Guild Wars 2

“Mesmer’s can be a bit supportive, but they cannot make good healers.”

From the start I’ve rejected this motto, holding firm to my stubborn belief that you could make a viable support-based Mesmer with heavy healing power and the trait Restorative Mantras.

After many tests and runes… The “Pure Healer” idea isn’t looking too good tbh. I’ve been able to make a very strong healer out of a Staff Elementalist, but Mesmer simply cannot produce such heavy heals.

However…

I’m working on a heavy-support build meant for WvW that’s also viable in dungeons. I’ve experimented with a number of different setups (Runes of Altruism/ Runes of Dwayna/ 4xAltruism 2xWater) to gain boon duration long with:

30 Chaos, 30 Inspiration, 5 Dueling, 5 Illusions. [Magi accessories/weaponry for Precision. Cleric’s gear for toughness & power] Sword/Focus-Staff

Mantra of Recovery, Mantra of Pain, Signet of Midnight, Signet of Inspiration
__________________________________________________________________

The idea is to use Signet of Inspiration to transfer boons gained from:

-Chaos Armor
(Swiftness/ Regeneration/ Protection 6-8 secs)
-Winds of Chaos
(Might 8secs/Fury 4secs)
-Chaos Storm
(Aegis/Swiftness/Retaliation 6 secs)
-Temporal Curtain
( Retaliation 35 secs*/ Swiftness 20 secs)

With 70% boon duration from 4 Runes of Altruism and 2 Runes of Water along with a maxed out Chaos tree, and Signet of Midnight the boons last fairly long. With Chocolate Omnom Berry Cream, the Boon duration goes to 90% (though I have not added food just yet)

In doing this, I’ve found that I could gain 15 stacks of Might from the GS if I move 10 out of Inspiration and 5 from Dueling and slide into Illusions for Illusionary Elasticity. Yet since it is a bounce and generate clones, I have to carefully shatter so that the boons down bounce into clones.

Without changing traits, I find that I can keep permanent Swiftness/Retaliation/Might/Vigor/Fury/Regeneration on myself while maintaining a steady Protection/Aegis rate. In short, I’m a walking Lyssa. If I take Feedback instead of Signet of Midnight, I can keep a very steady Chaos Armor flow throughout the fight with two Ethereal combo fields.

The trick is transferring all of these boons to allies. Since Regeneration comes mostly from my phantasms traits and signet, it is hard to reliably stack regeneration (arguably the most important boon with such high healing power) for long periods of time for anyone but myself. Also since Fury comes from Winds of Chaos’s bounce, it is a bit unpredictable. Protection procs from Signet, Traits, and Chaos Armor all for no more than 5.5 seconds, also hard to transfer since Signet of Inspiration isn’t an instant.

-Has anyone else come up with a support-heavy build?

-Would you prefer the extra boon duration from Signet of Midnight or the extra combo field from Feedback?

-I have 3 rune setups I’m considering: 4 Altruism, 2Water(3xMight on a healing skill & 30% boon duration.) // 6x Dwanya (More healing power, AOE regen on heal, 20%Regen duration)// 2xDwayna 2xWater 2xMonk (60% boon duration + 20% Regen duration). Which would you choose?

Thanks for any advice!

(*= 35 secs of retaliation from using Illusionary Leap+Swap atop Temporal Curtain into Phase Retreat)

Phase retreat isn’t a double leap combo like leap/swap. You will get maybe 25 seconds from those 3.

Bounce attacks will never bounce to clones, even if they are the only friendly targets in range of the bounce.

Swap between midnight and feedback as necessary based on the need for additional reflects.

Unless I am greatly mistaken, applying regeneration to someone uses their healing power, otherwise regeneration stacking from multiple sources would be a coding nightmare.

6x dwayna is no good. If your team really needs that regen, tell them to stand by your phantasms.

1. You have a lot of random links in your post that make it hard to find if you actually linked your build anywhere.

2. Do you have Vigorous Revelation? I assume you do since you mentioned perma-Vigor.

3. The boon duration from Signet of Midnight is pretty weaksauce. I recommend using an Ethereal or Light Field instead (Feedback/NullField or Veil). Remember, support is not just about heals. It’s not just about heals x boons. It’s about conditions, boons, heals, condition removal, boon strips, reflects, debuffs, stealth. Everything that is not damage. Null Field is almost always useful in general. Feedback is always good when you have stuff to reflect. Veil is underrated.

Stealth in particular is a nifty addition for the purposes of rezzing and such. I’m curious if Veil will stealth someone when it is placed on them without the target moving. If so, it can be used very effectively for rezzes (similar to Thief house).

