Guild Wars 2

Halting Strike – Enables you to do damage upon interrupting a foe.

Render Shatter – Enables you to stack vulnerability on an opponent per shatter.

Being that iv’e only been playing a shatter mesmer for about 2 weeks now i’m unsure if i’m losing out on damage or is it just up to my play style. I’ve practiced in both wvw and spvp and found that halting strike gives me more burst out of the 2. Halting strike in wvw has crited over 5k for me at times, i’m not sure if render shatter can compete with that. I mean yea, i’m sure its nice to stack 13x vulnerability on someone but in that same amount of time i could of already hit you for 3-5k with a well placed interrupt. Looking for some veteran shatter mesmer’s thoughts… you may take the floor.

Here is a video of my game play excuse the language… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTIDQMRUGBE

side note : i’m no longer using the accuracy sigils. I’m now using fire proc on GS and Air sigil on the sword.

Not even close, Halting Strike is better. Unless you’re really mashing shatters, you’re probably not gonna get more than 6 stacks of vuln on someone at a time, and even then it will probably just get wiped.

Even if you had 13 stacks of vuln on a target, you’d have to do ~23k damage to them to do the same damage as one 3k halting strike; not likely.

Fox.3562:

Not even close, Halting Strike is better. Unless you’re really mashing shatters, you’re probably not gonna get more than 6 stacks of vuln on someone at a time, and even then it will probably just get wiped.

Even if you had 13 stacks of vuln on a target, you’d have to do ~23k damage to them to do the same damage as one 3k halting strike; not likely.

TY SOOO MUCH!!!! i got into a small argument with a friend of mine about it. I just couldn’t imagine rendering being better then halting..

The normal question is between halting strike and mental torment. This depends on how often you’re able to get interrupts, but also how you want to play the build. Halting will generally give you more damage over time, but mental torment allows you to maximize your instantaneous burst.

Pyroathiest.4168:

The normal question is between halting strike and mental torment. This depends on how often you’re able to get interrupts, but also how you want to play the build. Halting will generally give you more damage over time, but mental torment allows you to maximize your instantaneous burst.

i thought being that i’m all power, the torment dmg would be minimum at best. Not to mention easily cleansed.

Calicoe.5149:

Pyroathiest.4168:

The normal question is between halting strike and mental torment. This depends on how often you’re able to get interrupts, but also how you want to play the build. Halting will generally give you more damage over time, but mental torment allows you to maximize your instantaneous burst.

i thought being that i’m all power, the torment dmg would be minimum at best. Not to mention easily cleansed.

Mental Torment is the 20% extra on Mind Wrack.

Teufel.9864:

Calicoe.5149:

Pyroathiest.4168:

The normal question is between halting strike and mental torment. This depends on how often you’re able to get interrupts, but also how you want to play the build. Halting will generally give you more damage over time, but mental torment allows you to maximize your instantaneous burst.

i thought being that i’m all power, the torment dmg would be minimum at best. Not to mention easily cleansed.

Mental Torment is the 20% extra on Mind Wrack.

o my bad, drinking alcoholic beverages atm (graduated college yesterday party on over here)… but my issue with that is what if they dodge your mind wreck? with that being said i have multiple ways to interrupt you. Just my opinion

Calicoe.5149:

Teufel.9864:

Calicoe.5149:

Pyroathiest.4168:

The normal question is between halting strike and mental torment. This depends on how often you’re able to get interrupts, but also how you want to play the build. Halting will generally give you more damage over time, but mental torment allows you to maximize your instantaneous burst.

i thought being that i’m all power, the torment dmg would be minimum at best. Not to mention easily cleansed.

Mental Torment is the 20% extra on Mind Wrack.

o my bad, drinking alcoholic beverages atm (graduated college yesterday party on over here)… but my issue with that is what if they dodge your mind wreck? with that being said i have multiple ways to interrupt you. Just my opinion

Congratulations on graduating college.

How you play will decide the choice, I’m not very good at watching enemies for the interrupt game play, so I’ve not much use for on interrupt traits.

Players tend to try dodging when they see sword leap being used expecting the Mind Wrack to follow shortly after, but its possible to do Cry of Frustration/Diversion as a fake burst to force their endurance down for the real damage to follow.

I suspect this means that if you knew your clones would arrive to shatter (say with signet, the chance would be a bit higher), then Rending Shatter could have a use in group vs group situations.

But even then, meh. It’s just one stick.

To stack vulnerability – just invest at least 3 points into Domination for Dazzling. This way a succesfull Diversion will inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability (8 if it interrupts your foe) for each shattered illusion. And you don’t have to sacrifice important traits this way.
Don’t even look at Rending Shatter, IMO, it’s a filler trait.

Mendax.9506:

To stack vulnerability – just invest at least 3 points into Domination for Dazzling. This way a succesfull Diversion will inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability (8 if it interrupts your foe) for each shattered illusion. And you don’t have to sacrifice important traits this way.
Don’t even look at Rending Shatter, IMO, it’s a filler trait.

Interesting, But what trait do you feel should be sacrificed? Atm, i’m running a pretty standard 4/4/0/0/6 build. Seems pretty solid for me and i cant really see many traits i would give up for that. Also in pvp i just swap 2 of my traits to Greast sword power and Sword power for faster cds and i feel more like a phantasm build.

If you are running 4/4/0/0/6 – you don’t need to sacrifice anything for vulnerability. It comes from minor traits in our first line – Domination: 1 point – Illusion of Vulnerability (3 stacks upon interrupting), 3 points – Dazzling (5 stacks upon dazing). These are minor traits and they are irreplaceable.
So you already have that vulnerability in your build. Just use Diversion with clones (F3 by default) to apply it. This way Diversion could be used to interrupt some important action, or to empower your next burst by applying vulnerability. Or both. Watch some shatter mesmers on youtube, they do it quite often

Calicoe.5149:

o my bad, drinking alcoholic beverages atm (graduated college yesterday party on over here)… but my issue with that is what if they dodge your mind wreck? with that being said i have multiple ways to interrupt you. Just my opinion

Mind wreck can be blocked to, that’s the other reason why I also like interrupts. Takes practice to use it well but you can mess with people minds that way too.