Guild Wars 2

Miku Lawrence.6329:

MailMail.6534:

While extremely fun to watch, Messiah’s vids haven’t shown much in terms of conveying MtD’s strength. Keep giving us vids though. I appreciate them.

I like the music (might be the only one x.x ). Also, a thread comparing hotjoin with ELS is entertaining.

Even in ranked games. Against a team that knows tf they are doing. This build loses effectiveness extremely fast.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

MailMail.6534:

While extremely fun to watch, Messiah’s vids haven’t shown much in terms of conveying MtD’s strength. Keep giving us vids though. I appreciate them.

I like the music (might be the only one x.x ). Also, a thread comparing hotjoin with ELS is entertaining.

does hotjoin consider ranked matches?

jportell.2197:

messiah.1908:

MailMail.6534:

While extremely fun to watch, Messiah’s vids haven’t shown much in terms of conveying MtD’s strength. Keep giving us vids though. I appreciate them.

what are you looking after in the vids?

i dont like to cap vids for a month for the best moments rather hop in ranked and cap what ever goes unless my team is bad

I think people are looking for game changing plays in the vids. Hard enough to do on mesmer as it is. Even harder on this build. Just sayin.

game changing ?!! like taking lord when we got 350 points versus 450 all by my self and power necro who came 10 sec after after i pinging the lord so all will come and no one comes beside the necro on 2v4 on lord while my torment get to 15 and burning and bleeding ?!

so far i showed 1v1 on point and group fight . you dont want to see those as ppl said they were bad players cause they die too fast…

http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/4025434

45:00
extremely informative.
check it out.

choucs.4507:

http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/4025434

45:00
extremely informative.
check it out.

Lulz, in typical helseth fashion. However he’s right. Most bang for your buck still is regular shatter. And I am not drinking the helseth Kool-aid. I personally think the guy is a total kitten and not much higher than most other shatter mesmer players mechanically.

choucs.4507:

http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/4025434

45:00
extremely informative.
check it out.

So what was that about sucking male genitalia? Maybe some female players like to play MtD too? Or some gay guys? Anything wrong with that? :P

But ya. He complains about the video, which indeed wasn’t that great. However. His argumentation is even worse, because he doesn’t bring any other arguments than “MtD is gay” for why it’s supposedly so bad. So ya… what did we learn… Helseth is homophobic. That’s all you can learn out of what he’s saying.

Besides… you know. Just because Helseth claims something doesn’t work anywhere outside of hotjoin (even though it clearly DOES work for many people), doesn’t mean it has to be that way. Besides, he SHOULD notice that the video-footage clearly was NOT from hotjoin. But whatever. Oh, and remember; it was Helseth who raged like crazy how adding torment to scepter autotattacks will totally break the game and make Mesmer absolutely faceroll-op and how that’s a super-bad decision and it doesn’t promote any skillful play cause now everyone will just autoattack their opponents to death… so ya. Don’t take everything he says like it’s the ultimate truth.

Edit: Take a look; it’s quite funny.

Edit 2: He actually claimed (back then) that condi-mesmer is gonna be so good, it’s disgusting. And that was even BEFORE MtD got buffed.

Good old Helseth

Funny how many times he says the game is kitten, the game is broken, the clones are kittened, enemies play kittenty strategy… when something doesn’t go as he likes.

Helseth’s rudeness goes hand in hand with his skill. And he’s one of the best players out there.

PD: In the end of the video he duels a friendly engi and it takes ages to kill him. Don’t know how it would have been with MtD.

choucs.4507:

http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/4025434

45:00
extremely informative.
check it out.

Hahaha, totally the reply this thread deserved

Ansau.7326:

Good old Helseth

Funny how many times he says the game is kitten, the game is broken, the clones are kittened, enemies play kittenty strategy… when something doesn’t go as he likes.

Helseth’s rudeness goes hand in hand with his skill. And he’s one of the best players out there.

PD: In the end of the video he duels a friendly engi and it takes ages to kill him. Don’t know how it would have been with MtD.

Until anyone from MtD wins any $$ I’m going to put my money on helseth over MtD.

Lol @ rude.

This is the internet, if you wanna cry gtfo.

Jelzouki.4128:

Until anyone from MtD wins any $$ I’m going to put my money on helseth over MtD.

Lol @ rude.

This is the internet, if you wanna cry gtfo.

As if I cared Helseth being rude or not… In fact, I like it.

And about internet, you’re not pathetic enough. Try harder.

choucs.4507:

http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/4025434

45:00
extremely informative.
check it out.

LOL unfortunately no information was given by him beside the fact he said he plays for money and try it all
i would really love to hear his true opinion why conditions wont or cant work for mesmer . and if he tried it what were his findings .

and sry that evey power shatter who post here cant read properly the subject

its dmg comparison not what build is more effective

if he was bit more friendly he would put out some testing as elite mesmer player to show us the community.

