Chaos Mesmer Build Variation GS/Staff

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

I wanted to put this updated build up for anyone interested in trying a really fun build for mesmer that extrapolates on the staff/Gs shatter mesmer and also really shines when you are roaming with a small group. This is basically your GS/Staff shatter build except we trade utilities and elites to get optimal ethereal fields and chaos armor as well as play style is perhaps more situational when in combat.

The Chaos Mesmer
Variation Staff/GS phantasm/shatter/support

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VP;4VPk0127cVV71;9;4JJ;0T16-09;526A;6vhrTvhrTJ0F81-F0-F33dLVQWVX_2f3l_-30M-2i;6V53F-0P;9;3V;9;9;9;1VSs5m
1. Works like staff GS shatter mesmer with great power and added condis plus added phase retreat from staff.
2. Optimizes staff abilities by optimizing chaos armor and makes for less passive combat when using staff—you will have chaos armor up the majority of the fight with staff.
3. You have FOUR independent chances to gain chaos armor almost back to back if you let your phase escape cd while in staff. Use Null field/phase retreat sparingly to remove conditions and maintain chaos armo—in between chaos storm/phase, your staff 4 chaos armor and also Time Warp/phase can last long enough for two chaos armors out of it if you time it right with phase retreat. (you should have chaos armor up every time you are using staff and allow enemy to hit you as long as you can keep chaos armor goin—if you can sustain the damage coming out of it.)
4. Use phase Retreat through veil to gain retaliation for extra spike damage.
5. Berzerkers and spam skills do a lot of damage with stacks of vulnerability, as well as your shatters. Your enemy will have way more condi’s just by them hitting you, so save the shatters and berzerkers when kiting and you know can get some good hits in.
6. Mobility and condition removal slightly harder with this build than normal traits.
7. Great for roaming with a group with blasts and your 3 different fields to provide chaos armor—and not too shabby anywhere else either if you practice (get enemy down to half life just spamming chaos armor the whole time they chase and hit you—then bring out the heavy shatters and berzerkers).
Let me know any input. =)
thanks,
Graey

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(edited by Greyalis.2309)

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Posted by: Zelulose.8695

Zelulose.8695

Looks like your having fun. I also posted a pvp build with gs/staff. It’s fun stuff keep at it.
I’m having fun with boon stripping gs/staff right now.

Lucky Leaf, Ángël, Clergyman, Side Kick -Lets make Gw2 a better game

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

Looks like your having fun. I also posted a pvp build with gs/staff. It’s fun stuff keep at it.
I’m having fun with boon stripping gs/staff right now.

Thanks! Let me know any thoughts you have on this build. And thank you for reading my wall of text if you made it that far =)

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

Also, if you are fearless get rid of decoy and replace it with portal! Drop a portal before you blink and after you blink you can really play with your enemy then.

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Posted by: Ross Biddle.2367

Ross Biddle.2367

Also use your aoe Chaos Storm to remove condis and turn them into boons—if you can get your iberzerkers to run through chaos storm this is a bonus.

Chaos storm is an etheral field, not a light. It doesn’t remove condis as part of its functionality let alone turn them into boons, and a whirl will only produce confusing bolts.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ethereal_field

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Posted by: Fay.2357

Fay.2357

Also use your aoe Chaos Storm to remove condis and turn them into boons—if you can get your iberzerkers to run through chaos storm this is a bonus.

Chaos storm is an etheral field, not a light. It doesn’t remove condis as part of its functionality let alone turn them into boons, and a whirl will only produce confusing bolts.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ethereal_field

And whirl combos are super duper unreliable anyway, even if it were light.

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

Ah yes, you are right my bad, I was thinking of null field.

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Posted by: Fay.2357

Fay.2357

Ah yes, you are right my bad, I was thinking of null field.

Which is also ethereal and still doesn’t convert conditions, just removes them.

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Posted by: Ross Biddle.2367

Ross Biddle.2367

So my impressions are. If it works, great. Other than that your trait, rune, and sigil choices make for a SUPER boring build. I think it pretty much boils down to “Kite and use my weapon skills.”

Nothing wrong with that. It’s just, nothing nothing with that.

