Guild Wars 2

I am almost max level and wonder what gear I should get for your Phantasm Hybrid build?

On your post you say “Shatter Cat Hybrid gear: 4/6 BZ, 1/6 K, 1/6 V, Trinkets : Nec BZ, r1 BZ, r2 Fractal tought/crit, T1 BZ, T2 BZ, Wep staff: BZ MH: BZ, OH BZ”

What gear pieces should be Valkyrie and Knight’s? I have done some PvE gear calculations on http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/ , but I am still not sure how much toughness/HP is enough and is rising those worth the possible loss of crit change/damage. I have enough money to buy gear from TP, but I am not supper rich so making mistakes in this might push my gear progress further into the future.

See picture below showing what I have currently planned:

Is that anywhere close?

• 15482 HP
• 1979 armor
• 47.71% crit chance
• 133% crit damage

That is:

• Effective Power 3564.82
• Effective Health (EHP) 11784.18
• Damage Reduction -31.38%

PS: you can not see it on that pic but ring2 is Knight’s (since I do not have Fractal ring).

@All, big day, 90 k wievs on the video guides and 700 repply on the thread, happy cat here.

@Defora, I traditionary been kinda carefull of exact recomendations for gear, stats etc for my builds and more wanted to give a direction guideline. This as

a- I change gear myself al the time to experement or tackle a sertan matchup. If we go on zerghunting for example I run the heavy shattercat but with full dps setup, If I solo roam I go hybrid with s/s and boonstrip etc.

b-I encurage ppl to experement themself, this cause a build that I do fatastic in might for a new player be al to fragile.

In general if you just dinged 80 and want to start run the hybrid spec, try stack 1200+ ~ toughtness, this is far more mportant than vitality as you can handle conditions with acctive survival, stealth and immunitys + leg it in worst cases. Still 15400~ sounds a little low and try get closer to 16k atleast, Im around 15900~ in both heavy and hybrid nowdays.

Chest is the best gear part to use for knight, this as it reward most stats compared to % crit dmg in other gearparts (se gear section in guid for explanation). Untill you get fractal rings (get 2) you might want to use knight rings aswell and later replace em for critdmg/tought/power fractal ring 1 and 2.

Another good thing about this gearing is that you easy for a guild run in frontline can retrait, use same gear and run Shatter Cat Heavy with fantastic ressults.

Hope this help.

/Osicat

@Osi amazing video as always, can’ t say how much i appreciate your “work”…thank you really btw the one in the video was heavy build, but not whit V nec right?
ps: the south camp is the best place for me to do some nice 1vsX and see you like it too xD

@Glad you like the vid, yes its *Shatter Cat Heavy *but in high dps gear and s/s. As soon I get the accended nec with tought/critdmg/power I will be able to run A setup with 102% crit dmg high crit chance and keep 1550~ toughtness.

As you see in the vid its not a tank setup, reason I keep repeat this is cause its the major difference form other high survival specces. It focus on the ability to deal dmg and be usefull for the team but still have good survival.

Biggest use for me with this spec is in the role of raidleading in wvwvw, for solo/duo runs I find Phantasm hybrid stronger due to the insane burst who is wery effective in smal team crashes.

/Osicat

to Osicat : you are the one that realy pushed me into getting my mesmer LOL :p well you and WVW (mesmers freaking rule in wvw hahaha ^^) but i’m still wondering what gear you use . your armour set actualy ^^ verry interested in it
this is my build i like this one verry mutch ^^ maiby you can give me some tips on the build ? ^^ would be nice . + i’m not 100% into shatering all my illu/clones so thats why i made this variation on the mesmer dps/crit/clone build ^^

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNAW8clwzKq3UTgGaNJypCRHKFYn3RShqValUwbXIA;TkAKcM4IwxijDHJOrKGVsrA

cheerz bro keep making killer video’z and coments :p
(P.S : the …. did we get nerved video was awesome hahahahahaha)

@Osicat

Watching your vids was what inspired me to actually play mesmer, now I can’t play any other class as they all bore me.

Currently have Condition mesmer built and running and love it, but have started to play like the original GW and acquiring multiple armor sets for different purposing (though will soon need more bag space again). Just can’t get into the scepter for Condition mesmer and have swapped out to sword main. I understand the purpose, but just don’t feel it fits right.

Have acquired all but the trinkets/rings/amulet for Heavy spec, and you just above answered my question about ascended amulet for it, as going Cavalier (Tough/Power/Crit Dam%) and what I was going to get (though the rabid one is so tempting as well).

Few other questions, though. For Hybrid spec, you now run both Cavalier ascended rings if I read through the thread correctly. What do you use for backpiece? Would an ascended Cavalier backpiece be that detrimental or is it what you actually run? I’m working on acquiring one for the heavy setup and figure multiple use would be good (and less expensive).

To swap from Heavy spec to Hybrid spec you change out a few pieces for berserkers (trinkets, amulet, one piece of armor) and retrait. How much of a difference does it make to play Hybrid phantasm in Heavy gear/have you tried it? The stat changes I wouldn’t think make a huge difference (little more survivability and a little less burst damage would be my guess), but as I don’t have access to both sets of gear yet, I can’t test for accurate results.

Thanks for the continual updates and testing. Hope sometime in the near future I can add something to the evolution of the Shatter Cat.

