Guild Wars 2

Way back during the beta, and just after release I was playing around a bit with Glamour builds (as well kittenter builds). I ended up sticking with the Shatter builds to this day, however Glamours always seemed rather neat.

I understand that since I was playing around with them, Glamour builds have basically been butchered and nerfed into oblivion. However, if I wanted to make a Glamour build for novelty, and try to make it as decent as it can be given the limitations, how should I go about doing so? I’m thinking mostly about WvW, as opposed to sPvP (PvE doesn’t count for anything but how hard you are zerking).

I was thinking something along the lines of 20/0/0/20/30, taking all the Glamour related traits there are there, as well as sacrificing the Grandmaster trait in Illusions for Blinding Befunddlement (blind inflicts confusion). This would give the build Confusion when target enters or leaves a Glamour’s AoE, Glamour skills blind enemies at target location (and therefore inflicts confusion), as well as reduced cool downs for Glamour skills, as well as increasing the duration of Glamour skills (which seems to not work for half of the Glamour skills anyways).

As for armour stats, there don’t seem to be many options. You’d want condition damage for that [lacklustre] confusion so that it isn’t completely useless, and being a WvW minded build, you’d want some Toughness and Vitality. Since there isn’t any condition damage version of Soldiers (PVT), it seems like you would need quite the mix and match, including stats that won’t help your build. Perhaps a mix of Carrion, Rabid and Settlers?… maybe even just go for Celestial even since the stats are going to be so spread out anyways?

Not entirely sure about weapon selection. Perhaps Staff (Chaos Storm) and Sword (melee AoE, Blurred Frenzy, sigil of Earth if precision is high enough?) and Focus (basically the only option).

Does anyone even still use a Glamour build? If so would you care to share some of your impressions on it?.. especially for dealing with WvW matters. Perhaps we should also just highlight the [many] shortfalls of Glamour builds as well.

i use kylias triforce build and it is almost as fun as glam, but i gotta say confusion is at it’s worst state ever! its actually so bad that i take a screenshot when ever i hit someone with confusion for more than 1k. confusion got destroyed and when it was on the ground anet kicked it and laughed at it!

selan:
You forgot: strangled, skinned, devoured, spat it back up, ate it again, chewed it like cud, crapped it out, burned it, scattered the ashes, and had a massive laughing “O”.

Yeah, Confusion got absolutely obliterated near to the state of uselessness.

Might it be better to just go full PVT, ignoring condition damage, and just having piece of mind that the couple times confusion will actually proc will be taging targets in those big WvW fights? Perhaps I wouldn’t need to worry at all about the “Glamours Blind” and “Blind inflicts confusion” since that’s not going to add anymore damage. The blind might still be somewhat useful though… but that would still free up 10 trait points.

Having the “Glamours cause confusion to enemies who enter/leave their AoE” keeps that “confusion tag”, as well as adding a short duration junk condition (to help protect the conditions from the actually good condition damage classes).

Unfortunately, if the confusion doesn’t hit hard enough it doesn’t count as a tag so you won’t be getting all those glorious loot bags.

Hexxen.7216:

Unfortunately, if the confusion doesn’t hit hard enough it doesn’t count as a tag so you won’t be getting all those glorious loot bags.

Good point. How much damage is required to get a tag again?

Hmmmm… this thread is doing the opposite of what I wanted it to do for me… Making a build for novelty is all fine and good and all… but it needs to have a bit of functionality to at least make it not a burden Maybe I should just stick to Guardian and Necro if I want to roll with the zerg, and not simply be a portal/veil bot.

Surbrus.6942:

Hexxen.7216:

Unfortunately, if the confusion doesn’t hit hard enough it doesn’t count as a tag so you won’t be getting all those glorious loot bags.

Good point. How much damage is required to get a tag again?

Hmmmm… this thread is doing the opposite of what I wanted it to do for me… Making a build for novelty is all fine and good and all… but it needs to have a bit of functionality to at least make it not a burden Maybe I should just stick to Guardian and Necro if I want to roll with the zerg, and not simply be a portal/veil bot.

Sadly this is my situation.

As a mesmer, I’m locked into x/Focus with the utilities Veil, Portal, Null Field. My guilds is pretty low on Mesmers, with sometimes me being the only one…. (although there are those totally random days when there are 5+ mesmers)

It is extremely difficult for me to “tag” a zerg in WvW. I either drop Chaos Storm or an iBerserker(if it doesn’t die or I don’t get blinded….)

When I hear these people in TeamSpeak say …
“OMG THE LOOT BAGS! THEY SHOULD CHANGE THEIR SERVER NAME TO LOOTBAG BORDERLANDS”
I get extremely angry.

Especially when they are Necros, Guardians and sometimes Warriors.

Then here I am with my 1-4 loot bags. 6+ if I’m lucky.
I made a Guardian actually, and I’m almost always full on bag space with him.

