Guild Wars 2

@Westibone, idd run some sPvP is a good way to fast learn the combos and how to use the acctive defenses if its al new to you. Also glad you noticed how big difference the toughntess cavalier stats do to the shatter mesmer.

Its amazing how big difference the combo of the chavalier gear gear do. The combo of power, toughness and crit dmg supported by high crit chance allow us to play extremly agressive, deal alot of dmg and still survive well.

Feel free to test out and say how you feel in the S C Heavy with your high dmg gear

@Robin Fallon, Well I heard a rumor that you got a new mouse with many buttons on now so no more clicking Cya on friday?

@Darkwolf, Tagging in events get easier whe your dmg stat goup but sure a GS for this can help, but to be fair the group orr events are a not realy nessesery for anything in game and rather boring. Better ways for gold, karma etc. A hour in orr instead spent in fractals reward more and are 10 times more fun.

About the gear its what to aim for, work with overall balanced gear and steady inc untill you reached. If you already have a ton of exotict etc just manipulate what you use to reach something like the reccomended stats, if you still gearing up do ot balanced. Bet 1 zerker exotic and next time get a knight etc.

How you shatter is EXTREMLY situational based and one of the tings ou learn and make the biggest difference between a experienced mesmer and a mesmer who sill learning. Some times its best to get a big pile of confusion up to cc the enemy (rangers, thiefs is some cases) sometimes you daze 1 st, some thimgs ou let the phantasm and clone preassure some to fish for a immunity (warriors guardians) and as soon it wear off you burst. Its impossible for me to give a good reccomendation for order.

I will thu soon make a combo tutorial for different shatter setups, burst, cc, group attack etc.

@lokiShi, Interesting and glad you feel it work. Seem you got a nice project there. Null sigil is not something I tested, for phantasm hybrid I tend to use boonstrip on shatter if i plan on fight a guardian or d/d, for S C Heavy I often run with null field who help.

/Osicat

Hey Osicat,

Thanks for your guides! All of your tips, videos, and comments are a big reason people call the Mesmer overpowered!

Gear Breakdown
To further us on our quest to be the best I’d like to see a more detailed breakdown of your gear. The [GW2 BuildCraft] site lets you put your weapons, armor, trinkets, and upgrades to get an exact stat breakdown.

For example, here is my attempt at your [original shatter cat ]

Being able to tweak each item and see the updated stats will help maximize each build’s potential. I think this would add a nice touch to your already helpful guides.

Focus
On another note, what’s your take on the focus? I’m running a [0/20/0/20/30 build] with (Sword / Focus) + Staff. I love Illusionary Persona and Warden’s Feedback so my build tries to tie them together.

A perfect burst of AoE would be something like this:

1. Cast Tempural Curtain
2. Begin Casting Warden
3. Trigger Into the Void (instant cast does not interrupt Warden)
4. Target(s) are gathered and knocked down
5. Warden spawns next to knocked down target(s)
6. Illusionary Leap + Swap to immobilize target(s)
7. Blurred Frenzy
8. Shatter after Warden’s attack

Additional perks for Curtain are speed, cripple, reflection, retaliation (leap combo), and pulls / interrupts.

Thanks again,
Knacky

must have had my best fight ever:

Was downed, almost no HP, and was able to down and kill enemy necromancer, he started with ~60-70% hp, but I used GS phanZerker*. but still

BTW, best guide ever

*Had one before I got downed

@Knackyknave, focus is great siuational wep and we always have it on our glamour confusion mesmer in the guildruns. For the shatter mesmers in our runs I prefere them to use staff and s/s as it keep them alive better when we dive deep. The shatter mesmers pack heavy survival and go deep into enemy ranks, drop payload of dmg + chaos storms, sword 2 and juke out. Same time the glamour mesmers stack confusion on enemy team and place a solid wall of feedback bubles and temporal curtain on enemys, when mele juke out they pull the curtains and any non stabiliys get interupted/knocked off.

I beleve focus have a role in group play but not on the frontline fighters.

