Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing this build in sPvP for a while now and it is a heck of a lot of fun. Recently though I started yearning for more DPS/spike and adjusted the build quite a bit into basically a tanky shatter build that still makes use of the Retaliation, which is fairly core to this build of course.

So while the traits have dramatically changed by putting 15 into Domination and 20 into Dueling (Dec. Evasion), the way I play this new build is actually very similar to the old. I just don’t rely as heavily on the fairly long setup-up time of the Retaliation tactic, and am not as dependent on Retaliation for damage overall. I still use the focus trick quite often though and throw up iDefender (w/5 pts in Inspiration of course) and other phantasms and let them get chewed up, but with Deceptive Evasion I can put up a lot more Clones to shatter in between.

Of course I’m still using Soldier runes, but went with Fire & Accuracy sigils to get a 19% base chance to crit. Doing this I dropped to 22k HPs (from ~26k before) and 1725 Toughness, but I don’t feel particularly less tanky then before TBH. I think Deceptive Evasion adds a lot of indirect defense, plus of course a good bit of offense.

Not claiming this is going to work for everyone, or that it’s better then the excellent build from Pyro, but just thought I’d throw it out there that the combination of a slightly more offensive built in combination with a similar play-style as his, also is working out nicely. I have the option to use Retaliation against classes that love multi-hit AoE attacks to clear my illusions while hurting me, but I can also change to a full shatter tactic vs. other opponents and have a good bit more DPS & spike available to me.

One last thing to mention is that I can’t go without Focus anymore. I used to love it, then stopped using it when I went full shatters, and now I fell in love with it again and can’t do without it anymore. ;-)

Focus is OP. I think I’ve used that as my offhand for 90% of my Mesmer playtime.

One weakness of this build might be against professions that utilize minions to do their damage. Minion necromancers come to mind since they don’t do their damage directly and are not hit by retaliation.

In sPvP of course, condition removal is definitely an issue. I try and place the curtain under the warden for some cleansing. In a pinch, I’ll take null field.

bhagwad.4281:

One weakness of this build might be against professions that utilize minions to do their damage. Minion necromancers come to mind since they don’t do their damage directly and are not hit by retaliation.

In sPvP of course, condition removal is definitely an issue. I try and place the curtain under the warden for some cleansing. In a pinch, I’ll take null field.

It is interesting you identify that as a weakness, because it is. However, there is only 1 class in the game able to exploit that weakness, and that is a purely phantasm based mesmer. That build is the only build ever that I have come across and am at a complete loss as to how to beat it. I have been killed by other builds, but can chalk that up to mistakes. The pure phantasm mesmer build I faced completely dismantled this build, and I still have no honest idea how to counter it.

With that being said, only a mesmer phantasm build can pull that off. No other class can do that. Necromancer minions have low hp, and so they get wiped out on retaliation damage very quickly. Additionally, the necro minions do so little damage, you barely even notice them.
Rangers can also try to do this, and their pets can actually hurt a bit. The problem is that the pets able to do the high damage have very low hp. They will die quickly on retaliation, and once the pets die, the ranger is out of luck.

The reason that the mesmer phantasm build can do it is because of how the phantasms work. The phantasms have enough hp that they are difficult for my build to kill them quickly. They also hit very hard, and in large chunks (swordsmen) meaning retaliation damage will not kill them. Even if they do die, they can be resummoned quickly to continue doing the damage.

Pyroatheist.9031:

bhagwad.4281:

One weakness of this build might be against professions that utilize minions to do their damage. Minion necromancers come to mind since they don’t do their damage directly and are not hit by retaliation.

In sPvP of course, condition removal is definitely an issue. I try and place the curtain under the warden for some cleansing. In a pinch, I’ll take null field.

It is interesting you identify that as a weakness, because it is. However, there is only 1 class in the game able to exploit that weakness, and that is a purely phantasm based mesmer. That build is the only build ever that I have come across and am at a complete loss as to how to beat it. I have been killed by other builds, but can chalk that up to mistakes. The pure phantasm mesmer build I faced completely dismantled this build, and I still have no honest idea how to counter it.

