Guild Wars 2

Cons
Condition setup have low capability to stop enemy from flee
Condition setup are not so effective in sieges
Stealth based builds are weak for capping points
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3.1 – Napalm Cat 1.0

A condition heavy spec capable of survive close to big numbers of enemy and infiltrate their controlled areas. It also unlike other condition PU sec’s have a larg and strong on demand burst dmg and good acces to both poison and torment.

High pressure with repeated spikes of Burn and torment. You can kill al classes and spec,s with this build.

Condition stacking is done on a spare wep, then swap to dubble poison/torment and keep conditionstacking on water wep.

Characteristics:

Use scepter in MH .
Use OH torch with trait for condition clearing and short cd.
Staff for defensive and offensive purposes.
Use Rune Baltazar
2 sec burn on staff auto (seen burn stacked up to 16 + sec)

Geared for passive defense but still with high dmg output and burst capablility

Gear and Build:

Roaming and group combat: http://tinyurl.com/Napalm-Cat-2-0

3.2 – Hidden Cat 5.0

A high dmg spec who aloso have high toughness plus PU? Yes it can be wery effective in terms of roaming and also fill a role in a bigger scale fight. It’s effective in small groups and solo play but also in bigger teams of 10-15 man. As your clones don’t need to survive to do dmg Or help your team with cc you can go rather deep into the fight. The spec also use shatters as a burst tool
High pressure with sudden spikes of crit dmg from shatters and phantasm dmg make this spec capable of down most enemy’s.
Might stacking and clone generating fast due to double force and might on dodge.
This is manly a for wvwv but work well in sPVP non tournament. When I have backup I use GS, If solo I often use staff.
Runes in the build and sigils:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Traveler
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_sigil_of_battle
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Bloodlust

Food:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Curry_Butternut_Squash_Soup

Base is to keep high power and crit, use the Heavy’s gearsetup for 1800+ toughness and stack might for give pressure dmg. Especially the GS setup have a superb might stacking capability.

Characteristics:

Use sword in MH .
Use OH torch with trait for condition clearing and short cd.
Staff for defensive gameplay GS for offensive
Mightstacking, high dmg and high survival
Geared for passive defense but still with high dmg output and burst capability
Gear and Build: http://tinyurl.com/Hidden-Cat-5

3.3 Shatter Cat Ghost

A High Burst shatter setup with focus on mobility and defensive stats. Power, crit and toughness is for a shater setup high – wery high. Gameplay is centered around the high burst combined with stealth. Condition is better handeled in this setup than the normal shatter setups due to torch clearing + mantra of condi clearing.

Runes are Travaler as its the optimal mobility ruens for mesmer, it cant be cleared by a boonstrip, give boon uptime and defensive stats.

Gear is alot more defensive than the general shatter setup, this as the meta for roaming demands this.

Central is also the longer blink who combined with stealth let you escape situations you otherwice would lose.

Runes in the build and sigils:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Traveler
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_sigil_of_battle
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Bloodlust

Gear&Traits: http://tinyurl.com/Shatter-Cat-Ghost-1-0

Gamplay video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqmKDutFAVQ&feature=c4-overview&list=UUM4NFA6AgNkUDAzuCWRHNWQ

/Osicat

Slight note, The trait itself says “Clones bleed on crit” in game terms, while illusions apply to all the pets we summon, clones are specific to the ones we summon that look just like us and attack with our weapon’s #1 ability, as opposed to phantasms which are the ghostly-pink ones like the iDuelist. This shouldn’t effect phantasms like the iDuelist then. I don’t know if it is broken or the tooltip is mistyped so that it is, but I just thought it was worth mentioning incase this is changed or fixed in the future.