For the optimal aoe attack wiith Shatter Cat Heavy/Phantasm Hybrid I working on a tutorial.

About the gear setup, its a great tool and ty for bring it up. I will havea loong discussion with myself as I a bit against to structured gear guides, its wery personal how you want to gear and ply even a set build. Also i dont want to suppport the feeling ppl get forced into a sertan setup, rather see ppl experement.

@UnknownFreak, sounds like a fantastic fun duel

A group play vid, not a shatter cat guide but its gameplay in group form my perspective. Build is shatter cat heavy and I dont lead this time:

/Osicat

Osicat.4139:

@UnknownFreak, sounds like a fantastic fun duel
/Osicat

It was, here is a detailed version, me and my friend was going to take the camp, but there was some enemies(3 of them), killed them all but the necro, then somehow my friend ran into the veteran supervisor and got downed, failed to rezz him, and I got chased like hell by veteran guards etc, was able to get rid of guard aggro, but necro was still there, I was somehow to get IZerker up, and then got downed, I usually give up fights, but sometimes I just want to see what happens, it was miracles indeed, downing him, and killing him (sad I didn’t catch it on tape, have no record program :/), anyways, I killed him, and in our Skype call, I said, I just killed him…, was dead silent, and my friend was like wtf, how is that even remotely possible, I stayed at the camp when rallied, and my ally had respawn, fighting somewhere else

I tried to solo camp, no good result, the 3 enemies came again, let them chase me, and I took them down, but I failed a little, but then another enemy(third server, and thief) came, killed one person, and got me rallied, during the chase some more defenders came, so that’s why I got downed, when rallied with the help from the thief, I thanked him by killing him, that’s a little more detailed version of the battle, and a little time after the necro’s death

@ Uppdate. @*****

My work to keep the guide up to date and under constant improvment go on. I can now happily announce my long time goal to create a tactical guide for the Shatter Cat builds is under construct. I will add this guide to the S C thread in a section and link to it.

This will make it easier for ppl who read the guide and use/want to use the build to improve.

I hope it al turns out well. Its alot of work and atm I working on a siere of tutorial videos.

Also !!! the vide section of the S C guide now reached 100k + wievs.

/Osicat

Just bought my ascended amulet for 30 laurels, and then saw it was the wrong one, boo yeah, but I don’t mind it that much, just have to recollect them, greedy as I am I… I have to… have to blame myself.

Hey Osi, huge fan of all your builds, but I’ve been wanting to see this cond/glamour build you use sometimes.

Thanks!

Winter.6091:

Hey Osi, huge fan of all your builds, but I’ve been wanting to see this cond/glamour build you use sometimes.

Thanks!

Me too, me too. I just finished acquiring rabid armor and trinket set. I’m curious to see it in action and how it works, the Osicat way. I’ve been trying the condition 3.4 build for fun and tweaking some things. Though I find that I am so painfully slow on the map, and so slow when stuck in combat at any little bruise, that it’s frustrating. Decoy, Mass Invis, and Torch help, but most in WvW have caught on to the tactic of ‘aoe everything (and use knockdown/pull CCs)’ the moment someone goes into stealth.

Looking forward to some vids and tactics.

Just wanted to thank you again for your guide. I decided in the end to go with the Hybrid build (20/20/0/0/30) since it’s easily adaptable with no retraiting to also become Lazy Kai’s GS build. I’ve been running with the GS and Sword/Focus for PVE, and running with Staff and Sword/Sword for WvW. I’ve been toying with the idea of going Sword/Pistol for dungeons. Any thoughts on that?

Now, I’m total balls at WvW, but I put that down to me being laggy and bad, and running into enormous zergs all the time. Any pointers on good ways that someone can learn to improve in WvW? Right now I don’t feel that I’m actually learning anything, because all fights either terminate in the opponent getting stomped by my zerg, or me getting stomped by theirs.

@Darkwolf, I reccomend start play in a 5-10 man team, best learning ground as you need to be pro to survive still nog get insta gimped by every smal team.