4. The 6-point capabilities in runes shouldn’t be overlooked. The 15% boon duration is nice and all, but I would rather get the 6-point water rune for the AOE heal, or even the Rune of Dwayna, which provides 5s of Regen with a 10s ICD. With your boon duration stacking (sidenote: Dwayna set comes with 20% regen duration), you could get that proc to close to full uptime. This is mostly because Mesmers are flatly deficient at the Regen boon as a rule.

Edit: Not that Regen is the end-all or be-all of runes. Generally speaking it seems like it’s more effective to go for other support mechanisms, since lots of people already have their own Regen.

Note2: Speaking of which, Stability is one of the key boons that this build doesn’t do much about. Consider runes of lyssa so you can hit your ult and SigInsp to spread AOE stability when necessary.

5. You can get gear with %boon duration, although that will really erode your damage more than it is already.

Edit: Or maybe not:

“Giver’s” equipment adds 1% Boon Duration per piece of armor.
Snowflake trinkets and jewels add 1% boon duration per trinket/jewel.
Bug:
Neither Giver’s armor nor Snowflake trinkets/jewels apply boon duration in gameplay despite increasing the boon duration value shown in the hero panel.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Phase retreat isn’t a double leap combo like leap/swap. You will get maybe 25 seconds from those 3.

Bounce attacks will never bounce to clones, even if they are the only friendly targets in range of the bounce.

Swap between midnight and feedback as necessary based on the need for additional reflects.

Unless I am greatly mistaken, applying regeneration to someone uses their healing power, otherwise regeneration stacking from multiple sources would be a coding nightmare.

6x dwayna is no good. If your team really needs that regen, tell them to stand by your phantasms.

-With the 70% boon duration I was getting 30+ secs of retaliation with the 3 leaps. (and since the curtain effect lingers after you dispel it, I could illusionary leap > into the void > phase retreat for the chance to interrupt)

-Bouncing attacks DO bounce to Phantasm’s though, which was throwing off the might stacks.

-The regen you apply to others uses your healing power for sure.

EasymodeX.4062:

1. You have a lot of random links in your post that make it hard to find if you actually linked your build anywhere.

2. Do you have Vigorous Revelation? I assume you do since you mentioned perma-Vigor.

3. The boon duration from Signet of Midnight is pretty weaksauce. I recommend using an Ethereal or Light Field instead (Feedback/NullField or Veil). Remember, support is not just about heals. It’s not just about heals x boons. It’s about conditions, boons, heals, condition removal, boon strips, reflects, debuffs, stealth. Everything that is not damage. Null Field is almost always useful in general. Feedback is always good when you have stuff to reflect. Veil is underrated.

Stealth in particular is a nifty addition for the purposes of rezzing and such. I’m curious if Veil will stealth someone when it is placed on them without the target moving. If so, it can be used very effectively for rezzes (similar to Thief house).

4. The 6-point capabilities in runes shouldn’t be overlooked. The 15% boon duration is nice and all, but I would rather get the 6-point water rune for the AOE heal, or even the Rune of Dwayna, which provides 5s of Regen with a 10s ICD. With your boon duration stacking (sidenote: Dwayna set comes with 20% regen duration), you could get that proc to close to full uptime. This is mostly because Mesmers are flatly deficient at the Regen boon as a rule.

Edit: Not that Regen is the end-all or be-all of runes. Generally speaking it seems like it’s more effective to go for other support mechanisms, since lots of people already have their own Regen.

Note2: Speaking of which, Stability is one of the key boons that this build doesn’t do much about. Consider runes of lyssa so you can hit your ult and SigInsp to spread AOE stability when necessary.

5. You can get gear with %boon duration, although that will really erode your damage more than it is already.

Edit: Or maybe not:

“Giver’s” equipment adds 1% Boon Duration per piece of armor.
Snowflake trinkets and jewels add 1% boon duration per trinket/jewel.
Bug:
Neither Giver’s armor nor Snowflake trinkets/jewels apply boon duration in gameplay despite increasing the boon duration value shown in the hero panel.

1. Sorry! Was practicing with BBcode. I didn’t like the build yet, will do though.

2. Nah, its counterproductive to shatter in this build.

3. I’m thinking about adding Null Field or Feedback over the signet, or switching as needed. The extra field does wonders.

4. THIS is what has me stuck. The 6x dwayna runes rock for AOE regeneration and a good boost to healing power, but 4x altruism and 2x water adds 30% to ALL boons and procs 3 stacks of AOE might for over 10 secs whenever I heal..

-I’m still torn. Should I try and max healing power and stick with dwayna, or overall boon duration.

-What’s the most important boons for groups?

2. Nah, its counterproductive to shatter in this build.

You should consider it. First, you should always use a shatter once every ~10s or less, simply because you can resummon 3 phantasms and clones about that quickly regardless of build.