With that being said, only a mesmer phantasm build can pull that off. No other class can do that. Necromancer minions have low hp, and so they get wiped out on retaliation damage very quickly. Additionally, the necro minions do so little damage, you barely even notice them.
Rangers can also try to do this, and their pets can actually hurt a bit. The problem is that the pets able to do the high damage have very low hp. They will die quickly on retaliation, and once the pets die, the ranger is out of luck.

The reason that the mesmer phantasm build can do it is because of how the phantasms work. The phantasms have enough hp that they are difficult for my build to kill them quickly. They also hit very hard, and in large chunks (swordsmen) meaning retaliation damage will not kill them. Even if they do die, they can be resummoned quickly to continue doing the damage.

You’re right. I was beaten thrice yesterday by a phantasm mesmer utilizing the swordsman. Even then, it took a really long time. I was thinking to myself that if I had my own phantasm build (like I used to), I would not be having this problem. But well….I guess every build needs to have its counter eh?

Overall I’ll still run with this build because of how much fun it is. Thieves are suddenly zero threat, elementals don’t know what hit them and rangers just auto attack themselves to death. That’s worth more than being whacked by the odd phantasm mesmer.

@bhagwad: The thing is, the phantasm mesmer is the only counter to this build, and even then you still have the option to simply disengage. Most builds have a general counter, condition damage, straight damage, spike damage, damage over time, sustain, etc. This build has 0 weaknesses with the exception of a phantasm mesmer, and I’ll take those odds any day.

Pyroatheist: “This build has 0 weaknesses with the exception of a phantasm mesmer, and I’ll take those odds any day.”

Definitely, since overall it’s not a popular build since it can be very frustrating vs. many/most other classes. I’ve run into this too, but I thought I probably just lacked skill to beat the phant Mesmer, so it’s nice to see this is something others have been having issues with as well.

I agree though, not worth changing the build over. As you said, disengaging is easy and a single fairly unpopular build on one class is not worth worrying about. ;-)

I guess in the name of balance though it’s worth saying that this build does have many other weaknesses, such as fairly lacking team utility, lacking burst, etc. It’s mainly in 1v1 or 2v1 where you can say it has very few weaknesses vs. other classes that can not be overcome by skillful play.

Windwalker.7421:

Pyroatheist: “This build has 0 weaknesses with the exception of a phantasm mesmer, and I’ll take those odds any day.”

Definitely, since overall it’s not a popular build since it can be very frustrating vs. many/most other classes. I’ve run into this too, but I thought I probably just lacked skill to beat the phant Mesmer, so it’s nice to see this is something others have been having issues with as well.

I agree though, not worth changing the build over. As you said, disengaging is easy and a single fairly unpopular build on one class is not worth worrying about. ;-)

I guess in the name of balance though it’s worth saying that this build does have many other weaknesses, such as fairly lacking team utility, lacking burst, etc. It’s mainly in 1v1 or 2v1 where you can say it has very few weaknesses vs. other classes that can not be overcome by skillful play.

I beg to differ on the group utility thing! It is great in dungeons!

Well, this build has more of a traditional group utility role, that of the main tank that takes punishment without doing a lot of damage. For that reason, I don’t really use this build in pve ever, as I feel a Mesmer can contribute more to a party in other ways.

That being said, this build is one of the absolute best builds to engage on the frontline of zerg v zerg combat. It has the defense and hp to survive, the condition duration allows it to shrug off disables, the retaliation to punish anyone attacking, and the inherent tools of the Mesmer to guarantee stomps when you need them the most.

It really has a massive amount of stopping power. If I am running ahead if a zerg, I think nothing of charging into a contested supply camp to 1v10 the enemy zerg, because I know I’ll survive for my backup to arrive. The limits of this build are really only what you can think to do with a massively mobile juggernaut.

I also tend to take blink for the zvz combat, as the defender grows useless in zergballs, and that extra mobility is really killer.

I tried this in sPvP the other day……..and i love it! Its absolutely crushing once you get the hang of it.

Thanks!

Basic Question:

In your video, you phase retreat forward when running away from enemies. How are you doing this? See video below at 4:18.

