Greatsword + Staff / Sword Torch [Guide]

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

Hello mesmers! I’ve been playing this build for around a while and doing great with it in sPvP, tPvP and WvW. I’m making this guide to hopefully get some more people interested in the build/playstyle as it is a very, very fun one!
I will explain everything you need to know to get started: each trait, sigil, rune and stat choice!
It takes a while to get used to the build and get the grips of it, but once you do, it’s so powerful. Every match that I do, I get better and better, it’s unbelievable! No matter if you will be using this build in WvW or PvP, please do read through the thread as well as all the extra information linked as it really does help loads.
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Traits

Domination – 4

Halting Strike – Usually, if you are in a shatter spec, you take Mental Torment in this trait slot because you do not interrupt people as often. However, in this spec, we have quite a few ways to interrupt people(Chaos Storm, Diversion, Illusionary Wave), making Halting Strike a much, much better choice over Mental Torment.

Shattered Concentration – This is an absolute must in all shatter builds. It delivers such great team support through boon removal but also helps you get your damage up by removing protection. Instead of a 3 clone shatter doing 10k damage, it will do 6,6k if the enemy has protection. Thanks to this trait that protection will be removed and you will do 10k damage. It’s super useful for removing stability from warriors, guardians and engineers if your mind stab is on cooldown, allowing you to push them off points, off the map, interrupt them or simply give yourself some space to breathe.

Dueling – 4

Far Reaching Manipulations – This has to be one of my favorite mesmer traits. It allows you to blink to some places you usually would not be able to blink to, it’s extremely helpful for kiting around, line of sighting, surprise shatters and so on. We also really do not have anything better to take in this slot. This trait is one of the reasons I love this playstyle so much. A thing you can do if you don’t mind having 900 range blink is take Phantasmal Fury for the iZerker. Pick your poison.

Deceptive Evasion – We are in a shatter build. Shatter builds need to have a lot of clone production so the clones can be shattered. This trait gives us exactly that.
If you try to play a shatter build without Deceptive Evasion, you’re gonna have a bad time!

Illusions – 6

Compounding Power – This is slot for which it is hard to choose a trait for. Compounding power versus Precise Wrack is a very tough choice, I keep going from one to the other constantly. I’m settled on Compounding Power now though. Reason This is simply a damage booster, not much needs to be said.

Illusionary Elasticity – Usually, this spot is used for Illusionary Invigoration. However, Illusionary Elasticity is such a major DPS boost it’s hard to choose Invigoration over it. That one additional bounce will, if you use Mirror Blade, do upwards of 3k more damage, give you 3 more stacks of might and give 3 more stacks of vulnerability to your target. If you combine this with iZerker, mind stab and a dodge/shatter, you will burst an engineer/ranger/necro and maybe even a warrior/guardian down.

Illusionary Persona – A must in all shatter builds. It’s just such an amazing trait! This can help you interrupt people right away, instead of having to kind of predict that they will use a skill and hope that they use it just as your clone comes to daze them. It ups your damage a lot! Instead of doing 9k on a 3 clone shatter, you will do 12k damage. If you do not have clones up and you need to use distortion to save your kitten, you count as a clone and you will get that one second of invulnerability which helps a lot.

Other Trait Options

Illusionary Invigoration – I run this instead of iElasticity when the enemy team does a lot of burst damage to simply allow myself to blow distortion a bit earlier and trade a bit of damage for more survivability. It recharges all your shatters when you get hit below 50% HP

+

Masterful Reflection – I often run this instead of Compounding Power in combination with iInvigoration, it gives you reflection when you distort. Really fun to use against warriors (eat your pindown!) and pewpew rangers (10k rapid fire right back at you!)

I now run this setup regularly with sword torch ( 15/5/15)

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Utilities

Ether Feast – There are no explanations required here. It’s pretty much the only heal mesmers use, unless they’re in PvE (Signet) or in some sort of mantra build (Mantra).