Also see my laets tutorial for some gameplay tipps

***** Uppdate*****

Work with the gameplay tutorial going on. I just done with my first video. The start 1:22 min is basic tutorial, rest is a normal shatter cat guide video where I use the things I talk about in the gameplay guide.

Enjoy, I happy with this one!!

/Osicat

Hi Osicat,

Thanks for a great guide I do however have some question.

1. Could you elaborate on the choice of utility/elite skills? When I see your videos its not always the skills in the video are the same as in your guide.

2. Why are you choosing Sword-Sword for your heavy shatter build and not sword-pistol? (the link shows sword-pistol, but in your videos you are using Sword-sword so I assume the error is in the link).

Hey Osi! It is high time I say thanks for your guide, I have totally fallen in love with the mesmer after playing your original shatter build; totally perfect for me, and a great foundation for my own experiments!

I watched your latest video today, about using LOS and staff 2/ sw 3 to get up and down the environment. I was just wondering if you had any tips; often when I attempt this kind of movement, staff 2 ports me into the rock rather than on top of it! I wondered if you have any tips to avoid this?

It’s happened so many times, I have at least perfected the ‘getting out’ of the rocks (it’s happened enough, it’ll be known as a ‘Prax’ if I’m not careful lol) but, it would be nice for the flow of the fight if it didn’t happen in the first place!

Thanks for all your input, and continued sharing of knowledge!

Quick question about the Shatter/Phantasm hybrid. You mention is has condition removal? Where?

@Mushaa, Hi, she current guide on this forums is the most uppdated, over the last month sens I started the Shatter Cat Builds patch after patch hit and also I found ways to optimice the builds. This ressult in a constant uppdate of the guides and some of the older vids are even if viable not exactly setup like the text guild.

Also mind that for group combat and special situations I constantly switch utilitys. Example I run with mass invis 90% of the time on Shatter Cat Heavy and Hybrid but for some attacks I switch to Time Warp as the group need it more. If I for the time beeing feel the group I going to attach have alot of condition applyers I mabye get in null, If group need portal I switch to poral on heavy etc. Flexibility is one of the core features of the *Shatter Cat builds and one of the reasons they work so well in many situations.*

Sword for heavy, first ty for point the link out. The S C Heavy got a major uppdate 3 weeks ago after hard testing and it turned the build into a monster in term of dmg/survival ratio. When I changed the text I forgot theblink and pistol still is listed. Il fix thos djuring the day.

Reason for S/s on S C Heavy is that it use the synergies from sword traits. The cd on block and phantasm give a higher clone generation, higher spike dmg (Crit dmg got uppdated on the spec and is around 103% with the latest gear) and as a bonus a on demand block.

@Praxis, basicly practice. I not saying its a L2p issue as t sound so arrogant in my ears but its a matter of me failed so many times I now have a feeling for the angle staff let you climb. Dont stand back to a hard shifting rock, stand with a little angle, to see what I mean look at the combat part of the vid and how I use the Butterfly Leap in it.

Cheers mate and keep up the good work.

@Romer, Its a text misstake due to the build got updated and I forgot to fix this. Its now corrected and I bow and ty for point it out. Had 2 weeks with 60-70 work hours and not had the time I wiched to tweek the guide, thankfully I have aloot of wake up ppl who read the guides and can help me

/Osicat

Ps <3 all and ty for help on find the text misstakes, Il sort the link djuring the day, the text corrected already.

Pps, for those who missed the video tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i9TPVp4BiQ

perfect vid Osi … how u fought those thiefs .. awesome

cheers Xixsa

@ Uppdate @

The technical and gameplay guide growing and is halfway now. Movent section ready for wiev and by that I now added it to the shatter cat guide first page under 6

/Osicat

Ps, for those who missed the video tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i9TPVp4BiQ

Hi, Idk if I missed it, but what backpiece do you wear? Especially on the Shatter Cat Heavy Build. I just lvld up my mesmer, because my necro alt got boring over time and found myself using a similar build while wvwing so far and now I´m going to get equip for him and found myself asking what equip I should go for and found your thread a huge help so far.

