Guild Wars 2

So I was playing around with Mesmer builds and felt like putting together a build that was more tanky / support-based in order to help my guild through instances and such without just melting faces. I had a lot of fun with GS+S/F power shatter build, but being incredibly squishy it also taught me how to kite and stay alive in sticky situations. I figured I might be able to put that to good use as a support Mesmer.
Problem is, much of the Inspiration tree (which has the +healing boost) isn’t very useful. Or so I thought! After looking through everything and doing some research in the Heart of the Mists, I settled on this build: http://bit.ly/RTpsTh
Wearing mostly healing/toughness gear with a few pieces of Vitality on it for some extra health, I’m rocking 1,128 Healing power. With the full 25 stacks from the Life rune, I’m well over 1,550 Healing power.

Who the heck cares about healing power on a Mesmer!? You’re no doubt thinking. We have no healing! And I would have agreed with you up until yesterday, until I started testing Restorative Mantras. All I can say is… Wow. With 1,500+ healing power, every time I charge a Mantra (not use a charge) I pump out 3khp in a fairly large radius – about 10m around myself. In addition, with the full Dwayna set, every time I use a healing ability – both charging AND using a charge counts with this – I put out Regeneration for 5s on a cooldown of 10s. As you can see, I bring Mantra of Recovery for not only the Healing Mantra proc, but the 3x regeneration potential with the Dwayna 6-set. Not only this, but Mantra of Pain has a ONE SECOND cooldown on both use and recharge. Which means I can pump out 3khp every 5-6 seconds if I’m spamming nothing but Mantra of Pain. And as you know, Mantras can be activated in between other abilities without interrupting them, so I can easily do other things while blowing my Power Spike charges. The downside is, of course, that all Mantras have a cast time of 4.25 seconds, which is honestly the only thing keeping this spec from being insanely OP. Still, even in ridiculously mobile fights such as Alpha of Crucible of Eternity, I was able to recast Mantra of Pain between his circle-spam.

So yes, with gear set fully to max Compassion, you won’t be doing a whole lot of damage, but that’s not really an issue because we’re a support spec. However, you can still put out some non-trivial damage. I chose Staff and Scepter/Sword for defense and for some nice Phantasms. iWarden is much better damage than iSwordsman for sure, but iWarden has the unfortunate side effect of being completely immobile – iSwordsman will follow your target around. I also grabbed Persisting Images to beef up my Phants a little, the point here being to pump out three Phantasms and leave them there to do damage passively while I run around like a crazy person spamming my Mantras and keeping people healthy. Restorative Illusions is also there in case you need a quick burst of healing, and both iSwordsman and iWarlock do a good job of keeping out of trouble so replacing them is not a full-time job. Warlock does better damage with a full group and lots of conditions, but Swordsman attacks faster. You could also pick Pistol as your offhand, as Magic Bullet and iDuelist are swell, but I liked having two blocks with Scepter/Sword.

Your sigils are up to you, but the Life sigil I found to be indispensable. Water would be some nice extra healing but I have yet to test its numbers, and Energy is helpful since you won’t have any Vigor going out. For Utils, I took at least Mantra of Pain and Recovery, and found I wanted a third to rotate around, as well. Concentration or Resolve are both helpful in different situations, but Resolve is helpful more than Conc seems to be. Your third Util is also a wild card, but I find Blink to be just too powerful not to bring. Coupled with Phase Retreat, it makes it very easy to get where you need to go, or GTFO when necessary to preserve your Life sigil stacks. Now you may have noticed the Chaos 30 trait slot is blank. This is not a mistake. Unfortunately, both Prismatic Understanding and Bountiful Interruption are rather underwhelming, so you have a choice. Currently I have Debilitating Dissipation in there for lack of anything better, but you could alternatively forgo the last 10 points in Chaos and put them instead in Dueling for Mantra Mastery. Sharper Images and Chaotic Transference are equally useful in this spec (though Sharper Images might be nice if you picked Pistol o/h), so you’re really deciding between 100 Toughness and the extra few seconds of cooldown on Mantras.

