Guild Wars 2

Hey Osi. I primarly play the shatter cat heavy in spvp (but with berserker trinket and jewel) and I get good results. One thing I don’t get though, how do you stay alive? I get trapped in one immob of a ranger or something and I’m dead. Even when I blink, the immob stays on. Whenever it’s 3v1 I just lose because they are with too much. How do you deal with that?

@Vinceftw, Best tip here is to manage your cd,s You have enought on demand immunitys and stun brakers to survive alot of preassure, especialy in shatter cat heavy spec. If you can ready your opponent try immune when the cc is cast, if it hits wait untill burst about to land and immune it. Also test invis and blink/staff blink. Portal can be a great help, drop one before, if immobiliced portal out, let it drop, portal back. There is ALOT of neat smal tricks, also a chaos storm can help alot and a armour.

I can mostly talk from a wvwvw perspective but same time the burst you recive in wvwvw is harder as enemy can have insane dmg stats fully geared.

Ofc if you run spvp berzerker your defenses are lower than the one you see in wvwvw but the acctive is the same. Test switch to Toughness precision power + berzerker gem, alt berzerker + tough vit power gem.

/Osicat

Ps did they ninja buff rune of air in last patch? had 5 hits today for over 5k, 2 for 6k al on lvl 80,s

Thanks for the tips I also think it’s because everyone is on the same level gear wise and there’s not a lot of room for optimization like you can in wvw specs.

I did a few Sigil changes to the Hybrid build:
MH Air
OH precision stack Sigil
Staff Force.
Because I do mostly (only) dubgeons I feel like I need that stacking Sigil on my sword. Now I don’t need to worry if I have staff equipped when killing foes. Air Sigil is because I have no money for Fire Sigil.
Staff has Force, because it’s the only one I could think of.

hello i have started wvw on my mesmer and im wondering how good are divinity runes compared to air ones, its air necessary to do more damage or to make the build viable? i have atm 2123 power 42% crit chance 1203 thoughness and 17.2k hp and arround 90-93% crit damage depending on weapon without food etc with my divinity runes, so wondering if in order to make build viable i need air runes and switch the 2 of my berserk rings for valkyrie and fractal chavalier to get the vitality and thoughness back, thanks for ur time love the build

Where or how can i get the BZ, K, or Valkyrie armor? or the runes of air?

@My sweet lilly, Sounds lite a interesting and valid dungeon setup.

@Creny, I take the part about runes first. One thing you notice when wvwvw ing as a mesmer is a serious lack of apeed buff. Especialy when you try run out of a enemy train, catch a runer or keep up with a group after been a little behind. Rune of air sort this but still keep you dmg output high. Also consider that you hit a little earlier, catchup to a enemy who try to run aff and you do a little lore dmg than in other gear but slower, its a linor dps increase.

The to the stats vs set bonuses. We start defensive. You lose 60 vit, 60 tough and 60 heal by run rune of air. Comepare this to be able to with a on demand speedbuff while chased, or when you need to run out of aoe fields. Mesmers survival, even tanks will never be about absorb and passive migate dmg. Its about totaly avoid it, reflect etc etc.

Another defensive thing easy forgotten is that the proc ks a MAJOR defens vs glascannon thiefs. They will instantly, before culling exposed em from stealth, take a lightning strike for up to 6k+, with 12-13 k hp this is 50% of their health, a single mindwrack + 1 clone on this end em.

Offensive then, well tye dmg inc by be a little faster to yoir target we already discuss but lets look at dmg loss in stats. 60 power, 60preci 60 condi and 2% crit dmg. Yes is nice stats indd and would love em on my mesmer. But compare this to a 3-6 k lightning strike. Not got calculation for the stats vs dmg but kinda sure even the 3k strike is worth more in dps/10 sec than the stats. And in a burst situation when you want al on a enemy its invaluable to add another dmg factor.

Gear/Stat, just smal look at your stats and I get a feeling your toughness is a little low, but ofc if you into dungeons mainly this wont matter.

\Osicat

thanks for reply, well i was thinking if i switch my divinity for air runes, i would surely lose thoughness and vit, so was thinking on getting fractals chavelrey rings and one valkyrie, mean while i get those maybe get 2 karma chavelry and put valkyrie gems on them, whats a good number of thoughness and HP to survive enought on wvw?