@osicat.4139 – can you fill in also the gears, runes and sigil in your post? hehehe TY

4- Extra

Tricks and tipps: Use a ghastly weapon as one main hand, use sigil of the night(10%dmg). When the weapon glow its night and its do 10% extra dmg, when it dont use another sword with sigil of force (5% dmg).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ghastly_weapons
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_the_Night

How to use staff for fast travel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IqzGCcbHko

6 – Thanks

The following people have al been a great inspiration or helped make this guide. It would not been what it is if not for them:

Furelise – for be wonderful and criticize/watch al my movies before posting. Also for listening to me talk constant about Mesmer in rl and save my kitten in dungeons ingame

Amayasu/Parthis, GM of Judge and my personal sword guru, aslo helped with spelling

Rivan Judge – helped with spelling

Judge guild – for still dare to use my portals and for be a fantastic guild in RL and ingame

Nero – Inspiration and help with spec, helping with tPvP Mesmer questions

Flimp – Condition play style inspiration

Ordibble – Tip about sigil of night

Winterfell – Inspiration

Zumi – help with spelling

Hey there Osi!

Thanks for this guide. I was already checking up on Amayasu’s staff/s+p build and he/she told me to check your videos too.

I think I’ll really have to pick up a staff from the TP now and play around with it instead of my GS :P

Cheers, Shalene

Dumb question, what does nr 2 and nr 4 mean?

Very awesome, thank you for doing this!

@shadowdeamon, What you refer to I think is when I talk about shatter 1-4’ instead of write out Mind Wrack etc I just say shatter nr 1. Hope this help, if not say so. Its no dumb question, if im unclear in my guide I will sort it mate, ty for ask.

@interslayer. Ty alot, I have more info and almost done analyce the gear etc so will post tomorow, we have a drinken wvwvw raid tonight in judge thu so cant work with it atm.

@aveno Yes, me and and Amayasu use staff over gs in wvwvw, still if you see our movies our playstyle is wery different, interesting enought we run almost same build.

/osicat

Osicat.4139:

Ninja dodge attack explanation 2 clones out, wait until enemy attack, dodge into him and avoid incoming attack + generate clone, when still in air hit MW for a 4 clone shatter, swap to staff when you passed enemy and hit nr 2. This deliver a 4 clone shatter, avoid a incoming attack apply 3 sec of 4 confusion, juke you away from enemy , give vigour (atleast 1 shatter crit)+ with signet of regeneration on staff you will end the attack with full energy bar + 1 clone for keep attacking. Also you get might from shatters so your rehit will be buffed.

Great, thanks Osicat!

Also are your sigils up to date on the weapons in your build? I noticed in your guide you mentioned a signet of regeneration on the staff under the ninja dodge attack which I assume gives some sort of vigor. What sigil is it because I don’t see it on the wiki.

What armor, jewelry, runes do you use? I feel very squishy and go down in about 1-2 seconds a lot of times when I get focused by a elementalist so I wanted to see what I could do to improve my survival.

Shadow, sorry my wep sigils is out of date in the linked build. I sort all and post a exact gear guide for my build as soon as Im sober (tomorow).

• Uppdate ****

Added gear, sigil and runes + explanation

• Burst dmg Video *

Using the guides build, attacks and gearsetup. Pulling of insane dmg in bursts.

Are your weapons also Berserker’s?

Have 1 exotic valkyre sword with flame aoe and zerker that I will get air on. In al movies so far I used valkyre sword, zerker pistol and staff zerker. will experiment some with air sigil and zerker full.

Osicat, your videos are absolutely brilliant- the music is pretty much spot on as well which just makes everything very entertaining to watch.
First gaming channel I ever subscribed to, in fact.

As far as the spec goes, I am in love with it. It all feels quite exciting. You make it look so easy but in fact, I have found it takes a lot of practice to play a shatter build in wvw.
I have over 100 hours on my mesmer (rerolled to it from a ranger) and I am nowhere near as good as you.

I have learned a lot from your and Winterfell’s videos so thank you for taking the time to make them.

Regards,
Theo

Ty Bennet alot !

Nothing make me as happy as somone who enjoy the movies and the spec as much as I do. It DO idd take practice and skill to play a shatter glascannon build in wvwvw but when you start to get the hang on it is hillarious. And the dmg you do is insane.