Portal – Portal can reach from Quarry all the way to mid in foefire, you can place it down before you enter a fight somewhere LOS and if you get into trouble, you can simply place the entre and you’re clear. It can be used to get people out of fights to reset, to do stomps (even though not worth it most of the time), pressure players (put portal on far, the guy that is holding far can’t leave or you get a free cap turning the game into a 4v5 for 60 seconds or you get a free cap) ect. A lot of uses

Mantra of Resolve – Use this in WvW instead of portal, you don’t really have too many uses for portal in WvW if you’re solo roaming or even team roaming, perhaps if you’re the type of guy that trolls large zergs portal would be good to have but I think for most people mantra will do great for the very much needed condi removal. You can use null field if you prefer it, I like mantra more. Also can be used in soloq because most players won’t really give a sh about your portals so it’s basically a skill for you only, and I think mantra will do more good to you than portal.

Decoy – I used to run Null Field in WvW but I do get a lot more usage from decoy. My teammates cleanse conditions from me and I can use the decoy in oh so many ways. In PvP I’d highly recommend running decoy over null field as your team mates should cleanse conditions from you if you fail to avoid them.

Blink – This is such a good skill. It can help you escape from enemies by blinking in some direction that they can not go in a direct line (like up a cliff), you can use it to avoid stuns, bursts and to do surprise bursts.

Moa Morph – I’ve began to use Moa a lot since it is basically insta death on anyone you put it on, I try to save it for transforms and as an instant +1 where its needed. Sometimes its worth using even in a 2v1 if you need to get the kill quickly to keep snowballing the map.

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Gear

Usually shatter builds go full zerker in order to maximize all types of damage (crit and power). Some people like to throw in a few assassins pieces in order to further increase critical chance and damage, however, since after the A15th patch I believe it is better to rely more on pure power damage.
We do have some knights trinkets in order to bump our toughness up to 1,2k. This will allow us to take a backstab from a thief and still survive with a good amount of HP.
The ascended knights trinkets have precision as the main stat which will help us hit the 60% crit chance (With fury from staff autoattack, we will have up to 80% and if you are running Precise Wrack, you will have 90% crit chance on Mind Wrack)

Runes

There are two viable options for PvP at the moment.
One being vampirism. It basically means you can not get bursted down which is really helpful, if you plan on it, its a get out of jail free card often and allows you to completely reset yourself when otherwise you would be dead.
Second option are pack runes which I only use in soloq sometimes if we have no thief and the enemy doesn’t have one either because it will give me more mobility to run from point to point and decap stuff. You can run this all the time though, it’s just personal preference.
In WvW traveler is still the best for reasons I do not think I need to explain.

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Sigils

Energy – This is SUCH a great sigil. I wasn’t a fan of it before, but I used it in my PU condition build thanks to Pyro giving me a few very, very good points on why it’s a must have. I now never, ever run a build without using energy sigils.
It gives you so many more dodges and we are so mobile in combat already thanks to staff that it’s unbelievable. You have a lot more clone production and you can avoid a lot more damage thanks to these sigils. They help you with both survivability and damage in those ways.

Air – Air is used as a damage boost on greatsword. It does great damage in combo with the autoattack. A must on GS.

Fire – It adds to your damage and is a little bit of AOE damage I believe. A must on GS.

Doom – I’ve been using this sigil on my staff so I can negate healing from my enemies, the main reason I put this on my staff/sword is to help with warriors and guardians. I’d highly recommend you use it if you are roaming or the enemy team has a lot of warriors/guardians and your team does not have poison application (which they should..)

Generosity – After a talk with Supcutie I switched to this sigil (18.11.‘14) for condi removal. Its not a lot but it can help, get generosity if you can but purity will do. It is sorta RnG but you can actually control it since it will proc very quickly after swapping to staff or sw/t. It’s ultimate troll sigil, you can send 30+ seconds of burning back to the elementalist and watch his damage kill him, you can swap fear to necro, 10+ bleeds to ranger, poison from steal to thief ect. Awesome sigil, I don’t run this on sw/t a lot, but whenever I’m playing with staff, this is my sigil of choice.