Second, group Vigor is significantly more useful to your group than personal Vigor.

-What’s the most important boons for groups?

Vigor, Stability are the most important, followed by Protection and well-timed Aegis. Fury/Might/Regen kind of tie it up for generic boons. I mean a stack of 25 Might is better than Stability, usually, but that’s unrealistic.

Vigor is basically an Aegis on a 5s cooldown or so.

Edit:

One other significant thing to consider is for PvE/WvW to use Lyssa runes to combo with SigInsp. IIRC Lyssa is still 10s of the boons in PvE/WvW, so >15s with your boon duration. Combine that with the relatively low cooldown of, say, Mass Invis, and it could work well for a group that needs to go manmode on something.

Thanks for the advice, that trait is looking much more appealing now.

Heres my gripe about Lyssa runes, though the added precision would be nice, I’m not sure if giving allies 13 secs of all boons every 90 seconds is worth the loss of healing power & 3 stacks of might every 15 seconds as well as dropping 30% boon duration.

But it’s a close toss up..

with 70% duration, Chaos Storm, Winds of Chaos, Temporal Curtain AND Chaos Armor give rather long lasting boons thats easily transferred with the Signet. I can activate inspiration with every other chaos storm I drop. Its like a mini lyssa at twice the rate. But it’s still not 14 secs of every boon.

I’m just not sure which is more worthwhile… The elite gives me 14 secs of all boons every 90 secs, so combined with Chaos Storm/Armor that could make a good 18-20 seconds of awesomeness. But I lose a lot of boon duration and healing as a tradeoff.

The tradeoff is boon duration. The healing power tradeoff is not significant.

Edit:

I’ve seen mixed information on the duration of Lyssa boons. Something to test with throwaway (e.g. salvage to pop the runes out after) PvE gear before committing.

The problem with lyssa runes is that they’re a 1 trick pony on a really long cooldown. The aoe healing from water, fury and might from altruism, or regen from dwayna would all outclass the once in a while big burst from lyssa. Additionally, to even have it on a 90s cooldown, you are losing time warp, which is in and of itself far more useful than the 90s cooldown lyssa boon stacking.

The thing is,

Chaos Storm recharges every 28 seconds.
Signet of Inspiration recharges every 45 seconds.
Mass Invisibility recharges every 90 secs.

Every 2 Chaos Storms, I can pop Inspiration. Every 4 chaos storms I can pop Lyssa+Inspiration.

…and I prefer Mass Invis anyway.

But are the Lyssa Runes worth the loss of 30% boon duration? Decisions..

Chaos Archangel.5071:

The thing is,

Chaos Storm recharges every 28 seconds.
Signet of Inspiration recharges every 45 seconds.
Mass Invisibility recharges every 90 secs.

Every 2 Chaos Storms, I can pop Inspiration. Every 4 chaos storms I can pop Lyssa+Inspiration.

…and I prefer Mass Invis anyway.

But are the Lyssa Runes worth the loss of 30% boon duration? Decisions..

If you are doing a support build, or ANY pve team build on a Mesmer and you don’t take time warp, you are severely crippling yourself in terms of the utility you bring to the team. There are situations where mass invisibility is appropriate. However, there are 0 situations EVER where burning one of the mesmer’s powerful elites just to provide boons to your party is even remotely acceptable.

Pyroatheist.9031:

If you are doing a support build, or ANY pve team build on a Mesmer and you don’t take time warp, you are severely crippling yourself in terms of the utility you bring to the team. There are situations where mass invisibility is appropriate. However, there are 0 situations EVER where burning one of the mesmer’s powerful elites just to provide boons to your party is even remotely acceptable.

This. Time warp > all.

Also, I personally get the impression that all that support building is not really worth it. I mean you are severely limiting your damage output for mostly just a few stacks of might, I’d wager that the benefit that brings to the party might not even be worth going out of your way for it. As a rule of thumb, 1 might is ~1% damage, and that’s not all that much if you can’t sustain it.

For comparison, look at a warrior with axe/horn and traited banners. Permanent regen, 90 precision, 10% crit damage, 50% of swiftness and vigor even untraited and before boon duration, all of that for everyone in a 1200 range and they don’t even have to do much to sustain that.

1: mass invisibility is weak-sause compared to Timewarp even though the CD is shorter, the quickness + combo field makes anyone with projectile finish ROLL ppl in pvp (rangers + thieves). Doubly so for anyone running condition dmg. Additionally in pve mass invis is extremely limited in it’s utility.

2: Other classes give out regen. I think you’re focusing too hard on this aspect of the build. IF for some reason you were the ONLY person in your 5 man team that was giving regen, then I could mabye see your concern. But I can keep 100% uptime on AoE regen on my warrior using traits + banner of Discipline. Guardians can supply aoe regen as well (probably not 100% up-time tho).