@Creny, depends on playstyle and spec but for a dps spec like S C Hybrid or Shatter Cat Original 1200-1300 is good stats, I run my Hybrid with 1300~, For Shatter Cat Heavy you get 200 from traits and will/should have around 1500~.

Health without wvwvw buff 15,8-16k~

/Osicat

thanks for reply again, played with my gear a bit and with runes of air i manage to get 53% crit chance, 1300 thoughness, 15800 hp without wvw, 108% crit damage thanks to karka shell trinket and using all zerk armor with chest knight and leggins valk, also using chavalier backpack from fractals, chavalier necklace of laurels, chavalier ring of fractals rest of trinkets were berserk with ruby gem, thanks again for ur time rly helped /cheers

Hi, I was wondering about the reasoning for choosing sigil of accuracy instead of force.
The obvious reason I can see is the 5% more crit chance gives faster execution of sigil of fire. But will we really gain anything due to the internal cd?

Then aside from that I did some damage calculations. Let’s assume 50% crit chance, 100% crit dmg. Base dmg D.
D*(1 + (crit chance/100)* (0.5 + crit dmg/100))

Accuracy:
D*(1 + (0.5 + 0.05)* (0.5 + 1)) = 1.825*D

Force:(I’m not sure if force adds damage to the crit damage as well)
If it does:
D*(1 + 0.5 ) * 1.05 = 1.8375D

Or if force is only multiplied only on the noncrit part:
D*(1*1.05 + 0.5 ) = 1.8D

In some posts of testing this I have seen results that indicate that the whole damage on crit is increased by 5%. But I’m not sure.
Since you choose accuracy I thought you might know and if there are other reasons?

@Luddrik, the difference between crit chance value and pure dmg is the fact its applyed in a pvp situation. If I still theorycrafted for endgame pve rading in another game I dont play anymore % dmg is a long term winner.

Now the situation is tht we play in a pvp situation where the spike of dmg and some extra crits is the difference between a downed player or somone at 10% hp who stealth and bail to heal up. The dmg id dealed in bursts most of the time.

Also the % crit apply vigour and give energy back, hard caluclate value of this but in general its both a defensive and offensive win. Also add the bleed on crit for clones and its another factor that %crit apply to where force dont change anything.

/Osicat

How does everyone feel about using mantra of pain for additional burst during the shatter combo? I have tried this out every now and then, and while recharging during a fight is not so cool, the potential for 2 additional instant 2k-something hits is pretty nice.

I know torch is generally not the best for shatter spec, but with the new prestige, you can channel the mantra during stealth if you want.

@ Uppdate @****

Made a intrudution video to the alternative spec Shatter Cat Mist. Its a solo/smal team roaming spec/version of shatter cat hevay. Its dmg is superb and survival but most of al its mobility is close to insane.

Notice the 6,2k rune of air crit in the end

/Osicat

Dame, that guide will allow me to hump people one by one. poor guys XD

Love the name on the new Shatter Cat. What changes have you made from the original heavy build because it looks amazingly mobile?

@Zen & All. The Shatter Cat Mist is based on Shatter Cat Heavy. It uses the synrgie from rune of air swiftnes, portal and blink for increased mobility, cd on staff is shorter aswell as sword giving extreme moblity. I also experementing with dropp 3% hp/ clone in favour for shorted cd on manipulation, this give even more mobility and anti cc utillity.

The new mirror refection is a winner for the spec as the swiftness cd + reflection give another utility.

I stil experement with the build, will keep you updated , this was a first glims of a spec I beleve alot in and will adjust gear ect to better fit the playstyle ( this will be one with new laurel accessories)

http://tinyurl.com/cyjj4c4

Edit: Also added and uppdated the guide a little, added Shatter Cat Mist and will work on its section.

/Osicat

@Osi

Looked the spec over and seems very interesting. Trait choices seem very solid and good high burst chance and sustained output while being heavy.

On the Condi spec, though I haven’t played it for awhile in favor of hybrid, I have been running it Sword/Torch instead of Scepter and running 3% more damage per clone and +50 prec while wielding a sword. I personally find I have better sustained damage that way as it just seems so underpowered with a Scepter- one dodge and your entire confusion burst on skill 3 misses.

What laurel ascended gear do you recommend for the original shatter cat build?

Having problems with lag and desyncs atm, but from what ive played of it, it’s an awesome build.

Thank you.