Food
We haven’t reached the 60% crit chance sweet spot yet. We have a good amount of toughness and power damage from runes and gear stats. We will get the 60% crit chance sweet spot using food. If you really want to use some food that will give you more power, I think then you should throw in some assassins gear to compensate.
Both of these are somewhat cheap, around 10-20s a piece. 1 hour in WvW will cost you around 50 silver in food.

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General playstyle

Shatter sets are, as I mentioned earlier extremely squishy and very vulnerable to all types of attacks which is a tradeoff for massive burst capabilities. As I said, I’ve bursted warriors and guardians down from 90% HP in a matter of a few seconds using this build.

You have two weapons. Staff and greatsword.

Staff – Staff is a great defensive weapon and you use it mostly when you used your burst, need to avoid damage or you can engage with it in order to bait cooldowns and dodges out of your enemy thus making sure your shatters will hit.
In order to play a shatter set well, especially this one, you need to move around a lot. Mobility is key to keeping yourself alive. It’s harder to do in PvP as you are sort of in a confined space, but that also works in your favor. It will be a lot harder for your enemy to avoid your shatters without going off the point. Thankfully we have staff and energy sigils to give us that mobility. You can use chaos storm to force people to get off points, to give you aegis buff, apply CC conditions to your enemy, again, helping you make your shatters land, chaos armor has a high blind output so if you use it while someone is meleing you, one of every 2-3 hits will miss. There is just so much you can do with staff. It’s by far my favorite mesmer weapon.

Greatsword – This is our weapon to use for bursting people down. It’s became such a good weapon with the Illusionary Elasticity trait. Mirror Blade gives us might stacks, clone production and a lot of damage, Mind Stab rips boons (something Warriors and Guardians HATE), iZerker is great for hunting down people on the run (cripple) and Illu Wave can be used to give us space to heal up, to run away, to interrupt heals/elites/important skills and so on. There is a lot we can do with all this. I usually engage using greatsword. No combo used, mostly AA from range, and trying to burst from range (izerker, mirror blade, mind stab when mirror blade hits and mind wrack) or if I can get up close I’ll just save my CD and use mirror blade + dodge mind wrack. Also spamming autoattack from range on anyone that is on point is really good damage. It will proc fire and air sigil a lot and it by itself has quite good damage over a little bit of time. Don’t underestimate the autoattack!

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Sword Torch Section

I removed the ‘how to make shatters hit’ section because it felt unneeded. I also needed a post to put this.

I’ve lately been running both gs + st and gs + sw/t, each for a different occasion so I figured why not put a gs + sw/t section in my guide? Gs + sw/t gives you better teamfighting ability due to the immobilize from sword but compared to staff it lacks in 1v1.

What I like about sw/t is that you have an extra stealth, saved my life a few times, very good for bursts as well. Prestige + iLeap + Mirror Blade + Mind Wrack is very powerful if you time it so that the Prestige damage goes out just as you burst + it’s a stealth burst/engage. Blurred Frenzy gives you extra evades which is very helpful in some cases.
iLeap in general can be used to instantly interrupt people too.

What to run and when?

I run whatever I feel like, although:
You really want to be on staff against teams that have eles/engis (generally AOE)
On Kyhlo/Niflhel you should be on staff for extra mobility
If you know you’ll (for some reason) be 1v1ing more, staff if a better choice.
I’ve been running sw/t exclusively for a few months now (5/15/15).

Credits for a lot of this stuff goes to Helseth/Supcutie/Misha, learned most of this from their whispers.

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Shatter skills guide

Mind Wrack – This is our main source of damage, you use it when you have a good chance to (not just when it’s off cooldown) and you know it will hit. It’s extremely powerful no matter which adept trait you chose in Illusions. It’s basically one of your main damage sources.

Cry of Frustration – The main usage of this skill is to remove boons from your enemy, it’s not an offensive skill most of the time though it can be used to give the final push for the kill if your mind wrack is on cooldown, you can also put it on an ele after it leaves water for confusion damage ect.