3: Hammer Guardians, Necromancer, Engineers, and Warriors all (could if built for it) use blast finishers in their regular dps rotations. This could supplement uptime on chaos armor, retaliation and other boons. The Hammer Guard is probably the best source of this since the #2 is on a 4 second cool down. That’s 3 per timewarp if executed correctly, and more if you run feeback/null feild as well as chaos storm. The important thing to note is that blast finishing only executes on the most recently laid combo field, so if anyone drops a combo field on top of yours, it’s rendered null for performing any combos. This takes coordination in group (especially if you have an elementalist), but can have HUGE returns if done regularly and correctly.

4: I would suggest Null Field over Feedback for most situations. Reason being… other classes can, and do reflect projectiles. Not so with striping boons from a guardian that just popped “Save yourselves” or anyone running 6 set Lyssa runes. Also, if you trait for it, the speed boost on focus can block projectiles, not sure if this would work into your build well, but it exists and it would free up a utility slot for Null Field.

5: I can stack and keep about 17 stacks of might on the whole party on my guardian. And this is my regular non-support build. Also many warriors run “For Great Justice” on cool-down which gives AoE might + Fury. Guardians also can bring AoE stability to the table from 2 skills.

Bottom line… I like your build in theory, but I would tweak it and always run with a guardian and maybe a warrior. I feel it would be much more viable, and you could actually work in some dps maybe.

You’re dissing / hyping abilities without considering all gameplay segments. Basically Time Warp is unimpressive in WvW due to its 5 player cap and the mobility of battles in general. TW is good, but not great. Its greatest value is the part where it’s a combo field. MI isn’t particularly better in WvW, but the lower cd makes it more flexible for use.

EasymodeX.4062:

You’re dissing / hyping abilities without considering all gameplay segments. Basically Time Warp is unimpressive in WvW due to its 5 player cap and the mobility of battles in general. TW is good, but not great. Its greatest value is the part where it’s a combo field. MI isn’t particularly better in WvW, but the lower cd makes it more flexible for use.

Unfortunately, if you want to use wvw as an example, you need to apply it to everything.

Time warp is perhaps unimpressive due to the 5 target cap. However, it provides a combo field and does haste 5 people. Mass invisibility does absolutely nothing in a zerg situation, and the lyssa runes also have a 5 player cap.

Any situation where a target cap causes time warp to underperform, the same cap causes mass invisibility to be completely useless and causes lyssa runes to suffer from the same problem as well.

Additionally, as I said before, Mesmer has very powerful elite skills, given the right situations. Having lyssa runes double-loads the elite skills with a large buffing ability as well. Unfortunately, due to the cooldowns on the elite skills, you need to refrain from using them until the situation calls for it, making the boons from lyssa runes almost completely useless. Lyssa runes are more appropriate for something like a venom thief, with an almost spammable elite that has no particular situations where it is vital for group utility.

Edit: According to the wiki, the lyssa boons last 5 seconds. This is perhaps false, but if that information is accurate, then the runes are easily the worse choice, no discussion even needed. The 70% boon duration would barely scrape you past 8 seconds of boons.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Edit: According to the wiki, the lyssa boons last 5 seconds. This is perhaps false, but if that information is accurate, then the runes are easily the worse choice, no discussion even needed. The 70% boon duration would barely scrape you past 8 seconds of boons.

This is true, only 5 seconds. I have a rabid set that has Lyssa runes on it currently. They’re good for some things and I rather like them as they can provide that little extra push needed sometimes if you’re fighting multiple people/trying to finish someone in a group/stay alive but they’re not great for party buffing because the up time is so short.

I’ve been working on a boon-heavy support build that’s been quite successful. I’m not logged into the game at the moment, but I’ll try to describe it from memory.

The build goes 0/0/25/15/30

Chaos: III, IV or V (doesn’t really matter); IX (Cleansing Inscriptions) or X (Chaotic Dampening)
Inspiration: III (Vigorous Revelation)
Illusion: II (Confusing Cry); VII (Illusionary Elasticity); XI (Illusionary Persona)

Weapons: Staff, and a sword and focus.
Armor: Giver’s Armor of Altruism (6), with Snowflake Jewellery of Winter.

Healing Skill: Mirror (Times perfectly with the Altruism rune bonuses)
Utility skills: Signet of Inspiration, Signet of Midnight, and usually Null Field/Feedback

I’ll usually start off a fight by casting Temporal Curtain where I’m standing, then using Illusionary Leap/Swap for a huge retaliation bonus, followed quickly by a weapon swap, Phase retreat (if still on the strip), and iWarlock (for short term regeneration and full shatter fodder), then Chaos Storm and Chaos Armor as I run back into the fray, Mirror and Cry of Frustration (F2 Shatter), followed up by Signet of Inspiration. This gives all my allies at least 9 stacks of might, fury, retaliation, protection, vigor and swiftness, with a significant chance at aegis and regeneration, at which point I cast Time Warp and we melt whatever it is we’re attacking. I also make sure to cast Mirror whenever it’s ready to keep the might and fury stacks coming.