@Crona, Cant see your build on this pc, I give you feedback on it tomorow or tomrow night in a pm when I gone thru it.

@Zen, I feel its more effective play Heavy in the dps gear of hybrid than the opposite. The biggest defense in Heavy is not the passive stats, its the boon,s and the short cd,s on staff skills. This keep you wery mobile in combat and with chaos armour up most of the time. In guild runs you get so many combo field finicher shields aswell.

In hybrid you wont have heavys cd,s etc and without the gear you lack dmg.

For backpack I use berzerker stats.

About get gear, sort a dps gear, work on get the cavalier rings and nec for passive defense, get a knight chest and you can use the gear both for Hybrid and Heavy, just as you can play both Glamour support and Shatter condi with the condition gear.

I will uppdate the whole Heavy guide section this weekend. Some smal adn a few bigger changes, tested this build for a long time now and feel I found a few improvments.

/Osicat

Before I say anything, thank you! I started playing gw2 2 weeks after release and the first class I was interested in was the Mesmer, so I worked her to 80 first (thank kitten I didn’t know how bad it was to level at the time…) I played a custom tank/phantasm build, that at the time had 100% regain and protection, but it got reworked and is still viable (just not as well).
I took a break around Lost Shores, and came back during Halloween with a Necro. Then around this latest update I stumbled upon this thread. The videos alone sparked my interest for my Mesmer again( and pointed out some problems I was having).
That brings me to my current standpoint. I’m playing the condition damage confusion spike/shatter build ( 0/20/20/0/30) with Sw/torch, Staff. It has really nice bleeds at 100 damage a tick, 500+ burns and an average confusion hit for 2-6k depending on the stack size. The high mobility combined with the target breaks of the prestige and decoy, and the high natural toughness of a condition build make for a very hard to kill Mesmer. The only problem I am having, it seems, is the “killing blow.” I can keep enough pressure on my target for them to be defensive, but it’s hard to finish them. It might be due to me not having enough burst from the shatter combo, so I am working on switching my Ammy and two rings to the ascended pow/tough/crit damage ones and replacing my two trinkets/earrings to ravagers (pow/pres/cond damage). If I am right I should have 1,200+ – 1,500 power with 1,900 pres, 1,900 touhness and 1,300 cond damage. That brings me to my question, about what numbers should I be looking for to have enough to burst that last 20 or so % ? Do you think it’s worthwhile to push for power through accessories alone? Or am I missing something about the confusion shatter builds that I should know? For instance, how do they guarantee the “kill?”

P.s. I only ask you, because I know you use the “shatter cat” build and I’m sure you would at least have some opinions about the confusion shatter builds.
P.p.s. I typed this from a phone… Sorry in advance

@Zen, Gone thru your build now, its a interesting variant of a phantasm build, I would need to test play vs it or tets it myself to give more than a theoretical analys thu. As I see it it have a good preassure setup and clones have retaliation, mean it will cost to try kill them.

What s the backside of this build in my oppinon is that its survival lack a little. Its dmg focus is strong but if attacked or set under preassure the survival dont have the acctive deffenses of a shatter build or the passive of a legion phantasm build. If its for dungeons its np and by al means carrry on If its for wvwvw thu I would reccomend some few smal changes.

-Change random boon for blink.

-Change time warp for mass invis.

-Change sigils from bleeding, suggested setup is : 1 sigil of bloodlust 1 sigil of energy 1 sigil of force.

-Runes, im no big fan of eagle as you vs a target with 60-50% will burst down anyway, a target with 100% is the one you need steady dps on. I suggest gos imple, eather Divinity, Air or even Centaur (yes I dont like centaur but for this build in wvwvw it might be an option)

Again, this is my personal oppinions, do as you want and I would not given my oppinions about your build unless you had asked for em

@LokiShi, The backside of any condition build is that a wake up enemy who play hes caracter correct can stealth/go immune, clear conditions and leg it. The strength is the amazing controll and preassure.

This is why I mention this in my guide

From Shatter Cat Condition:
Best working in a team, using a necro and a burst dmg class to down wounded targets.

Try team up with a thief, warrior, shatter mesmer or a dmg built s/d ele. You preassure and they fisnnish of al 50% hp enemys. If you alone 1 vs 1 and enemy dont flee thu, I reccomend confusion burst stacking at 60% and add a mindwrack into the attack.

See the strenth of your specc and use em, know its weakness and work around em.

@All

Major uppdate*

Reworked the Shatter Cat heavy guide and Hybrid. News:

Hybrid:

-Sigil change
-Gear reccomendation change (2 fractal rings 1 laurel nec)

Shatter Cat Heavy:

-Text uppdated
-Changed from tanky dps build to frontline burst dmg build with high survival. Its now the official Raid leader build for my guide
-Changed gear( wep, sigils, rings 2 fratcal nec laurel)

/Osicat

PS I answer al question reguarding the build changes in this thread.

Thanks for the reply. I would like to say another few things, to add onto your post. I have killed many “tank” builds before, mostly when they run, and survived many 1 vs. X. It just seems that there is always the one person i come across thats a stalemate. I understand that a lot of the times I should be with another person, preferably damage spec, but that’s not always possible. So, that leaves me with finding the right balance between a cond spec and having enough power to burst 30% of life. I have an idea where I want my numbers, I am just not convinced that I can get it right where I want it.

