Guild Wars 2

I tried Blink almost a year ago. Everyone said it was great. I had trouble using it effectively.

Maybe it was the changes made in ground-targeted skills a couple months back. Maybe it’s just being more familiar with the game. I tried it out for an hour tonight, and I love it. I’m still making mistakes (trying to blink out of immobilize), but it’s so helpful for me now.

Any other skills that stand out for you as possibly making a bad first impression, but really just needing multiple tries or more experience to really evaluate? I’m considering giving Arcane Thievery another chance…

Mimic, Arcane Thievery + Inspiration, iDisenchanter.

Mimic. First time couldn’t get it going. Second time, made it work wonders. Though to be fair, it’s riddled with mechanical problems.

Arcane Thievery I love. Among other things, its integral in shutting down runners. A mesmer sticking to a fleeing warrior like glue? Crazy! Back in the nasty confusion days, I loved running in and out of mesmer glamor fields in quick succession, stacking confusion on myself, then passing it off to the mesmer. Often times I’ll allow myself to get high stacks of condi’s and use them offensively. Boon stealing always boosts your effectiveness. You do always have to check for blinds, but otherwise if you’re having trouble landing it, cast it from stealth.

Illusionary defender: “who cares about an extra 40k hp?” -a year later- “Oh”. I use it more often than not in fractals.

The only ones I liked from the start are decoy blink mirror images and signet of illusions. Although im starting to very much doubt mirror images… It just doesnt do enough for the massive cooldown.

I never thought of using portal in pvp combat, but now I love it :P

Mantra of resolve: “nullfield strips boons, cleanses more from yourself and allies.” -since 2 months- “omg nullfield is so useless compared to the resolve mantra”. For shatter I always run decoy blink mantra of resolve now. Before the mantra, I had to inmedatally disengage whenever i get hit by pin down or sword throw… Now I dont ;D.

Also, in solo q, whenever I died, conditions always were the top 2 of y death breakdown. Direct damage just doesnt seem to touch me O.o

If only they gave shatter more condi removal… Maybe put illusionary persona to master tier instead of grandmaster. It would let us go 10 inspiration.

Alissah.9281:

Illusionary defender: “who cares about an extra 40k hp?” -a year later- “Oh”. I use it more often than not in fractals.

The only ones I liked from the start are decoy blink mirror images and signet of illusions. Although im starting to very much doubt mirror images… It just doesnt do enough for the massive cooldown.

I never thought of using portal in pvp combat, but now I love it :P

Mantra of resolve: “nullfield strips boons, cleanses more from yourself and allies.” -since 2 months- “omg nullfield is so useless compared to the resolve mantra”. For shatter I always run decoy blink mantra of resolve now. Before the mantra, I had to inmedatally disengage whenever i get hit by pin down or sword throw… Now I dont ;D.

Also, in solo q, whenever I died, conditions always were the top 2 of y death breakdown. Direct damage just doesnt seem to touch me O.o

If only they gave shatter more condi removal… Maybe put illusionary persona to master tier instead of grandmaster. It would let us go 10 inspiration.

Nullfield so useless compared to resolve mantra? I’ve found nullfield invaluable in PVP, especially against bunker char’s. Guardian for example with his “Thou shalt not move me” with all his boons, nullfield down, threat eliminated.

Xylith.4873:

Nullfield so useless compared to resolve mantra? I’ve found nullfield invaluable in PVP, especially against bunker char’s. Guardian for example with his “Thou shalt not move me” with all his boons, nullfield down, threat eliminated.

For stripping boons you’re right, of course. There are other ways, too.
But for condition removal the mantra is superior.

I like both phantasms. Defender in general and disenchanter in some special cases.
Mantra of concentration isn’t bad too. 2 (3) stunbreaks and stability in one? That’s nice.

I didn’t think the mantra removed that many? and when cast you only have two shots with it until requiring a re-cast of the thing (unless traited)

The skills which surprised me the most:

• Phantasmal Defender. I always considered it a weird use case, “It just dies, anyhow”. But it’s a lot of extra health I get, and it has very good group utility.
• Mimic is a great skill. It allows me to solo-flank a zerg in WvW, and (being a lone target they don’t use AEs), get a lot of free damage in. And I still got Feedback up to place on their frontline before stealthing away.
• Technobabble, my trusty Asura racial. Now that the +25% daze increase is coming in the patch and there’s the runes for +33%, this is a fine skill for lockdown. Lasts very long, which is death to a lot of less mobile characters like say, other Mesmers.
• Signet of Domination. I never quite saw the use behind this, even after the buffed passive. But the active is what got me interesting, for the same reasons as Technobabble. And hey, it’s kitten good for catching those pesky thieves!

Xylith.4873:

I didn’t think the mantra removed that many? and when cast you only have two shots with it until requiring a re-cast of the thing (unless traited)

Untraited the mantra removes 2 × 2 conditions on a 20s cd. The field removes 5 (or 6?) on a 40s cd.
The mantra casts 2,75s but you can move while you’re doing it and it can be cast before meeting an enemy. The field is limited to the targeted area where you have to stay in.
You can split the 2 uses of the mantra while you can’t do that with the field but the enemy sees it.
Mantra can remove 4 condis in ~1s, field needs a little longer but does more.