For example, in this video at 4:18, you have the staff active as your weapon, and you are running away from enemies. Yet you teleport forward when you use staff 2 (phase retreat). I don’t notice any about face (turn 180 deg) and then staff 2 use… so I was just curious if you had to click any button in options to be able to do that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UWl92k63C9k#t=253s

target the enemy behind you while running away (I hot key ‘z’ for reverse camera). then activate phase retreat.

Riven.4276:

Basic Question:

In your video, you phase retreat forward when running away from enemies. How are you doing this? See video below at 4:18.

For example, in this video at 4:18, you have the staff active as your weapon, and you are running away from enemies. Yet you teleport forward when you use staff 2 (phase retreat). I don’t notice any about face (turn 180 deg) and then staff 2 use… so I was just curious if you had to click any button in options to be able to do that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UWl92k63C9k#t=253s

With no target, phase retreat moves you backwards with relation to your character’s direction. With a target, phase retreat moves you directly away from your active target.

do u c wat i did ther

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgUQNAW8clwz6p3UTpGbNJhJF9G5nUA9kjqw2Lpg36G;T8AA1ytEaJ1StlSLKjMGJMyakzIpRLIGfsBB

No cuz link is broke! :P

On a more serious note, I don’t like the lack of Decoy, and I’d trade Deceptive Evasion over that 3s Retaliation on Block personally. It might work OK if you get it to work with quirking Mimic, but I’d rather stick with Focus for the utility & mobility. Which brings me to my last gripe, neither Focus nor Centaur Runes means SLO-MO…tried that before and hated it.

My favorite past time is catching runners with Into the Void, or pulling people off ledges into a feeding frenzy below. That on top of Swiftness, ~14s Retaliation, and general combo-field goodness makes Focus a pretty hard thing to give up. (And the Warden isn’t exactly bad either…especially if you park him in the aforementioned combo-field.)

For more spike damage in sPvP I instead ditched Chaos completely and put 20 into Dueling for Blade Training and Deceptive Evasion. The rest is the same as Pyro’s, but with 5% Accuracy Sigil on Sword, and Lyssa runes. This gives me 29% chance to crit on Blurred Frenzy + MW, and also makes the Fire Sigil viable for my OH for even more spike damage.

The Lyssa Runes provide a nice extra counter to Conditions as well as a little more Prec, and with 23.5k HPs and 1560 Toughness I actually still feel pretty tanky for a Mesmer. I still use the Retaliation + iDefender quite a bit, but I also have the option to shatter at will with DE for lots of clone creation.

It’s certainly not the damage of a pure glass cannon shatter Mesmer, nor the tankiness of Pyro’s build, but something nice in between. Works for me, having lots of fun with it.

Pretend you can highlight copy pasta.

Windwalker.7421:

No cuz link is broke! :P

No it isn’t, select the text and copy paste. Just clicking or right clicking copy link doesn’t work because of anet’s silly forum.

Oh, and Easy, it’s an interesting idea but is it worth giving up illusory persona?

Dunno … is it?

You also gain the biggest pew pew phantasm.

@EasymodeX: It’s an interesting change. Even with the little catch of mimic, I still don’t like using that skill, especially to rely upon for the block → retaliation. It is a highly unreliable method of getting retaliation, because there is simply no guarantee someone is going to attack you during it. Another problem is that you’re now 20 points into dueling, giving you 20% crit damage, but you still only have 14% crit chance, they’re sorta wasted stats there.

I solve the block issue by running into 47 Jade Quarry invaders.

WORKS EVERY TIME.

What I’m really curious about is:

1. Does ret proc while you are invuln.
2. Does it proc when you block.
3. Does Signet of Inspiration have a target limit. Because 31 teammates with 2 minutes of retaliation each would be lulzy.
4. Does that ret trait have an ICD.

Other general option would be to run Veil and leap combo that. Longer cooldown than Focus4 so the resulting uptime would be slightly less, but you can pick up the iSwordsman pew pew and reduce Dueling investment by 10 points, shifting back to Inspiration for the Glamour -cooldown.

Edit: Of course, there’s no mandate for Blade Training even though two swords are used. iS is already pretty low in cooldown in general; could simply toss the points elsewhere (10 Dom or more Insp come to mind). Could make it a phantasm army build. Huehue.