<cont.>
With all of that defense and healing come out the wazoo, I found I was able to actually tank anything that could be conceivably tanked – obviously some encounters are designed to be more punishing than others, but by rotating my mantras I could keep myself healthy while just about anything beat on me, as long as there weren’t too many interrupts – and if there were, I switched to Mantra of Concentration. Popping Power Break just before recharging a Mantra almost ensures the heal will activate. Otherwise you can just about face-tank anything, while keeping an eye on your friends’ health bars and running over to them to give them some health when necessary. I found it more helpful to keep Mantra of Pain uncharged, since the heal is more useful than the 1.4k damage from both charges.

Anyway I am thoroughly enjoying this spec and felt I should share it with the community! Try it out! It’s so much fun to tank the crap out of stuff as a ‘squishy’ Mesmer

Stop sharing our mantra secrets with the world lol
I kidd, it is fun to do the healing, I do that in W3 matches a lot.

Let me see if I can find that mantra thread…
here… you will probably enjoy this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Anyone-else-running-a-Mantra-Build/first#post633204

Man, this spec is awesome, but has three downsides:
1) Agony
2) Torment
3) Pain
:P

the link is bad, can you relink it I wanna try it out for pve

Stupid semicolon messed with the link. Here it is again, fixed: http://bit.ly/RTpsTh
Also edited the original post to fix it there, too.

Edit: Furthermore, clicking that link from here seems to mess up ANet’s forwarding script, so copy/paste it till that’s working properly.

what runes are you wearing for the armor? Also I think its missing one trait in chaos. Not sure if its just me.

You should strongly consider using pistol phantasms because they are the only ones that are not bugged with the aoe regen from phantasms trait. Since your Plan is go get them out, and leave them out, having the only phantasms that don’t bug is greatly beneficial. Additionally, with illusionary membrane and 2+ pistol Phantasms, you will have 100% uptime of protection.

You should consider using runes of the water for even more burst healing, unless you really feel as if regeneration is worthwhile.

Wow I never thought about this before, to be honest I was a bit skeptical when I saw the title, but after reading everything it sounds interesting. Thank you, I will try out the build later.

Pyroatheist.9031:

You should strongly consider using pistol phantasms because they are the only ones that are not bugged with the aoe regen from phantasms trait. Since your Plan is go get them out, and leave them out, having the only phantasms that don’t bug is greatly beneficial. Additionally, with illusionary membrane and 2+ pistol Phantasms, you will have 100% uptime of protection.

Thanks for mentioning this. I tested this, and noticed something strange. While the iDuelist does seem to refresh Phantasmal Healing more often than iSwordsman or iWarlock, having two iDuelists out does not seem to make any difference than standing next to one iDuelist and one iWarlock. With one Warlock alone the buff isn’t applied fast enough to stack with itself, and with one iDuelist the Illusionary Membrane duration isn’t long enough to stack. However with two of either, both buffs stack duration, but they both cap out at about 20s for Prot and 32s for Regen, regardless of the combination of which two you have – as long as one of them is a Duelist. However, if you stand near two iWarlocks, Prot falls off for 2-3s each time, but I got Regen to stack to about 46s. Strange! I suppose it just has to do with when you summon them and how the timers sync.

Either way, though, good tip about the Regen bug. Personally, I keep a sword, focus, and pistol all in my bags for varying situations

Also, I most definitely have a Water rune on my scepter main hand, but I haven’t been able to test the numbers on it yet to see if it’s viable. Certainly better than most other options, however.

Oh! And to those wanting to try out the spec, I will share notes about how I found myself being most effective in battle. If you manage to hold aggro long enough to tank something, you really shouldn’t be dragging the mob around to squishies to heal them unless they’re already stacked in melee range. So if you are tanking and you’re taking a lot of damage, rotate your mantras. Remember that finishing the charge is what heals you, so feel free to blow your mantra charges on nothing if you need another heal. If you’re not tanking, get your Phants out and keep an eye on your party’s health meters for heals. In the mean time, I find because I have no condition damage my staff damage is not as good as the Scepter damage, though remember that this pumps out clones. So if you have time, blow Mind Wrack and/or Cry of Frustration with full Clone sets, then get your Phants out and go back to healing. Try not to explode your Phants unless you’re using them for the heal, or the mob is about dead obviously.

