Guild Wars 2

Hey Mesmers, if any of you have some tips for ruling wvw roaming with a focus I’d love to hear them. I’ve been trying lately to use it. I run hybrid lockdown with GS and Staff usually. For me the staff is an amazing defensive weapon and I just can’t seem to get anywhere with -/focus. I just can’t make it work. This is untraited focus, as my build won’t allow 4 into inspiration.

For example, I can fight a thief with staff, but with focus I have a much harder time.

GS is mandatory for catching runners and I like the ranged dmg so it would be GS and probably scepter/focus, as I like the block with torment, but if for some reason sword pairs a lot better with focus please explain and I could use that.

So if anyone has some cool tips or even better videos of guys killin it with the focus, would you mind posting them? Thanks!

u do know that iWarden doesnt work half of the time right?

Ya I know :-/

So with focus you get some basic combos depending on your mainhand weapon.

Place curtain → cast iWarden → into the void → iWarden summons on pulled target → sword 3 iLeap swap to imob → blurred frenzy.

This knocks down the target and imobs them in the iWardens attack. Use condi duration food for a longer imob.

Or, Place curtain, cast iWarden, drop curtain on iWarden, cast scepter 3, into the void (pulling targets back into iWarden), scepter 3 channel does its thing.

iWarden is a whirl, curtain is a light field, so if yuo see a whirrling iWarden and put your curtain on him you get condi cleansing bolts.

vs Ranged users, cast iWarden and attack with scepter 3 from within the curtain.

vs Thieves, cast iWarden (with or without pull), stand in iWarden for protection.

vs Thieves, save curtain for shadow refuge.

vs everyone, Lure to a cliff and pull them over the edge. Get on with your day.

You said you use a mix of a lockdown and a shatter build. There is really a lot you can do with thieves if you’re a mix of those two.
Depending on the spec (you didn’t say which one, please do so so I can help you as much as I can)

When fighting thieves, lockdown is something you should focus more on than shatter. You lock him down as much as you can, if you can get a shatter in there, good, if not, lockdown should do it.
My advise is to bait cooldowns/iniciative and dodges.When you know he is low on ports, iniciative and maybe utility cooldowns, a combo I love to do is to put the curtain down, start the iwarden cast, and detonate the curtain as before the cast finishes. ileap/immo him into blurred frenzy and shatter all your clones when the immobilize is about to ware off (to put in as much damage as you can from iWarden).
If he didn’t have cooldowns to port outta there or condition removal to remove the immo he will be dead. You can also stun him after the knockback/down to ensure the kill, if he uses a stun breaker, he will still have immobilize on him, so he will have to use yet another cooldown/more iniciative to get out.

A good surprise burst is to take MI (usually against this) and wait for him to backstab you and evade it into MI + mind wrack or another thing you can do is lay the curtain down, use it to interrupt him if you can (halting strike damage) and pull him close to yourself into MI + mind wrack. That is extremely hard to counter and good amount of damage.
In WvW you’re free to put all your attention to thieves, so they should not be too much of an issue.. Staff you can control him loads, Sword/Focus you can set up bursts nicely while locking him down with utility skills, focus pull, chaos storm and diversion.

It’s all very situational, just think a bit about what he is doing and why, what can you do to counter him, also pick up a thief for a bit to get to know the class if you haven’t already. Helps loads while fighting them.

Yeah, also good to save it for shadow refuge.
If a thief uses shadow refuge he is low on everything, you pull him out, he is dead. Try to mix in the pull with ileap into BF and shatter if you can. There is no room for warden in that situation, you can also pull into MI + MW

Thanks guys. Btw Jurica I didn’t mention shatter; by hybrid I meant condi and direct dmg. Spec is 0/6/6/2/0 with harmonious mantras and CI (not like I never shatter just not primary source of dmg). Thanks for the tips though, all good stuff. I’ve never tried to seriously pvp with the focus at all.

Here is a build I posted awhile back but haven’t played in awhile due to the iWarden issues. It’s great for WvW roaming and actually a decent team build in PvP in my experience.

I haven’t updated it yet with the feature patch but there is a bit of info on how to play condition lockdown with the focus and using CI, plus a video.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Vid-Chaotic-Perdition-WvW-PvP/first

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8dl0npMtNqxGNcrNyqxY6WO5lTtUpHJ7AA-TFEEABQcQAeZ/hLVhATVQSUVgtUCykStJVJYKlBSpkQiLAgkqB0muhDeAAAcECaUFhAAIA38mZz2MYoDdoDdoDtZO0hezbezSBAzyI-w

I´ve theory-crafted a focus hybrid-ish build today (mainly for a guildmate who LOVES focus and greatsword) which uses 0-30-30-10-0. Grenth runes for even more lockdown potential than usual and condition damage (warden+CI==tons of bleeds). It´s untested (I´ve played something similar a while ago, but with Balthazar instead of Grenth) and slower than my usual roaming builds, but I think this could work.

I use it in PvE quite often but I guess it can work in PvP environment too. Cast curtain, start casting another skill and ~0.5 into the cast – trigger the curtain pull. This will interrupt the enemy that could have otherwise possibly was about to interrupt YOUR skill cast. Think of it as a counter to a possible counter

frifox.5283:

I use it in PvE quite often but I guess it can work in PvP environment too. Cast curtain, start casting another skill and ~0.5 into the cast – trigger the curtain pull. This will interrupt the enemy that could have otherwise possibly was about to interrupt YOUR skill cast. Think of it as a counter to a possible counter

It’s also a good way to remove a blind to ensure a phantasm cast etc.