Diversion – This skill has saved me so many times. It can be used to interrupt enemy heals (if you are standing next to the enemy), Heartseekers from thieves, warrior Earthshaker and so on. You can also line up your clones so they are around a one second run behind the other (So the second one will come a second after the first clone hits and the third clone will come two seconds after the first clone comes) and instead of having a 1 second daze with 3 clones, you now have a 3 second daze. It’s very versatile.

Diversion – This is a shatter that I use in almost every fight. I use it to survive burst, make sure my heal or elite doesn’t get interrupted (if it is not available, you can sit in chaos storm, get chaos armor on yourself, use decoy to stealth, blink to get out of range and so on), keep me alive when I’m at low HP and trying to run away while the enemy is hitting me and so on. It’s a really, really great survival tool.
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This sort of ends the guide. Don’t give up no matter how difficult it seems at first, it’s very,very rewarding and a ton of fun once you get the grips of it. If anyone feels like I missed something, that I said something incorrect, generally have any constructive criticism, I’m very happy to receive it and I will edit the guide accordingly.
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VIDEO SECTION
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Demonstrations

Helseth PvP
HelsethTwitchStreams, you will learn loads here!
SupcutieTwitchStreams, you will learn loads here!

Guides

CompMesGuide1
CompMesGuide2
CompMesGuide3
CompMesGuide4
This (long) series is a must watch for all mesmers, no matter if you’re new to the class or have been playing mesmer for quite some time now, you will learn a few things from this!

HelsethKiteGuide
Some great tips if you play PvP. It upped my game a lot!
My channel with video guides

A great thing to read through for shatter mesmers is the shatter guide by SupCutie Its on a level over 9000 compared to my guide. It gives you really in depth explanations on a ton of stuff and is waaay more gameplay focused than my guide. You’re going to be losing out on a ton of knowledge about this class if you do not read this guide. If I could recommend 1 thing to someone to read and for it to be the only thing to look at, it would be this guide.

MY VIDEOS

1. Soloq CommentaryAimed at just showing the playstyle/mentality and as a sort of an intro into the series. I was a bit sick so my voice is a bit off. I’m making more mistakes than I’m mentioning because I had an idea of some sort of an assignment that would involve identifying them on your own but I dropped the idea.

2. Kiting, Positioning, Cooldown ManagementI will talk about the basics of kiting, positioning and CD management. I left quite a few loose ends so you can expand upon the ideas yourself. Click here if you can not view the video on youtube.

3. Staff or Sword Torch? – _I talk about the basic differences between staff and sword torch so you know what to run and when. I also cover some different trait, sigil and rune options. I’m now running sw/t exclusively.

I moved this here from my old video only thread to have everything in 1 place and because to be honest I’m not sure I will continue doing these videos, not many people watch them and its a big pain to do most of the time, add to that a dash of laziness and yeah..
I

_


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Posted by: Wyrden.4713

Wyrden.4713

great guide +1 /15 charr

just my ytb channel

FeintFate~

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Posted by: Mijo.3274

Mijo.3274

Hey i was thinking about using something similar to this, but i want to ask, what about putting those 6 points into Chaos Line instead of Illusions and grab some interrupt traits?

In the end the shatters will do almost the same damage, but with GS#5 + Staff#5 + F3 + maybe a mantra you’ll get a lot of interrupts, and considering the might meta we are into this build could work awesome with strenght runes and sigil of battle + energy on both weapons.

What do u think?

Champion magus, 4 builds i use
R.I.P. my beloved Meh-Mer, the most hated class by ANET itself.
Winner of the first HxH 1v1 tournament! WOOT!

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Posted by: Wyrden.4713

Wyrden.4713

i took a real good liking to the new chaos traitline, but only works out of pve, if u meant another gm trait in chaos then idk

IP is too good to ignore in pvp

just my ytb channel

FeintFate~

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

You are then going for a lockdown build if you want interrupts. It’s 10 times harder to play than this type of shatter. You need to know what every single person is doing at all times and be able to predict what every single person will do next and interrupt the important skills. It’s an extremely hard playstyle which can be fun.
You should take a look at this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Vid-Mind-Crush-CS-Lockdown/first

Have a wonderful rest of the day, happy flying!