Keep the practice and work on master the dance of death Juke in —→ burst --→ juke out and again

Osicat, after watching one of your vids where you solo’d three guys in WvWvW, I rolled a mesmer build. I’m getting it figured out a little and will continue to follow your build as I go. However, I noticed that you have some very modified key combinations from stock. I can clearly see all the binds on your skills, but what do you use for movement instead of the standard wasd?

Thanks.

Im at work in middle of a 24 h work shift so cant check the game but Im 99,999% sure this is the setup I use

My keybining is a bit adjusted idd, im sure you can use what binds you like to get the build to work, I just use the one I have as i find its the fastes way to press buttons

In short. I use mouse for al looking and turning. W forward S backward A and D is straif left and right. C is look backvars instantly. weapon skills:

1: q 2: e 3: r 4: mouse 4 (button on side of mouse) 5: mouse 4 + shift. Heal : space + shift, utility 1 : Q+shift, utility 2: e + shift, utility 3: r+shift Elite ? f+shift.

shatters is on 1 2 3 4 .

Found this keysetup let me use al abilitys without ever click, can tab targets and use left hand for most stuff, al turning is by mouse and hold mousbutton down.

My dodge is on v or hold donw mouse 1 +2 and dubbletap direction.

Hope this help.

/Osicat

Makes sense. I thought you may have moved your movement keys somewhere, but I see how you worked around them. I’ll setup something similar, thanks.

Np.

Just invetsted in a new game cam program. Might wait with get any new videos untill next patch hit the game. Im extremly interested in how it will affect the current wvwvw. Even if low amount of changes for our favorite class other classes changes affect us alot.

Great video, great gameplay, great build..thanks dude!
I just wanna ask you a question, i’m leveling my mes in these days (after 150+h of spvp/tpvp with it, i think that i understand the basics of the class now) and i’ll run a shatter build (quite like yours, quite like the one i use in spvp) when i’m 80 both for solo trolling around and for www.
The question is: having massive power and crit dmg, wouldn’t gs be a more bursty choice? I like staff since it gives a lot of defensive cooldowns but i dunno, i can’t choose (i probably play half the time with gs and half with staff in spvp since i can’t decide which is better for my playstile)
I look forward to read your answer, it’s time some decent mesmer help me with this choice:P
Ty!

Isendel, i’m sure Osi will support this view too. We’re guildies, play together a lot (both Mesmers, similar specs, very different styles). The GS is nice and it’s very fault tolerant… however 1H+OH coupled with Staff is very strong (and under used) right now. It’s all in the way you play it. The GS is all about maintaining range, the 1H sword+Shatter approach is all about controlling and predicting movement, getting in quick, and actively avoiding damage for your survival.

You’ll have an ‘easier’ time bursting as a Shatter-based mesmer using a 1H sword for two key reasons; Melee players will want to be within range anyway, and your clones and phantasms don’t have far to travel for the shatter to be effective. There’s no time delay while your clones run to your target (which is again important for two reasons; quicker bursts and less of a ‘tell’ that a shatter is going to happen).

Personally I play an in-nuke-out style with the Mesmer. You can see a video here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3L1z9obAw

Hi Isendel.

Regarding weapon choice Parthis cower it quite well and I leav the dmg wep by that. I just add that staff as a compliment to S/P is undervalued in terms of dmg.

Yes dmg from staff, its a fantastic defensive and controll tool but in mid fight a Iwarlock can hit for 5-6k and the buffs of “wind of chaos” ad a nice chunk of dmg (20% crit before a s/p nuke + shatters mmmmm)

About the build and power/crit. Yes massive crit is superb for dmg, so is power. But you shall never trait for stats, you trait for…. traits (im not sarcatic just a bad joker).
Atm you get the traits in dueling I describe in the guilde, wont rabble al again but the benefits and why I use em is in there. What is easy to miss in this build and in al shatter builds is the fact last 30 points is mabye te strongest dmg boost to the build. You deffo want those 20 p in there insead of in top as a shatter.