What I’m asking is, what is your opinion on having 1,300 – 1,500 power? Is it enough, or should I not even bother with that amount? I’m thinking that I can keep 1,300 cond damage for the 100/tick bleeds and achieve my goal of at least 1,300 power. Can you give me a guess on your average damage numbers, of a single attack like blurred frenzy or a mind wrack, and your power. I could use that as a base reference for comparison. If the stats work out, you could have another “shatter cat” type build, that is based on cond. damage, but has enough power to burst someone’s life.

@LokiShi, The uppdated Shatter Cat Heavy with high and burst is the build I play most of the time atm, 60% of the time, the remaning I play 30% phantasm hybrid, and 10% mixed. Its dmg for frenzy is usualy around 4,5-5k, mindwracks hit for 2~2,8 × 4 most of the time.

To balance my burst/dmg I use a calculation for my dmg that originaly was created for warrior sigil setup.

Value of 5% crit chance = . With 0 extra critical damage you get a 2.5% dmg inc. With 50 % extra critical damage your gain is 5% dmg. With 100 extra critical damage you get a boost of 7.5%.

So I suspect your crit chance already is high due to the rabid gear setup. My guess is best burst gain you could do is get 10-15% more crit dmg. Easiets way to test this is by simply change food to 10% crit dmg 100 preci. The preci will boost your condition applying aswell and the crit dmg will help your burst.

Also practice to time your phantasm, simply not use em on cd (not that I say you do just a common misstake) but clone and condition wear enemy down, when at 5+% hit a Cry shatter x 4, Summon a iWarock 2 clones let it hit and do a 4 x mindwrack. If he have any health left the condtions might end it, if he try heal your confusion from 8 x shatters will kill him.

Its suggestions and theory again, best way to se how valid it is for your build is to try it out. Pls keep me uppdated how it turns out.

/Osicat

Sidenote, one of the guide users made a lovely vid of condition support mesmers life in solo gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nUPetCiOco

Osicat.4139:

Sidenote, one of the guide users made a lovely vid of condition support mesmers life in solo gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nUPetCiOco

LOL that was awesome xD

Can I ask why you swapped out generosity sigil for fire now? I’m wondering how you deal with conditions.

@Season, I basicly juke and stealth. Juke in do burst, drop a clone and phantasm juke out. Most conditionscan be range, stealth mmune and LOS avoided if you just prepare for it. Also 60% of the time I play Hybrid I play in team of 2-5 players. Thie make stealth a great tool to not get focused.

/Osicat

@Osi

Don’t have a setup like that, although it sounds interesting. I run Blink, Mirror Images, and Null Field on my Heavy or Hybrid in Heavy gear. I use Time Warp in PvE and Mass Invis in WvW, and all Runes of Air. Still my alleged build sounds pretty interesting.

Quite like the changes you made, had been considering running Sigil of Fire previously with the high crit chance. I think on Hybrid I’m going to run the Laurel Cavalier necklace, since we can only get 1 per month and get Berserker next time round, though, unless they come up with new ways to get Laurels anytime soon.

*@***** Uppdate *******@*

A few days ago I uppdated the Shatter Cat Heavy spec, I now adding a tactical guide including SC Heavy uppdated gameplay:

Enjoy, I wery happy with this one.

Hey Osi

I noticed the change in your sigil on one of your sword (you now use sigil of Accuracy).
I tested out the sigil and found myself a bit confused. I looked at my critical chance before and after applying the sigil on the sword and absolutely nothing changed.

So I was wondering wether it’s a bugged sigil or maybe the interface window doesn’t show the real number.

Do you have the same problem ?

Thx in advance and keep the good work =)

Great videos, thank you for putting all this information out there.

Can I ask why you haven’t permitted them to be viewable on mobile devices? Isn’t it just a checkbox when uploading?

@Doz, its a known bugg but you get the 5% but dont show on tooltip. Tbh of al buggs I rather see em fix sword leap first but would be cool if they sorted this to, it confuses alot of ppl.

@Oellph, cheers mate, the reason some vids dont work on mobile devices is the music companys owning the tracks dont allow it. Its the price to pay for pick the songs I do but its kinda a trade mark of me to have good music in my vids (good in my oppinion) so not alot to do.

/Osicat

PS latest vid:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O54jN_Wt9_s

First of all, great guide, really love Shattercat and been playing it now in WvW, Fractal, Dungeons having a lot of fun.
I am not sure if this has been mentioned but since you stress the high cost of the rabid gear in the condition based section I wanted to point out that you can basically get the gear (at least weapon and armor) for “free” from dungeon tokens (Caudecus, Twilight Arbor, Honor of the Waves, Arah) with TA and HotF being two tungeons that can be run quite fast and easily. AND you will earn quite some money for the trinkets as well if running the dungeons. Runes of the Undead are extremely cheap as well making this build in my opinion actually cheaper than the other variants with the high priced Runes of Air.
One other thing: you mentioned somewhere in the guide that you had added a food/oil section but I can’t seem to find that, did you remove it again? What are you using atm, highest oil and 100prec/10%crit food?
Thanks again for the wonderful guide

@Linus The One, yes with time and planning its possible to get most of the condition gear idd by d dungeons. I stress the cost as if you have no gear and just dinged 80 alternative play a crit setup wvwvw mesmer it will take alot of work to eather grind tookens or gold to get the gear. So you have to pay one way or a other, gold or time.

