Condi-shatter mesmer build that I’ve been running for the last week or so, and I’ve found it to be very effective, and very fun although perhaps a tad squishy.
IF you want to optimize for damage – get a set of Strength Runes instead of Travelers.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhEQNAsfWlknpRtlpxYNcrNitxYyLiA1JV1UlMghB-TBUDABypFAhDUgMq/0lyA40wMwDAAATYKoEEPNBRfCAKSJnPKFyb/hiPEAGfEAIz0RAgDA+NQKAmEGB-e
Shatter mesmers are what I consider to be a High Risk – High Reward play style.
1: Shatters as a damage delivery system is unreliable:
Skilled players will easily avoid a shatter setup when they see them (that is getting three clones or phantasms in close proximity to a target for maximum damage on shatter proc
2: Because Shatters are easily avoided, condition damage is key to wearing down tougher targets
3: This build plays to the offensive strengths of the class
confusing the **** out of enemies because there’s clones everywhere
extremely high in-combat mobility (sword 3 + swap, Blink, Staff 2)
frequent ability to stealth, and thus avoid damage ( The Prestige, Veil, Decoy, Mass Invis)
two stunbreaks to get the kitten out of damage (stuck in AOE? pop decoy, F4 and be out!)
double shatter trait is an “OH SH**” button (F4 and Sword 2 save lives)
You’ll be quick to note that I don’t have any condition cleansing, and limited regen in battle. this is true.
I also come packing with 45% + chance to critical
With my sigils, I’m applying AOE torment in a 180 unit radius every third hit.
My F1 shatter skill has kitten chance to critical
With Bloodlust sigil stacks, and Applied Strength (WvW trait) I’ve seen critical hits with F1 go as high as 2500 damage per clone.
This in conjunction with Illusionary Persona means that this build has a potential damage output of 10k on F1 shatter + 4 stacks of confusion from the new Illusion trait tree re-work.
With Applied Fortitude stacks, I have approximately 23k HP which is very good considering the armor that I selected for this build.
I like this build because I have the oomph to bring down highly evasive targets, while being evasive enough to not get completely loaded with conditions. The Condi duration reduction food helps a ton, since I don’t have a consistent way to remove conditions with this build. For the most part I rely on the high evasion of the Mesmer class to avoid conditions.
If you want, you can use a Pistol offhand – I run this build in PvP (I win about 65% of 1v1s) with the Strength Runes and the pistol offhand, since Torch has underwhelming damage.