Jelzouki.4128:

Until anyone from MtD wins any $$ I’m going to put my money on helseth over MtD.

Nobody who’s defending MtD ever said it’s what you should play in the big tournaments. They mainly said that it works pretty much everywhere that isn’t a big tournament. Helseth basically claims it doesn’t work anywhere else than hotjoin. Or maybe not even there. And his reasoning is “I’m god and this build and the people who defend it are gay.” And this means only that he’s not just arrogant with no end, but also homophobic. Not to mention that he’s far from being always right… as proven for example with the video of him that I’ve already linked where he claimed that everyone is gonna pwn people with mindless 1-spamming with scepter. In fact, he claimed condi-mesmer will become completely broken and overpowered due to torment on scepter autoattack and the change to IE. So really… unless he actually brings up some decent arguments, I’m not gonna believe anything he says. “I’m impeccable and I’m always right” isn’t a valid argument; especially not if the opposite has been proven.

Jelzouki.4128:

Lol @ rude.

This is the internet, if you wanna cry gtfo.

Nobody is crying here. But one would think that some decency would be appropriate. Especially if he wants to make a valid argument in a discussion. But with such an attitude…

On a sidenote, it actually very much looked like he was the one being backside-hurt. Claiming that condi-mesmer could do any good… what a heresy! (Again; funny how he once claimed condi-mesmer always was kinda good but now will be completely broken and overpowered… even before the buff to MtD. xD)

I won’t elaborate on Helseth’s lack of respectability, because he does a fine job himself of showing how atrocious he is every time he opens his mouth. And I say this with as much tact as I am capable of having.

He didn’t dispute any of Fay’s assertions. For someone so “elite” and well respected, I expect more than ad hominen attacks and hyperbole. Then again, those forms of expression is the way to viewership. Honestly, it’s a self-disservice to even engage with him. The fact remains, as pyro pointed out, that Mesmer is in a spot where many builds are viable below top tier. And even then, power shatter isn’t the most optimal build to bring to a top tier team.

eta – el oh el at Saturn literally ripping through Helseth’s credibility by bringing us the receipts!

quote helseth quoting me “mtd is better”
have i ever claim its better here?

sry he cant read well as he just took it to his comfort zone and again try to compare them
as an elite player he immediately should have said that you cant compare power build with condi build as both have different role and dmg base

and again no other ppl here claim its better the power shatter. rather usable and effective in certain scenarios

so my conclusion is that he got offended by this (his moments) video. so first SRY and secondly he put me on his twich channel YEY (AS THERE IS NO BAD PUBLICITY)

Messiah is famous now.

In before helseth fanboys come all angry defending their deity. Lol

quite enough fanboys circlejerking on these threads already, some of the comments make me cringe… no need to add more : D

Wile.5024:

quite enough fanboys circlejerking on these threads already, some of the comments make me cringe… no need to add more : D

I love fanboys. They’re so… passionate about their adoration of a particular subject. As long as you can hold a legitimate conversation, I welcome them!

MtD is fun and works great and I dump nerds in solo queue all day with it, that’s all that matters to me. I’m sure it might lose effectiveness if I was playing against the best players in the world and power shatter would be a safer bet, but who cares, for a solo queue grinder it does it’s job and does it well.

Power shatter purists can claim all they want that it’s garbage but I see the facts every day that it’s a completely viable and effective mesmer build in 5v5 for the average player. They can keep dying to D/P thieves while I kittensmash meta thieves 1v1 90% of the time, that alone makes it worth playing MtD for me.

I can only speculate that Helseth has tried variations of Mesmer condi and it just doesn’t hold up to power shatter in top tier play. He doesn’t need to come out and list out anything to refute why condi is behind power shatter only because he’s been successful at tournament play. Then again, when someone is that arrogant, don’t expect much.

But really, no one really gives a crap about bottom tier play because you can roll out there with random traits and still kill terrible players.

When discussing build viability in pvp, it really only matters on top tier and tournament games because that is where people know where their dodge button is.

I can’t believe this thread is still going. I’m not going to argue what builds are better or not, but I could argue that there are no viable Mesmer builds in conquest modes including power shatter. The descriptions in metabattle.com says at the very bottom “countered by thieves”. What kind of build would be viable if it’s hard countered by a profession since any top teams would usually have a thief.

MailMail.6534:

For someone so “elite” and well respected, I expect more than ad hominen attacks and hyperbole.