Ok, I did some testing as well.

First off, the pistol phantasms are definitely the only ones that can keep up the retaliation buff. All the other phantasms lose that buff after the first 10 seconds. If you are using dueling 2, then the same thing applies, except with fury (note that this only is when using phantasmal healing, otherwise the buffs work fine). Fury overwrites retaliation in all cases.

As far as protection stacking goes, if you run the numbers exactly, you’ll find that it’s actually working as it would seem to. With your 30 points in chaos, you have 30% increased boon duration. This means every tick of regen will add 2.6 seconds of protection. Duelists add 3 seconds of regen every 3 seconds, so in 60 seconds, that totals to 20 ticks, or 52 seconds of protection. All other phantasms give 5 seconds of regen every 10 seconds. In 60 seconds, that is 5 ticks, or 13 seconds or protection. With 1 of each, you get a total of 65 seconds of protection every 60 seconds.

Another thing to note is how the regen is applied. On the duelist, the first tick of regen is applied 3 seconds after it spawns. On all other phantasms, the 10 second retaliation buff runs out first, and THEN the first 5 second tick of regen is applied, being reapplied every 10 seconds, but the retaliation is gone for good after those first 10 seconds.

I did something similar vaguely similar and liked it. I didn’t stack healing, but still its pretty fun.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzmc0mz9MocoTkocoTk0GGx0MRmamRq

I focused it more as a tank build – the mesmer version of a wammo. I stacked toughness and vitality, and went mostly with sword/focus and staff. Its quite fun. You’re tough as all get out, and it’s really hard to get overwhelmed. Its a good thing too – your enemy dies about as fast as paint dries, but it really is meant to be a team support char. I also like to have more combo fields, when possible. (Though the poison field for a survival build is amazing!)

I changed things up because the bugged Phantasmal Healing bothered me. I was trying to use Phantasmal Fury as well, which just doesn’t work right. I’ll likely try it again when they fix those traits.

Aside from that, the biggest weakness this build had was that people don’t want to take a tank mesmer – they assume you’re just bad or stupid. Most players just haven’t seen that it really can work well. If you try, you can have as much armor and HP as a warrior – more if they are damage specced. And you have other tricks to survive – I mean, there are usually 4 of you, defender helps, Illusionary Defense, Chaos Armor, Chaos Storm . . .

which is better rune of dwayna or rune of water? and how much does the burst rune of water heal compared to rune of dwayna regen?

Thanks for sharing!
I reckoned something like this was possible after reading that the heal on mantra trait heals for quite a bit, but I was too lazy to test it out.

@OP
I always used a similar combination. But there may be some crucial things I’m traited differently.
- Inspiration V → Inspiration IV. I don’t use +HP to illusion since they’re squishy anyways. And if you have “remove condition on heal” with healing mantra, you’ll become very spoiled (I felt it when I started a second character). You’ll see that you rarely need the condition removal mantra and can change it to stability, daze or another skill. Unfortunately this doesn’t work with mantra-aoe-heal-trait.
- Dueling 10. This is a questionable trait. I tested alot Adept traits, but increased def while casting mantra wasn’t worth for me. I’m always at range and barely get hit, even while casting. You can see the stat increasement in the hero menu, just calc yourself, if it’s worth it. Currently, I’m using Dueling I for full-range Blink.
- Illusions 5. One of the most important traits for mesmers.
- Dueling 15 & X & XI. My build is 33% bleeding, 33% damage, 33% support. Dueling 15 is needed for lots of bleeding damage. Dueling X is needed for fast clone spawning and often works wonders with mob-aggro. Especially with Dueling 5 you can dodge as you like (made me also spoiled). Dueling XI is my personal thing. I got Dueling 30 and had the option between +4% dmg for each readied mantra (so I have to choose between MoP heal or passive damage) or -20% mantra recharge rate. Both are excellent and fit into my bleed/ mantra build.