With a Guardian, Warrior or Elementalist in the mix, it’s very easy to hit 25 stacks of might and all these other boons for a significant duration.

I don’t do alot of damage with this build, even the condition damage is low despite the traits, but the support provided to allies is tremendous.

Edit: Forgot to mention in the case of condition removal, the focus’ Illusionary Warden on a Temporal Curtain makes for some nice condition removal whirling bolts.

Now that I think about it, I could probably drop 5 points each from Chaos and Inspiration to put into Domination for VI (Signet Mastery) for even more Signet uses.

I use Rune of Lyssa in my Mesmer semi bunker/support build. Runes of Lyssa gives 10 seconds of protection and retaliation, plus 5 seconds of stability, aegis, regeneration, and swiftness, on top of the stealth from Mass Invisibility. It’s great when a party is low on health in a dungeon, or you need to get some allies out of a bad situation in WvW.

However, Rune of Lyssa works very badly for offensive support. This is because might, fury, and retaliation are the only offensive boons, and Rune of Lyssa only gives out 5 seconds of might (1 stack) and fury. Aegis, protection, regeneration, stability, and vigor, are all defensive boons (swiftness can be used both offensively and defensively). On top of this, Mass invisibility is also a terrible offensive skill. Especially when compared to Time Warp, it’s not really a competition.

So bottom line is, you have to decide if you want to make an offensive or defensive support build. If you’re going defensive support, then Rune of Lyssa together with Mass Invisibility is a lot of fun to play. But if you’re going offensive support, then Rune of Altruism together with Time Warp works a lot better (both builds should use Mantra of Recovery btw).

wintermute.4096:

Pyroatheist.9031:

If you are doing a support build, or ANY pve team build on a Mesmer and you don’t take time warp, you are severely crippling yourself in terms of the utility you bring to the team. There are situations where mass invisibility is appropriate. However, there are 0 situations EVER where burning one of the mesmer’s powerful elites just to provide boons to your party is even remotely acceptable.

This. Time warp > all.

Also, I personally get the impression that all that support building is not really worth it. I mean you are severely limiting your damage output for mostly just a few stacks of might, I’d wager that the benefit that brings to the party might not even be worth going out of your way for it. As a rule of thumb, 1 might is ~1% damage, and that’s not all that much if you can’t sustain it.

For comparison, look at a warrior with axe/horn and traited banners. Permanent regen, 90 precision, 10% crit damage, 50% of swiftness and vigor even untraited and before boon duration, all of that for everyone in a 1200 range and they don’t even have to do much to sustain that.

Oh, my friend, you wound me. Might is the least of what’s offered
Perma Vigor (Thanks EasymodeX)
Perma Retaliation
Perma Swiftness
High uptimes of fury, aegis(more for me, but moderately for allies), atleast 3 stacks of might(altruism runes) and regeneration from clones. I can reliably keep up every boon except Stability and Protection. With the 3 Ethereal fields in the mix, it makes me into a Support Tank.
I admit though, I underestimated Timewarp. I looked at the recharge time, scoffed and turned up my nose, and walked away to dear sweet Mass Invis. Now I’m giving it a second look.

Katanasama.9702:

…
2: Other classes give out regen. I think you’re focusing too hard on this aspect of the build. IF for some reason you were the ONLY person in your 5 man team that was giving regen, then I could mabye see your concern. But I can keep 100% uptime on AoE regen on my warrior using traits + banner of Discipline. Guardians can supply aoe regen as well (probably not 100% up-time tho).

3: Hammer Guardians, Necromancer, Engineers, and Warriors all (could if built for it) use blast finishers in their regular dps rotations. This could supplement uptime on chaos armor, retaliation and other boons. The Hammer Guard is probably the best source of this since the #2 is on a 4 second cool down. That’s 3 per timewarp if executed correctly, and more if you run feeback/null feild as well as chaos storm. The important thing to note is that blast finishing only executes on the most recently laid combo field, so if anyone drops a combo field on top of yours, it’s rendered null for performing any combos. This takes coordination in group (especially if you have an elementalist), but can have HUGE returns if done regularly and correctly.