Really? That’s precisely what I expect from Helseth. He hasn’t dribbled out much more than that in quite a while.

knkasa.2608:

I can’t believe this thread is still going. I’m not going to argue what builds are better or not, but I could argue that there are no viable Mesmer builds in conquest modes including power shatter. The descriptions in metabattle.com says at the very bottom “countered by thieves”. What kind of build would be viable if it’s hard countered by a profession since any top teams would usually have a thief.

if you keep reading closely you will see that every meta build is pretty much counter by heavy conditions pressure… MTD

phokus.8934:

When discussing build viability in pvp, it really only matters on top tier and tournament games because that is where people know where their dodge button is.

I think you believe that their are more people at the top tier/tournament games then they actually exist. Top tier is irrelevant for most.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Maybe, just maybe the effectiveness of a build and the player using it can be seen regardless of if the opponents faced does well against or not.

What? Context-free balance? Are you nuts?!
Next thing you know, players will stop demanding everyone else to be nerfed to the ground. :P

messiah.1908:

if you keep reading closely you will see that every meta build is pretty much counter by heavy conditions pressure… MTD

I want to chime in and say that this is incredibly false within the current meta…

Right now, I played Necromancer as my top 3 played – and I always played this as the Condi variant… It falls apart damage wise, and the only real reason you want to take it is because of the CC’s and the Boon Corrupt , which when used at the right time is a dealbreaker

Let’s take Condi Engineer for instance… The pure variant is a Balthazar P/S Grenadier, quite squishy, but quite amazing with the condi damage output – yet outshined by the Celestial Rifle Engi…
Again, what is the big difference between the two? It’s quite easy actually, you have both more sustain as well a truckload of CC’s, which no meta build seems to be prepared for

The two most prominent Support builds within the meta are Shoutbow and D/D Ele – both have a plethora of support and party wide condi removal, and with little coordination, this can make “Heavy Condition pressure” obsolete

So no, it is not a counter to the meta… If you feel inclined to run it because you feel it is strong, go ahead, but don’t give false information, because it can be extremely disheartening once people find out the truth…
Heck, it is not even a counter to the previous meta with the Lyssa/Zerkstance Warriors and AH Guards being extremely prominent

This information is however given from the perspective of teamplay, and as someone who Solos on Shoutbow and D/D Ele as well – with just some minor understanding of your role and capabilities, you are more than capable of shutting down the complete offense of an enemy team

GoogleBrandon.5073:

messiah.1908:

if you keep reading closely you will see that every meta build is pretty much counter by heavy conditions pressure… MTD

I want to chime in and say that this is incredibly false within the current meta…

Right now, I played Necromancer as my top 3 played – and I always played this as the Condi variant… It falls apart damage wise, and the only real reason you want to take it is because of the CC’s and the Boon Corrupt , which when used at the right time is a dealbreaker

Let’s take Condi Engineer for instance… The pure variant is a Balthazar P/S Grenadier, quite squishy, but quite amazing with the condi damage output – yet outshined by the Celestial Rifle Engi…
Again, what is the big difference between the two? It’s quite easy actually, you have both more sustain as well a truckload of CC’s, which no meta build seems to be prepared for

The two most prominent Support builds within the meta are Shoutbow and D/D Ele – both have a plethora of support and party wide condi removal, and with little coordination, this can make “Heavy Condition pressure” obsolete

So no, it is not a counter to the meta… If you feel inclined to run it because you feel it is strong, go ahead, but don’t give false information, because it can be extremely disheartening once people find out the truth…
Heck, it is not even a counter to the previous meta with the Lyssa/Zerkstance Warriors and AH Guards being extremely prominent

This information is however given from the perspective of teamplay, and as someone who Solos on Shoutbow and D/D Ele as well – with just some minor understanding of your role and capabilities, you are more than capable of shutting down the complete offense of an enemy team

these are not my words. go in the metabattle site and read counters. you will see heavy counter from conditions builds.

i agree with you that with coordianted team it can be harder running conditions and i agree with you that condi necro dont bring enoughf condi pressure but nice cc . and agree with you that engi bring both cc and condi dmg and ok support with water field.

also dd ele hate this build even if they can cleanse as this build preety much interfere with thier rotations and support.
shoutbow is just wast of time to handle although its possible if you 1v1 him he wont support his team so again good result.

messiah.1908:

these are not my words. go in the metabattle site and read counters. you will see heavy counter from conditions builds.

i agree with you that with coordianted team it can be harder running conditions and i agree with you that condi necro dont bring enoughf condi pressure but nice cc . and agree with you that engi bring both cc and condi dmg and ok support with water field.

also dd ele hate this build even if they can cleanse as this build preety much interfere with thier rotations and support.
shoutbow is just wast of time to handle although its possible if you 1v1 him he wont support his team so again good result.

