Guild Wars 2

Cheers mate. Btw had a 6200 air rune crit today. and did a 4 vs 1, feel so nerfed

Nice guide, I’ve been using shatters forever, since everything else was too lackluster or very situational. I also figured at one point that I just need to spam as many shatters as I can through utilizing my skills and traits.
I’ve yet to implement any runes and sigils so on that part, this guide helps greatly and glad to see some good suggestions here.

Great guide, and hopefully people will realize that there are better ways to inflict pain with the mesmer.

With the nerf to GS ive now been forced to use a shatterbuild for wvw since i can’t do squat at sieges now anyway :p
And it works very nice, the burst is indeed very sick, even though i dont have decent gear yet, still running with lvl 60/70 yellow gear and green lvl80 trinkets. Shatterbomb is nice to make small groups flee in different directions so teammembers can pick them off

Can’t wait to see the carnage when i get good gear for it (and runes of air to annoy those thieves).

• Uppdate ******************************

Video strategy guide, 90% filmed after 15/11 patch

Including wvwvw solo strategys:

*Xee combo /burst

• 1 vs 4 how to use terrain
  *Gank tactics
  *Thief BS 1 vs 1

PS I dont feel nerfed, with sword 3 fixed I rather feel buffed.

For you who ask, Video is filmed with Fraps in combo with Playclaw, edited in Adobe elements. The music for songs is in the description on youtube.

Dear Osicat!

I’m a newbie mesmer in GW2, and after watch your videos i feel myself more… you know, newbie. :p

I have many question, i hope it won’t be too annoying for you.

So:

About my gear: I have full exotic gear (except back) mostly with berserker stats(power/precision/crit) with rune of air, except weapons, because it’s from AC tokens (power, precision, condition damage), running with similar build – except sometimes changing pistol to torch + dueling 30th trait.

Problem: i still can’t burst as fast as you – in fact not even close :p -. In fact i tried to watch your video frame by frame, to understand what do you do exactly, but not sure, probably because i’m missing a very basic guide like:

Good burst basics:

build up 3 clones, then Shatter 1, then fast build 3 clones, than shatter 2? In a bit more specific:

like opening with pistol stun, + S/P 4th, then S/P 3rd, dodge – shatter 1 with 3 clones -, Mirror image + dodge → shatter 2?

About the ninja attack: Is it still working after the patch? (i mean if i’m in the air and MW i feel the 1st illusion is killing himself before shattering in the target, but maybe i’m just lame)

Sorry if i’m ask a very basic thing/mechanism for mesmer, but i’m really try to learn, and be better.

Ps: sorry for my bad english.

Yeah my burst isnt as high either right now. I use mantra of pain instead of portal right now to make up for my lacking gear.

@ cactus, First, dont appologice for your english mate. i have english as a second language and taken me thru school + 4 year of Uni with a dysslexia light so i know spelling is not the message it is its contex that is important

Your questions is wery relevant, the burst is the core of this spec on the side of high mobility and acctive defenses. You want to like a master fenser with a reaper bountce in, do a stab of dmg and then juke out again.

I try to explain how I try, first, ninja attack works, just do the dodge with 2 clones up, the 3 rd is created by your dodge and blow up instant, then your 4 th clone come of staff 2 and if you fast you can get a i lock up at range, let it hit and do another dodge to enemy for a 4 shater cry of frustration. This deliver. 4 × 2 shaters while you dont take single hit.

About the perfect burst there is a wery good guide on tube by a guy calle Xee, in short I dont use decoy so cant do it like him but close.

this is the combo I use.

Try do pistol 4—-> sword 3——> dodge——-> pistol 5 —--> sword 3 —-—> sword 2+shatter 1——-> shatter 3——-> mirror immage——-> shatter 2

after burst go staff, use nr 2 and wola u on distance, enemy is downstate or 10% hp with no cahnce to strike back due to confusion stacks.

its al a extremly fast combo but do ower 20k dmg + give 11-13 stacks of confusion, several bleeds and 8 stacks of might and vigour on yourself.

Try get a good set of berserker gear, when you around 95-101 % crit dmg with food get rest mix of valkyre and knight. Conditions is your enemy as your hp is low. my stats in wvwvw defensive atm is 16800 ich hp and 1150 ich toughtness.

Gl on your pvping / osicat

Osicat.4139:

@ cactus,
…
osicat

Thank you for your answer and your tips. Also found Xee’s guides.

There is so much to learn about mesmer. Guardian/engi was much easier, but nvm, i want my mesmer.

If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth playing=) Glad you like the class Cactus!

Adding a food and sharpening stone/ oil section aswell in guide.