4: I would suggest Null Field over Feedback for most situations. Reason being… other classes can, and do reflect projectiles. Not so with striping boons from a guardian that just popped “Save yourselves” or anyone running 6 set Lyssa runes. Also, if you trait for it, the speed boost on focus can block projectiles, not sure if this would work into your build well, but it exists and it would free up a utility slot for Null Field.
….
Bottom line… I like your build in theory, but I would tweak it and always run with a guardian and maybe a warrior. I feel it would be much more viable, and you could actually work in some dps maybe.

2. I focused so much on my regen because the regeneration given to others comes from YOUR healing power. I’ve tested this with the healing turret in Orr near the Abomination. If someone gives 15 secs of regen that only ticks for 150, and then someone else stacks onto the duration with 10 more secs of regen for 260, the second person’s regen numbers kick in AFTER the first duration has played out, even if it’s 25 seconds total.
Regen was a big part of the healing build as I got close to 400 per second, which ended up being over 1k every 3 secs combined with mantra heals for 3k every 3 secs (Sigil of Life was a blessing here) for 4k heals. But all that time I was channeling mantras I still felt I could’ve done many other things.
3. Thats awesome, I’ll keep that in mind and let people in my groups know.
4. I’m thinking of removing MoP and Midnight Signet to take both Feedback AND Null field. I agree with what you said about damage, so I’m tweaking the build annd I can no longer heal with mantras anyway.

Supervillain.8617:

I’ve been working on a boon-heavy support build that’s been quite successful. I’m not logged into the game at the moment, but I’ll try to describe it from memory.

The build goes 0/0/25/15/30

Chaos: III, IV or V (doesn’t really matter); IX (Cleansing Inscriptions) or X (Chaotic Dampening)
Inspiration: III (Vigorous Revelation)
Illusion: II (Confusing Cry); VII (Illusionary Elasticity); XI (Illusionary Persona)

Weapons: Staff, and a sword and focus.
Armor: Giver’s Armor of Altruism (6), with Snowflake Jewellery of Winter.

Healing Skill: Mirror (Times perfectly with the Altruism rune bonuses)
Utility skills: Signet of Inspiration, Signet of Midnight, and usually Null Field/Feedback

I’ll usually start off a fight by casting Temporal Curtain where I’m standing, then using Illusionary Leap/Swap for a huge retaliation bonus, followed quickly by a weapon swap, Phase retreat (if still on the strip), and iWarlock (for short term regeneration and full shatter fodder), then Chaos Storm and Chaos Armor as I run back into the fray, Mirror and Cry of Frustration (F2 Shatter), followed up by Signet of Inspiration. This gives all my allies at least 9 stacks of might, fury, retaliation, protection, vigor and swiftness, with a significant chance at aegis and regeneration, at which point I cast Time Warp and we melt whatever it is we’re attacking. I also make sure to cast Mirror whenever it’s ready to keep the might and fury stacks coming.

With a Guardian, Warrior or Elementalist in the mix, it’s very easy to hit 25 stacks of might and all these other boons for a significant duration.

I don’t do alot of damage with this build, even the condition damage is low despite the traits, but the support provided to allies is tremendous.

Edit: Forgot to mention in the case of condition removal, the focus’ Illusionary Warden on a Temporal Curtain makes for some nice condition removal whirling bolts.

Now that I think about it, I could probably drop 5 points each from Chaos and Inspiration to put into Domination for VI (Signet Mastery) for even more Signet uses.

Thank you! I’m glad I’m not the only one who can attest to such a build’s usefulness.
Unfortunately.. Givers/Snowflake gear is bugged and doesn’t apply the boon duration.

Good to see you’re realizing how underwhelming MI + lyssa runes is.

Aside from that, that’s really fascinating information you got about regeneration there. If you could update the gw2 wiki with regards to that, many people would be thankful. Do you know how it would work if the first person’s regen gets reapplied after the 2nd person’s regen is put on? Would the ticks go from the lower, then higher, then back to lower? (I’ll need to do some testing of this myself).

Removing Mantra of pain is definitely a viable tactic. In my phantasm build, I use mantra heals simply because it is not a support focused build, but a damage focused build that happens to be able to give aoe regen and strong heals. That way I can just let my phantasms do their thing, and my only other job is to spam MoP. In this build that you are creating, you have a much more active role, and spamming MoP for the aoe heals may not be the best use of your time.

However, don’t limit yourself to just feedback and null field. Ethereal combo fields are very nice, but in other situations different utilities could be better, specifically in place of null field. For example, in situations of significantly reapplied conditions (such as the spider queen at the start of AC) the phantasmal disenchanter does a much better job than null field because the cooldown on it is really short. You will probably want to keep at least 1 ethereal combo field on your utilities at all times, but don’t be afraid to mess with them to suit each particular encounter.

I’ll test it tonight and see for certain, but I’m farely sure the heal numbers will jump down if another person stacks on to the regen duration with lower healing power.