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Posted by: aelfwe.4239

aelfwe.4239

This is exactly helseth’s build (except he use strenght rather than hoelbrak). He’s playing this from months.

But great guide anyway, none done a guide for it before and that was sick cause atm this is the best mesmer build (at least imao)

GJ!

Aelfwe Dark Asura Mesmer\Thief,
FREE PYRO

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

Strength and Hoelbrak are exactly the same, only difference being in a part of the number 6 buff. Strength will give you 7% more damage while under the effects of might while Hoelbrak will give you -20% condition duration on yourself, every other part of the sigil is exactly the same.. I have been using Strength lately in PvP, but I think Hoelbrak really does help with conditions and I use it in PvE/WvW. I can’t really afford Strength either. 80+g for a set..

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Posted by: aelfwe.4239

aelfwe.4239

Strength and Hoelbrak are exactly the same, only difference being in a part of the number 6 buff. Strength will give you 7% more damage while under the effects of might while Hoelbrak will give you -20% condition duration on yourself, every other part of the sigil is exactly the same.. I have been using Strength lately in PvP, but I think Hoelbrak really does help with conditions and I use it in PvE/WvW. I can’t really afford Strength either. 80g for a set..

It change even total might duration 45% strenght vs 30% hoelbrak.

Anyway helseth use this rune set on tpvp cause on team fight he stack longer might and he’s cleansed from his mates.

On your purpose (wvw roaming) i think hoelbrak could be a better choice cause if you solo you will suffer more cond that on tpvp (on solo none cleanse you xD)

I use traveler anyway, your statement are true but on wvw that 20% speed is a so good life improvement <3

Aelfwe Dark Asura Mesmer\Thief,
FREE PYRO

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

I tried traveler. I much prefer having staff with me and phase retreating around while still having all that damage. Phase retreat really fixes the mobility without having to sacrifice all that damage. To each his own I guess.

I myself right now am using Strength in PvP. I feel like I don’t need any reduced condition duration in PvP so I go for the extra damage.

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Posted by: Westside.7213

Westside.7213

Very well written, thank you.

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Posted by: Carpboy.7145

Carpboy.7145

How do runes of the pack compare?


The Use of the Word ‘Cheese’
Lyss The Shadow
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Posted by: Kraljevo.2801

Kraljevo.2801

How do runes of the pack compare?

I personally use them on my mes, it comes in handy if you need the extra fury and swiftness. As a mesmer, you always do.

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

I think Pack runes are viable, though there are better options out there. I don’t care about extra swiftness here and there if I’ll do a lot more damage. As I said multiple times already, you have staff for mobility as well as blink.

Have a great rest of the day!

~Monns

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Posted by: Carpboy.7145

Carpboy.7145

I think Pack runes are viable, though there are better options out there. I don’t care about extra swiftness here and there if I’ll do a lot more damage. As I said multiple times already, you have staff for mobility as well as blink.

Have a great rest of the day!

~Monns

Its not just the swiftness though, its the fury too


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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

You get fury from staff clones and yourself while you are autoattacking with staff.

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Posted by: Ithilwen.1529

Ithilwen.1529

I have seen all this before in the work of Supcutie and others. Looks like plagarism to me. Have you spent some time trying to play this style post patch?

Mesmerising Girl

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

You obviously haven’t read my guide. In the very beginning I say:
NOTE: I haven’t made this build, but it is a somewhat popular one for shatter mesmers and I haven’t seen a guide anywhere. I’m sorry if I am for some reason not allowed to make this thread, and/or offend anyone by doing so. If it will be needed, take this thread down.

They maybe used this build, but there is no guide for it, and even if there is, there is just a link to the build, no detailed description like I did here.
There is a guide for shatter mesmer, but not this specific playstlye. The guide that exists is a greatsword or staff + sword/ x one which is almost completely different from this setup.
And yes, I’ve been using it a lot post A15th, it works extremely well.
Have a wonderful rest of the day mate!
Happy shattering

~Monns

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Posted by: sendmark.4731

sendmark.4731

Yeah in fairness although this has been the spvp top tier meta (although obviously portal always in there for either decoy or nullfield) for a while, nobody has really written a guide up about it.