I personaly reccomed do fractals if you havent, the fractal rings are so strong that put your dungeon time on do the lvl 10 and 20 to gain 2 x rings is wery important. You also gain gold by do this runs. To both do 2xfractals and additional stances is more work than most ppl want / have time to do.

For food prec 10% crit and crit dmg oil idd. This as the more caviler gear you gain the more you need additional crit chance. Why I added the 5% crit sigil to the SC heavy aswell.

/Osicat

@ Osicat: Hi Osicat! I love you guide. Which Fractal Backpack you think its the more useful for your Classic/Hybrid/Heavy build. I dont have to much time to get many backpack and i may only get one and work a way to adjust it to all specs.

@Eperian, I leaning towards the preci crit power (zerker) as the new cavalier neclese now exists. If you already have the cavilier back just go for the berzerker neclese. I feel that with 2 rings 1 nec and a backpeace the toughness vs preci get unbalanced. I rather see 3 valaier 1 zerker.

In end, keep a health crit chance (50% + with food and oil + sigil stacks), a good toughness (1300~hybrid 1500+staff heavy) and as high crit dmg as possible 100+%.

/Osicat

/Osicat

Osicat.4139:

Sidenote, one of the guide users made a lovely vid of condition support mesmers life in solo gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nUPetCiOco

Love, love love this video ! You Osi are really mean by killing her. It’s like killing… cuteness !
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one facing the “panic moments” just to take the worse decision ever. I’m always like :" noooooo, why did I just do that !" T.T Then I die >.<

Thank you for sharing her video!

And btw, your last one is amazing, as usual.

Hey Osicat,
I’m really interested in trying your builds, but I don’t know which one to pick.
So, which build would you recommend for dungeons (mostly CoE/Fractals).
Currently I run a full Berserker glass cannon shatter build, but it feels like you deal the same dmg as me (2,5k with Mind Wrack per illusion), but you have better defense than me.

@My Sweet Lilly, Depends on how used you are to shatter builds. I feel a phantasm hybrid with some extra vitality from food and a valkyre neclese offers most due to dmg and utility. A 25 stacks of vulnebility help the group alot plus for some situations you can use the phantasm to dps.

A SC heavy work well to, its high dmg build made for frontline combat but the high survival dps make it good for instances aswell.

Remeber to use utilitys after boss and situation, example feedback can on the dmg buffed boss do 600 k of dmg if you stack sme vuln aswell

/Osicat

Hi Osicat,
Thanks for the detailed guide. I’ve been able to learn a lot from it (fairly new to GW2 and just started gearing up at 80). I have some questions I was hoping you could help me out with.

I’m running something similar to your 3.2 Shatter Cat Phantasm Hybrid build, with some slight differences. I’m mainly running PvE (CoF) these days (limited time due to work), but looking for insight into both PvE and WvWvW. (sPvP is a different beast that I’ll conquer at a different time).

First: PVE. I am running a full berserker gearset when running dungeons. I’m using GS with Sword/Focus on swap. I feel like this weapon setup gives me higher sustained damage output than a staff would. Especially for fights where I would be safer from afar, I feel GS does more damage than staff. I understand the defensive abilities of staff are without equal, but I haven’t really encountered the need for the staff defensive skills. Am I mistaken? Am I completely clueless?

Because I am running GS instead of staff, I differ on two major traits. Instead of Powered Illusion (Domination:3), I use Greatsword Training (Domination:10). Instead of Compounding Power (Illusions:3), I use Phantasmal Haste (Illusions:10).

Lastly, I mentioned I am working towards a full berserker gearset for PvE. I realize this will be situational, and I am planning to build a slightly tankier set that will work for PvE + WvWvW. I’ll discuss below.

Second: WvWvW, My setup is exactly the same as the above for PvE, but with different reasoning. First, I haven’t yet acquired a set that will allow me to survive on the front lines (glass cannon), so I feel I have to stay in the back. This is the reason I stuck with GS here as well. However, I also feel that GS gives more AoE damage output, with skill 2, 3, and 4, with a decent defensive utility in skill 5. I feel with GS + Sw/Fo, I have great offensive abilities. Can you elaborate on why you recommend staff over GS? I feel that switching to staff to take advantage of the defensive abilities greatly hurts your offensive abilities.

Here is my main question: gear. I definitely will be getting a set of gear to replace my glass cannon berserkers to use in WvWvW. How does the following setup and stats look?
Chest = Knight
Pants = Valk
Helm/Shoulders/Gloves/Boots = Berserker
Amulet = Ascended Berserker (O)
Ring1 = Cavalier/Cavalier (O)
Ring2 = Cavalier/Cavalier (D)
Accessory1 = Berserker
Accessory2 = Berserker
Back = Berserker/Berserker
Weapons = Berserker

Runes/Sigils:
Armor = Rune of Centaur
GS = precision stacking
sword = fire
focus = force

Stats look to be:
Power 2276
Precision 1650
Toughness 1223
Vitality 984
Critical Damage +82%
Critical Chance 38.95%
Armor 2143
Health 15762

Effective Power 3446.25
Effective Health (EHP) 18398
Damage Reduction 14.33%
Reference Armor 1836

I feel like I need more vitality. Definitely would like to be at 1600+. Not sure what to drop to pick more up.