I never really gave blink a chance either until a month or so ago, but now I can’t imagine playing without it. The greatest part is when you see your guild leader/commander has moved away and instead of trying to dodge through enemies you can just blink right to him. I guess I just always saw it as a roaming 1v1 skill, but for me it works great in medium size groups as well.

LunarNacht.8913:

Xylith.4873:

I didn’t think the mantra removed that many? and when cast you only have two shots with it until requiring a re-cast of the thing (unless traited)

Untraited the mantra removes 2 × 2 conditions on a 20s cd. The field removes 5 (or 6?) on a 40s cd.
The mantra casts 2,75s but you can move while you’re doing it and it can be cast before meeting an enemy. The field is limited to the targeted area where you have to stay in.
You can split the 2 uses of the mantra while you can’t do that with the field but the enemy sees it.
Mantra can remove 4 condis in ~1s, field needs a little longer but does more.

Ahh fair enough. I didn’t think Null Field had a limit to the amount removed? Maybe I should take another look at my condition removal

I mainly liked nullfield because I tend to either pop it when I’m fighting on a point (against a bunker) or if I’m getting conditioned up, nullfield, decoy, stand in it.

I’ll have a look at trying Mantra instead of Nullfield.

Xylith.4873:

Alissah.9281:

Illusionary defender: “who cares about an extra 40k hp?” -a year later- “Oh”. I use it more often than not in fractals.

The only ones I liked from the start are decoy blink mirror images and signet of illusions. Although im starting to very much doubt mirror images… It just doesnt do enough for the massive cooldown.

I never thought of using portal in pvp combat, but now I love it :P

Mantra of resolve: “nullfield strips boons, cleanses more from yourself and allies.” -since 2 months- “omg nullfield is so useless compared to the resolve mantra”. For shatter I always run decoy blink mantra of resolve now. Before the mantra, I had to inmedatally disengage whenever i get hit by pin down or sword throw… Now I dont ;D.

Also, in solo q, whenever I died, conditions always were the top 2 of y death breakdown. Direct damage just doesnt seem to touch me O.o

If only they gave shatter more condi removal… Maybe put illusionary persona to master tier instead of grandmaster. It would let us go 10 inspiration.

Nullfield so useless compared to resolve mantra? I’ve found nullfield invaluable in PVP, especially against bunker char’s. Guardian for example with his “Thou shalt not move me” with all his boons, nullfield down, threat eliminated.

having 4 boons removed every 11 seconds, and 4 ever 22 seconds is enough boon stripping for me :P.

Nullfield removes like 5 conditions total if you keep standing in it, on a 45 CD. The mantra removes 4 conditions on a 20 CD, and you dont have to awkwardly stand in a small circle.

IMO nullfield just isnt worth taking anymore… just imagine if you get hit by every single pin down from a warrior, its on like a 20 CD. perfect for coutnering it with the mantra :P

I’ll throw in my support of the resolve mantra for condi-removal. I’ve just started using it recently and there is just no substitute for an immediate, on demand condi-clear (especially for those immobs). It’s an amazing utility, short CD and isn’t really a pain to charge.

Null Field can certainly be effective in a solo roaming scenario, but shines more with group play.

In my case, I’d toss a vote behind Mirror. Originally, I looked at it as the “red-headed stepchild” of Mesmer heals, since it heals less than EF, and can’t be Traited, as with MoRec. Started using it during my field-testing of the Triforce build, and I must say:
it never left my skillbar afterwards. Short C/D, inbuilt Reflect-mode … hells, yes.

I’ll throw in my support of the resolve mantra for condi-removal. I’ve just started using it recently and there is just no substitute for an immediate, on demand condi-clear (especially for those immobs). It’s an amazing utility, short CD and isn’t really a pain to charge.

In my build I run 30 into Domination for Harmonious Mantras primarily for Mantra of Distraction. (Love that skill) I always ran Arcane Thievery has my condition control. I like AT because it feels like Mesmer skill. Dump conditions on the enemy and steal boons. But it has too long a cooldown and can be blocked/dodged and all those other things.

So per your suggestion last night in sPvP I switched to Mantra of Resolve and I immediately noticed my survival was much better. Thanks for the tip! Looking forward to continue to use it and be much more selective at my condition removal.

Advent.6193:

In my case, I’d toss a vote behind Mirror. Originally, I looked at it as the “red-headed stepchild” of Mesmer heals, since it heals less than EF, and can’t be Traited, as with MoRec. Started using it during my field-testing of the Triforce build, and I must say:
it never left my skillbar afterwards. Short C/D, inbuilt Reflect-mode … hells, yes.

Mirror has saved me so many times by far my fav heal once i started using it(if you are fighting a rifle warrior it is super lols).