I was a frequent user of the old PvX wikia in the GW1 era because of one simple reason – it is good for information…
However – this information is more than often based on the experience of a sole individual, and you should always verify this yourself to come to conclusions

You are talking about countering said builds, but you speak in a 1v1 situation… While D/D Ele and Shoutbow can hold points – they are vastly superior are support…
What is not a good thing though is that you are likely wasting your time dueling either of these builds, while you could get a better matchup with a Condi based build (Like against Engineers, other Mesmers and a lesser extend Thieves) – Don’t advise dueling these builds to people! The amount of times I have seen people comming to me to duel me after their team whiped – only to be taken down seconds later by my team snowballing have been numerous, and your team will get no good from it at all

Again, I am not gonna argue within the usability of the build – but you should be extremely wary of your role and capabilties… Shutting down “Meta” builds, with an emphasis on the current support builds, is certainly not one of them, so use your role wisely

GoogleBrandon.5073:

messiah.1908:

these are not my words. go in the metabattle site and read counters. you will see heavy counter from conditions builds.

/snip

His exact quote was “every meta build is pretty much counter by heavy conditions pressure”

To which you responded by launching into a defense of “every meta team directly counters conditions”.

So misreading was your first mistake, the straw-men the second.

He did not misread anything. Messiah claimed that “every meta build is pretty much counter by heavy condition pressure… MTD” to which he explained why you can MTD all you want, you won’t benefit your team at all because:

- In team fights, where there is a shoutbow or dd ele, the other team should have massive condi removal, so your pressure is negated.
- If you happen to try to solo a shoutbow or dd, it takes way too much time and you will probably not get them down anyway. Bottom line is, your team has no benefit from you.

Ross Biddle.2367:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

messiah.1908:

these are not my words. go in the metabattle site and read counters. you will see heavy counter from conditions builds.

/snip

His exact quote was “every meta build is pretty much counter by heavy conditions pressure”

To which you responded by launching into a defense of “every meta team directly counters conditions”.

So misreading was your first mistake, the straw-men the second.

I know this is the Mesmer subforum – but confusion ain’t the main forté anymore since Anet decided that Torment is the way to go

However to clear up the confusion – how did I misread? I replied with the words he gave me which are
“if you keep reading closely you will see that every meta build is pretty much counter by heavy conditions pressure… MTD”
In which I replied that this is false, the meta is actually hardcountering full Condi builds, and is suspicable to CC’s – you can see this by the fact that Condi Ranger is not a thing despite being Extremely potent when not faced against the “current meta”, and the same counts for the example I gave with Condi Engi which once more seems to not be the top dog in Metagaming anymore – while Engi still has the Cele Rifle variant keeping them in the game

Second, what straw-man? I gave an in depth answer, unlike what you are accomplishing here…

I am sorry if you felt somewhat compelled to argue against me since I seem not to be in favour of MtD – but this is not my aim and absolutely not relevant to the discussion whatsoever
Besides, my experience within Condi pressure and the meta does not even come from MtD – it comes from Condi Builds in general, of which I gave the example with the King of Condis

alanis.6094:

phokus.8934:

When discussing build viability in pvp, it really only matters on top tier and tournament games because that is where people know where their dodge button is.

I think you believe that their are more people at the top tier/tournament games then they actually exist. Top tier is irrelevant for most.

No, I don’t. As I stated and what you left out as part of my response is that any build in bottom tier play is viable due to obvious reasons. When people start making claims that MtD is surpassing power shatter, that’s just blatantly false. MtD can have success as shown by the OP but even Phantasm builds and PU can have a lot of success against those same players.

Again maybe my English is bad buy I refer to the meta battle site
It’s not my words
Dd ele and shout warrior can fight you forever which will lose time for your team
But again we not talking 1v1
In team fight I try to pressure with cleanse and heal skill used by my enemy early in the fight
And if I push ele off the point for heal I did my job as for 5 sec he was out if the fight and all over again even if I won’t get the kill I disable him for preetylong time
So far teams was able to see the benefit with me as long they knew my role and didn’t expect me to be power shatter

Why I do think also it’s counter to meta celebs build because as a team you manage to pressure smthe early skills used giving your burst player the advantage to down them fast
But alone it can be waste of time indeed

phokus.8934:

I can only speculate that Helseth has tried variations of Mesmer condi and it just doesn’t hold up to power shatter in top tier play. He doesn’t need to come out and list out anything to refute why condi is behind power shatter only because he’s been successful at tournament play. Then again, when someone is that arrogant, don’t expect much.

But really, no one really gives a crap about bottom tier play because you can roll out there with random traits and still kill terrible players.

When discussing build viability in pvp, it really only matters on top tier and tournament games because that is where people know where their dodge button is.

When he turns his stream/persona off, he is pleasant to talk to. I don’t know why people are still unable to differentiate between The Lord Helseth and this dude that is a decent mesmer. ANYTHING he says on Twitch/YouTube will prob be trenchant. Also, of course anyone in a guild competing for money is going to try out all the builds. They’re going to use what wins.

