Guild Wars 2

Recently I mostly geared and respeced into a glamour mesmer. There are still a couple of pieces that I’m missing.

The spec is basically Kylia’s (http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.5|6.1b.h5|b.1b.h1h.d.1b.hz|1b.719.1b.719.1h.719.1b.719.1b.719.1h.719|1b.62.1b.62.1b.62.1b.62.1n.64.1b.62|k58.0.0.k29.u589|30.e|33.38.39.35.0|e)

In WvW, I notice that I’m tagging enemies with confusion and they take damage, but rarely enough to count as a kill. After running with a zerg for 15 minutes or so, I only had two stacks of corruption on my staff.

My direct damage seems pitiful. I feel like I’m helping, but mainly because people in my fields stop attacking and flee for a few seconds.

Any tips about playing a mesmer with in a larger group?

(yes, I know I need to L2P, that’s why I’m asking.)

I play a glamour build for zerging and large battles in wvw and I’ve found that with all the aoe and lag that its hard to actually get any good shatters off so I pretty much pick a nice packed spot of enemy Zerg drop chaos storm and then drop all of my glamours and watch the bags come in then I just attempt to get good shatters off when I can. I’ve seen groups just melt them selves and die in seconds while doing this.

Prob should l2p.

…and here’s how. Your build looks fine. I would drop mirror images for blink, because you won’t use mirror images ever. Mirror is fine as a heal, though I prefer ether feast. What I did was put 2 corruption sigils in my scepter and focus, that way I can stack back up twice as fast after I get downed.

Also, you won’t cap confusion duration with that build. For that reason Kylia recommends 5 runes of nightmare.

Playstyle is ultra simple. Drop your glamours in the middle of a zerg and watch the purple numbers. However, there is a bit of strategy to it, which works around how glamours apply confusion.

Glamours apply confusion in 3 ways. First, they blind on placement, causing confusion. This only hits 5 people. Next, they confuse on entry or exit. This is a boundary condition, and requires group movement to be effective. Lastly, feedback confuses as any combo finishers will apply confusion as they reflect.

On a large stationary group, null field won’t do much, but feedback could do a lot. On a moving group, or even one just milling around, feedback and null field will work well. Try to place the glamours at choke points to maximize their effectiveness. In some really tight choke points, you can equip portal as it provides 2 separate glamour fields to really stack up confusion, but that only works well on an extremely tight choke.

Other than the glamours, try to hit as many people with confusing images as possible. You can also drop chaos storm into large groups for nice damage.

It takes very little damage to actually tag someone, often as little as 500-700. A reason for your lack of stacks could be you were using the wrong weaponset while acquiring kills.

Note: If you have the opportunity to get on a ballista or ac, do it. Seige weapons inherit your condition damage, so you’ll be able to apply mass bleeds for a long duration that will do a ton of damage.

I use a similar build for zerging, and while the basic playstyle is simple, it takes a bit of learn2play to get good results.

I’m not sure how useful the trait for longer glamour duration is in a confusion build. On a stationary group your Nullfield will only apply one confusion, no matter how long the Nullfield duration is. A longer duration on Feedback has obvious benefits, it will reflect longer and thus more.

But here comes the kicker: Instead of getting the trait for longer glamours I took the focus trait (“Warden’s Feedback”, it’s in the exact same position). Now my focus skills reflect projectiles, and I think that’s definately better than an extra second on Feedback.

Thanks for the tips.

I need to run TA if I’m going to get nightmare runes and I haven’t done it yet. I figure that will take a long time to get.

Runes of the Nightmare would make no difference and are decidedly inferior to Runes of the Undead if your opponent are not completely and utterly hopeless: in which case you would already be stomping all over them and Runes of the Nightmare still won’t make a significant difference.

+10% Condition Duration increases the duration of your Confusion by 0.3s (for Shatters) to 0.5s (for Glamours and Confusing Images). That is shorter than the cast time of many autoattacks, never mind skills likely to be used in zerg situations like AoEs and such. Your chances of proccing even one extra Confusion is not high even assuming your opponent spams the lowest cast time skill they have available non-stop.

Pyroatheist.9031:

I would drop mirror images for blink, because you won’t use mirror images ever.

I actually disagree with losing mirror images, it works wonders if you chain mirror images with a Cry or Mind Wrack, the key to making them effective is to be in the close to the action, cast them and then instantly blow them up. or hit up a Staff #2 and then blow them up

With a chaos storm and a well placed mirror cry/wrack you will easily get a tag kill on the majority of the group your fighting, ontop of that with a nice feedback your pretty much guaranteed most of the loot bags. I’m constantly pouring out my f1-f2 whenever I can which makes sure I am tagging as many as possible (this is a side effect of, of course doing damage and applying confusion, but its a good side effect )

Also if your human, get yourself Hounds of B! that will tag the zerg for you

I know a bunch of my vids with my guild show off me getting lots of tags but I’ll see if I can make a video that just depicts the tagging.

Keep confusing the enemy

kylia.4813:

Also if your human, get yourself Hounds of B! that will tag the zerg for you

Instead of using Time Warp ikittenvZ? Interesting… I might have to start running Mistfire Wolf again, but the cooldown is atrocious and the duration does not compare to my Golems… I have lost an occasional 1v2 against thieves because of thieves guild. Pesky NPC’s don’t drop aggro when down2’ing.