And what exact Amulet would you recommend, I mean, with what Infusion slot?

@Acaro, 2 ways to go. One of the nec or the backpiece should be chavalier (Crit, Tough power) and one should be eather pure berzerker alternative the nec with zerker main stats but 18 vitality on aswell.

So if you already invested in a Berzerker Accended Backpice that took you several weeks to afford, then go for the chavalier nec. Alternative if you just bought a Berzerker nec for 30 laurels then go for a toughtness backpice.

Eather way you will have 1850~power (if you use sharpening stone over oil 2k~ power) 103%+ crit dmg and 1550~toughness, a frontline soldier and a nightmare for any thief.

Go offensive on al infusions unless you after high end fractal runs and need the resitance.

/Osicat

Hi Osicat, coming from WoW one of my favorite youtubers was a hunter that uploaded guides on how to beat x-class or x-spec, he arranged duels with other really good players and recorded them.

He started explaining that the class did and then the video of the duel with pauses explaining his desicions.

It would be nice if you did something like that because you are good at making desicions, since I only play mesmer I dont understand other class mechanics and I just do my shatter rotation and hope for the best.

My main troubles are phantasm mesmers, trap rangers and good thieves (99% of them kill themselves with confusion) pistol dagger are so annoying and I can never catch them.

@Osciat: Okay, bought the berserker amulet and after the fractal run today I should be able to buy the backpiece as well. Thanks for the quick reply!

To say the least, I have played this shatter build for more than 2 months now and I really love it. I team up with a condition mesmer in wvwvw and usually can tie down a disproportionately larger force. I do have a problem with thieves that “one shot” me before i can mw and sword2 him though.

I also found the mirror healing skill useful despite its lower healing power. The one second of reflection can up the damage a bit more when dealing with ranged enemies.

A question though, does the trait for illusions to deal 15% more damage affect mw?

@Zaphael, The thiefs who 1 hit you is also the ones that a sword block + rune of air and mindwrack 1 hit back Test experement with block and learn to time it, it helps alot.

Interesting with the heal, good input mate.

No 15% dont affect MW, 3% / clone do thu.

/Osicat

Just a tiny question on gear.
You said 1200+ toughness on the phantasm hybrid build. But with Knight chest and 2 fractal rings, my toughness will be just under 1200. But if I swap 1 ring for amulet with power/toughness/crit dmg. The new ring would be Berserker. Like this I will get 1240 toughness, which would be better, right?

Oh and how do you get ~16k hp? With Valkyrie pants and zerker earrings with exquisite beryl gems I get 15, 8k hp, but there is no more places to put any Vitality.

@My Sweet Lily that look weird, are you sure ur not talking about “healt”? becouse i have 15.4 k healt but 16.5 hp since i don’ t have a valk piece, and my tough is 1250 and i have 2 cava rings and K chest, don’ t think my karka earring halps so much so there must be something wrong on ur stats :/
Like you were in a lower lvl dungeon or something like this =P

@Osi I sow u changed the Gen sigil for the fire one, i was alredy running whit fire + gen becouse i find it really needed in 1vs x + necro since i can totaly ignore the conditions and send them to his ally also becouse i’ m not so good on remember to avoid conditions attaks =P
Btw would like to know how much is ur lightning vs a full zerker enemy cuz i never go over 2.8 k, just tryed yesterday vs a thief that still came back to me after some deaths so had a bit of chance to try it, the block crit goes for 5 k max and well he just die after it +mw, lemme know^^

@Reyzhen
I have 15, 8k hp normally, but when I go to normal server (out of overflow) my hp will jump to over 16k due to WvW buffs. But about toughness I’m confused. With Knight chest and 2 Cavalier rings I get 1190 toughness, not 1200+.

@ My sweet Lilly, you got karka assesioar? It give additional 25 tough, also new nec alt fractal chavalier give another boost to Tough and still gold your crit dmg high. Also karka shell give 25 vit aswell.