Wow, that went a lot longer than expected. Obviously I have a lot of questions and was hoping to get some of your insight! Thanks in advance!

@Basily, Hi

We start with the Pve/dungeons. Idd here a GS most of the time offers a stronger dmg setup than staff, on the utility side the group lose some but the base instances this is no problem. Atm GW2 exepth high lvl fractals dont offer any realy challange in dungeon pve group instances gameplay so there is alot of builds that is viable.

What is easy to look at as mesmer thu is the dmg of the weapons, this is only a part of our dmg output. A core part of our dmg (if you play shatter) come from abilitys shatters utilitys and conditions. We also offer a outstanding group support support and utility even in a dps spec. This is main reason I use staff in pve and especialy fractals. Still I also carry a GS in my bag for special situations.

For the WvWvW. Here we discuss 2 totaly different gamestyles roles of the mesmer as dps.

One is the stable dmg from the back of a team/zerg, defense build around stay out of range for amximum dmg and survival + passive defenses. This spec get less effect out of Ilusionary persona and shatters due to range.

The other is a frontline dmg spiker with high survival, build to eather lead or be part of a fast moving organiced team. Here you will with a Gs be less effective in a group or leader as a leader run in the back naturaly will pull the raid/team to be more defensive as you in general want to stay at range to do dmg.

The builds I talk for in the guide is al centered around some core abilitys, one is illusioary persona. To get maximum effetc out of this you need to be in the face of the enemy, same time the defensive options it leav make the vitality less interesting and toughness more of a core stat.

As you cant be in the face al time you need to juke in and out, deliver your dmg in bursts. This is best done with high crit and crit dmg as spike dmg>sustained dmg in pvp. For this the staff leav best utilitys and give more room to use illusionary pesona and it more suited due to its acctive defenses and chaos armour, it aslo open up room for more dpg spec on gear as you survival now is acctive.

Best explained abour group play and staff/shatter setup I think a move do. Have a look at the movment in this vid and my positioning/attacks, notice its alot in and out, dive deep to then go out, dmg dealt in bursts and group buffing utilitys/abilitys > personal dmg.

The GS have its defense on 2 major aspects, 1 passive defense (you have ~ 2,3k more hp than me in the last stats) and 2 in keep range.

The enemy know this and one of the first things for example my guid do in a attack is while in stealth drop al aoe on front then run thru and start kill rangers, staff eles and GS mesmers, tbh you are one of my core targets in a guild runs.

Last, for runes, I understand you prefere centaur if you build around GS (you dont plan on take frontline hits al time and you dont have staffs movment inc), I just again want to inflick its not one of my favorite runes and feel it take alot of the potensial away from the mesmer.

PPl talk alot after last patch about passiv speed, how to get away in a run etc etc, I claim we not build for marathons as mesmers we are sprinters and for this staff+ rune of air are a fatastic setup.

IN the end. I not criticise your build, its a viable and often used setup, I just wery far from the setup the mesmers in my team and the builds in this guide center around. The Shatter Cat builds is created to fit in other mele focused hard hitting strike teams. We center around fast movment (in combat) high spike dmg and be close to the target, run over like a train and come out on other side, turn, regroup and eather portal out or do a “2nd run over”.

Okay, I’m starting to understand the difference. I’ll have to try this build again, because I was playing it too passively the first time around (right when I hit 80 in mastercrafted gear). I wish they had a quick way to switch between 2 presaved builds and gear. It’d be so much easier to toggle a pve and pvp spec.

Hello, I just have a question about sword off hand skill #1, the one that blocks foe. It says that it does 1466 damage (with my current gear). However i’ve tried it in spvp and it doesn’t come remotely close to doing such damage. I assume it’s either on a successful block or it’s the the phantasm doing it? Still I haven’t seen any high damage number coming from that skill.

@Paleeshi, its iid on sucessfull block, it also spawn a clone and the clone + block can close to 1 hit ppl as rune of air often hit aswell.

Bet example I have on vid is this video. Look at the fight from 4:25 and watch the guardian who attacks me and how block work:

/Osicat

Osicat, I’ve been wondering about the 3% more damage(or defense) per active illusion traits. How important is this, especially since as the shattercat build calls for shattering. Will that 9% defense be effective even if it’s only up for a short duration as you would be shattering them immediately?

I also wanted to ask what you normally do in big fights, or do you only run around with a small group? Just that I’m feeling my staff autoattack isn’t contributing much when it comes to huge standoffs.

Lastly, can you share your thoughts on pistol vs sword as offhand?

@Aturist,the 9% is realy realy good, often I create new clones as soon i shattered in a few seconds so it pendling between 3-9% defense al time.

In big fights I usualy in front line, puching thru enemy ranks and spreading as mutch aoe dmg and conditions as possible, when we get focused I dro a feedback and keep move. You dont use wep dmg alot on gig fights kittenter mesmer, youd rop chaos storms and utilitys, do sword flurry and utilitys + shatters.

Have a look:

Pistol strong for smal team roamning / solo, in bigger fights you better off with a sword, also to be realy effective with pistol its 10-30-0-0-30, I play 0-20-20-0-30 and 20-20-0-0-30 with s/s. I favour sword due to dmg and defense better.