I tried this in sPvP and it was ridiculous. Here is what I used:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7cl4zyoHRTlGZ9IhZG9G5nZAdnjSx2zOA;TsAg2Crouxcj4G7Nubk3saYsxuBA

If you practice “twisting” your mantras, casting one while channeling another, you can achieve insane survivability. At first I used Illusionary Defender, Mantra of Pain, and Mantra of Concentration, but then I dropped Defender for Mantra of Distraction for extra trolling. I am not lying, I was tanking 3 and 4 people at a time with this. Not to mention, every time you heal you lose a condition, and you are getting regen (and protection) like a mother from the Dwayna runes. With Cry of Frustration giving you a pretty good retaliation uptime, it’s awesome. I would start with Scepter/Sword, get out the swordsman, use both blocks, Cry of Frustration, then go to staff and start chanting like a mofo.

I was very surprised at how fun this was. People could not understand how I was healing so much and wasn’t going down. You can lol at backstab thieves all day with this, as well.

Westibone.3985:

I tried this in sPvP and it was ridiculous. Here is what I used:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7cl4zyoHRTlGZ9IhZG9G5nZAdnjSx2zOA;TsAg2Crouxcj4G7Nubk3saYsxuBA

If you practice “twisting” your mantras, casting one while channeling another, you can achieve insane survivability. At first I used Illusionary Defender, Mantra of Pain, and Mantra of Concentration, but then I dropped Defender for Mantra of Distraction for extra trolling. I am not lying, I was tanking 3 and 4 people at a time with this. Not to mention, every time you heal you lose a condition, and you are getting regen (and protection) like a mother from the Dwayna runes. With Cry of Frustration giving you a pretty good retaliation uptime, it’s awesome. I would start with Scepter/Sword, get out the swordsman, use both blocks, Cry of Frustration, then go to staff and start chanting like a mofo.

I was very surprised at how fun this was. People could not understand how I was healing so much and wasn’t going down. You can lol at backstab thieves all day with this, as well.

Here’s my advice for your build. Ditch scepter/sword and pick up sword/focus. There are a few advantages here. This build is not designed to do high damage, but to be defensive and trolly. Sword 2 is infinitely more effective than scepter for blocking, and sword 3 is a DOUBLE leap combo, as well as a stunbreaker if you use the summon before the stun.

Untraited focus is already defensive and trolly, and if you trait it, it becomes even better. I highly recommend removing the 5 points from chaos and putting them into inspiration. With your current toughness, it only grants 50ish condition damage, which is useless. Putting another 5 points into inspiration allows you to pick up the focus trait, causing temporal curtain and the iwarden to reflect projectiles.

Additionally, you mentioned cry of frustration giving high uptime on retaliation. Well, you can change that to 100% uptime very easily by simply using your double leap combo from sword 3 on top of temporal curtain. Each leap combo grants ~6-7 seconds of retaliation, so thats 14 seconds instantly, followed by a 3 clones shatter for some more. Chaos storm will also grant retaliation.

Hey guys, new mesmer here….

I’m confused =( I traited for mantra heals yet do not see any healing when casting them…..unless of course it’s the #6 slot one. Don’t know if I am doing something wrong or am bugged….any help is appreciated!

You have to have health gone to see heals.
Is it just that you are testing them out of combat?

Loviatrix.1589:

Hey guys, new mesmer here….

I’m confused =( I traited for mantra heals yet do not see any healing when casting them…..unless of course it’s the #6 slot one. Don’t know if I am doing something wrong or am bugged….any help is appreciated!

It heals on the charge, not the use.

Hey guys,
i hope you can help me with my healing Mesmer. This is mostly for dungeons and as healing is not rewarded (right now) i’m planning to let my phantasms do the work and i heal. This is what i have in mind right now: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8dl4zyoHSTqGadJhpC9+MDm7c0CIVQ1lUg7bD;ToAgzCmouxcj4G7Nubk3M2Y/B

I’d love to get some feedback, thanks in advance :-)

elegance.9368:

Hey guys,
i hope you can help me with my healing Mesmer. This is mostly for dungeons and as healing is not rewarded (right now) i’m planning to let my phantasms do the work and i heal. This is what i have in mind right now: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8dl4zyoHSTqGadJhpC9+MDm7c0CIVQ1lUg7bD;ToAgzCmouxcj4G7Nubk3M2Y/B

I’d love to get some feedback, thanks in advance :-)

After trying the condition based version I mentioned above, I starting looking at making a power/offensive version as well. I like what you have going there so far.