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Posted by: SteepledHat.1345

SteepledHat.1345

While I can see staff/GS phant builds being viable (I’ve run one myself for quite a while although I still prefer double ranged shatter.), I would recommend two changes to your build. One, swap persisting images for menders purity. Two, swap mantra of resolve for disenchanter. This build will have major issues with boon heavy classes and will be stopped cold by well played dd elem or non-dps guards otherwise. Those two changes give you the ability to strip the boons those enemy builds rely on without weakening yourself significantly to conditions.

I would even go so far as to suggest moving one point from chaos or domination into inspiration. That passive regen trait is beautiful with this set up. Esp since you go 15 into chaos. You can actually use it to get on demand protection simply by controlling your positioning with regards to your phantasams. Anyway, just my two gold.

“Failure to remain calm is the sign of a weak mind.”

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

So my impressions are. If it works, great. Other than that your trait, rune, and sigil choices make for a SUPER boring build. I think it pretty much boils down to “Kite and use my weapon skills.”

Nothing wrong with that. It’s just, nothing nothing with that.

Well then go PU condi or shatter dodge roll your heart out, I’m not saying its the best build just different. this build is harder to play than PU so it’s not that boring. Try staying alive with no clones or invis…hardly boring.

The condi’s can be a problem so I might opt for menders purity although nrow phantasms are already easier to destroy

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Posted by: Ross Biddle.2367

Ross Biddle.2367

So my impressions are. If it works, great. Other than that your trait, rune, and sigil choices make for a SUPER boring build. I think it pretty much boils down to “Kite and use my weapon skills.”

Nothing wrong with that. It’s just, nothing nothing with that.

Well then go PU condi or shatter dodge roll your heart out, I’m not saying its the best build just different. this build is harder to play than PU so it’s not that boring. Try staying alive with no clones or invis…hardly boring.

The condi’s can be a problem so I might opt for menders purity although nrow phantasms are already easier to destroy

I put my new build up just today. No condi or PU, only decoy for stealth, and no staff :p.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Power-Buton/first#post4174124

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

The build has been changed dropping portal and decoy for maximizing support for your group. The build is now using null field instead of mantra for the added chaos armor.

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Posted by: zaxon.6819

zaxon.6819

not sure what i am seeing here.. is this this exact thing as every other shatter build but without the good utilitys? why does it have its own name as a spec when its been around for years.

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

not sure what i am seeing here.. is this this exact thing as every other shatter build but without the good utilitys? why does it have its own name as a spec when its been around for years.

The main thing in this build that makes a big difference is that you want to use time warp, staff skill 5, and null field along with staff 2 phase escape to constantly have chaos armor up—so you will be optimizing your ethereal fields with your phase escape which is a combo finisher. This gives you four ways to get chaos armor almost back to back along with staff skill 4 chaos armor. This will stack a lot more condis on your enemy when they attack you on hit and does about half of the damage to get them down. I’ve found this to be great in groups or solo and your opponent will do half of the work for you just attacking you. It’s very situation oriented and you only have null field to remove condis, so you’ll want to be strategic when you use it, but i’ve found using null field when condis are high usually is enough. I’ve literally been practicing this build having chaos armor up most of the fight and downed enemies not even using attack skills and just watching them hit me and stacking all sorts of condis—this on top of your ability to use berzerkers and shatters with addes condis and vulnerability it is worth some mention (especially if you are looking for something with good damage and utility for group roaming). Try it and let me know what you think!

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

Also, you can phase escape through veil to get retaliation for that extra big spike damage from retaliation!

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Posted by: azizul.8469

azizul.8469

chaos armor build was put to death when they put a cooldown on how many times enemy can get condition damage when they hit you…

Cutie Phantasmer/Farinas [HAX] – CD Casual
Archeage = Farmville with PK

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

chaos armor build was put to death when they put a cooldown on how many times enemy can get condition damage when they hit you…

yeah, its minimal but you can get some good stacks—better than nothing I guess with staff…its so passive

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Hey Grey, I could be missing something due to the build link but… isn’t this a standard shatter build with some glamour utility support?