Actually I like that idea just from the degree of retro troll. http://tinyurl.com/alae3v2

Either way, two swords are better than 1.

EasymodeX.4062:

I solve the block issue by running into 47 Jade Quarry invaders.

WORKS EVERY TIME.

What I’m really curious about is:

1. Does ret proc while you are invuln.
2. Does it proc when you block.
3. Does Signet of Inspiration have a target limit. Because 31 teammates with 2 minutes of retaliation each would be lulzy.

1. No clue
2. wat
3. I’m pretty sure its a 5 target aoe like everything else, but I don’t really know.

Pyroatheist.9031

Hey I’m online and would love to duel, message me in game. Out in FA dueling a few people now.

Pyroatheist.9031:

1. No clue
2. wat
3. I’m pretty sure its a 5 target aoe like everything else, but I don’t really know.

2. Does retaliation proc when you block an attack. Or does the block negate the combat step where retaliation is inflicted.

I figure that standing in the middle of 50 people with Blurred Frenzy and Retaliation could either be epic on a scale unimaginable, or it could be a colossal waste of time.

Edit: Or more specifically, Blurred Frenzy followed by Mimic followed by Mirror followed by Blurred Frenzy followed by blurred inscriptions signet followed by Distortion followed by a dodge followed by Blurred Frenzy followed by another dodge etc.

EasymodeX.4062:

I figure that standing in the middle of 50 people with Blurred Frenzy and Retaliation could either be epic on a scale unimaginable, or it could be a colossal waste of time.

Edit: Or more specifically, Blurred Frenzy followed by Mimic followed by Mirror followed by Blurred Frenzy followed by blurred inscriptions signet followed by Distortion followed by a dodge followed by Blurred Frenzy followed by another dodge etc.

LOL

EasymodeX.4062:

Pyroatheist.9031:

1. No clue
2. wat
3. I’m pretty sure its a 5 target aoe like everything else, but I don’t really know.

2. Does retaliation proc when you block an attack. Or does the block negate the combat step where retaliation is inflicted.

I figure that standing in the middle of 50 people with Blurred Frenzy and Retaliation could either be epic on a scale unimaginable, or it could be a colossal waste of time.

Edit: Or more specifically, Blurred Frenzy followed by Mimic followed by Mirror followed by Blurred Frenzy followed by blurred inscriptions signet followed by Distortion followed by a dodge followed by Blurred Frenzy followed by another dodge etc.

Distortion/blur aren’t blocks. Hate to rain on your parade. It’s as if you were removed from the combat field.

Edit: Noticed you added a few things. First, veil is ethereal, tooltip is wrong.

No icd afaik.

I don’t think block procs retal, and as I said, distortion and blur are something else entirely.

Whoa. Don’t know many DN players that play this as well, if you’re the same Pyroatheist on there.

Maestro.5376:

Whoa. Don’t know many DN players that play this as well, if you’re the same Pyroatheist on there.

One and the same. I actually have a couple of DN videos in my channel, one of my mystic at level 32 getting kicked from wall to wall by generalDan.

Its a majesty now though, and doesn’t take kitten from mercs any more, heheh.

EasymodeX.4062:

What I’m really curious about is:

1. Does ret proc while you are invuln.
2. Does it proc when you block.
3. Does Signet of Inspiration have a target limit. Because 31 teammates with 2 minutes of retaliation each would be lulzy.
4. Does that ret trait have an ICD.

1. Don’t think so.
2. No.
3. No clue.
4. Not sure, but… to think there are ppl on the wvw board whining to remove the aoe limit on attacks. Can you imagine what that would do if it doesn’t have a limit? Or just imagine what the meta would become with a few mesmers and guardians on each side. OUCH!

Love it. After playing around with builds, I love Retaliation over Confusion. I run a similar build: a no-shatter Phantasm build with Clerics, s/s and staff. My fights are pretty simple, actually. Open up with Defender and Swordsman, then do the usual iLeap+bFrenzy, then just chase and harass with Sword 1 attack stacking vuln (along with my clone) while they kill themselves with Retaliation. Oh, and that Swordsman which everyone seems to ignore but does a truckload of damage.