Good advice about iDisenchanter, thats another one that I havent given enough attention to. I’ma keep feedback to add to my reflection collection(Mirror/Feedback/Temp.Curtain/iWarden), but Null Field will be swapped depending on the situation.

I’d REALLY like to incorporate the iDefender into this build, but he dies so kitten fast. Since the buffs work for phantasms, I’m thinking of trying to drop Chaos Storm atop my defender and myself and popping Inspiration, but Swiftness/Aegis wouldn’t do him much good and protection doesn’t last very long..

I know the iDefender absorbs half damage from others (thus a good regeneration is crucial for its upkeep until shatter), and it’d be really nice if we could have more than one out at a time.. Has anyone had any productive use for this utility? It seems REALLY strong for a support build if used properly.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’ll test it tonight and see for certain, but I’m farely sure the heal numbers will jump down if another person stacks on to the regen duration with lower healing power.

Good advice about iDisenchanter, thats another one that I havent given enough attention to. I’ma keep feedback to add to my reflection collection(Mirror/Feedback/Temp.Curtain/iWarden), but Null Field will be swapped depending on the situation.

I’d REALLY like to incorporate the iDefender into this build, but he dies so kitten fast. Since the buffs work for phantasms, I’m thinking of trying to drop Chaos Storm atop my defender and myself and popping Inspiration, but Swiftness/Aegis wouldn’t do him much good and protection doesn’t last very long..

I know the iDefender absorbs half damage from others (thus a good regeneration is crucial for its upkeep until shatter), and it’d be really nice if we could have more than one out at a time.. Has anyone had any productive use for this utility? It seems REALLY strong for a support build if used properly.

iDefender is amazing in my tank build, and that’s about it. There are 2 main problems with using it in a team situation, and even in my tank build I will use a different utility if I am in PvE. First off, it is a melee phantasm. It does have pretty high base hp…for a phantasm. In melee range, it will get killed from direct damage rather quickly. Additionally, because it soaks up damage from all of your surrounding allies, even a very mild aoe attack will instakill the defender due to all of that aoe damage adding up and transferring to it.

In short, there is no effective use for it in PvE unfortunately.

Chaos Archangel.5071

Thank you! I’m glad I’m not the only one who can attest to such a build’s usefulness.
Unfortunately.. Givers/Snowflake gear is bugged and doesn’t apply the boon duration.

Well, that’s disappointing, though I suppose not surprising. Armor/Jewellery aside, the build works pretty well if you’re not seeking huge numbers.

On the upside to the Giver’s situation, if they ever fix it, that means it’ll be possible to have over 100% uptime on Temporal Curtain’s swiftness boon (in theory).

With 4xRune of Altruism, 2xRunes of water, Signet of Midnight and 30 in chaos, Swiftness from the Focus lasts over 20 secs.

Its convenient, if the Focus is traited, as the cooldown is 20 secs. But I’d actually rather remove the signet so it procs only around 19 secs of swiftness so I can simply recast it as soon as it recharges without having to worry about not recieving the boon by running over the curtain while a second of swiftness still lingers.

I find it more productive to use the full set of Altruism runes over a mixed set increasing boon duration primarily because the base duration of most Mesmer boons is short enough that only a monumental increase in boon duration will be noticeable. The shared Might and Fury more than make up for a 0.25s increase on the majority of our boons.

Also, another interesting little bit I noticed is that while Signet of Midnight does increase boon duration from normal means, it doesn’t apply to the copied boons from Signet of Inspiration’s active effect.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

With 4xRune of Altruism, 2xRunes of water, Signet of Midnight and 30 in chaos, Swiftness from the Focus lasts over 20 secs.

Its convenient, if the Focus is traited, as the cooldown is 20 secs. But I’d actually rather remove the signet so it procs only around 19 secs of swiftness so I can simply recast it as soon as it recharges without having to worry about not recieving the boon by running over the curtain while a second of swiftness still lingers.

I would remove both Signet of Midnight and Rune of Water. Signet of Midnight is the worst utility skill Mesmers have. 10% more boon duration from a utility skill, is a waste of a utility slot. It could be debated if the boon duration was 20%, but 10% is not going to make a noteworthy difference, and you have a lot more useful utilities. At least that’s how I felt when I played with it. The thought of having just 10% boon duration sitting there as your utility skill, gets depressing after a while. Skills like Null Field, Feedback, or even Veil, offers far better support for allies. It’s the same basic example with Rune of Water. 15% more boon duration and +25 healing vs. 5 seconds of fury (every 10 seconds if you use Manta of Recovery) and +90 healing, is not a competition at all. Just go with Rune of Altruism all the way.

As for the swiftness, don’t forget that you also have Signet of Inspiration, that gives you 10 seconds of swiftness out of combat. It triggers more often the you think, and unlike the focus, the swiftness from Signet of Inspiration actually stacks.