Last 30 p give: 300 condition dmg, 30% less recharge on shatters, 3% extra dmg/ clone, 50% hp = resetted shatters, 1 extra shatter / shatter, might on shatters and al shatters apply confusion. This is only the defensive part of illusion traiting.

In my oppinion 30 Illusion in the traiting that give most in terms of defensive and offensive skills of al trees we can go deep in, it also give room for heavy dmg gearing and still superb survival. This gets even more obius when you use the staff work in symbios with the Illusion trating, passive dmg bonuses and dmg and heavy defensive skills in 1.

SP/staff I say I run 80% with the s/p, swap for staff for the cd,s + energy recharge then back to s/p.

Hope this help you make up your mind. I give same recomendation as I gave otehr thu who unsure. Go up 1-2 hours / morning in a borderland, dont back down for fights 1 vs 1,2 or even 1 vs 3. Practice alot and you get better and better, this is how I came to the conclussion that staff is the best 2nd wep.

You two guys are changing my way to think the mesmer, i can’t tell how i appreciate it.
I’m definitely going to practice with the staff (as i said i already use it a lot in tpvp/spvp and basically i leveled up with gs/staff (i know, it sucks but leveling is quite good imo)). I was dreaming my little asura mesmer raiding eternal battleground with twilight but it seems i’ll have to go for bifrost:P

Thanks for the great tips, you’re two of the best mesmer i’ve seen so far!

@Osicat
First of all – unreal man. The videos are awesome!
I do have a question, though. I noticed you spend most of your time in videos in small groups going against small target groups. Do you stick to this kind of pvp mainly? Do you ever help siege a keep or a castle? The reason I ask is that I tend to use a focus for my off-hand for two reasons. I like the extra swiftness ability and I like to be able to pull idiots off of walls and down into whatever zerg I am a part of. In other words, I didn’t know if you tended to switch off-hand weapons depending on what you are doing at the time.

Yes Im part of a smaller raid team of about 12-15 players who hit borderlands on on set raids days. Most time I do un in team of 5 – 7 ppl thu with gear and spec like this guide. But on the set raids I change weapon depening on situation. Speed buff I get of the other players in the group, but I do use focus to pull ppl of walls/cliffs etc. Also apply a greatsword when needed of me. So I always havea GS and Focus in bag.

We do often thu split the team in several strike teams and hit camps etc and move on with team of 6-8 ppl. for this I use my normal setup.

I even play support sometimes with focus on portals, timewarp and chaos field.

Here is a smal vid of my guidruns, note im on portal and timewarp duity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usTQp8H-MlU&feature=plcp

I often use Sword/Focus in WvW for the movement speed. What Sigil do you suggest for the Focus? If I put Fire Sigil on the Focus, would it only proc when using the Focus’ abilities or could it still proc when using sword?

Fire proc for your attack and even shatters it seems like nomatter if its on OH or MH.

Btw, this is why Rune of Air own thiefs, thief jumps me and rune proc, i dodge + mirror immages + MW, fight ower:

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll103/osianic/Thiefdead.jpg

@Parthis

I notice you do a sword/sword build sometimes in pvp and seem to be able to take a beating. Is your gear different from Osicat’s berserker/valk gear? Also what swords do you use berserker/valk? And what sigils?

ShadowDemon.1937:

@Parthis

I notice you do a sword/sword build sometimes in pvp and seem to be able to take a beating. Is your gear different from Osicat’s berserker/valk gear? Also what swords do you use berserker/valk? And what sigils?

Hey chap.

A lot of mesmers are really up themselves when it comes to Sword/Sword – “Pfft, focus is better you’re a noob if you use sword OH”, etc. But the reality is that OH sword is really potent. The on demand block is the perfect counter to backstabs/charges, the daze is fantastic and the phantasm hits like a truck. I don’t always run Sword/Sword, but it’s fun to mix it up.

I go all out for Power, Precision and Crit Damage. Literally nothing else. No toughness, no Vitality, no Condition damage, etc etc. Survival comes from predicting damage and blocking/dodging well… previously in every MMO I’ve ever played my main was a tank, so avoiding damage is something I’m used to.