@Reyzhen, have been tweeking with Shatter Cat Heavy last weeks to find ways to inprove its dmg even more and keep its fantastic survival so dont have any fresh Hybrid/Original air proc crits to repport. I did thu go back 3-4 weeks and looked thru some vids. After the 25% dmg nerf in december the realy good air crits seem to be around 5k-5k+ on non low lvls in wvwvw. I seen atleast one confirmed 6 k on a low lvl thu. In general most seem to be when running in dps gear and specced hybrid/original some where aroud 3-5+k. But mind thats with 100+-110%+

/Osicat

So, I have ran this idea past Osicat and a few other mesmers, and I was wanting to post it in the forums as well.

Lately, I have been messing around and looking at food and utilities to help me out with different parts of the Shatter Cat build. I’m sure most of us know about Master Tuning crystals and Superior Shapening Stones, so I won’t put any of my input on them. However, food has a wider range of possibilities that can either strengthen our strongest aspects or help us with some of our drawbacks.

To strengthen our “burst”

+100 precision +10% crit dmg
Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup

To help our conditions

+40% Condition Duration +70 Condition dmg
Rare Veggi Pizza

Or what about increasing our general damage, clone production, and evasion? Surely they can’t have a food that does all of that for a mesmer can they?¿ I think so. . .

Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew

With “Truffle and Meat,” we can gain Might on dodge (general damage increase), and (thats a big AND) 40% more endurance regain (clones and evasion).

Most mesmer like to dodge; I mean come on, its great! Avoiding damage, generating clones, and generally moving around the battlefield. So why not dodge more? Wouldn’t it be great if it stacked with our near “perma” vigor? Well, due to my testing, it most likely does!

*Now I haven’t tested extensivally (other than general use and not paying attention), but I did check on how fast/many ticks it took to regain 1 dodge use with food and then with food + vigor. Emptying out my endurance, by dodging as soon as I could and then counting how many ticks it took to be able to use another dodge. On average, with food alone, it took around 12-13 ticks to regain 1 dodge. And with food and vigor (tested with trident), it took 7-8 ticks to have another dodge. So, if you think about it and estimate, the numbers seem to be about right for the % of increase.

Generally speaking, I have noticied an extra dodge or 2 in my fights, but it may require some additional testing. Overall though I do think it stacks, and I do see a possibility of use for a mesmer (or any class with a way to keep vigor).

Osicat….. i was going to get a laurel acend nec and am not sure which one to go for. i know you said Cavaliar but i dont see that one per say. can you direct me in the right way
thanks brother

@Scourge

Cavalier are Gwen’s Necklace, Thackeray something or other and King Jalis’ Necklace

HI all. Before I do my morning q/ a I just would like to appologice and explain a little.

On a normal day / evening I get around 5-10 mails and pm,s and about the same amount of /W from ppl in game. I also have this guide thread I regulary post in.

I love this and I always try to answer ppl after best ability, still thu there is moments when I am in a guild raid and eather leading alternative Is on portal and frontline duity. At this time I cant answer. So if I dont aswer a /W in game or it take a little before a PM/mail get answered its not cause Im arrogant, I just dont have the time at the moment.

So now to the thread

@LokiShi, remeber discuss this with you and idd the food seem wery interesting. I done a little testing aswell and it seem to stack as you say. Think there is several valid options to the food I listed so far and best way to find what work best for your playstyle is simply experement alot.

Some other options aswell is the toughness+preci food or the ghostly steal hp food.

Personaly I feel my evasive abilitys is enought and need the burst in Heavy spec.

I am experementing again with the spec and found a interesting gamestyle trating that basicly make it as easy to catch you as hold water with your fingers. I tormented some players with it the other day and toyed for 5 min versus 2 bs thiefs 1 shatter mesmer 1 Warrior and a hammer Guardian without be able to stomp any of em (guardian kept res) but they never got me to less than 50% hp (for shatter reset).

I post the alternative build and utility setup later if i feel its valid enought, I just need to see if it has any role that matters, a pure troll spec is usless in most cases.