You have “phantasm/shatter/support” in the description and I definitely see the shatter/support aspect of it but… no real phantasm emphasis. The emphasis on Chaos Armor also seems somewhat misleading; you only have 1 way to combo Chaos Armor (Phase Retreat) and in a glassy shatter build you really don’t wanna get hit that much anyway – armor or not (same goes for retaliation).

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Posted by: Kadj.6725

Kadj.6725

Hey Grey, I could be missing something due to the build link but… isn’t this a standard shatter build with some glamour utility support?

Odd – he changed from gw2skills to intothemists, but the build is almost exactly the same. I believe this is the previous version; swap Mass Invis for Time Warp and Portal for Veil. There might be some gear differences too, but it mostly looks the same.

Here’s my problem with the build, starting from the top…

1. Halting Strike is the most wasted slot by a mile. Diversion, Chaos Storm(randomly), Illusionary Wave – those are your interrupts. Diversion is traited well enough on its own(shattered concentration), but it still has a long cooldown for the -maybe- 2k damage you’ll be getting from Halting. Chaos Storm won’t work when you need it to, and Illusionary Wave… it certainly works fine, but I feel like the quirks in how you have to use it just make it unreliable at times.

2. “Phase Retreat through Veil for Retaliation” is the worst strategy I’ve ever heard. Think about it for a second; you’re blowing a 90 SECOND COOLDOWN for a 5 SECOND BOON, 2 of those seconds potentially being spent in stealth. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think you’d get more value out of Signet of Inspiration’s passive… or you can go with Decoy to just plain slip away and heal up.

3. Compounding Power is great, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that you would get more mileage out of picking the two Mind Wrack traits(replacing Halting Strike as per above) for more damage. You’ve got Mind Wrack’s cooldown as low as it will go, and Shattered Concentration.

4. You have almost entirely glassy gear, but insist that using Chaos Armor is the way to go. If I want you dead, you will die regardless of the 30% chance of gaining Protection/Regen/Swiftness.

The core problem, I think, is that you’re trying to do too much at once, with a bit of bad strategy(using Veil for a crap boon) for good measure. You want to abuse all of the fun tricks Mesmer has, but without any specialization – hell, without any reasonable swiftness access - you’re not going to accomplish a great deal.

You can go a couple different ways.

You can skew more towards interrupts; I’m a huge fan of using interrupt traits along with Imbued Diversion(giving up IP in the process), but in group fights you’ll probably want Mirror Images to get more clones out. Also consider the daze mantra, and try to pick off people attempting to heal.

… OR you can go straight up shatter, as I was advocating above.

But either way, you’ll need to drop the bad strats; Chaos Armor is good, Retaliation is alright, but you really need to supplement anything based on taking damage with higher defense, and even if you’re using Veil for your group roaming, you should never pop it just for Retaliation; leave Retaliation to a hammer guardian or something.

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

Hey Grey, I could be missing something due to the build link but… isn’t this a standard shatter build with some glamour utility support?

You have “phantasm/shatter/support” in the description and I definitely see the shatter/support aspect of it but… no real phantasm emphasis. The emphasis on Chaos Armor also seems somewhat misleading; you only have 1 way to combo Chaos Armor (Phase Retreat) and in a glassy shatter build you really don’t wanna get hit that much anyway – armor or not (same goes for retaliation).

Well you will be wanting to use your iberzerkers as much as possible and not just shattering willy nilly (which is why I had persisting images so they had a chance of not dying instantly in aoe blob fights)—we still have enough power and precision to make phantasms do damage, and great aoe damage on multiple enemies.

Your right you don’t want to rely on chaos armor, it’s just a bonus that you can keep up quite a lot. Phase retreat has a quick cd, and if you pop it in chaos storm, then in succession pop chaos armor staff 4, by the time that is down you are ready for another phase retreat in time warp or null field.

I understand the build is experimental right now and I’m not saying it can’t be expounded upon or changed so any input is appreciated. I just think in groups having chaos armor up on your allies almost back to back in opening engagement can be very successful as it gives conditions to all enemies attacking you wether melee, ranged or condis (with of course a small cd of conditions on hits.)