Sigils are Superior Sigil of Fire and a passive (i.e. +5% crit chance). Energy in staff. Swords are again Power, Prec, Crit Damage.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgMQNAsaWlwzKqHTTrGbNJipCEHqHaH49dkK0alUwbXIA;TkAqYMxIixWjLGZMrPGWMJA

Runes are Air. Osi will tell you it was his idea; it was not. He’s a little liar

Interesting enought Partis run more glasscanon on gear than me. Im 4/6 berserker and experementing with a valkyre ring so 4/5 trinkets berzerker.

Shouldn’t you be working Osi?

I am. Ahem.

Just hit 80 and loving the build. Was using GS before. I like traiting around an idea rather than a weapon. Still learning to play it, I hold my own pretty good in any 1v1 situation, but any more and I die. Practice practice practice.

Pretty much using this build in our 15-men guild WvW setup. Have to play a bit defensively when you’re fighting zergs, but I tend to stick around the backline and just melt anything that pushes through our lines. The burst is insane, with sufficient utility to support the team and enough survivability not to die instantly, as long as you can read the fight.

Ty all for good feedback in thread and emails, on demand I trying to get some tactical parts added in next vid, I do thu want to keep good music and entertainment so I will do commentary in text and only short stuff. Will go on thief hunt and see if. find some who give me extra problem and shoot it aswell.

Great info Osicat and awesome videos as well. Quick question… Would it be feasible to level with your build or is it too difficult? I think if its ok to level with, someone can just about perfect it by the time they hit 80 or be pretty darn close.

If it is feasible, any thoughts on how to spend your traits to get the most benefits right away?

Thanks and keep up the great work.

@Osicat – now that rune of air’s lightning damage has been reduced to 25% is it still viable to use? or are u planning to change it?

santi.1576:

@Osicat – now that rune of air’s lightning damage has been reduced to 25% is it still viable to use? or are u planning to change it?

It was reduced by 25%, not to 25%.

@Talas, I lvl with this spec yes from lvl 40, and yes its doable, might need a GS from time to time thu for instances. You need 30 illusion to reach its top strength thu and clone on dodge.

@Santi its 25% less dmg so instead of 4-8k hits its 3-6k now I would say, still viable.

@All, with phantasm and other nerfs this build Is more viable than before now even, and as thiefes nerfed hard we mught endup top roamers with this build, time will show. Our burst is sick, we have huge survival skills for a low toughtness class and can do 1 vs x.

I working on a tactical guide atm for diferent situations in wvwvw, video will come next week when I tryed out the patch changes and goot good matereal. Its not always correct to use the perfect burst and down somone as you endup with no cd,s for next target.

Really nice build! I tried out a similar build in spvp and I loved it. And it’s sick how good survivability you have with low vitality and no toughness (though my spvp build got around 18k+ hp). I tried tons of builds before – all from pure condition build, to mantra builds, trying to balance out toughness and vitality with good damage, but with this build you can kill so fast and still have it easy to escape your enemy.

I have a few concerns though… Regarding WvW I always felt that ranged is better since you don’t want to end up in middle of a zerg. I haven’t read all comments so possibly you’ve mentioned this before – a) but how is fighting in larger WvW groups? I guess it’s then better to just use staff and clones and use Mind Wrack on enemies. b) Do you run this build in PvE and dungeons? If so, whats your experience from that? And my last question, is about something I noticed in your videos. I noticed how you do a lot of confusions (ranging from 800dmg up to 1500). Since it’s not a condition builds I can’t figure out how you end up doing so much. Since F2 shatter does very low condition dmg…

I feel the same way paleeshi. I think this build provides an awesome roaming and supply camp build. But it would be more difficult to use against large/zerg groups.

But this build appears to be an excellent counter to the stealth BS thieves. Even with the recent nerf, they still are abusing the games culling making them difficult to target. TC has a few 2-3 man groups that are constantly hitting supply camps and dolyaks. And we all know a good stealth thief can be a very tough opponent. Sword/Sword appears to be an excellent choice when building against them specifically.

