmer differently again after many months of enjoying PU builds of various types. I used to love shatter in sPvP, but the reason I ended up playing PU builds was because it was too frustrating to play GC Shatter. I’m an old fart and I think my reaction times (or latency?) are just not up to par to play GC Shatter…not around Thieves or any semi-competent tanky condie class.

After another short stint with GC shatter I was about to give up and either take a break from GW2, or play a FOTM profession/build instead. As I was testing some of the new things in the last patch I ran across the build I still play now.

I can only recommend you give this build a try if you like the concept of the Shatter Mesmer, but are having difficulty making it work for whatever reason. It is a great mix of significant spike damage via MW, solid Phantasm & personal damage, and enough survivability/sustain to actually enjoy playing against just about any class.

This is the thread where I presented the core build & philosophy. It focuses on VERY high spike/burst from MWs, also very high Phantasm damage, but is also a good bit more glassy then what I play now, and also lacks speed. (Which eventually lead me to tweak it a bit.)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/sPvP-Build-The-Intelligent-Mind-Wrecker/first#post3998351

There are many things you can do to this build to tweak for more damage, or more mobility, or more versatility. The basic concept and play-style stays the same though, you end up with high spike damage from MW+SoI and strong Phantasm damage, while retaining almost 1600 Toughness and a tripple instant heal that totals over 8k healed while removing 6 conditions.

Try it out! I’m still playing it weeks later, and enjoying it a lot in sPvP.