Working On a weapon section for weapon skills and different tactics involving there. Will cover basic tactics for Staff, sword and pistol.

Will keep you uppdated as soon its done.

Thanks for videos and info Osicat, had me giggling ….and sputtering my coffee all over the desk. ^^

Osicat.4139:

Adding a food and sharpening stone/ oil section aswell in guide.

Cool was going to ask you to do that Osicat. Thanks for the great involvement in the community and the great tips!

awww Blythepiper haha (: atleast it was not over your keyboard I hope. Reminds me of when I tryed drink coffee play wvwvw and anwer my phone, ended up sneesing over teamspeak and blow coffee al over my phone.

Cheers Shadowdeamon. Il keep work on it, alot more to do and I try improve when I have time. Have so many plans of videos I would like to do but need to prioritice. work crazy atm with several 24 h shifts latley.

Any chance most of this can be done non-video. I’m one of those lame folks that prefer written word.

Having said that I should be constructive. You know what you’re doing, but could you go into details about what you’re currently doing during a siege? Both on Offense and Defense?

Sure Vexrm, Il do my best try explain.

First of al it might be good to know that 90%+ of the times I end up in a siege in offensive or defensive side Its with the guild wvwvw team. When im solo or in a 5 ich man team I prefere to roam, hit camps, dollyaks and speed hit enemy siege equipment and portal out.

Offensive siege: Here before you start think of al ways to do dmg to ppl on a wall you have to think of your class strenths and weaknesses. What we do super good, better than any other class is transport big gropus of players, clear big stacks of conditions and speed warp entire strike teams INCLUDING golems. We can alos pull pll idd and do mediocre dmg to enemys at a wall. We have a good reflective bubble thu.

So how do your offensive bennefit most from its mesmers.

1: transport golems to a door from a far away camp, 3 mesmers can get a golem to an door so fast they dont have time to react to the siege, then you chain 3 time warps and door down.

2: transport supply runs, 5-10 ppl supported by 2-3 mesmers can get from the ongoing siege to a supply camp and back with supplys for another pair of catapults or rams faster than any other team.

3: utility defense, use your feedback and null field and chaos storm to support the golems/rams ppl at the door to less the heat they get.

4: Time warp, as soon enemy do a push on your siege equipment drop a time warp on your team and you side get a huge advantage. same when door go down, if they wait for your drop a feedback on them and then a time warp on your team.

5: Focus pulls, If some ppl gather on a cliff or wall and harassing your siege back off untill out of combat, warn u mates you gona pull and blink in, pull a staxk of ppl down and u team gank them.

Defense in a siege.

1: Only class that can get ppl in to defend a tower from behind. get a team to run off wall, 1-2 messmers folow and they portal sprint back with supplys and you jump down and portal them in. Suddenly you got supply for repairs.

2: Portal attacks on siege. gather 10-15 friendly players, drop 2 portals (2 mesmers) run to wall on side of siege, get thief stealth, then jump down, start run, blink use mass stealth and land on enemy catapults/trebs. hit 1 st portal, other mesmer hit time warp, conut to 3 drop escape portal. let al 15 get out of portal unleash time warped aoe and 5-7 sec later hit escape portal and woala you broken mabye the whole siege or atleast alot of expensive siege equipment.

3:Normal defense with chaos field, feedback and gs nr 2 + shatter 1. Find a pile of enemy, throw Gs nr 2 , hit shatter 1 , swap to staff, throw chaos field on the group and when they now try kill you feedback them. Got alot of kills this way.

That should cover some of te basic stuff I do in group wvwvw siege warfere. Hope it help some mate.

/Love Osicat

Did they just change the pistol 5th skill? Cause, now it stuns the 3rd target not the first one and it is extremely hard to land a sword 2 skill?

You sure about this? reason I ask is that I hit a elementalist yesterday that jumped from a platform to another and in mid air got stunned and fell like a rock, was extremly amusing.

Anyway, il look into it but to answer your sword 2 question, you use sword skill 3 to land sword 2 and your burst. then you eather hut the perfect combo with distratction and cry n same burst or save them, end the attack with a distraction (shatter 3) staff 2 and reattack with cry.

I’m sure about Magic Bullet ( pistol 5 ). the first target is blinded, 2nd is dazed and the 3rd is stunned.
What do You think after this change is it worth to still use pistol as offhand?

Thanks for Your answer!

Oh no -_- and with one Target? …or 2 targets?

Why not use Sigil of Lightning over Sigil of Fire? 1v1, Lightning would be more damage than the AOE fire would be.