I might replace Mantra of Resolve with Mantra of Pain, simply because the cooldown on Mantra of Pain is so low and you can chain heal with that one if you want to. Null field with the lowered cooldown you have traited is already pretty good condition removal (and for the whole team). If you feel like you need more personal condition removal, you can always change the first Tier Major Trait in Inspiration to Mender’s Purity.

I might also use a Sigil of Accuracy in one of your weapons (at least until you get 25 stacks) to bolster your crit chance, which you have to sacrifice in this build to get your healing stat where it needs to be.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Westibone.3985:

I tried this in sPvP and it was ridiculous. Here is what I used:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7cl4zyoHRTlGZ9IhZG9G5nZAdnjSx2zOA;TsAg2Crouxcj4G7Nubk3saYsxuBA

If you practice “twisting” your mantras, casting one while channeling another, you can achieve insane survivability. At first I used Illusionary Defender, Mantra of Pain, and Mantra of Concentration, but then I dropped Defender for Mantra of Distraction for extra trolling. I am not lying, I was tanking 3 and 4 people at a time with this. Not to mention, every time you heal you lose a condition, and you are getting regen (and protection) like a mother from the Dwayna runes. With Cry of Frustration giving you a pretty good retaliation uptime, it’s awesome. I would start with Scepter/Sword, get out the swordsman, use both blocks, Cry of Frustration, then go to staff and start chanting like a mofo.

I was very surprised at how fun this was. People could not understand how I was healing so much and wasn’t going down. You can lol at backstab thieves all day with this, as well.

Here’s my advice for your build. Ditch scepter/sword and pick up sword/focus. There are a few advantages here. This build is not designed to do high damage, but to be defensive and trolly. Sword 2 is infinitely more effective than scepter for blocking, and sword 3 is a DOUBLE leap combo, as well as a stunbreaker if you use the summon before the stun.

Untraited focus is already defensive and trolly, and if you trait it, it becomes even better. I highly recommend removing the 5 points from chaos and putting them into inspiration. With your current toughness, it only grants 50ish condition damage, which is useless. Putting another 5 points into inspiration allows you to pick up the focus trait, causing temporal curtain and the iwarden to reflect projectiles.

Additionally, you mentioned cry of frustration giving high uptime on retaliation. Well, you can change that to 100% uptime very easily by simply using your double leap combo from sword 3 on top of temporal curtain. Each leap combo grants ~6-7 seconds of retaliation, so thats 14 seconds instantly, followed by a 3 clones shatter for some more. Chaos storm will also grant retaliation.

This is great advice; thanks for this! your suggestions do seem more attractive, and I will definitely give this a shot. Into the Void is also an amazing way to potentially interrupt/knockdown their entire team, which is probably the most trolly thing you can possibly do. Love that move.

Great post, thanks for this. This has been on my list of things to try for ages but just not got round to it yet…thinking I might be trying this out tonight now.

I’ve played around with a healing build a lot and tried different things. From healing/condition/support to healing/tank and finally settled on healing/damage/support. From what I’ve found, toughness is great and all but don’t expect to be a ‘tank’. This game really doesn’t allow you to be a tank and hold aggro while taking a bunch of hits. Condition damage is nice, but confusion just isn’t as good in PvE as it is in PvP. So as you’ll see from the build it’s a healing/shatter build.

Here it is:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgUQNAW7fl4zyoHRTkGa9IxpHQ35PHlCtndSKaNsB

Gear includes: Full Mhenlo’s Set with the Superior runes of Dwayna, Exotic Sapphire Trinkets, and Kodan Power/Toughness/Vitality Weapons. What I’ve found works best is Staff or Greatword (both work well) and Scepter/Torch. The torch is negotiable, but I like the functionality of dropping aggro and blinding for my party.