@Zen, idd, Im on the brink of swap recomendation for scepter go for S/T, I will test it some more again first, 90% of the time you spend in staff thu. Its where your dmg is based. Overall IMO secpter is a clusterkitten and need a close to full remake to be valid, atm its only strength is in a confusion burst that engis get with a single hit.

@Kudos Valkyre (berzerker with 18 vitality)

/Osicat

Uppdate, sorting some minor errors in my guide, pls ppl keep send in feedback, I answer questions and if I done a error you see and I miss I sort it asap.

Some things incomming:

- Working on a new vid Solo Portal tutorial

- A deeper guide for Shatter Cat Mist

- A uppdate and refech of the condition build, again sorry for not be able to give avid for this spec yet but I find condi build to have its own space in group combat. for solo/smal team direct dmg > condition dmg for mesmers in my opinion. For goup combat thu mesmer condition build is fantastic.

/Osicat

Go go go Osi! Keep up the good work

Thought this would also be relevant… (no I am not a one direction fan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbs_8otZRuY

Hi Osi, you have a records of professional duels and how often you participate in them? Could you please share contacts strong players interested in duels from Deso/Vizhunah?

P.S. Sorry for yesterday’s mistake, i was sure that you from Desolation:( .
P.S.S. Sorry for my bad English.

@FLIMP, <3 HAHAH FLIMP!!!!! that is awsome!!!!!

@DKZombie, as late as today I spent 2h duel a extremly skilled Engi, video comming out in short, he filmed and editing atm. About contact list, i have no list but get alot of duel requests and always accept if I can, I often film but latley I chosen to not post vids of duels requested as alot of ppl rather dont want em posted.

dw bout misstake mate and your english is superb compared to mine

/Osicat

I’ve always wanted to play mesmer and your guide really helped me a lot. Thanks. Among the professions I have played so far, mesmer is my favorite.

I would like to ask how important is it to have accessories from fractals? I don’t have much time to play the game and fractals is just out of my league atm.

I’m currently following your phantasm hybrid / shatter cat heavy depending on the situation but every time I face a thief I can’t do anything but dying. But in your videos you seem to have no problem handling a thief… any suggestions?

I’m fully geared except for the accessories and backpack as indicated in your guide.

and some feedback: your link to Shatter Cat Heavy build says that it uses Sword/Pistol. I believe this build uses Sword/Sword

@Sonne, cheers. The url for shatter cat hevay build is sorted and build updated. T for point it out.

For accessories, replace them with exotic knight and later buy fractal one for laurels.

For thiefs, its timing tbh, timing and know the thiefs gameplay and different spec.

What I did was simply find a few good thiefs who was interested in practice duels vs a mesmer. Then I spent hours duel backstab thiefs and condition thiefs. I promice you this will mkae you a better gamer and learn what work and what dont. There is some threads in spvp forums with ppl who interested in help others, advertice that you looking for a thief to duel vs and I sure you find somone who want to help you.

/Osicat

@All, I get alot of duel requests but not many of the ppl I fight is as good as this player.

Drakeco who I fought last 2 days in 2-3h + of duels is for sure the best Engi player I fought and alot of credit to him. He made a 2 part vide of the duels and firts part of some of the better duels is on this one.

Notice the speed of the abilitys

Enjoy

Again, alot of respect to this player, and ty Drakeco for train me vs condition engis, and share the video.

/A humble Osicat

Oh Stop it you! You make me blush haha! I humble bow to you! You are by far the best mesmer I ever have faced! As I have said many time, the execution of your skills and movement is some of the most superior I have seen!

It’s been an honor to duel you, and thought me lot of things about the mesmer I didn’t know! So I’m as happy as you for these duels and hope for more of them! It’s a great time to duel you!

- Drakeco Dustslinger

You two. Get a room!

Nice to see one of my RL mates rocking with the best of the best. Fantastic duels you had and the length and intensity of those duels both proves the skills of the players and the fantastic game design.

@Osi

What is your opinion about the new prefix/suffix combo that isn’t named Power/Precision/Toughness with Precision main like http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charisma ? It looks like it would be viable to increase the number of crits for overall damage output at the cost of overall burst damage. Might be useful in a toughness based spec like the heavy or mist.

@Amadeus, cheers.

@ZenIt sure look interesting, its like a pimped knight setup, I would miss the crit dmg thu but will have a deeper look. Ty for share.

/Osicat

Are you going to post your viewpoint of the Engi duel?