/Osicat

Hi
i was testing ur heavy cat build today
both variations OH sword with mirror images / pistol null field
i understand that OH sword give very nice dmg + block
but i feel like 2 ethe. fields ( prefer MI when soloing )work better with iDuelist than iSword. with that confusion stacking
and pistol have good control even when not traited

can u explain me more background of ur OH weapon choise pls ?

cheers Xixsa

I’m about to hit lvl 80 on my Mesmer, and while I don’t have the necessary gear to fully back up the Shatter / Phantasm build (yet), I’m still doing pretty well on my own in PvE and Dungeons. I know that for me, it’ll take a little bit more practice with how the Mesmer truly plays and developing my overall skill as a player to become GOOD in WvWvW.

Remember – Gear can carry you only so far in GW2. The rest – is Skill. =)

@Chipmunko, Pistol offers controll and some range, single target dmg and 1 phantasm on cd. I started the build with this setup but changed as the SC Heavy got used more and more in bigger fights.

S oh offers high spike dmg, 2 short cd summons, 1 phantasm and 1 clone. The dmg is higer and both clones get summoned in shatter range. Mean you can easy just after a block or a phantasm hit press mv and have same clone/phantasm folow the spike dmg up with a shatter spike.

Oh sword offers more synergies with the shatter build as it already traited, it have more clones and higer spike dmg. The additional acctive defense offers some wery strong counter attacks aswell.

Feel free to expereiment with both but I find the new setup alot stronger both in dmg and survival.

@Nerdy Mike, cheers keep up the fun.

/Osicat

I see that you have listed your gear in SC heavy that it is 1/6 K 3/6 BZ 1/6 V, but that only adds up to 5 pieces of gear. Am I right in assuming that there should be two knight pieces? (Helmet and coat/coat and pants)

Love the builds Osi. Currently I run s/s w/10/30/0/0/30 though I often switch to 20/20. I usually run with a base crit chance of ~60% when i’m 10/30. Since I’m s/s I can use phantasmal fury which makes my phantasms crit 4/5 times they spawn. I found that to be better than the 15% dmg since I usually shatter them after their first attack. Now, the reason I like 10/30 is for the boosted crit chance. I’m not sure if you’ve experimented with it yet but Omnomberry ghosts + blurred frenzy with 60%+ crit (80%+ if i have fury from woc) is insane. It synergises very well with generosity which I’m still running atm. I may switch that to accuracy just to boost my crit chance even more, but I’m still undecided on that. Does sigil of accuracy stack with the 5% damage one?

Thanks for all the work you put into it. I rolled this mesmer months back after reading and commenting on the thread, and now my mesmer is a beast! And, it’s so much more fun than my original thief.

@PlaisirCoupable, It a typo by me when I uppdated the guide for Shatter Cat Heavy, suppose to be 4/6 Berzerker. Cheers for point this out. Due to the cavalier gear from laurels and fractal there is no need for 2xknight on armour.

@Dasboba, your post made my day, ceers mate. This is exactly the kind of thinkin I try encurage. I get alot of the “exact what gear, food, collours” do you use.

Instead I want to see this kind of posts, ppl who from the 4 Shatter Cat builds develop and experement new and more effective alternatives.

A s/s setup with high crit chance and life steal based on the 10-30-0-0-30 is not something I have tested, I have tryed it on SC heavy but here the dmg is needed as the build already have a insane survival and need to get things dead.

If any It hit me it must be a bit fragile to run with only 1100 toughness, what utilitys do you use? Tobad the 25/30 dueling is a close to usless trait. Also yes 5% suppose to stack but before have a try with 5% dmg and fire proc sigil, kinda sure you with that crit chance and high crit dmg should get rather high fire dmg procs.

Keep me uppdated how your experementing go, atm I testing some tweeking of the Shatter Cat Heavy to squese even more dmg out of it, latley I been able to burst down staff tank guardians with the build in duels so its deffenetly getting better and better in dmg, just need to keep the high survival.

/Osicat

I run standard decoy/mirror images/blink. Those give me the mobility to make up for the low toughness. I use staff2 quite a bit too so I can get away when things get hairy. I followed your guide to the letter at first, then I started to branch out. That’s why when you see my weapons, I first had a mixture of knight/valk weapons. I still use those to bump my toughness in dungeons. Now I have full zerker weapons. I like to have the exact same stats when I weapon swap. Then I use trinkets to make up the difference. I set my goals to be 1100 tou, 16k hps. I’m low on the hitpoints but that’s kind of new since i recently swapped to another ruby for more crit chance. I think I make up for it with the steady stream of 315 lifesteal procs. Two nights ago, I did a 4clone shatter in a group of 5 enemies, then hit blurred frenzy and there were so many green 315s floating up, I just cackled w/joy, lol. All 5 of them scattered in different directions and that allowed my group to break their line and take the supply back. I really think that food will get nerfed soon, but for now it sure is fun. A high crit bs thief will wreck me pretty quickly if he catches me off guard. Had one hit me for over 17k w/his steal/cnd/bs combo, so I’m very squishy. Usually, I can see them coming, but this time my blink and decoy were down. :/

I’m still very torn on the 20/20 vs 10/30. I love daze shattering with rending shatter for all the stacks of vuln. If sword4 wasn’t bugged and actually set off dazzling, I would be 20/20 for sure. I’m sure the trait retrainer loves me. I’m constantly switching between the 2.