Also, yes. Run whatever build you want in low tier/hot join/practice play. No matter what you run, if you have a basic grasp of how to fight/play this game, you’ll get called OP, god mode, etc. no matter the build (incl. standard power shatter).

phokus.8934:

alanis.6094:

phokus.8934:

When discussing build viability in pvp, it really only matters on top tier and tournament games because that is where people know where their dodge button is.

I think you believe that their are more people at the top tier/tournament games then they actually exist. Top tier is irrelevant for most.

No, I don’t. As I stated and what you left out as part of my response is that any build in bottom tier play is viable due to obvious reasons. When people start making claims that MtD is surpassing power shatter, that’s just blatantly false. MtD can have success as shown by the OP but even Phantasm builds and PU can have a lot of success against those same players.

Is your claim is that everyone that isn’t in the top tier/tournaments is therefore bottom tier (without any middle tier)? I don’t think anyone would disagree that when you play against kids that don’t know where the dodge button is located that any build can work; however, I (and I bet others) would argue that there is a huge amount of players that 1) aren’t tourney/top tier, and 2) still pretty good at this game. MTD is effective in this group.

Additionally on your other point… very few people are arguing that MTD is surpassing power shatter in tourney/top tier play.

alanis.6094:

phokus.8934:

alanis.6094:

phokus.8934:

When discussing build viability in pvp, it really only matters on top tier and tournament games because that is where people know where their dodge button is.

I think you believe that their are more people at the top tier/tournament games then they actually exist. Top tier is irrelevant for most.

No, I don’t. As I stated and what you left out as part of my response is that any build in bottom tier play is viable due to obvious reasons. When people start making claims that MtD is surpassing power shatter, that’s just blatantly false. MtD can have success as shown by the OP but even Phantasm builds and PU can have a lot of success against those same players.

Is your claim is that everyone that isn’t in the top tier/tournaments is therefore bottom tier (without any middle tier)? I don’t think anyone would disagree that when you play against kids that don’t know where the dodge button is located that any build can work; however, I (and I bet others) would argue that there is a huge amount of players that 1) aren’t tourney/top tier, and 2) still pretty good at this game. MTD is effective in this group.

Additionally on your other point… very few people are arguing that MTD is surpassing power shatter in tourney/top tier play.

My claim is based off of the players that the OP has played against and from the videos posted, I’ve yet to see any decent player. The OP plays MtD decently and it works for him so I’m glad that’s the case. There’s no question that the vast majority of players don’t participate in tournament play or in top tier… those are there for a reason and labeled as such. So I’m not sure why you would need to argue for this?

Sorry it’s not quite clear to me but on your second point are you saying that there’s a huge amount of players who are quite good?

phokus.8934:

alanis.6094:

phokus.8934:

alanis.6094:

phokus.8934:

When discussing build viability in pvp, it really only matters on top tier and tournament games because that is where people know where their dodge button is.

I think you believe that their are more people at the top tier/tournament games then they actually exist. Top tier is irrelevant for most.

No, I don’t. As I stated and what you left out as part of my response is that any build in bottom tier play is viable due to obvious reasons. When people start making claims that MtD is surpassing power shatter, that’s just blatantly false. MtD can have success as shown by the OP but even Phantasm builds and PU can have a lot of success against those same players.

Is your claim is that everyone that isn’t in the top tier/tournaments is therefore bottom tier (without any middle tier)? I don’t think anyone would disagree that when you play against kids that don’t know where the dodge button is located that any build can work; however, I (and I bet others) would argue that there is a huge amount of players that 1) aren’t tourney/top tier, and 2) still pretty good at this game. MTD is effective in this group.

Additionally on your other point… very few people are arguing that MTD is surpassing power shatter in tourney/top tier play.

My claim is based off of the players that the OP has played against and from the videos posted, I’ve yet to see any decent player. The OP plays MtD decently and it works for him so I’m glad that’s the case. There’s no question that the vast majority of players don’t participate in tournament play or in top tier… those are there for a reason and labeled as such. So I’m not sure why you would need to argue for this?

Sorry it’s not quite clear to me but on your second point are you saying that there’s a huge amount of players who are quite good?

i have met some decent players who are not in the top tier due the fact of time consuming.

but turning back the issue i havent read any claim why power shatter is better and why condi shatter is not good.

portal? so grab one as condi shatter. you can even trait it where power shatter cant.
boon removal – again condi shatter traits allocation is more freely so grab it
now the main issue – game style i would love to hear what you ppl thinking that deverst these two build concept (power and condi)

Rabid condi mes is much tankier than a power shatter mes but also has to rely on sustained damage because it has no spike. That sounds more comparable to the cele bruiser builds than to power shatter mes, while power shatter is more similar to thief. It doesn’t seem valid to compare condi shatter to power shatter directly because their roles are so different. Instead they should be compared to other builds that can perform a similar role, which would tend to show that power shatter is on the low end of viability and condi shatter just isn’t viable at all.

