Guild Wars 2

Greetings!

I’m hoping some of the excellent mesmer/chrono players could help me with a good build for WvW groups of 15-20 man. I’ve mained mesmer for quite some time and have mostly played glass gank builds in WvW. However I feel with as many great utilities the class has that I would be better off in a more team support type build. But I’m unsure if glamour, wells, boon share, etc would be best.

I’ve seen the boon share build posted here before. But wanted to see what you friendly folk find most beneficial on 15-20 man group zerging.

I was looking at taking Chaos, Inspiration & Chrono lines doing a combination of glamour and wells. Here is the build as I have it:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseRnknBlphFrBufCEgiFgjyMBSlA4sC+gNouTP1WF-w

Thoughts on traits and utilities? Also I know situations change and will need to slot portal and different things as the situation demands. I’m just trying to get a general setup.

Also I’m unsure of gear. I want to do damage but with outnumbered fights my roaming shatter build gear will not work as I’ll get run over in an instant. For armor I was contemplating either Knights or Commanders for the boon duration increasing the amount of quickness and resistance. I thought perhaps an armor level floating around 2400. But please any suggestions would be helpful.

I was thinking Chrono runes….but please if u know of a better solution please let me know.

I appreciate any and all feedback. Thank you for reading! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

The short answer to your question is that there really aren’t any Mesmer builds that are actually good for WvW group play. There’s a lot of niche utility stuff that some groups will want (veil-kitten anyone?) but it doesn’t actually count as being a build. Since you’ve posted a concept build though, I’ll work from that.

Weapons
Sword/shield+GS is probably the best weaponset. You could potentially use a staff instead of gs, but that would limit you to having useful long range pressure once every 35 seconds. Sword is obviously strong, the shield block is a life saver, and the shield wall is probably the only skill that Mesmer has that can legitimately be called ‘great’ for WvW group play.

Utilities
Your utilities might need some work. Ether feast is fine, but consider the heal well for group healing and condition removal if you can place it right. Veil so that you can fulfill our holy duty as veil-kitten of course. Blink is a good choice as well.

Well of calamity though…it’s not very good. The range is short (900), the aoe is small (240), and the damage is nothing short of abysmal. If your group is able to effectively force melee-range fights and corral the enemy into a fairly packed location, you’ll be able to at least tag with the well. However, if your group isn’t reliably forcing skirmishes you’ll mainly be sitting there with calamity going ‘gosh, it sure would be cool if I had a 1200 range aoe that actually did something’.

Unfortunately, there’s not really any better offensive utility options. You could take mantra of pain, but it’s even less usable than calamity. You could take portal if you wanted to go full raid-kitten, but honestly I can’t in good faith recommend that you do that. You could go supporty with well of action or precognition, or even mantra of concentration for aoe stunbreaks.

Ultimately there’s no obvious choice here. Pick a third utility based on what you want/need. Just don’t go taking calamity and expect it to actually be skill that feels good to use, because it’s not. It feels clunky, it feels weak, and that’s when it works at all. More often people just move out of it or the fight is too spread out for it to hit more than 1 person.

Gravity well is fine as an elite. It suffers from all the same problems as calamity, but it’s got decent cc. The other option is taking moa and not using it, because the passive cc reduction can be handy in WvW.

Traits
Your traits need a bit of work. Chaos/insp/chrono is fine, but I’ll do a quick review of the other options.

Chrono is obviously required, so there’s 2 more to fill. Domination has good power options, but a lot of it is geared towards shatters and phantasms which don’t work in WvW group fights. It does have power block, and this is a potentially strong trait if you’re able to get interrupts reliably. This is unlikely, but keep it in mind if you happen to be seeing a lot of interrupts as you play.

Dueling doesn’t have much for you other than the condie version of power block in mistrust. Same deal here; it can be strong if you somehow find yourself pumping out interrupts. Evasive mirror deserves an honorable mention, but the personal nature of the trait makes it have limited usefulness in a WvW group.

Chaos is obviously strong. You’ve got manipulation cooldowns, PU, and CI. Same deal as before with CI, but PU is a nice boost for veil.

Inspiration has solid choices too, more on that later.

Illusions has some very niche utility stuff that ultimately isn’t very effective in a WvW group fight. Not recommended.

Overall, chaos/insp is the best pair of traitlines unless you’re looking to get something specific out of the other ones. With that in mind, let’s look at your traits.

Chaos
No issues here really, just keep in mind the potential usefulness of CI if you’re getting interrupts.

