Guild Wars 2

I’m an d/d ele bunker addict, and I’m leveling a mesmer currently. I thought I’d hate it, but I actually love it, especially the staff. Chaos armor is pretty much the best defensive tool you can get, and the buff stacking you can get is just amazing. I thought, after doing a fair amount of pve with it, it’d be great in pvp. Buuuut not so much.

WIth my d/d ele, I can survive pretty much anything. I can heal my hp up to full twice before even thinking of touching my healing skill. I have dodges galore, constant buffs, great mobility, everything. But the flavour of mesmer is just so awesome, and it seemed like with chaos armor, 2 on staff and chaos storm, I could be pretty much as defensive. Doesn’t seem that way though.

I guess the point of the post is wondering what people\s experiences with staff mesmer are. I’m not a fan of burst builds personally, and would love to do well in pvp without the need to spec that way. Post your experiences below!!

Trying to compare d/d ele with staff mesmer… Yeah, you’re not going to be as tough to kill. That’s why we have clones and utility skills to mindkitten your opponent. The entire concept of a mesmer is to not get hit in the first place. Shatter builds is nice and flashy and all, but the true mesmer IMO is all about mindkittening.

In pvp? UNless there’s a huge group, have you really been able to ‘mindkitten’ a decent player? They pretty much ctrl t right away usually

Hi and glad you deccided to join the ranks of mesmers.

Im Osicat and running a poppular guide on the forums and in video form, both with 50k+ wievs. It so far been one core spec but I played it in 4 different setups and speces, I will now add al 4 to the guide, Im sure you fine one who work for you.

Staff is a part of al my 4 builds in Shatter cat, the new version of the guide is not fully done yet and under consturction. The spec can be run in:

Original Shatter Cat, Hybrid big dmg spec, Tank Shatter Cat and Condition Shatter Cat

So far I just remade the first of the builds but more get added tomorw. Alot of video guides for new players but also more advance vids for experienced players.

When you say you dont want burst build and use staff I would suggest condition Shatter spec. Its survival is huge, it uses stealth on the side of passive defenses and the dmg immunitys form shatter spec to outlast enemys. Your target dropping combined with staff clones creation will mess with your enemys. Also the cd on staff abilitys is low, alot of chaos armour upptime due to combofields.

Cheers.

Link to guide: Under construct thu

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-WvWvW-Shatter-Cat-reworking/first

Latest vid: Obs its burst video but show the survival of the hybrid.

/Osicat

The famous Osicat, posting in my thread. Awesome.

I’ve watched all your videos. Before you posted. And it looks great, but I never realized you have a tank build. I was amazed when I watched them before, the way you spanked so many foes, but there’s no way I’ll have that skill level anytime soon. Looking more for a bunker/outlasting build that takes advantage of the huge amount of boons/might stacking that mesmers do oh so well.

That being said, I defer to you, and will try your cond and tank spec. Thank you very much!!

If you want a good defensive mesmer build, check out grimm’s Seven Mirror thread. Played well he is pretty tough to kill even when grossly outnumbered. I haven’t looked too closely at Osi’s heavy spec, but at first glance it’s similar to grimm’s. I’d recommend those to you.

If you prefer condition damage, I play a very defensive condition shatter spec, and Osi has promised to roll one out soon, but I’m not sure how tanky he plans to be. I can share my specs if you are interested. Embolism plays a very defensive condition mesmer, too, but it focuses on keeping clone up instead of shattering afaik.

Osi: Eagerly awaiting your condition shatter spec to see which direction you take it as I play one myself, and I just love imagining ppls faces when they blow themselves up with confusion, even if it may not be quite as optimal as pure DD shatter build. It certainly gets the job done tho, esp in wvwvw.

Staff is okay and will be great as soon as they remove invulnerability from WoC. Im not sure if its a glitch or what but combo’ed choas armor doesn’t give you protection so its not as defensive as some may think.