There are some things to keep in mind. Healing only occurs when you ‘Charge’ a Mantra not when you activate it. Pumping out those 3k+ heals is better than stacking regen from the charges. On a regular basis when I went with a ‘Harmonious Mantra’ build I’ve gotten up to 60+ seconds of regen but I wasn’t pumping out those big heals as fast.

If you want to heal, I highly suggest going with this build. But just remember, you need to be stay focused because there is a ton going on. You have to be alright with spamming close to 10+ skills on different cooldowns WHILE you are paying attention to fight mechanics.

Cicatriz.7426:

Here it is:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7fl4zionRTkGa9IxpHQ35PHlCtndSKaNsB;TkAqbM3Iuxej7G5NrNGNs/A

Link isn’t working for me but a shatter/healing build sounds interesting.

To everyone who has tried this build:
How viable is this in medium sized groups in WvW? Will it heal everyone who is close enough to you or only 5 allies?

natejosiah.3178:

Cicatriz.7426:

Here it is:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7fl4zionRTkGa9IxpHQ35PHlCtndSKaNsB;TkAqbM3Iuxej7G5NrNGNs/A

Link isn’t working for me but a shatter/healing build sounds interesting.

To everyone who has tried this build:
How viable is this in medium sized groups in WvW? Will it heal everyone who is close enough to you or only 5 allies?

I’ve edited the link, but here it is again. Sorry about that.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgUQNAW7fl4zyoHRTkGa9IxpHQ35PHlCtndSKaNsB

Healing is very viable in groups. I don’t do much WvW but I can tell you when I’m running healing on Jormag I will see a sea of green all around me. I’d have to do further testing but from memory it looks like the regen is only applying to a few, but the ‘Mantra Heal’ hits everyone. Again, the 3k heals every few seconds is much more beneficial than the stacked regen.

I have 2 questions:
inspiration trait X – Restorative mantras, it says it heals allies when you cast mantras. Does that make it a healing skill for the runes of Dwayna? Or does only skill slot 6 stay a real “healing skill”?
And second: it says ‘heal allies’, does that include myself? Because the runes of Dwayna specifically say “you and all neaRby allies”. (the R is missing in the ingame description)

Not sure about this. I tried it out with about 1300 healing (1500 toughness, 1400 vit). My regen ticks for about a tenth of the average WvW heartseeker hit. I don’t think healing (or defense) is very viable right now at all.

I tried the healing mesmer build and I think it flat out sucks. I had a complete set of healing gear all runed up and its just not worth it. The heals you can pull off are so minimal as to be useless. Not to mention mantras are a pain to keep using.

Much better to go tanky with illusions and spawn them over and over and let them take hits…you mitigate much more damage that way. I’d like to see this build work, but honestly its pretty poor imo. Just like the regen from the phantasms is almost not worth it. Having to be so close to them hurts it and it ticks so very infrequently its pointless.

Tweek.3190:

I have 2 questions:
inspiration trait X – Restorative mantras, it says it heals allies when you cast mantras. Does that make it a healing skill for the runes of Dwayna? Or does only skill slot 6 stay a real “healing skill”?
And second: it says ‘heal allies’, does that include myself? Because the runes of Dwayna specifically say “you and all neaRby allies”. (the R is missing in the ingame description)

All Mantras proc the heal. So you can essentially spam Mantra of Pain (which is the best to spam anyways cause of it’s low cooldown) and heal for 3k+ every few seconds.

And yes, you heal yourself.

I just tried the build, and personalized it a bit but I got easily outhealed by glass canons. I did manage to win from a guardian with a fight lasting a good 5minutes, and I was even able to stop the fight and type in between. :P

This was my setup
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNAW7dl4zionRTlGa9IhJFAQ4neA9l78SKi9tB;TgAgzCmouxcj4G7Nubk3A
But the trait “mender’s purity” did not activate when casting a mantra, and the regen from dwayna signets only activated when using my slot 6 mantra.