Guild Wars 2

Is there any interest in helping me try to create a build to spec?

For context, I’ve been trying since launch to recreate the feel of my favorite MMO character build ever. It’s from a different game, so it’s not possible to reproduce it directly. What I’m trying for is the same general feel and style of play.

I’ve tried reproducing it with Mesmer, Elementalist, and Thief, and each class can do part of the job. I haven’t succeeded in really reproducing the full feel of it, though.

Before I describe what I’m after, let me just acknowledge that yeah, it simply might not be possible. But before I decide that’s true I thought I’d appeal to the Mesmer Forum build crafters, who often do better than I do at devising and optimizing builds.

Why Mesmer? Because of the professions I’ve tried, Mesmer seems to come closest.

The name of the original character is “Pooka,” so I call this build-that-may-not-exist a “Pooka build.”

It should be extremely mobile in combat, and have enough vanishes or other target drops that it can use them tactically. It doesn’t need long-duration stealth.

It should be fairly sturdy—able to last through a modest amount of direct focused damage. It doesn’t have to be a tank.

It should have very good health regeneration.

It should work pretty well as an attrition fighter, wearing opponents down. It doesn’t need to have very high burst damage. What it does need is the ability to recover repeatedly and fairly quickly, using mobility and target drops to interfere with the enemy’s DPS, and the ability to keep up pressure and wear down an opponent.

So far it sounds like a stealth Condition build, and I have had good success with those, but they lack something in the way the play feels, especially while in combat. Pooka is mainly a melee fighter with a high rate of fire. He uses mobility and stealth to gain position to unload lots of melee-range attacks, and uses mobility and target drops to mitigate the enemy’s DPS while his high regen works for him.

Basically, I feel like I can get parts of this gameplay with a Mesmer (or one of the other classes I mentioned), but not the whole package. Am I right? Is it not doable? Or can you think of a build that will have it all?

For reference, the objectives are:

- high mobility in combat
- good availability of target drops
- respectable DPS in melee range
- high rate of fire, especially in melee range
- high health regen
- moderate toughness
- respectable (not necessarily stellar) DPS
- good gap closers and openers
- good options for in-combat recovery or resets

Ideas gratefully received.

I do think you are asking too much. It seems the only drawback of Pooka as you mention is an “average DPS”.

Anyway, trying to be somewhat constructive, since you seem to mostly want health regen, I feel what you ask is not too far from what I’ve been working on those past days

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Chrono-bunker/first

The DPS is on the low side, but still decent. Definitely not bursty. The health regen is huge. The mobility is ok (and no stealth), but it is designed to hold points, so mobility is not so useful. With blink and sword 2 you have some gap closer, with blink and phase retreat you have gap openers. It is melee.

In the link, I use it with chronomancer because I feel that this will be useful, but I currently run the build with chaos-insp-illusion and it clearly not the best build ever, but it is ok and does its job.

Silverkey.2078:

I do think you are asking too much. It seems the only drawback of Pooka as you mention is an “average DPS”.

Anyway, trying to be somewhat constructive, since you seem to mostly want health regen, I feel what you ask is not too far from what I’ve been working on those past days

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Chrono-bunker/first

The DPS is on the low side, but still decent. Definitely not bursty. The health regen is huge. The mobility is ok (and no stealth), but it is designed to hold points, so mobility is not so useful. With blink and sword 2 you have some gap closer, with blink and phase retreat you have gap openers. It is melee.

In the link, I use it with chronomancer because I feel that this will be useful, but I currently run the build with chaos-insp-illusion and it clearly not the best build ever, but it is ok and does its job.

Despite the impression I might have given, the existing Pooka isn’t great at everything. It’s more like fairly decent at most stuff, plus really good at maneuvering and recovering, plus good enough at sustained DPS that he’ll wear you down if he lives long enough.

As I’ve said, the closest I’ve gotten to that feel in GW2 is with a condi Mesmer, but it fails to reproduce the feel of Pooka in two ways: first, most condi Mesmer builds don’t have the constant, rapid-fire melee attacks that I enjoy so much with Pooka; second, most condi Mesmers builds haven’t been good at chasing.

I won’t be surprised if there’s not a solution to the problem. There’s no reason to think GW2 can reproduce every possible playstyle from every game. I just miss Pooka and wish I could have him. :-) And I thought I’d ask you guys for idea before giving up.

Anyway, thanks for the ideas. I’ll fool with them and see what happens.

If mesmer doesn’t work out for you, you can try condi trapper ranger with trapper runes.

That will get you some target drops and is a natural condition build

eldenbri.1059:

If mesmer doesn’t work out for you, you can try condi trapper ranger with trapper runes.

That will get you some target drops and is a natural condition build

Oh yeah, it’s pretty good. I forgot that I had tried that one. I might have to give it some more attention.

D/D Elementalist is actually pretty great, but it just doesn’t feel like Pooka without some vanishes. Also, I’m just plain biased toward Mesmer, because it just seems like Pooka should be a Mesmer.

I think I might be happy if I could make a build designed to just whittle my targets down with Sword, with a lot of vanish, teleport, and regen. In the original game where Pooka comes from, he’s basically about annoying targets to death.