Love this build, but hate having no form of swiftness with focus. Wish we had some kind of utility ability or something to give us swiftness.

Coldviper.6794:

Love this build, but hate having no form of swiftness with focus. Wish we had some kind of utility ability or something to give us swiftness.

We have our speed from our armor on heal skilla uses….

Hi all.

Fist before I start a mini Q/A Osicat session I want to thank all for the support and interest in find new ways to play mesmers. Its so mutch (see what I did there) more fun and constructive to see questions and ppl trying to find solutions on problems or ways to improve than the rant qq posts that pop up from time to time.

Owerall Mesmer community seem to be one of the nicer with alot of helpfull players etc.

@Kwak, The tooltip say so idd now, seem thu be a typo as I been roaming alot today to try it out. I can say for sure that I stun ppl with the first hit, even have screens and video of it.

@Xavi. Lightning do idd do a little more dmg, about 30% more in the test I done, but as soon as tour target have a pet or it more than 1 target you risk have the proc on wrong target. Say you hit a mesmer with sword 2, you crit both him and hes clone, lightning hits clone and burst wasted. Say now istead you have fire, the aoe hit both the mesmer, hes clone/clones and poetsnialy the player on the ground he trying to res. It also is extremy stronh for 3 target nuking as al MW already hit al targets, u sword 2 hit al targets and ofc your sigil. Not to mention portal bombing with 10 players, al jump our hit al the have in a time warp, al thise aoe + 10 x sigil of fire kill most stuff, then portal back again.

@Coldviper Thats one of the reasons rune of air is used, each heal give swiftness, also in combo with staff 2 (mark a rabbit behind you and hit 2 for extra blink), blink and the focus you have in your bag to swap out in long runs use swift and back again to staff I keep blinking and swiftness mowing al the time. I even catch up with ppl quite often in chases to land a pistol stun.

@Pitola, stay calm, pistol is fine (;

I been running into some other mesmers from (FR) vizunah this morning and If anyone read this I must say i almost feel sorry for film but the phantams spec is so weak now vs a shatter mesmer. Was 2 vs 1 a mesmer and a thief and in a 1,5 min fight the mesmer didnt get 1 phantasm out.

See this chain and try throw a phantasm out. 2 sec sword (immune to phantasm, dodge (immune again) 4 sec disorsion (immune) dodge again (immune) and now sword off cd… 2 new sec etc etc

I not sure how arena going to fix it but atm shatter mesmer deffo i a hard counter to phantasm mesmers.

Osicat, thank you for posting your great videos. They are a great example of what this class is capable of, and very entertaining. I’ve found your guide very helpful.

Been researching different kind of build to learn more about mesmer. This is really awesome! Thank you so much for putting this out there for the community I was just wondering… I know this is for WWW but would it be potent for PVE? Silly question i know >.< but I just thought I’d ask anyway hehe.

Awesome videos Osicat! Very entertaining footage.
My Engi has been pretty successful against mesmers. I can’t recall fighting someone with your skill at the class or maybe I’ve been lucky and evaded the majority of shatters :-)
Glad to see a ray of sunshine through the cloud of doom.

Osicat, I have a glamour anti zerg build I use from time to time when I need a change of pace in WvW – glamours recharge 20% faster, glamours traited to blind, blind traited to cause confusion, then also use the signet that does an AoE blind + the pistol, and running with Feedback and Null Field.

I killed a phantasm spec mesmer with it last night and I felt so guilty after

Osicat.4139:

I been running into some other mesmers from (FR) vizunah this morning and If anyone read this I must say i almost feel sorry for film but the phantams spec is so weak now vs a shatter mesmer. Was 2 vs 1 a mesmer and a thief and in a 1,5 min fight the mesmer didnt get 1 phantasm out.

See this chain and try throw a phantasm out. 2 sec sword (immune to phantasm, dodge (immune again) 4 sec disorsion (immune) dodge again (immune) and now sword off cd… 2 new sec etc etc

I not sure how arena going to fix it but atm shatter mesmer deffo i a hard counter to phantasm mesmers.

Ty al for the support, its so easy to do this as the community is so lovely. Feel free to keep post any questions reguarding wvwvw kittenter mesmer and i try andwer. Feel free to criticise if anyting you miss etc.

Caught some nice fotage today from medium group pvp and might have a good mini guide for how to be effective in groups etc later.

/osicat

On demand Im experementing a little with a “Shatter cat” setup with a little more survival at the cost of ~15% dmg. It works and will have a moive in short for those who feel they are to squishy in the original setup. I must thu say I personaly prefere the full dmg setup.