Uppdate

I so happy to present my latest Guide. Its Shatter Cat Mist in action again. This time ist a guide for Solo Portal usage. Yes I claim its not just a tool for groups. Enjoy some new thinking.

/Osicat

Hi Osicat!

I’m very impressed and you are by far the best mesmer I have soon. I’m going to switch my build to the shatter-cat heavy for WvW as I think that’s the best one to learn off of. Your opinion?

Also in regards to PvE/Dungeons, what adjustments would need to be made? I love playing Mesmer so much that I want to use it for all aspects of the game. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

@Dark Night, Ty and glad you like the guide/videos. I am especially happy with the Shatter Cat Mist / portal tactics video Posted today. Having the time of my life in wvwvw roaming with it. I stay away from the “mesmers need more mobility” thread on this forums as I dont realy agree after played S C Mist for some weeks now.

Yes Shatter Cat Heavy is best to learn of and start with. Its a wery wery strong wvwvw spec but also work extremly well for dungeons and pve aswell. Its effective at a starter lvl and still have a high cap to let you improve. The gear is also usable if you want to try the Shatter Cat Phantasm Hybrid or S C Mist.

For dungeons I usualy drop 1 chavalier ring in favour for a berzerker, I also grab feedback, portal and null field. Al 3 is wery wery good group and boss utilitys. Some bosses I use blink instead of portal. There is a few situations you might want a GS aswell in your bag to use.

@All, uppdated the text and voved some things around in the guide. Will also keep work on the tactical section.

/Osicat

Another great video Osi. Great music again. I am trying to use portal more, but I am just so used to having mirror images for on demand burst….hard to give up.

I think you already commented on this, but I have found another buddy mesmer to run around with, him being something along the lines of shattercat heavy, me being ultra confusion bomb. This combo works unbelievable well together, it’s almost unfair. 2x mass invis, blinking everywhere, and it looks like some kind of shiny disco apocalypse when we go to battle. I load them up with confusion to pressure them, he explodes the ones that get low. No one survives…

I have been using sword/focus as my offset to staff with full rabid gear…I am now addicted to pulling thieves out of their shadow refuge with the focus #4 haha.

SO it basically looks like the same gear as SC Hybrid but with different traits. Very interesting.

Osi, on your confusion build, you might want to run 5x TA runes and 1x any conDmg rune. The 10% condition duration increases your dps by more than the bonus from toughness —> conDmg (unless we’re talking about bleed damage)

Been trying to make a portal stomp, but I fail :/, timing, when to drop the exit, and when to start the finish, a little help?

@Westibone, sounds like tons of fun

@Sazdek, yes I try get my build to not be to different in gear, this as it let ppl test the different builds without grind/buy new gear for each one.

@Esplen, Idd it might add overtime longer dmg but Im after the spikes. If anything get the spike and end ppl is one of the heardest I find in condition builds and higer dmg combined with confusion spike might do teh trick. Ty for input thu mate and I will have a look again.

/Osicat

Westibone.3985:

I have been using sword/focus as my offset to staff with full rabid gear…I am now addicted to pulling thieves out of their shadow refuge with the focus #4 haha.

Everyone that have played with focus and understand how to use it, cannot stop playing with it, can not stop using focus, not that the other are bad, but I lack the speed buff, soo slow, to bad mesmer don’t have a good speed buff signet :/

And with shadow refuge, love that move as well, my best place must have been one sec from SR to end so he could run away, but then bam, pulled him out, and then .5 sec, he was dead

Hi Osicat,
I’m trying to switch to Staff from GS but I cannot really understand how important the chaos traits are. I feel that the reduction of Staff skills are good but the others are a little weak compared to when you have 20 points in domination line where you can get 20% mind wrack damage etc. Can you explain a little bit the importance of chaois trait line?

Had a major good fight today, 1v2, enemy thief, and guardian, to bad I was unable to finish them, they both did go toughness vitality, so I was unable to burst them down instantly, and so on, eventually they got bored and ran away, downed the guard once, and the thief once, and they really struggled to kill me

Ok so thanks to the link someone posted a page ago i managed to tweak my gear to my personal optimal.

This gear setup is for the original shatter cat but there is room for some stat improvement (24 toughness from infusions,8 presc/power from off infusions).

The basic stats i wanted to achieve were
+100% critical damage(the reason for the 110% is that i want the flexibility of being able to change from the original shatter cat to the more phantasm-oriented version without going below the +100% line
2k power
50% crit
17k hp
as much toughness as i could get.