I would venture to say that the majority of people participating in PvP are in the middle tier, they’re competent and experienced players, but in the game as a whole they are simply average. (I venture to say most people here belong to this group, some drifting towards the bottom, others towards the top. )

There are a ton of reasons for why a solid middle-tier player doesn’t move on to top-tier, even if they probably had at least a chance of being competitive there as well if they took the time and applied themselves: lack of time, lack of a team, no interest in making “play time” into more “work time” (I have a high paying job, thank you), etc.

People on gaming forums always act as if being a top-tier gamer is something to aspire to, but the fact is the vast majority don’t earn much more then minimum wage.

I guarantee that over the long run most people with a college education will out-earn just about all professional gamers, probably by a huge margin. And you can still play GW2 in the evening, in the middle-tier, and kick butt with MtD and various other fun Mesmer builds that don’t leave you fully dependent on your team to be viable.

That is the plain truth with Power Shatter! Even the pros agree with that AFAIK. Without a good team to peel/heal/cleanse for you, you’re toast and can often be VERY ineffective for your team as a result! So it’s completely disingenuous to claim MtD Shatter is bad for your team, and P-Shatter is the way to go, when many people are playing mostly in unorganized PuGs.

If you learn to play MtD well —which is much easier then learning to play Power Shatter well-- you get the best of both worlds! You are very flexible and largely independent of the make-up, coordination, or skill of your team.

It’s really very silly to assume “pro-level” play to discuss the general viability of a build. That’s the only level at which the Power Shatter faction wants to compare their build at, and with that they want to stick their heads in the sand to the reality that the vast majority of players will actually very likely perform better in an MtD Shatter build then a P-Shatter build.

It’s really very simple:

1) If you have aspirations to play a Mesmer at the tournament level, for whatever reason in contrast to the reality that you’d be better off playing another profession

AND

2) You have a competent team that also has aspirations to play at the top-tier of tournament PvP

AND

3) Your team is willing to accept your choosing a Mesmer over a more viable profession

THEN

play Power Shatter and hone your reflexes, positioning, and team-play skills to make the vast burst potential of this build come to reality

ELSE

play MtD Shatter, Phant/Rupt, pure Phants, or even PU (Or P-Shatter of course! If you’re good, fast, and have a high tolerance for pain. ;-) )

Power Shatter is a great and very viable, but it’s far from optimal for everyone.

Coldtart.4785:

Rabid condi mes is much tankier than a power shatter mes but also has to rely on sustained damage because it has no spike. That sounds more comparable to the cele bruiser builds than to power shatter mes, while power shatter is more similar to thief. It doesn’t seem valid to compare condi shatter to power shatter directly because their roles are so different. Instead they should be compared to other builds that can perform a similar role, which would tend to show that power shatter is on the low end of viability and condi shatter just isn’t viable at all.

i agree with most of the above

condi shatter do has a spike dmg not burst (sort of) – with 1 shatter wich cause 6 torment and 3-6 confusion you can do for 2 sec of skill use and movement 4k dmg . with 2 shatter its 8-10 dmg for 2 sec. for 3 sec its 12k etc. while before you shatter few burning bleeding and posion and direct dmg . so even if it get cleanse eventualy for 3 sec it hit you. sure its hard to land but doable.

i dont try to compare between the builds rather the role. if you take a mesmer with you can you see him being a condi shatter mes with specific role which is differet from power shatter or you still must a power shatter with even if you got a thief and maybe lb ranger or med guard etc…

messiah.1908:

i have met some decent players who are not in the top tier due the fact of time consuming.

but turning back the issue i havent read any claim why power shatter is better and why condi shatter is not good.

portal? so grab one as condi shatter. you can even trait it where power shatter cant.
boon removal – again condi shatter traits allocation is more freely so grab it
now the main issue – game style i would love to hear what you ppl thinking that deverst these two build concept (power and condi)

I can answer this a bit after analyzing some gameplay (In case you are wondering, I am studying Mesmers since the last time I played was when Confusion was a thing)

More than often, people coordinate their spike burst… You can see this happen a lot more with the OffGuard+Thief combo, jumping on someone with JI+RoW, and the Thief with the Blackpowder+HS+Steal combo – this is called a “coordinated burst”

In the past (roughly close to April 15th last year) there was a discussion as to what was the better option, Power or Condi – with most teams saying Power was the get-go since you can coordinate it better…
And think about it, there are builds that die to Conditions fairly quickly, and I won’t deny that, but there are almost 0 professions capable of defending themselves against a full burst capable of 100-0 within less than 2 seconds… Then it comes down to complete player skill/reaction to avoid being bursted down…

