Guild Wars 2

I’m sure this has been asked 1000x times, but post most recent patch and without digging utterly deep into forums….

So I bought my 6th and 7th character slots and am working on a chronomancer. I have ascended weapons (all) and legendary GS on my heavy armor main ans already have a ascended light armor chest price and enough mats to make 2 more prices now and the rest in short order. Trinkets are easy to get and I have dozen of ascended rings from fractals.
Question becomes stat combination for wvw…
Meta build has book chrono gvg build in ministral and a condo roamed in trail blazers.
Right now my main is a frontlines and I am used to being in the heat of the stack and zerg surfing.
I feel like I want to play power bursting with enough surviibility to handle being on tag and not be instameat on off 1v1.
I was leaning on marauders as armor set but figured someone could guide me on experience.
Thoughts?

Kinda difficult to stay frontline as Mesmer without relying on some kind of Minstrel’s/Boonshare build. But your power will be poor.

I’ve tried to circumnavigate this by theorycrafting a Commander’s/Distortionshare build with your power sitting just under 2500 as well as your armour, but condi’s are still very much a problem. And your health sits at a lowly 16k.
I’ve also experimented on Power/Healing Power/Distortionshare but, again, condi’s still manage to wreck you and you’re left with a low health pool and low armour. (I’m tempted to give this build another shot after a tune up maybe. The idea of landing a devastating 3-Clone Shatter, whilst replenishing loads of health is super appealing)

Currently, however, I’m working a fresh spin of an old Phantasm build I used to run. So far I’m sitting at just over 2500 Power, 2200 Armour, 19k Health, 54% Crit Chance and 206% Crit Damage. Again, I’m using Signets for the Distortion and Condi Clear. (Note: iDisenchanter can remove an extra condi if you spec for Illusionary Inspiration) As for Armour/Trinkets, I’ve used Marauders for Armour and Zerkers for everything else. And I’m running Dolyak Runes for the Vit/Toughness.

Just two glaring cons with this build:

1. It’s Core Mesmer, so you’ll need a Scepter for clone upkeep.
2. Everything is Ascended with full WvW Infusions. (Mighty on Weapons, Vital on Armour & Precise on Trinkets)

Finally, I haven’t spec’d for Heal on Shatter in order to ensure damage from my Phantasms with Protected Phantasms, though I suspect I’ll probably need to change this.

I run full marauders & it’s fine for both zerg surfing and roaming. The extra HP helps avoid being downed by a stray 13k CoR + a couple random attacks. You still have to be careful of positioning & react quickly, but have a little extra leeway compared to full zerker. You won’t be offering much support and you won’t be frontline, so if that’s your thing you should gear differently.

Full zerker works too, but if you’re mostly zerg surfing without somebody watching your back, I don’t really recommend it if you’re new to mesmer. You have to be extremely careful with positioning and avoiding attacks, vs just being “really careful” with marauders.

The build I normally run: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8enknBNqhlpBeqBEgilnjCdxasHreQT0F9sACgDD-TVCEQBpY/hHcQAAwRAwd6G8n6PbUJIBeAAI4CA4QlfBAQAu5Nz38NwzduzduzdOt5NfuzdOhAEMGA-w

- I usually swap out grav well for mass invis when roaming. Grav well is nice, but so is having the escape that mass invis provides.

- Food: The 10% DR food would arguably be better, but I’m too lazy to craft it.

- Shield: It’s still good, and nice to have for tight spots. I haven’t been running it much lately though.

- Focus (zerging): I often run it over shield (swapping back and forth often) when zerg surfing just to pull people off walls or out-of-position open-field. Also, the new immob projectile on #5 has gotten quite a few people killed that were out-of-position for a couple seconds too long, letting other gank take advantage.

- Focus (roaming): I don’t really like it when solo roaming, as it doesn’t quite provide enough pressure/defense compared to other options. The CC (both #4 and #5) can be handy in duo roaming though to give your friend more opportunity to do damage.

- Sword off-hand (zerging): Use a shield or focus instead.

- Sword off-hand (roaming): I actually really like this for both solo & duo roaming. #4’s ~5k crit counterattack is nice against most classes. #5 phantasm hits pretty hard (and you get it twice w/ chronophantasma). There are situations where having a shield (or even focus) is better, but I’ve been primarily running sword off-hand and enjoy it.

- Torch (zerging): I’d rather run focus or shield.

- Torch (roaming): It shines better here. Good if you can hide an upcoming burst (especially if you’re full zerker and think you can 1-shot the person), and good for buying time in a fight or escaping.