Sigh, Signet of Midnight was the 10% cherry on top of my boon duration pie, yet I can see what you mean and am willing to let it go.. but the extra 15% from Runes of Water I like too much to drop. If it were just for myself, I’d agree, but dropping 25% duration is too much for a build more focused on buffs than healing. Right now, with boon duration food, I have 90% duration and I’d rather not take an entire 25 out of that. If I get Givers/Snowflake gear, I think I can nail 100% duration.

As it stands, my staff clones give out more Fury than the Altruism runes. Perma-fury when I’m solo, and decent uptime for allies in groups. That Utility slot where the Signet was will be swapped with Blink (but remain open to change depending on the situation).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Sigh, Signet of Midnight was the 10% cherry on top of my boon duration pie, yet I can see what you mean and am willing to let it go.. but the extra 15% from Runes of Water I like too much to drop. If it were just for myself, I’d agree, but dropping 25% duration is too much for a build more focused on buffs than healing. Right now, with boon duration food, I have 90% duration and I’d rather not take an entire 25 out of that. If I get Givers/Snowflake gear, I think I can nail 100% duration.

As it stands, my staff clones give out more Fury than the Altruism runes. Perma-fury when I’m solo, and decent uptime for allies in groups. That Utility slot where the Signet was will be swapped with Blink (but remain open to change depending on the situation).

Well, if you don’t have the trait Restorative Mantras (heal allies when you channel a mantra), then the extra heal isn’t going to make a big difference. But 25% boon duration is such a small number, that it’s hard to justify. Especially seeing as you already have close to 100%. Look at it this way; all this boon duration is going to be primarily for your own benefit, as Signet of Inspiration is the only way you can “transfer” that boon duration to your allies. The boons from the staff and from Rune of Altruism, are going strait to your allies, which means those boons aren’t affected by your boon duration at all.

I think your are overestimating Winds of Chaos. You have to remember that when you play Guild Wars 2, you are always moving, so these static calculations can often not be counted when it comes to real game situations. Winds of Chaos always bounces back to the nearest target, which most of the time means one of your clones, or a nearby foe. You actually have to stand in front of your clones as you cast Winds of Chaos, if you want to have a chance to get the fury. If an ally stands in front of you in melee, he will get the boons instead, meaning you have no way to share the fury with Signet of Inspiration. So there are many variables that you have to take into consideration, before you can get the fury from Winds of Chaos. With Rune of Altruism, on the other hand, you are guaranteed to always get fury on using your healing skill, and can therefor also share it to everyone more easily, even without using Signet of Inspiration! It’s also worth noting that the fury you get from Winds of Chaos is only a 50% chance, and that it only lasts 2 seconds (or 3.6 with 80% boon duration) vs. the fury from Rune of Altruism which lasts 5 seconds (8.25 with 65% boon duration) and is guaranteed every time you use a healing skill. So you can boil this down to: 50% chance to give 3.6-14.4 seconds of fury (depending on how many staff clones you have) to one ally, or five allies if you get the fury on yourself and you use Signet of Inspiration at that time. Or, 8.25 seconds of fury on yourself and 5 seconds fury to your allies, every time you use your healing skill, and without using Signet of Inspiration.

Edit: Forgot to count in the fact that the fury you get from Rune of Altruism, should be added on top of the fury you get from Winds of Chaos. You do not lose Winds of Chaos if you go with 6 Rune of Altruism :P

Kasama.8941:

…
Look at it this way; all this boon duration is going to be primarily for your own benefit, as Signet of Inspiration is the only way you can “transfer” that boon duration to your allies. The boons from the staff and from Rune of Altruism, are going strait to your allies, which means those boons aren’t affected by your boon duration at all.
…

I’m confused by this statement. Are you trying to say that boon duration applies only to boons you receive? Because that’s not the case. Boon duration applies to whatever boons you apply, to yourself or others. The only time it doesn’t apply is when you use Signet of Inspiration’s active effect to copy your boons. They get copied exactly as they are on you when you use it.

Supervillain.8617:

Kasama.8941:

…
Look at it this way; all this boon duration is going to be primarily for your own benefit, as Signet of Inspiration is the only way you can “transfer” that boon duration to your allies. The boons from the staff and from Rune of Altruism, are going strait to your allies, which means those boons aren’t affected by your boon duration at all.
…

I’m confused by this statement. Are you trying to say that boon duration applies only to boons you receive? Because that’s not the case. Boon duration applies to whatever boons you apply, to yourself or others. The only time it doesn’t apply is when you use Signet of Inspiration’s active effect to copy your boons. They get copied exactly as they are on you when you use it.

I thought boon duration was only applied to yourself. My mistake.