Hey Osi, I have a quick question – What is the standard Crit Damage % without food and ascended gear, but just with Exotic Gear for the Shatter Cat / Phantasm Hybrid? I always hear a lot of numbers thrown around (some saying 200%, others 150%, etc).

How are those numbers gotten to? I’m pretty much spec’d out with the gear that you’ve recommended (in Theory-Crafting ATM) and I’m sitting at around 80% Crit Damage (from what the spreadsheet tells me).

Hi could you please do some Condition build vid? I´d like to see it in action before I start to buy these expensive items. (If there is some vid i propably didn´t find it.)
Thank you

I did not realize OH sword #4 is like Pistol #5. I was trying out your dual sword mesmer build, which is awesome.

Ok, so I have been doing some browsing and number crunching (thanks to GW2 BuildCraft) on the possibilities of gear for a condition shatter cat. I ended up with making, what I call, a “balanced switch.” The idea is to have higher condition damage (around 1,240) and toughness (around 1,935) when I am equiped with a staff. To play defensive and slowly work down an opponents life to be in range of a burst. Then switching to a higher damaging sword/x (sword, most likely) to create the burst of a shatter cat. Its important to note that this build is MAINLY a condition/confusion build with 100+ damage bleeds and 500+ damage burns, but having an offhanded setup that allows for 3k damage blurred frenzys (not to mention Shatters, and the confusion that will happen). Here is a copy/paste of the GW2 BuildCraft stat distrubtion, based off the SWORD/SWORD stats (both “Burst” weapons will have berzerker stats, while the staff has rabid stats).

Power
1442

Precision
1715

Toughness
1757

Vitality
916

Critical Damage +
55%

Condition Damage
1052

Condition Duration
0%

Healing Power
0

Boon Duration
20%

Critical Chance
42.05%

Damage
0%

Armor
2677

Health
15082

Agony Resistance
15

Shredding Recharge Rate
30%

Damage & Survivability
Effective Power
2078.64

Effective Health (EHP)
21990

Damage Reduction
31.42%

Reference Armor
1836

Tell me what you think of these numbers, and how they compare to yours?

P.S. I can go further in the explaination and choices of armor and trinkets, to show how I achieved these stats.

Hey Osi, long time fan. You inspiried me to roll a Mes when I first started.
I was wondering how do you deal with condition necros? I can’t seem to deal with them. They always have 10 stacks of bleed and cripples and chills on me at all times and I cant’ do anything about it.

@NerdyMike, When I speak +Crit dmg I mean the ingame said bonus crit dmg. For a accended geared mesmer with a direct dmg shatter build this is one of the major stats.

Shatter Cat Original usualy have around 95-100 unbuffed (with food 105-110), Shatter Cat Heavy and Hybrid have around 90-92 unbuffed (food = 100-102).

Major reason this numbers is possible to gain is the fractals and laurel gear let you gian high + crit dmg without spec glascannon. Its the best possible gearing a shatter mesmer can get. It let us go deep and close, deal devastating dmg but still sit with 1300-1550 toughness depedning on build. With only crafted gear you will not be able to deeal the high dmg but keep most of the survival. This is why I time after time stress the need of do fractals.

@NohaWar, Its on my “to do list”

@Qiko, not to mention its cd is alot shorter, cheers.

@LokiShi, It look wery interesting, if you want have a thought on what kind of movment and gamestyle you would be most effetcive in. kittenter Cat in general favours high incombat juking in and out but condition builds want to be “on target” most of the time. I would guess the build would be wery wey effective in team with a bleed stacking thief abusing stealth and you do same. when target get low you switch mode and burst.

Mabye can try it out and do a vid?

@SpeakYourMind, Cheers. Well to be effective here you need to adabt to the Shatter Cat builds general philosopy. The dmg we deal come in 5-10 sec intervalls. We go in deal a high dmg spike and then we bounce out.

A condition player have high dmg output if he constantly preassure you, as long you in hes range you will need to use immunitys and avoid as many conditions as possible, some will hit you but some will land. When the dmg is landed you staff 2 /blink out + decoy, leav a few clones as preassure and use a heal, when mv on use again back to stab again.

This is how you fight any 1 vs x, tank etc. You cant survive even in Shatter Cat heavy if you stay in theri face al time.

Think of a Rapier fencer, vs a heavy armour knight in mail. He cant be in trade hits, he need to like a Mongoose fighting a snake bounce in and our deliver hes dmg.

/Osicat

I played 100% Zerker gear shatter build 20/20/0/0/30 for a long time. I have finally gotten around to Fractals, and got a hold of the ascended backpiece (power, Tough, crit dmg), the Power, Tough, Crit dmg ascended ring, and another ascended ring with full zerker stats.

I replaced my chest and legs with knight’s gear, and I use a zerker staff, one zerker sword, and one P,T,V sword. I put 5% crit sigil in one of the swords to make up for some loss of crit%.

I run the Hybrid build, and I can absolutely tell a difference in the extra survivability. The extra toughness and HP help tremendously, and I finally feel like I have finished gearing for the shatter spec. Once I get the ascended amulet (I will probably go for Berserker w/ valkyrie secondary), I will be good to go.

