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
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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)
(edited by Jurica.1742)