This is also why you see a lot of Meta builds utilizing something that gives them Immobilize… It is not “just good” – it is extremely OP… Getting the right profession immobilized after using certain cooldowns with minor coordination is a death-sentence, and the quicker you utilize this, the more you can benefit from it and move on to the second target

The big question is – Can’t you Condi Burst? Well, you can… Actually, if you have ever played a full Condi Engi or Ranger you would know the condi burst capabilities, however, after the conditions are applied, there is counterplay in the form of Condition Removal, while direct damage can only be returned by healing… and most of the times with direct damage, the target was already on the floor, meaning the enemy team can only focus on ressing the target, rather than applying regen/water fields
This is why once more the Terror Necromancer has not completely fallen out of the meta, as it is capable of CC-ing the target, making it harder for the enemy team to cleanse the conditions

If you are a bit confused, you should check some streams of some high-tier teams as they are really informative… You will quickly see the Coordinated bursts I speak off and why they are so effective

This is not rocket science however, it has been discussed on the old “Balance” Subsection a lot of times before… I miss those days
This being said, it requires a certain mindset of you, your team and the understanding of the roles and capabilities… If you cannnot utilize this, then there is little reason to run any kind of Meta build, which is why I usually promote people to use the Meta for information, and not something you should copy-paste since you do not copy the understanding of a build by doing so…

This is the prime example that facts never changed the outcome of an arguement on this forum.

If messiah would get destroyed by every spec in the game including spirit weapon guard he’d still say MTD is great.

witcher.3197:

This is the prime example that facts never changed the outcome of an arguement on this forum.

If messiah would get destroyed by every spec in the game including spirit weapon guard he’d still say MTD is great.

Tout chez.

The more likely scenario however is that as a P-Shatter you will get destroyed by every profession and spec in the game, and you’re still going to tell us all that P-Shatter is great, right?

Very bad example, as MtD is far superior in the role implied in your statement, that being 1v1. ;-)

The only single category where P-Shatter is superior, is in very highly organized team play, with a team that can help you make up for the vast deficiencies of the build, in order to get the one thing that the build does better then any other Mesmer build; AoE spike damage. (Which is of utmost importance no doubt, but it’s not exactly easy to apply against a competent team or enemy. )

Above it is argued that due to cleanses there is more counter play vs. MtD, but there is also plenty of that for P-Shatter, which relies entirely on a single shatter. Again MtD is more flexible in dealing with that counter play, by allowing you to bring 3 or even all 4 shatters into the mix in a purely offensive manner.

There is no doubt that coordinated spikes are dangerous, and thus are also usually pretty well telegraphed. You will often see good teams react to such a telegraph instantly by providing healing/interrupting/CCing to save their team-mate from being insta gibbed. So aside from personal counter play to coordinated spikes, of which there are plenty too (blocks, telports, invulns), you certainly do have team counter play as well. (Like team-cleansing condies.)

Sorry for this but i’m a mesmer main and thus a duelist by nature and i am sure in the post above you meant “touché” (a word originated from fencing).

witcher.3197:

This is the prime example that facts never changed the outcome of an arguement on this forum.

If messiah would get destroyed by every spec in the game including spirit weapon guard he’d still say MTD is great.

if the build i am using wasnt good i would have said so.
i love to test build , concept and gamestlye and the ones i think are good i post for the community to test and comment.

the fact is that i think MTD can shine but for now it is hard to proove it as not many ppl use it or video it beside me in tpvp.
if you check closely every meta build in tpvp is also meta build in wvw roaming (beside bunker guard) as both can handle 1v1 well and also contribute to the group in some manners.
i wish i could be in the higher tier to test it and if it would have failed i be the first to post it. (i still remember the s/d thief build before it was meta . so many ppl said its weak with no dmg pressure bla bla bla…. )

Windwalker.7421:

I would venture to say that the majority of people participating in PvP are in the middle tier, they’re competent and experienced players, but in the game as a whole they are simply average. (I venture to say most people here belong to this group, some drifting towards the bottom, others towards the top. )

There are a ton of reasons for why a solid middle-tier player doesn’t move on to top-tier, even if they probably had at least a chance of being competitive there as well if they took the time and applied themselves: lack of time, lack of a team, no interest in making “play time” into more “work time” (I have a high paying job, thank you), etc.

People on gaming forums always act as if being a top-tier gamer is something to aspire to, but the fact is the vast majority don’t earn much more then minimum wage.
—-
snip

+1 LOL your two posts just spilled so much truth tea all over this thread.