What the other professions don’t understand is that, most of the time Mesmer’s carry the zerg. Either through Veil or mass Portal-ing. Even stripping Might stacks/Condition stacks through Null Field. And then we get 1-5 loot bags as a reward?

Also, it seems most zerg leaders are incompetent of Mesmer utilities. Recently I’ve been asked to use Decoy, Veil, Portal, Feedback, and Null Field. what?

Sorry for 2x Posting but if you want to know a “tagging” build with Glamours I set one up to at least get 1 loot bag per battle.

0/0/10(?)/30/30

Chaos- II (Descent to Madness). This is if you’re portaling off cliffs. If not, then feel free to use the extra 10 trait points for another line!

Inspiration- II, IX, VIII/any. II + IX buff up glamours by a TON. VIII if you’re using Focus, if not, then use the extra 10 trait points for another line. Although I’m very wacky, and I’ve started using XII since it works with IP (900 heal is pretty small, but oh well….)

Illusions- I, VIII, XI. You can switch up “I” with IV, for reflection on Distortion. I take IV sometimes because the graphics is pretty cool looking. VIII for Blinds. It only ticks once per glamour, but it can really shine in battles. XI for tagging. You’re probably not gonna have clones out, but if you use Mind Wrack/Cry of Frustration in the middle of their zerg, you’ve probably tagged at least a couple enemies.

My utilities~
Feedback/Portal/Null Field/Veil

If you don’t have another Mesmer in your zerg, take Portal/Null Field/Veil. However, if you do happen to have 2+ Mesmers, replace any of the 3 for Feedback. Usually I do Portal/Null Field/Feedback. Feedback can also help with tagging issues.

Use whatever healing skill you’re comfy with!

Weapons~
GS or Staff x Sword/Focus
My guild leader usually calls out for Temporal Curtains and Pulls, so sometimes I’m forced to use Focus. However, if you do find that there are more Mesmers and they are willing to use Focus, go ahead and do GS/Staff if you need tagging. Speed is also good with Temporal Curtain, but I switch my Armor set with PTV -> random Exotic with full Centaur. It’s a hassle but it works.

You can use any gear you want for battles. Sometimes I use Full PTV for survivability, sometimes I use Berserkers + Survivability trinkets. I use Berserker’s sometimes, if I need to tag. Also, I heard it affects you’re crit damage from Feedback (can someone confirm this?)

I know, it’s a horrible build, but that’s what I run…

EDIT:

I’d like to note that IF I am portaling, I either slot out Feedback or the other utility for Decoy. Sometimes I quickly switch to my torch. A veil wall is pretty obvious that you’re setting up a Portal when only you pass through it! I mostly have Mass Invisibility as my Elite skill, so Decoy + MI + Torch (if I’m not lazy) gives quite a bit of time to set up a portal!

However Either use Torch at the beggining or when you’re about to put you’re exit portal down. The Prestige causes Reveal if you hit someone after the 3 second stealth!

On another note, I know you probably already know this, but if anyone else is reading this. Decoy stealth does not stack with Mass Invisibility or The Prestige. Use it when you’re stealth buff is about to expire, because decoy has it’s own stealth buff.

ugh i hate when my guils isnt online and other commanders think i have veil or portal ready at all time. i usually run with feedback, nulllfield and signet of illusions(as i can share my buffs with 5 people) but since the glam nerf all commanders only use me to veil them or portal golems.

im really really scared of the next patch…all i can think about is what build will get destroyed next? what useless 1v1 skills do we get?what bugs will we get? how much op will one of the other classes get?

but maybe anet has a heart…or maybe one of their dev’s dares to play a mesmer in wvw and comes across the current necro/guardian meta and has to chase a permastealth thief for 20 minutes and realizes, that the confusion nerf was completely over the top and the bb nerf by itself would have been fine already.

I still like glamour builds.
You will still do alot of total dps with this as you can see in my video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF6RRiSoBzI
It’s from today inside Stonemist (wvw).

Just pointing out that you aren’t dealing any real damage with this spec when fighting against opponents that don’t suffer by lag, clustered vision or serious cases of 1-spamming.

Feedback does its main damage by reflecting projectiles so it’s more or less useless if your opponent just steps out of it or does nothing (like confusion).

/edit: It is kinda useful against guardians mid-WW. Whoever had the glorious idea to put these projectiles on a melee attack…

actually in your video i see similar numbers to wha i get with the triforce build when putting up feedback. the thing is feedback deals a lot of dmg if people spam projectiles like crazy. it doesnt show a lot of confusion compared to what it was before. its not even half of that as confusion was already hard to stack before, but now it barely stacks. most of your dmg is due to refelction. confusion needs a buff again.

torment is more deadly than glams atm and is only single targeted. i really like my scepter 2 block now….if it only was multi targeted…