What I trying to change, 2 knight gear parts extra, lost trait of 3% dmg/clone in favour for reflection of disorsion some food change.

Mind thu this is not the build I will use in the comming, I will stay with the burst spec I tend to favour, but the survival focused build do some crasy stunts I give it that. Also Its nice to give ppl who want to play after the “shatter cat” but feel they dont want to play full glass a option.

Video in short.

/Osicat

I gotta say, I tried out this build in spvp (free gear swapping!) today, and I love it. There’s plenty I have to work on; timing on distortion, faster clone bursts, better utility decisions, better attack choices and patterns vs different professions and builds. I’m honestly worried about my pocketbook should I change over from my usual setup.

Got torn up by staff necros with their massive ground targets, flesh wurm and necro-forms, though.

Awesome vids man, keep up the good work!

After seeing these, im gonna give my mesmer so much love!

Cheers!

Yeah Nublakhan, some enmys is a bit trickier than others for this spec, it is thu one of the most flexible specces especialy for wvwvw but also for sPvP, out there. There is no real “hard counter” for us thu but condition tend to cause more problems. My tip is to juke alot and deliver dmg in massive bursts, when enemy is low/mid and u got cd,s MOA then burst. Also never stay and fight unless condition remover avable.

/ osicat

Thank you Osicat! I’ve been trying to figure out how to work a glass cannon mesmer as I know mesmers are so evasive they don’t need as much survivability. This has been the kind of build I’ve been looking for as I usually run in small 4/5 man roaming squads and we look for small encounters. Thankfully in my usual party we have a second mesmer who’s tankier with daze/stun build and time warp, so i can freely use mass invis.

But I’m almost done with my gear and each piece of armor I gained showed in my dps, and when I got my runes, I won a 1v3. Quite honestly the thing i love most about this build is illuionary persona utility when i dont have clones, especially f4 ability. Saved me so many times, especially in dungeons. Many cheers, and I hope to see more of your videos!

Also, just wondering have you tried switching Knight/Valk pieces for Rampager? It seems like it could be interesting.

@ Monztor. Hi, so glad you like the build. You not the first that ask about conditions, mainly cause you with 12 stacks of confusion and 8 stacks of might get extremy nice condition dmg.

Thing is I dont see conditions as anything else than bonus, the reason I chose knight and valkyre for the defensive parts is that they both provide the stats this spec burst is based on. Crit and Crit dmg. Conditions just is a bonus, they dont burst and can be clensed. Also they tend to create a more " on target" playstyle and kittenter cat ( why do my build name get censured?) builds whole defense is based juking and dmg avoidance its not optimal.

As I mentioned earlier I on demand I tryed a alernative shatter cat with a bit more survival, I got some nice matereal and film will be up tomorow. I have thu now changed back to original spec as I find it more effective and dont realy have any survival issues even in 1 vs x.

If you want to try rampager feel free to post your ressults later mate.

/ Osicat

Yeah I’m going to be switch to your build when I save up enough gold. Your play style, weapons, and skills are pretty much identical to mine, only difference is you rely on burst, and I on condition dmg.

I think burst is the way to go though.

Hi Osi =)

wow ur really good, i have a question since im new to this game, is this build effective PVE? or what do u suggest i do when starting out..

@Mayumi, this build is most effective after lvl 40 when you ave illusionary persona, without that you cant use any of the tactics I use in pvp. For pve its wery effective even if you need 2 change some skills on your utiliity bar depending on boss.

Uppdate***********************************

New Mini Guide.

Alternative Shatter cat build with a bit more survival, 2 more knights peaces + reflection. I dont use this setup but made this vid on demand from ppl folowing my vids. Same 10-30-0-0-30 build, reflective trait instead of 9% dmg.

vid include

1: Survival Shatter cat
2: Some thief how to in wvwvw
3: Basic portal attack for group fights.

Hi.

I got questions why I dont use my heal more often in fights when im ~9k hp. Example is last movie 1st fight and the 1 vs x fight later in. Reason is that If i dont feel afraid of get burst down atm I like to use up my shatters 1st for might and shatter effect then on purpose take a little more dmg with finger hoovering ower dodge/heal to have my shatters refrech’t by the 50% reset trait.

A solid tactic that I think the benefits for al is clear but easy to miss in heat of battle.