I will probably change over to this build specifically to take/hold supply camps in our upcoming match. But after running a GS build for so long it’s going to take a little time to get use to the shatter palystyle.

Thanks for this post Osicat and for the suggestions from everyone else.

Funny to see all the QQing about mesmers post patch. Instead of seeing how else to apply the class, most people just complain the class is dead.

I tend to just ignore people that complain. A lot of people are just stuck in their ways and are incapable of adapting to change.

Im in middle of a 24 h work shift but got some free time at the pc so Il try answer some questions

@Paleehi, ty alot for good feedback and wery valid questions. My main gameplay in wvwvw is solo/duo or is in groups of 8-12 players. Sometimes bigger team when we gater al for a hit on a zerg etc. For the smal scale fights its obious that this build is extremly effective, even more as other alternatives been nerfed latley.

When hitting a zerg with a 15 man team my main jobb is to plant portal, get timewarp and chaos field up and then as many shatters of as possible. After that I take a portal back. When on this support duity I suualy wealed a GS on side of staff as mass groups tend to lagg and mele is a bit hard to land. mind thu 90% of the time I use sword/p – staff and roam behind enemy lines, hitting supplylines/camps or just troll bigger groups by hit and run tactics involving stealth timewarp and portals (se last part of the staff-sword/pistol movie.)

This is me on support duity for bigger group thu :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usTQp8H-MlU&feature=plcp

About connfusion I have 30 points in illusion, that give some connfusion dmg, also use 3% dmg / clone and 5% dmg + sigil taht give 14% in total extra dmg. A perfect non decoy shatter apply 12-13 stacks of confuions, that give ~2k confusion dmg and I use it as a defense, even if the enemy survive my burst he cant hit back as he die by confuion and I get a 2-3 sec room of time to change to staff and en the fight or pull back.

@Zilm, yes this build work with s/s even if the player most succesful I know of with staff s/s uses a 10-20-10-0-30 build. I think staff-s/s will be wery strong vs phantasm mesmers aswell in the comming as the block negate phatasms, added to sword 2 and 4 sec disorsion the s/s is kinda tanky.

Rest: As I work hard on keep this guide up to date and keep answer ppls questions I will try to keep it off the zerg of qq,s that roaming the mesmer forum atm. Al I do is provide my thoughts and guide of a gamestyle that I claim work in wvwvw as a shatter mesmer. keep ask your questions and we work on have this thread as a forum free of emo qq about changes that we in the end just have to adapt to.

PS new movie in the comming days with tactic guide, will include how to burst perfectly, how to 1 vs BS thief in open terrain, how to 1 vs 3 and some other stuff.

btw idk if you seen or not osicat, but Air Sigil lightning strike damage was reduced by 25%

@ Sobex, Yes seen and noted. Like I said previous thu Air now do 3-6k dmg instead of 4-8, its a nerf but the rune dmg have always been a bonus as from the first 5 I get 10% crit dmg, and a needed speed buff for wvwvw, last rune is eather a divinity for those who feel the lightning strike is unnesesery or keep the rather solid attack.

Personaly I feel that the dmg would been better even with a 50% nerf as the build is based on multiple dmg sources rather than single big hits.

Very interesting. Lately, I’ve been using sword/focus + scepter/pistol, but I’ve also enjoyed sword/pistol. I had a bit of trouble in WvW killing invaders (for monthly achievement), even when the GS wasn’t “nerfed” (devs say it’ll be fixed later). I’ll have to give this build a try.

Side topic: I enjoy PvE and do dungeons/DEs. What I am curious about is if this build can also be apply to those? If not, what would be different and would you recommend?

Oh i definitely agree. hell even at a 50% nerf, its still free damage essentially. i mean you could take another rune, and get the +1….but its totally worth it

and osicat i wanted to say thanks. i thought my guardian was absolutely amazing, until i seen one of your vids, and brought my mesmer back out and redefined it. the burst is stupid amazing