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Posted by: Joonks.7501

Joonks.7501

Just wanted to say this is a great guide and thank you for taking the time to write it up and explain it all in one place.

And somebody accusing you of plagiarism is hilarious. “Excuse me, I OWN that specific distribution of trait points.”

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

I’ve started to run portal instead of decoy and swapped Compounding Power for Precise Wrack. I feel like I do have more damage and portal really helps with trebuches and going from Quarry to Mid in Foefire ect. I run strength in PvP but use Hoelbrak in PvE still as I can not afford Strength yet. I will try adding decoy but replacing null field with portal and take a sigil of purity on my staff and GS, I’ll keep you guys posted on how I end up liking that.

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Posted by: alexjustdoit.3681

alexjustdoit.3681

Interesting, I’ve been running a build similar to this but focusing more on phantasms that shatters… so you think shatters is more effective? I’m pretty new to pvp, and I seem to run into other mesmers pretty often, not sure I’d be able to effectively pick the right targets for the shatters. Might waste all of them on a clone…

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Posted by: dank.3680

dank.3680

Interesting, I’ve been running a build similar to this but focusing more on phantasms that shatters… so you think shatters is more effective? I’m pretty new to pvp, and I seem to run into other mesmers pretty often, not sure I’d be able to effectively pick the right targets for the shatters. Might waste all of them on a clone…

Well shatter is very effective yes. And you should not be shattering willy nilly all over the place to. For example you don’t wanna be blowing your whole wad on someone with protection(if you run boonstrip you have leeway here but you get the picture).. So a mesmer really is a good person to practice against anyways as it will help you learn to shatter more purposefully.

#MAGSWAG: All class player. XOXO

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Posted by: alexjustdoit.3681

alexjustdoit.3681

How would this build do in terms of phantasm damage when I’m not shattering?

What kind of spell rotation should I be running? Greatsword 2 and 4, and auto if theyre a good distance, then staff auto and 3 for the extra condi damage, with the plus of the 5 skill for condi damage and 2 for evasive purposes?

Sorry if thats a particularly dumb or naive question

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

Shatter mesmers burst a lot. You wait outside a fight, get your burst ready. Get in the fight, burst (usually targeting the guy with the lowest HP and/or the squishiest target), get out. You, of course, if someone is at 10%HP won’t put in the burst to take down a guardian from 100% HP, only a little bit so you preserve cooldowns. In the meantime you kite, avoid damage ect.

Phantasm is more damage over time, it does not do AOE, mostly single target.. Shatters do AOE damage and AOE boon removal support.
Watch a few shatter mesmer gameplays on YouTube to see what your job is and what you can do as a shatter mesmer.
I’m confused right now on what you want to play. Shatter or phantasm? If phantasm then you are using a bad build. A VERY bad build for phantasm mesmer. Take a look at
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Overpowered-PvP-Phantasm-Build/page/7#post3984093
for phantasm. If you want to play a shatter mesmer, then feel free to use what is in this guide. I explained some rotations I use here and gave you guys some good literature to read in order to understand shatter and generally mesmers better.

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(edited by Jurica.1742)

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

Watch the comperhensive mesmer guide (youtube), read the mesmer handbook(sticky) and try out Pyroatheist’s build I linked you here, if you want to play phantasm.

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Posted by: aelfwe.4239

aelfwe.4239

You obviously haven’t read my guide. In the very beginning I say:
NOTE: I haven’t made this build, but it is a somewhat popular one for shatter mesmers and I haven’t seen a guide anywhere. I’m sorry if I am for some reason not allowed to make this thread, and/or offend anyone by doing so. If it will be needed, take this thread down.

They maybe used this build, but there is no guide for it, and even if there is, there is just a link to the build, no detailed description like I did here.
There is a guide for shatter mesmer, but not this specific playstlye. The guide that exists is a greatsword or staff + sword/ x one which is almost completely different from this setup.
And yes, I’ve been using it a lot post A15th, it works extremely well.
Have a wonderful rest of the day mate!
Happy shattering

~Monns

This game got 2 years and its normal in a 2 year old game having someone else playing a build similar to your.