/Osicat

PS Sorry for kittenup the text colour for last guide, will find a better way to post tactics for next movie. I tryed to not interfere with the action to moutch with my text but overdid it. Sorry.

first off, great videos and build. thanks for taking the time to do this for all the mesmers out there. i had a build like this a few months ago but switched it out to learn the ins and outs of the class and play with some of the other weapons and traits. coming back makes me more happy because there are others out there who are successful with this build type.

one thing i really learned from your last vid here is how to be smart with your shatters. you dont have to use them for a MW all the time. i have a really quick dps burst that i use but have recently stopped using it so much because your vid showed me that you just need to adjust you n1-n4 timing depending on situation.

i know you dont like decoy but i find that without any real traits or more than 2 defensive gear options, having the stealth can come in handy. blink is always a staple for me and mirror images is a must. so swapping out decoy for portal means i usually swap out mass illusion for time warp.

anyway, with decoy, this is my dps burst that i thought may be of use here. remember, it uses up a lot of your utility skills and takes a few attempts at using correctly.

pistol4, pistol3, dodge, pistol3(close space), sword2, n1, mirror images, decoy, n2

this can all be done in the matter of 5 or so seconds. right after the second pistol 3 you can pistol 5 if you need a stun or blink to get in melee for your pistol2. right after this bomb, i will usually switch to staff and drop staff5 and staff2 for the chaos armor and then drop out my staff3 and start the kiting game. with another dodge you got 3 back up and can use n3 or n4 as needed.

i like this combo and burst but i feel that it just leaves you wide open if your opponent can live through it but i still thought i would drop by and share it.

@Drederic. First, happy you like the build and my vids, feels good also that even if my spelling not is optimal and sometimes even the text itself is kinda fail I get what I try to show said I not a wery good speller as ppl niticed by now and I do misstakes in edeting, I try improve and keep make the stuff.

About decoy I cant nothing else than agree its fantastic skill. It hurst me alot to turn it dosn but I started to do that when I started run with the guild groups as its extremly good team spell. After a while I got so used to it I adaped my combos and tactic to it and now I kinda feel I need the spell. Its in no way wrong to do other skills etc thats how we improve and I learn alot every day from this amazing community full of skilled mesmers.

Your combo seems solid even if you name the skills wrong I understand what you mean. It sound like it should be usefull to do with a Pistol 5 when you chase somone. BLINK—→5——>3——>4——>dodge towards enemy—→3—→2+shatter 1—→shatter 3——→Decoy + mirror——>shatter 2.

Shatter nr 3 would give a extra might + prevent defensive skills usage.

Im free several days now So it will be alot of WvWvW, especialy as desolation dropped to tier 2 and roaming suddenly got alot easier. Guild is practicing TS cordinated camp cappings with smal teams to be able to cap 3-4 camps in 1 map simutanius and then run. Will be fun to se how it work out. Will also work on a new movie but wont post any new matereal for some time now as I feel the things I posted last week still is fresh.

/love Osicat

ahh, so you re saying throw in that n3 with no clones to hold them and maybe interupt. i like it.

learning to use n3 and n4 is a big part of this build.

any suggestions besides knight or valkyre to give you more defense?

Yeah the nr 3 is free interupt + 1 sec dazze + 1 might stack. As you in point blanck range you dont want to use it with clones.

About gear, no not realy, try get used to balance your shatters and energy (dodge) so you never endup with no cd,s and no energy. Also like a revolver gunslinger count hes bullets in a firefight you need to count your shattter reset. If you have it ready and at 10k hp, burst u shatters and immunitys and let hp drop to 50% before you heal to reset them. Can have 10-12 sec immunity in short time this way.

sword 2 (2 sec) dissorsion (4 sec) drop to 50%, dodge, staff 2, another 4 sec immunity + heal, sword 3 —→ sword 2 another 2 sec immunity + dmg It make some ppl ALT f4, beleve me.

Osi, You are a g** among men. Your skill is def exceptional. Thank you for sharing on this post, it is very enlightening. Plz keep up the good work! I just hope you don’t get hired by the military because you have an insane tactical mind that they would appreciate. ;P

i use the AC weapons for power/tough/vit and run full berserker so i really dont need knight or valk gear but i may grab a few pieces with the CoF weapons just to get more crit

@Derderik, A totaly valid option and you get the same ressult as as I I am. Now mind I dont speak for any other shatter mesmers only for myeslf and my own guide but here is my recomended defensive stats.

16500-16900 hp to handle conditions. 1100-1150 toughtness for camp capping,. 50% minimum crit chanse with food (70% with fury) for constant vigor in battle.

Defenisve stats is ranked in this order for me.

16500-16900 hp > 50% crit > 1100-1150 toughtness.

Hope this is helpfull.

/Love Osicat

Ps if you unused to manage your energy get the energy renegation food, you can deffo play without it but when I was still learning the build I used it, now i just get enought crits ongoing al time for constant vigor.