@ Zen ty for answer him

/Osicat

Hello Osicat!
First of all. Thanks a lot for keep updated the thread.
I have a question about Sigil Weapons.
You used to recommend Superior Sigil of Fire in MH an Superior Sigil of Force in OH.
In some thread you said you was actually using Sigil of Fire in pistol. Dunno what is best! Thanks you in advance for your answer.

Xperian.

Osicat.4139:

I am experementing again with the spec and found a interesting gamestyle trating that basicly make it as easy to catch you as hold water with your fingers. I tormented some players with it the other day and toyed for 5 min versus 2 bs thiefs 1 shatter mesmer 1 Warrior and a hammer Guardian without be able to stomp any of em (guardian kept res) but they never got me to less than 50% hp (for shatter reset).

I post the alternative build and utility setup later if i feel its valid enought, I just need to see if it has any role that matters, a pure troll spec is usless in most cases.

Useless or not, I’d like to hear about this fluid build.

Is it possible to get a video sometime soon of the condition damage build?

Sazdek.6830:

Is it possible to get a video sometime soon of the condition damage build?

I think I watched a video where he used his condition build. If it’s not on the first page then it must a few pages back from this page.

@Xperian, with the increasing toughness from chavalier gear my builds hit harder, crit harder and survive better. They now lack a bit in crit chance thu, a major stat in any pvp situation. To counter this I switched in crit chance on every possible sigil, 5% crit chance + prec stacking. This leav a free sighil and here fire seem to come out on top due to its aoe hit.

@Knackyknave, Il keep you uppdated

@Sazdek, I cauualy have some vids of the glamour spec, I link one here:

Overall I feel condition dmg spec with aoe focus works best for support role in raids groups. Here is wery effective thu to lock enemy teams down as you see in the vid. As solo or smal team roamer I feel the direct dmg spec,s for mesmers are more effective.

/Osicat

So should I change the Sigil of Force to Sigil of Accuracy now, using the phantasm build. Cause I’m used to having +50% crit chance and now I get 52% with full stack from sigil, which is not always possible to have. Or is this change only for the Heavy build?

@My sweet Lilly, this go for al 3 spec if you got the chavalier gear.

/Osicat

Iv’e been playing your hybrid build for some time now, really like it, liking it more for each day actually, cause probably I know how to deal with basically everything now, I even run fractals with hybrid and with mostly no problems, also I have found it great with swapping to focus or GS instead of staff, (focus for offhand sword), to either get some extra burst of just use focus#4 to pull enemies off cliffs, also for the speed buff, so I can stop wasting my heal(20 sec CD), but I assume I will soon try another build, or start experiment more. current changes for me ascended amulet that I bought(accidently the wrong one :P), but it was just some lower crit dmg and crit chance, and some more toughness. And focus Iwarden just makes 5-6.5k dmg, if it can channel the entire skill, but it cannot move during the time, and enemy can get away, so you have to immobile them or stun them, but it works great on downed enemies that is getting rezzed by allies, cause of that it reflects projectiles

Hi again Osicat, just wondering if it would be possible to somehow incorporate the Greatsword into either builds 3.1, 3.2 or 3.3. I’m finding it hard to decide because of the defensive options you get with sword/x + staff, but I have Vision of the Mists GS and I want to use it lol. What traits would you recommend too?

Thanks

@ Uppdate @ *******

My second video mesmer tutorial is done. It show how to do the 3 most effective burst combos in game for mesmers, its also like last after first min tecnical show a ingame wvwvw part where I use the tutorial combos.

@Jubei, Shatter Cat Original 3.1 with more defensive gear, decoy and mass invis would prob be the one who worked best. Alternative do 3.1 decoy and massinvis but with 10-20-10-0-30 to gain the protection on hp under 75% and 3% less dmg/ clone.

/Osicat

Portal Stomp

That

Is

Amazing.

Uppdated the rekommendations for Sigils in 3,1-3,3 spec. This due to recent gear changes. Will keep the gear setup uppdated and analyce new accessories to find a good setup. At first look it seem to be better with 2 laurel accessories than to use the karka shell 25/stat 3% crit dmg.