The real beauty comes from the fact that no one wants to use up their skill to kill Phantasms, so they’re forced to use the default Skill 1, which means more ticks of Retaliation. It’s like a silent killer, no one really figures out what’s going on until it’s too late. It’s not like Confusion where some purple clouds come up and says “heyyyy you better stop attacking!”

Just wanted to quickly add, having 3 Defenders up at enemy gates is ultimate trolling. Any player AoE-ing you will get 3x Retaliation. If their AoE isn’t strong enough, Cleric’s 280+ regen tick will clean it up along with a 2.6k+ heal from traited Mantras. Really unstoppable without siege.

TL:DR – My mesmer is a better retaliatory tanker than my guardian.

I’m in the process of adding a fighting guide classified by profession. Should have it finished later tonight. I’ll also be adding a few new videos soon, one about zergball fighting, and the other with soloing supply camps.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Maestro.5376:

Whoa. Don’t know many DN players that play this as well, if you’re the same Pyroatheist on there.

One and the same. I actually have a couple of DN videos in my channel, one of my mystic at level 32 getting kicked from wall to wall by generalDan.

Its a majesty now though, and doesn’t take kitten from mercs any more, heheh.

I bet Snipers still give you issues, though. Hello from Ishkara, btw XD

The class specific fighting guide is now finished. I’ll try to make some videos to highlight these matchups, but collecting the necessary footage could take a while.

Pyroatheist.9031:

7. Thief
S/D thief

A canny S/D could strip ret 100% of the time. With some heals /halftank setup they could probably win consistently if they know you’re using a ret tank build.

They’d have to be pretty sharp though to avoid attacking into chaos armor. Man that would be a longass grindy fight. The boon strip wouldn’t hit the iDefender though. Also it’s only RNG to strip the Ret itself. They’d probably still be at a disadvantage.

EasymodeX.4062:

Pyroatheist.9031:

7. Thief
S/D thief

A canny S/D could strip ret 100% of the time. With some heals /halftank setup they could probably win consistently if they know you’re using a ret tank build.

They’d have to be pretty sharp though to avoid attacking into chaos armor. Man that would be a longass grindy fight. The boon strip wouldn’t hit the iDefender though. Also it’s only RNG to strip the Ret itself. They’d probably still be at a disadvantage.

Flanking strike only removes 1 boon, has funky targeting insofar as it’ll miss if the target is moving too fast, and takes a good chunk of initiative (4). It will often remove regen or something else instead of retaliation, and just 2 uses will leave the thief unable to even use CnD. If they really try to focus on stripping ret, they’ll be so exposed afterward that killing them with confusion burst will be simple.

Eh, S/D isn’t quite that exposed, but yeah I noted the RNG of stripping ret.

EasymodeX.4062:

Eh, S/D isn’t quite that exposed, but yeah I noted the RNG of stripping ret.

Well, being exposed has nothing to do with S/D in particular, but just the general thief out of initiative exposed. If a thief is trying to strip my boons, he will need to burn most of his initiative to do it, and I’ll simply follow with a full confusion burst, putting back 15 more seconds of retaliation and smacking 12 stacks of confusion up. If they don’t have enough init to stealth and remove the confusion, that can be the end of a fight.

Reduced the number of maximum of stacks of Retaliation allowed to five (was 25). Duration still stacks.

How is this going to effect this build? The wording of it is kind of confusing, I guess I’m not 100% clear on how Retaliation works.

I am curious as well because I regularly rely on some form of retaliation in most of my builds… But hey maybe now the torch will be a fully viable off hand. (iMage will be kinda a joke still but meh!)

I don’t know. Retaliation stacks duration, not intensity. I have no idea what this change means. Once I get home I’ll immediately do some testing to find out, but right now that patch note looks like it was written by someone with absolutely 0 knowledge of how that boon functions.

Pyroatheist.9031:

I don’t know. Retaliation stacks duration, not intensity. I have no idea what this change means. Once I get home I’ll immediately do some testing to find out, but right now that patch note looks like it was written by someone with absolutely 0 knowledge of how that boon functions.