I guess this build attempts to make mesmer viable in comp builds by providing good ranged damage behind melee while trying not to sacrifice viable group utilities. If you have a melee group driving in front of you engaging enemy just hang back and do as much damage as possible while putting fields all over your front line.

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Halting Strike offers pretty good damage even in this build, definitely no arguments there, and I do agree that frequent Chaos Armor can be a big help… I’m just having a hard time seeing how this build differs from a standard shatter build beyond Veil and Null Field.

It looks to me like it’s more that your personal shatter playstyle is slightly different.

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

Hey Grey, I could be missing something due to the build link but… isn’t this a standard shatter build with some glamour utility support?

Odd – he changed from gw2skills to intothemists, but the build is almost exactly the same. I believe this is the previous version; swap Mass Invis for Time Warp and Portal for Veil. There might be some gear differences too, but it mostly looks the same.

Here’s my problem with the build, starting from the top…

1. Halting Strike is the most wasted slot by a mile. Diversion, Chaos Storm(randomly), Illusionary Wave – those are your interrupts. Diversion is traited well enough on its own(shattered concentration), but it still has a long cooldown for the -maybe- 2k damage you’ll be getting from Halting. Chaos Storm won’t work when you need it to, and Illusionary Wave… it certainly works fine, but I feel like the quirks in how you have to use it just make it unreliable at times.

2. “Phase Retreat through Veil for Retaliation” is the worst strategy I’ve ever heard. Think about it for a second; you’re blowing a 90 SECOND COOLDOWN for a 5 SECOND BOON, 2 of those seconds potentially being spent in stealth. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think you’d get more value out of Signet of Inspiration’s passive… or you can go with Decoy to just plain slip away and heal up.

3. Compounding Power is great, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that you would get more mileage out of picking the two Mind Wrack traits(replacing Halting Strike as per above) for more damage. You’ve got Mind Wrack’s cooldown as low as it will go, and Shattered Concentration.

4. You have almost entirely glassy gear, but insist that using Chaos Armor is the way to go. If I want you dead, you will die regardless of the 30% chance of gaining Protection/Regen/Swiftness.

The core problem, I think, is that you’re trying to do too much at once, with a bit of bad strategy(using Veil for a crap boon) for good measure. You want to abuse all of the fun tricks Mesmer has, but without any specialization – hell, without any reasonable swiftness access - you’re not going to accomplish a great deal.

You can go a couple different ways.

You can skew more towards interrupts; I’m a huge fan of using interrupt traits along with Imbued Diversion(giving up IP in the process), but in group fights you’ll probably want Mirror Images to get more clones out. Also consider the daze mantra, and try to pick off people attempting to heal.

… OR you can go straight up shatter, as I was advocating above.

But either way, you’ll need to drop the bad strats; Chaos Armor is good, Retaliation is alright, but you really need to supplement anything based on taking damage with higher defense, and even if you’re using Veil for your group roaming, you should never pop it just for Retaliation; leave Retaliation to a hammer guardian or something.

This build is the GS/Staff shatter build except it’s more for group support and damage than anything else.

I understand the build is a little omnidirectional, but the build can do a lot of damage while providing staff use with a bit less passive utility providing the chaos armor. I understand chaos armor as a less important attribute to Mesmers who when glass should try avoid getting hit—but having chaos armor up much of the fight helps a lot more than you would think. I’m not saying this is what you would want when trying to 1v1—but even so, I’ve managed to kill enemies 1v1 using this build only using chaos armor when in the most defensive moments while optimizing phantasms and shatters.

If you look at a PU phantasm mesmer you pretty much have the same trait points in damage—only you have condi damage as well. Here I’ve chosen to ignore traits that people get stuck on and focus on utility (as we are focusing on stats with traits more for damage.

With this build we have a lot of chances to interrupt people(Chaos Storm, Diversion, Illusionary Wave), making Halting Strike a much, much better choice over Mental Torment.

Compounding power could be swapped for Precise Wrack although compounding power gives you an all around damage boost—nuff said.

You are right in that you dont’ want to be taking all that damage trying to get people trying to hit you in chaos armor—but chaos armor gives enemy random conditions when they hit you. Iberzerkers have a lot of power and when you shatter clones strategically only adds to the damage.