Ok, I will regret posting this and will get trashed by your group opinion, but I think Helseth is right, not fully, but he is right. Call me a fanboy if you wish, I probably am one anyway, so what? I respect him, I think he’s a really cool, nice guy (despite his character on stream which I don’t believe you guys think is what he’s really like, maybe he is, but I don’t see it when I talk to him in game) and an incredible mesmer. I do not take everything he says for granted, despite of what I think of him.
I listen to what he has to say because the fact is that Helseth more top tier experience than you all probably have in general PvP, including myself, then I objectively look at what he says and get a well argumented standpoint of my own which does indeed 95% of the time overlap with his because he isn’t the type of guy that will say something that isn’t true because he has so much experience.
I’ve 1v1d him, Texbi and other top players where I did a terrible job mostly, partially because it was 4AM, partially because I was confused as to what weapon to learn fully and kinda got to the point where I was meh at both, partially because I just quit the game for a little bit then came back, generally not practicing 1v1s ect, don’t want to do too many excuses. I’ve also queued with 55HP, MLG, been put up against oRNG and other top teams/players in queus.
From that I did see how high level play is like, how so many little tiny things can cause you to die which in actual soloq games people get away with every time without it costing them 1% HP, that is why I can make sense of what he is saying without him having to spell all of it out, while an average joe who hasn’t seen a player better than say Vingador – probably won’t. People who play in top tier really know what they are talking about, otherwise they wouldn’t be playing there.
I probably make myself sound like I don’t know what, but actually my experience is very minimal most likely, I don’t even think I should be considered a great mesmer. Lately I’ve been playing my worse for various reasons but I’m practicing to hopefully become good enough to play in Go4 and get some proper experience against top players.
Also, as much as I don’t want to do this, I’ve gotta agree about Pyro. Despite the fact that I have huge respect for Pyro as he has incredible theoretical knowledge of the class, the problem is theory doesn’t always apply to practice. Soloq is =/= tournaments (& tournaments =/= WTS) and I don’t really know that he played in any therefore I don’t think he is one to say it works in tournaments and I think that because of that Helseths word is more valid since he’s been doing those for years. Why are we even only talking Helseth? Misha and Supcutie would run condi if it was good enough, wouldn’t they?
I asked Supcutie about celestial shatter so many times and he really did try it a lot, tried doing everything he can to make it work but the thing is, against good players, it doesn’t work as good as mind wrack (I’d write the actual name but it gets censored).
I could of just written those past three lines and that should be enough for you guys to realize that MtD is not better than standard power shatter, but judging from this and all the previous threads, I doubt that. I know you want something different, something more viable, easier don’t we all? The truth is, there is no such thing at the moment.

Since this thread has turned into another MtD vs Power Shatter comparison and Supcutie was mentioned, here are a couple quotes he made about MtD a couple months ago in a different thread.

Note the tier of game play is a big consideration and has been mentioned numerous times of late in recent threads.

Supcutie.2538:

About condi shatter and team fights – because of the celestial high sustain meta right now, there is enough condi cleanse in fights to make condi shatter simply not enough damage. If you are playing Mesmer, you need the burst in order to make progress. Otherwise you need to play another class that has a better sustain (damage mitigation/avoidance and healing per damage output basically) which will allow you more room for error and more opportunities to outplay your opponents.

Supcutie.2538:

taking that much time to get your damage off in higher end games will result in your team being dead. Not to mention, generosity sigil transfers torment first every time. Sure you have more survivability with the condi spec but the ratio of sustain to effective damage output is less than shatter, especially when you consider clone pathing from positioning that you need to have and clones being killed by aoe.

Chaos and I were just talking about how there are good builds and great builds. Condi may be a good build, but it’s not good enough for high end play. Of course, having fun builds for all level of play is important

TL;DR, MtD isn’t viable at the top tier level. MtD has nice potential to wreck in soloq. In teamq it can be played with varying success depending on how coordinated teams are at various MMR levels.

Jurica.1742:

Also, as much as I don’t want to do this, I’ve gotta agree about Pyro. Despite the fact that I have huge respect for Pyro as he has incredible theoretical knowledge of the class, the problem is theory doesn’t always apply to practice. Soloq is =/= tournaments (& tournaments =/= WTS) and I don’t really know that he played in any therefore I don’t think he is one to say it works in tournaments and I think that because of that Helseths word is more valid since he’s been doing those for years.

I think you need to go back and review what I’ve actually said.

Every single time I’ve discussed the viability of these builds, I’ve made it painstakingly, explicitly, unambiguously clear that they are not viable at the very top level. Seriously, go back and look. Every time I say something along the lines of ‘at every level other than the very top’.

Why do I say this? I say it because in my experience and extensive knowledge, that’s what I’ve found to be true. The very top level of play drastically limits what is viable. Outside of that, though, many different options become more or less equally viable.

Now, it can be debated whether or not my statements hold true regardless (and several people certainly have tried that debate), but to say that I’ve been making incorrect statements about what is viable at a tournament level simply is factually false.

Very nice and concise way to sum the whole argument skcamow.

+1 to that