/Osicat

By the way, Osi, the music in your vids is consistently awesome. Do you have a playlist? Where do you find all of it?

@Westibone, ok this will sound SUUUUPER geeky but this is how I do. I listen to ALOT of music al days, webb radio, spotify and tube. I usualy listen to non main stream music and love new bands and EP,s. I As soon I hear a song that I feel would fit in a video I write down name artist. Then I usualy listen to the lyrics and try fit the right song to the feeling I want the video to have

@All, Ok last patch seem to had bigger influence for mesmer than I thought. Been testing out some things today and one thing is clear. We direct dmg shatter mesmers got a heavy buff. The sword nr 1 aoe boon stripping is fantastic versus alot of situations.

Another ting that made some major inpact is the reflection buff to mirror, 2 seconds is alot, is the same as sword immune. As it also have shorter cd on heal it gove more swiftness and already I have afeeling a alternative variant of shatter cat heavy is on its way. I mentioned before I working on a super agile survival spec with big spikes, well it still kicking kitten last days I tested it and now especialy with this new heal.

The fix/buff to block is also pure awsome. today I got a leep clone on a warrior, he answered with shoot a full serie with rifle at my reflection heal and he took 3,5k, last hit I got a block up and the range block dmg hit him for 4,8k, rune of air 4,5k, dodged and triggered leap, bf + 3 clone MW end. It al took around 3-4 sec from full hp.

/Osicat

Is it possible to do something like this with the greatsword? Personally it’s my favorite as it’s easier to run with in WvW imo and also I love the abilities for it while with the staff it’s more of a condition weapon. Like is it possible to do staff/greatsword or greatsword/sword+sword? Other then that tiny thing, awesome guide!

Should I still buy cavalier stuff or is the new celestial amulet better now?

@Jibby, As pure attack GS offers alot more idd, but in al other areas "movment, defense, utility and group help) Staff is far supperior. There is some valid builds for GS but in frontline combat in group it to range dependent and to little utility. I dont say its unvalid, just that for attack s/s alt s/x offers more unless you stand on a wall, and for defense it offers wery little compared to staff.

There is GS ppl who melt faces, especialy in open fields 1 vs 1 or 1 vs x, but its far less flexible, and in team of 5 your friends love your chaos storm, you enemy hate your chaos armour and the fact you can keep buff teammats and condi enemys then fast swap to s/x and burst up to 3 ppl who stand to close to eachother cause havoc.

For Pve there is another story, dungeon runs often favour ranged dmg and GS is superb here.

Dont see staff as a “condi weapon”. see it as shiel infused with the soul of a dead ninja. You dont cary the staff to melt faces, you carry it to cause havoc, move around and survive, you then swap to burst mode and s/x to do the killing.

@Vinceftw, I not convinced Celestal amulet is better than valkyre or chavalier amulet. If we spread ourstats to mutch we start lack in eather burst or survival. Have to sacrfy something to keep power, crit dmg and toughness high, in my builds its healing power, vitality and preci. Preci we get from food, oil and sigils, healing in no major shatter spec stat and vitality we can live without as long we manage our cd,s and use a staff ( ) .

/Osicat

PS, keep test stuff self ppl, rather use GS? sure by al mean do, want to go 100% celestial, sure do. I can only speak for my own oppionons and I totaly ok with ppl dissagree with me. The shatter cat guides is a mix of user suggestions and my own oppinions.

Thx for your advice Osi I’ll definitely keep it in mind. I’ll probably take Cavalier or Beserker. Probably Cavalier since it is good for both glass cannon builds and for more durable builds.

@All, get questions alot about rune of air and how good it is. Can say that the speedbuff especialy with the mirror heal keep you happy in wvwvw.

About the air proc I just had a 6300 crit versus a lvl 80, the rune did hit when I reflected a killshoot for 4k aswell so the poor war took 10k as ty for shoot at me. Have it of film, might add for the alternative heavy build vid i working on. But in short, the rune still capable of serious crits in right build.

/Osicat