But this doesnt mean you have copied anything.

The thing you’ve done is writing a great guide on a particular shatter build and you made a great job that none else has done before you so pls do not take this thread down!

As i told gj!

Aelfwe Dark Asura Mesmer\Thief,
FREE PYRO

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

Thank you! Have a great day mate, really appreciate it!
Much love

~Monns

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Posted by: Benjamin.8237

Benjamin.8237

Nice write up to teach newer players interested in this (godly) build. You mention Hoelbrak runes over strength for the minus condition duration, but I find that on this build you should always a) kill them before they condi bomb you and b)manage your conditions well, which is why it is harder to play. I personally use Strength or Pirate if on Forest.

Anyway keep updating this, and maybe get some videos from yourself or top players using it to show how its done

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

I am going to drop Hoelbrak when I get the gold. -20% won’t do that much. It may seems so but if I get a lot of condis on me and do not clear them, it doesn’t matter if I have the -20% or not. Going to update the guide..

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

-UPDATED- 24/5/’14

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

Hey Jurica, thanks for the guide. One suggestion – you reference Vash’s video but it would be even better if you could have a video section where you could link them. Another great addition to that would be a video sensotix released in the past few days on GS/Staff shatter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwfnFs175BI&list=UUhKcXTocz7_QAnpbCCeOtfw. It has some good game play and commentary on how to play the build.

Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

I’ll throw in a video section then!

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

-Updated- – Video section added!

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

-UPDATED- – A few corrections in the OP

EDIT: Also, anything you guys feel like I should put in the video section but I haven’t?

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(edited by Jurica.1742)

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Posted by: Carpboy.7145

Carpboy.7145

What does this setup have over a Sw+GS or sw+staff setup? Whats the advantage in using this over one of those?


The Use of the Word ‘Cheese’
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Legendary Champion of DB [EDGE]

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

EDIT: I misunderstood your post, I’m kinda busy, just flew other the thread to check if there are any new posts, I’ll reply to you in a little bit.

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Posted by: Benjamin.8237

Benjamin.8237

What does this setup have over a Sw+GS or sw+staff setup? Whats the advantage in using this over one of those?

Quite Simply, you have greater mobility and control of a fight. While you can argue that sw/p gives you the access to immobilize and a stun it still doesn’t excel at kiting. When I play GS + Staff I will never lose to another Mesmer using sword in a shatter vs shatter fight, because they can’t reach me with it.

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

Pretty much sums it up^^. Mostly shatter vs. shatter fights are depending a lot on luck, you can plan very few things as it’s all just so fast paced and 1 little tiny mistake will most often get you killed. Even though, I think a x + sw/x vs. st+gs win if you’re both at the same skill level and it will probably be a very long fight. I’ll have to try to fight someone that uses that set sometime..

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(edited by Jurica.1742)

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Posted by: Carpboy.7145

Carpboy.7145

Ok. So what would be the advantage of a Sw+x setup? Just the setup for shatters?


The Use of the Word ‘Cheese’
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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

Yes, you have the CC and invuln from sword, then depending on the offhand you have stealth, a bit of swiftness/projectile reflection. Another big pro to the st+gs shatter is that you get to run Blink range..

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

I’ve been experimenting with sigils a bit and air seems to be the best choice followed by doom and then battle as far as healing negation and damage go.

-UPDATED- – Added a video to the video section (Lord Helseth kiting guide)

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Posted by: apocom.3172

apocom.3172

I just wanna say thank you for this guide. Normally I play only thief, but this great guide has helped me to get an idea of the mysteries of a shatter mesmer.

Keep up the good work.

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Posted by: Jurica.1742

Jurica.1742

Thinking about recording some videos of me playing this build, which screen recorder should I use? I don’t really want to pay for it and I’d like it if it had decent quality (720 or 1080p if possible).
Have a good one!

Monns

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Posted by: Jeremlloyd.6837

Jeremlloyd.6837

If you want to record video, you can either use Fraps, or OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). OBS can be used to record video and to stream as well