The reason why i increased vitality from the osi’s shatter cat is that actually i struggle a lot with multi condition heavy specs (necros, engies and the ocassional thief that goes this route)

Keep in mind that this is just a basic GEAR guideline, traits and utilities are not tweaked.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|c.1g.h17.a.1g.0|6.1g.0|1g.71a.1c.71a.1c.71a.1g.71a.1c.71a.1g.71a|3v.0.2s.0.3t.0.3t.0.2t.0.3v.0|a1.u49a.0.0.u36b|39.7|0.0.0.0.0|e

@All, sorry for not be around for 2 days, been on a longer trippl. I back now and will answer al questions in time (had 42 pm,s and mails in my box when I came home so will take some time).

@ATurist, There is serveral abilitys in the chaos who make the value of teh traits so big. Ofc the staff who give the biggest defensive ability in game for mesmers, chaos armour + storm. To gain this on a faster basis is extremly good. Also the phase retreat cd is fantasticly valuable to get on shorter cda nd will combined with blink etc make you close to impossible to catch. The minor trait (protection on 75% hp) is one of the things make ing Mist and Heavy shatter cat builds to be extremly thief proof. Its alot about learn how to use staff to maximum both for utility, agression and defense.

@Tortimer, Cheers goot input about vitality. In not sure if you remeber the enginer I dueled and posted hes video a while ago. I accualy ahve a few fights of my own and when/if I post em you notice my hp is larger than ustal in roaming. Thisc ause I from start knew I was about to fight a EXTREMLY skilled condition enginer and by tahat tweeked my gear.

Also you might missed it but in shatter cat mist latest vid I use sigil of generosity, I sticking to this on the staff for the sertan spec after I stacked up preci or fight a knewn condi player. Null field is fantasic aswell for extra chaos armour and condition control but for mist I think portal is stronger, I simply poratl in drop dmg on the necro, immune and portal out, portal in after 3 sec use refelct heal and dps burst then blink invis out. after 3-4 bomb raids even a necro bunker start go low on hp and cooldown.

/Osicat

Mini vid up, my 2 favorite duels versus the extremly skilled Drakeco Dustslinger condition Enginer.

/Osicat

@ Osicat What do you think about this set up? Full Zerker Armor with runes of Air and a whole set of cavalier’s ring, accessories, amulet and back all with exquistite ruby jewel. The reason is that cavalier is power/toughness/Crit dmg and will add the extra toughness lacking from the armor set. ~Thanks!

@EChen

Would be an interesting setup- you’d actually have more toughness that way than the normal setup- trading 101 toughness on a Knight chest for well over 400 on the accessories/back piece. On ascended gear though you can’t put exquisite ruby jewels, though. You’d also lose out on critical chance from the extra precision on the mixed berserker jewelry. So your critical damage would be higher, but you’d probably do it less often, and be more durable. At least that’s my rough assessment of it.

@Zen

Thanks for the assessment. I think maybe switching out the Cavalier’s rings I can use zerkers rings to keep up the Crit . Superior Runes of Centaur vs Air is also up for debate due to that with centaur you keep your power above 3000 and with air you can get almost 100 crit dmg. Maybe food will help to keep crit chance up? what do you think ~ thanks

@EChen

I use Air runes because that lightning strike is just so valuable in WvW. I currently run the Hybrid Phantasm spec, with Ascended Cavalier Neck and Rings, Ascended zerk back, and exotic zerk earrings w/ Exquisite Ruby, Knight’s Chest, Valk Head, and rest zerk armor and have 92% crit damage (I know Osi uses zerk neck and cavalier back, as well as Karka Shell earring, and has Valk on feet as opposed to head from his last vid on the SC Mist). With full precision stack, I have 48% chance to crit on staff and 55% chance to crit on swords w/ 1349 toughness. Food/oil will boost that even further, so might be worth it to go with a ratio of 4 to 2 cavalier on your accessories, probably rings, neck and back (as they are the easiest to get). Rings are easiest to swap out, so they’d be the logical ones to start replacing if you find your survivability to be good with less cavalier (ascended wise). I probably wouldn’t go less than 3 to 3 ratio as you’d lose a lot of toughness that way and would be closer to glass cannon (given going all zerk on armor). The great thing about Osi’s specs is that you can just swap traits around and you’re already running a more ‘tanky’ spec without much gear change (except sigils, but even those are minor changes and would take a few dungeon runs).