It means just that…only 5 stacks can be applied. So you lose out if you apply more. Meaning say you do a temporal curtain swap. That gives you 2 stacks. Then you shatter three clones with cry of frustration and that gives you 4 with illusionary personna. Instead of 6 stacks = (6 x5 ) 30 seconds, you get just 5 stacks = 25 seconds.

It gets worse. So you have 5 stacks whose timer is running out at an equal rate. Say you have just 1 second of retal left from those 5 stacks, and you do another full cry shatter, you’ll waste all of it because those 5 stacks haven’t run out yet!

Moral of the story – spread your retal out a bit. Don’t apply all of it at once. If you get two stacks from leap/swap, wait at least 5 seconds before you do a full cry shatter to get all 4 stacks.

At least this is how I think it’ll work. Will know more once I do some testing after the patch.

Edit: See below for some clarifications on how I think this will work.

On second thoughts, this is probably not how duration stacking works. It might run sequentially. So if you have 1 second of retal left, all the other stacks must have run out. This is somewhat better. But it still means that if you’re about to pile on 4 stacks of retal from cry, you’d better be sure that you have at most just one stack remaining, otherwise you’re wasting it.

For this, I suggest Anet shows the number of stacks of retal remaining which currently it doesn’t so we know whether or not to apply it. So if we see we have 3 stacks, we could happily do a leap/swap combo and if we have 4 stacks, we can hold off on the cry.

It seems there is yet another interpretation of what the change to retaliation means. If that’s correct, it makes no real difference to this build.

Trying to download patch now. Let’s see.

Bad news. Turns out we can’t have more than 25 seconds retal in all (assuming each stack gives only 5 seconds). So gotta spread them out a bit that’s all I guess.

I’m not certain but I don’t think it’ll affect this build that much. But some real life experience will clarify that.

bhagwad.4281:

Bad news. Turns out we can’t have more than 25 seconds retal in all (assuming each stack gives only 5 seconds). So gotta spread them out a bit that’s all I guess.

I’m not certain but I don’t think it’ll affect this build that much. But some real life experience will clarify that.

So say you stacked to 25 seconds and then didn’t add any more after until you have 5 seconds left and then you try to add retaliation again. Will it refresh to 25 seconds or do nothing?

I’d try this myself, but I’m at work. :P

bhagwad.4281:

Bad news. Turns out we can’t have more than 25 seconds retal in all (assuming each stack gives only 5 seconds). So gotta spread them out a bit that’s all I guess.

I’m not certain but I don’t think it’ll affect this build that much. But some real life experience will clarify that.

probably not a bad thing to spread it out anyways. If you dump all your retaliation at once and get it stripped you only have shield buddy left proc’cing it. The Dual retaliation or triple or quadruple is what makes this insane when you get you and all the clones proccing retaliation at once and amplified through the shield phantasm.

You’ll almost never get more than 25 seconds of retaliation at any given time anyway. In order to hit more than 25 seconds, you’d need to do the leap/swap + cry simultanously, and it would only get you to 29 seconds anyway.

However, I’m not convinced that’s what it means. That other post you linked to seems like it would make sense.

Ultimately, this patch note makes absolutely no sense on its own, and we the players are going to have to figure it out by ourselves through testing, since we can’t trust the devs to know jack kitten about what they change in this game.

I wonder if the changes to retal were because of this mesmer build… I have 1v1’d several bunker guards and they don’t have retal up nearly as long as we do… I wonder if they were watching this build that closely.

Ok, I just tested out the retaliation. There are no noticeable differences from the patch. It applies exactly the same. It deals damage exactly the same. Having defender and other phantasms up still results in multiple hits of retaliation. Application duration is still the same, and I successfully stacked it up to a visible 28 seconds of duration from the leap combo and an immediate cry of frustration. This patch will have absolutely 0 impact on this build.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Ok, I just tested out the retaliation. There are no noticeable differences from the patch. It applies exactly the same. It deals damage exactly the same. Having defender and other phantasms up still results in multiple hits of retaliation. Application duration is still the same, and I successfully stacked it up to a visible 28 seconds of duration from the leap combo and an immediate cry of frustration. This patch will have absolutely 0 impact on this build.

Hmm…I was only able to stack upto 25 seconds. Maybe I’ll test again later and see.