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

Halting Strike offers pretty good damage even in this build, definitely no arguments there, and I do agree that frequent Chaos Armor can be a big help… I’m just having a hard time seeing how this build differs from a standard shatter build beyond Veil and Null Field.

It looks to me like it’s more that your personal shatter playstyle is slightly different.

This playstyle is different but I thought it was worth putting up for people to get ideas for possible mesmer comp builds. Chaos armor can be a big help, and especially when you can have it up almost the entirety of when you are using staff. You simply phase our of a field, pop staff 4 chaos armor after, and then you are ready for another phase retreat out of a field. That means you are taking less damage the entire time in staff making it a better defense which it is anway, but also stacking condis on your enemy simply while taking hits in staff making this playstyle a less passive staff build. This build has max condi damage so I thought it only made sense to stack condis using chaos armor.

The only problem with this build is that you are so glass it isn’t funny and using simply blink and veil to avoid enemy almost isn’t enough. The staff phase retreat and deceptive decoy helps a lot but you really have to do a lot of damage quickly and use chaos armor only in prolonged cooldowns for heal, veil and blink while trying to kite as much as possible and do a lot of damage. I’m even thinking of trying eagle runes as I find a lot of times I am downed but have my enemy only at half life, and then I get to a point of doing little further damage—I think eagle runes might work in some cases doing that extra spike damage when enemy is past 50 percent health.

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Posted by: Kadj.6725

Kadj.6725

I really don’t agree about Halting Strike. Maybe I just suck at interrupts, but I don’t think you’ll be interrupting someone perfectly every 10 seconds(ballpark average for cooldowns), and you’re definitely not going to crit with it every time. With players capable of keeping Stability up, and Chaos Storm only randomly inflicting daze, Diversion’s chance of shredding Stability is the only reasonable interrupt. On the other hand, you’ll – presumably – be throwing a lot of Mind Wracks out. The damage may be “inferior”, but it is a constant; it is reliable, and pressures the enemy more.

I’ll permit the compounding power argument over Precise Wrack, particularly as per my earlier testing, – I’m not sure I buy that you have a high illusion uptime, but it is reasonable you’re getting 3% on any form of spike, whether it’s interrupt or shatter.

My whole problem here is really just in Chaos Storm. I love it to death, and I think it’s GREAT in this support-based build, but it isn’t really an interrupt like anything else we have – that lack of reliability, even with the chance of it interrupting 5 people more than once, just doesn’t strike me as something to justify Halting Strike. I just feel like one more interrupt is needed to make it work.

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

This is nothing more than a staff + greatsword shatter build. All you did was removed portal and added veil there and removed mass invis and added time warp there.. Then you put condi food there which does nothing other than lower your damage, rabid staff, soldiers gs, zerker armor ect. So many wrong things..
To clear up the thing about halting strike – it’s great.
A guy is at 10% HP, you know he will heal, you interrupt his heal. Not only does he not heal, but you may of killde him there with halting strike damage. You really do interrupt so much in this build. It’s all L2P. It’s much less RNG than you may think. I was fooled at first as well..

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Posted by: Greyalis.2309

Greyalis.2309

This is nothing more than a staff + greatsword shatter build. All you did was removed portal and added veil there and removed mass invis and added time warp there.. Then you put condi food there which does nothing other than lower your damage, rabid staff, soldiers gs, zerker armor ect. So many wrong things..
To clear up the thing about halting strike – it’s great.
A guy is at 10% HP, you know he will heal, you interrupt his heal. Not only does he not heal, but you may of killde him there with halting strike damage. You really do interrupt so much in this build. It’s all L2P. It’s much less RNG than you may think. I was fooled at first as well..

Food and various things was leftover from another build so I apoligize, and will update it. Also, any advice here is appreciated.

Edit: A couple of people in game gave me these traits on top of the build you linked.

So…I’m not trying to take credit for the traits given here, if that is what you want credit for—more so this playstyle. It’s just that this seems to be a meta GS/Staff mesmer build and many mesmers don’t use GS/Staff combo unless trying to make a support build.

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Posted by: zaxon.6819

zaxon.6819

everyone who plays shatter now pretty much plays greatsword/staff. because sword is broken as can bee.