A note for those who are either new to mesmer or are trying to increase their skills. I played sPvP (mostly hot join) for the first few hundred hours of my gw2 experience, and it really goes a long way towards getting yourself familiar with how to fight in groups and more importantly, stay alive in a zergy atmosphere. I would recommend spending a little time there if you want to get better at awareness/survival (not really great for 1v1, though).

Osicat.4139:

Sidenote, one of the guide users made a lovely vid of condition support mesmers life in solo gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nUPetCiOco

Eek Osi O.o You just gave people the example of worst gameplay evah xD Thanks for sharing do.

Already got a comment about me clicking skills xD But I guess they didn’t the intro properly and missed the " I am a noob " part =D

Looking forward on seeing you friday again!

Recently decided to try out the Hybrid build above. Note, I’m a very fresh 80, and while I have rare armour / weapons, I’m short on cash and therefore have terrible (green) trinkets, no back to speak of, and can only afford a set of Centaur runes. I also play from Australia so have some latency issues (nothing severe, but it makes dodging harder). I spend most of my time doing PVE (renown / events), and some doing WVW, typically in a mid-size group. I avoid solo WVW roaming wherever I can.

I’ve noticed the baseline of 16k HP and 1200 toughness mentioned. Should I aim for that at all costs when starting out? At the moment I’m going 3/6 Berserker armor, 2/6 Knights (legs, head) and 1/6 Valkyrie (chest). Trinkets are all Berserker except for rings which are Knights. Using Valkyrie gems in those rings. This puts me well below the 1200 Toughness mark, but I have decent crit, and slightly over 16k health. Should I sacrifice more Berserker gear for Knight’s in the short term to get that Toughness up?

I’m pretty comfortable with the Staff for defensive purposes, but I find that it’s complete kittene for tagging in events. I’ve been swapping to Greatsword for that. I also tend to think that the Sword offhand is really better for WVW, so what do you think about swapping to Sword/Focus for PVE (for run buff and iWarden), and then using Sword/Sword for WVW (for blind)?

And lastly, shattering. I have a bad tendency to drop all my clones/phantasms and then shatter straight up. With the hybrid build, should I be leaving the phantasms alive and only shattering to spike something down? If I should be shattering straight away, should I make the first shatter F2, so that I can hold onto the F1 shatter as a surprise?

Thanks for the build, it’s been a lot of fun!

Osicat.4139:

@LokiShi, It look wery interesting, if you want have a thought on what kind of movment and gamestyle you would be most effetcive in. kittenter Cat in general favours high incombat juking in and out but condition builds want to be “on target” most of the time. I would guess the build would be wery wey effective in team with a bleed stacking thief abusing stealth and you do same. when target get low you switch mode and burst.

Mabye can try it out and do a vid?

/Osicat

I don’t know if your asking if you could gear up and post a vid, or if your asking if I could. In the case of you asking about yourself, then by all means please do (I would like to know your experience). If your asking about me, then I doubt that I could. My laptop couldn’t handel a recording program and WvW. I can, however, explain some of my experiences and ideas.

As and update, I finally finished my ascended backpiece and bought both of my ascended cavalier rings. I also switched out my old condition sword/torch setup and replaced them with a berzerker’s sword/sword. I’m still missing the ascended necklace, currently its Beryl (pow/vit/crit dmg%), and I am still using Knight’s earings(pow/pres/tough) (they should be rampager’s pow/pres/cond. damage). I average about 2,500 damage on blurred frenzy and about 1,500 per clone off Mind Wrack. Its a fairly nice burst considering I also have 1k+ confusion off 4 stacks (I’ve seen 2,800 from staff off 8 stacks). Keep in mind this is without food buffs, as I haven’t decided on whats more important to me.

Just like you said, most “Shatter cats” are about dodging in and out of combat to deliver quick and powerful burst damage, and backing out. The idea behind my build is to not lose as much Dps when your playing defensively. So, I count on my fairly high condition damage from the staff to keep a constant pressure on my opponents. Then when the time is right, I can “pounce” and deliver some powerful burst.

I find myself using Cry of Frustration quickly and often, especially when I have the staff out. With clones on dodge my clones are always spread out in 1 vs X and CoF giving 2 stacks of confusion at least, I can keep a group of enemies to slow their attack and lessen the pressure on me. While they are concerned with my confusion my bleeds and burns work their health down. It also allows me single out the few that attack through the confusion or the ones that are really suffering from condition damage.

I will also say that “you are right” it is more effective to be up close and personal for the best condition damage from staff, but having clones attack multiple enemies the bounces “only” add condition damage instead of buffing me. On average I can keep 5 stacks of bleed and a burn on everyone. Then again, that also means that when I am fighting 1v1, I do not have a dps loss when switching to the staff to play defensely. So, all in all, I do less burst then a “real” shatter cat and less spike damage from a confusion build, but I am able to switch “seemlessly” in combat from a defensive condition build to a powerful burst and back. I’d have to say its an interesting experience, and I owe a lot to you and SevenMirror for insight on how mesmers move in and out of combat. I just wanted to combine the two builds and their playstyles and find a smooth balance between the two.

P.S. I would also like to say until recently I was having a lot of trouble with bunker boon builds (d/d ele and most guardians) until I picked up a sigil of nullification for my MH sword. With the 3rd attack in the sword chain and the sigil going off its almost as good as having 2 disenchaters following you around at all times. I 100% suggest the sigil if you are struggling with boons.