Inspiration
These are solid except for your grandmaster. You’ve taken the glamour trait, but the only glamour you’re using (ignoring the res bubble) is the one that doesn’t work with the trait. Resistance is only applied at the moment of creation, not on everyone that passes through the veil. I know, it’s a concept deserving of public ridicule for the short bus passenger that designed it, but that’s how it works. With that in mind, take illusionary inspiration instead. Most of the time it’ll be useless, but sometimes it’ll be a nice extra boon share for whatever you’ve got on you, and only sometimes useless is better than always useless.

Chrono
There’s honestly a lot of really poor options in chrono. You’re mainly taking it for shield, 25% minor, and CS. You’re not using enough wells to make the well trait worth it, but the other options suck, so you’re stuck with that one. You’re not generating enough alacrity to make improved alacrity worth it, but the other options are garbage in a WvW fight, so you’re stuck with it. Seize the moment is honestly pretty underwhelming too, but it’ll work I suppose.

Gearing
I’d go with a mix of zerker, knights, and valk gear to get you the defense required to stay alive without totally borking your offense. Runes are mostly up to you. You could use melandru for defense, pack/scholar for offense, whatever you want really.

I would probably go for something like this
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJARWnsnBtfilqBmpBEgilTjqOaz2v1cH2mbgMA2ggC-TVABBAw+DAA-w
focusing on cc and doing damage.

Exciton.8942:

I would probably go for something like this
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJARWnsnBtfilqBmpBEgilTjqOaz2v1cH2mbgMA2ggC-TVABBAw+DAA-w
focusing on cc and doing damage.

This won’t work. At all.

You have 3 aoe interrupts in that entire build. One is on a 30s cd and is melee range. One is on a 90s cd and is only 900 range. The last is on a 35s cd and is 1200 range.

So basically, you’re banking the effectiveness of your entire build on the slim chance that not only will your cc land on targets that don’t have stability, but that they’re also spamming skills to be interrupted at the same time. On top of that, you’re focusing your entire build on a mechanic that you can use at best once every 35 seconds.

I’ve tried doing this type of build. It’s miserable. You’ll never hit anything with iWave, people will either walk out of chaos storm or just tank it with stability, and you’ll rarely be in range to use gravity well, and you’ll usually only hit <3 people with it, one of which might get interrupted. When the stars align, Lexander stops trolling the Mesmer forum, and the devs release an intelligent balance patch, you’ll drop your cc on a group and see some interrupts pop up and feel good about yourself…until you remember that you just blew your metaphorical load and are now useless for the next 30 seconds.

Fay.2357:

The short answer to your question is that there really aren’t any Mesmer builds that are actually good for WvW group play. There’s a lot of niche utility stuff that some groups will want (veil-kitten anyone?) but it doesn’t actually count as being a build. Since you’ve posted a concept build though, I’ll work from that.

Weapons
Sword/shield+GS is probably the best weaponset. You could potentially use a staff instead of gs, but that would limit you to having useful long range pressure once every 35 seconds. Sword is obviously strong, the shield block is a life saver, and the shield wall is probably the only skill that Mesmer has that can legitimately be called ‘great’ for WvW group play.

Utilities
Your utilities might need some work. Ether feast is fine, but consider the heal well for group healing and condition removal if you can place it right. Veil so that you can fulfill our holy duty as veil-kitten of course. Blink is a good choice as well.

Well of calamity though…it’s not very good. The range is short (900), the aoe is small (240), and the damage is nothing short of abysmal. If your group is able to effectively force melee-range fights and corral the enemy into a fairly packed location, you’ll be able to at least tag with the well. However, if your group isn’t reliably forcing skirmishes you’ll mainly be sitting there with calamity going ‘gosh, it sure would be cool if I had a 1200 range aoe that actually did something’.

Unfortunately, there’s not really any better offensive utility options. You could take mantra of pain, but it’s even less usable than calamity. You could take portal if you wanted to go full raid-kitten, but honestly I can’t in good faith recommend that you do that. You could go supporty with well of action or precognition, or even mantra of concentration for aoe stunbreaks.

Ultimately there’s no obvious choice here. Pick a third utility based on what you want/need. Just don’t go taking calamity and expect it to actually be skill that feels good to use, because it’s not. It feels clunky, it feels weak, and that’s when it works at all. More often people just move out of it or the fight is too spread out for it to hit more than 1 person.

Gravity well is fine as an elite. It suffers from all the same problems as calamity, but it’s got decent cc. The other option is taking moa and not using it, because the passive cc reduction can be handy in WvW.

Traits
Your traits need a bit of work. Chaos/insp/chrono is fine, but I’ll do a quick review of the other options.

Chrono is obviously required, so there’s 2 more to fill. Domination has good power options, but a lot of it is geared towards shatters and phantasms which don’t work in WvW group fights. It does have power block, and this is a potentially strong trait if you’re able to get interrupts reliably. This is unlikely, but keep it in mind if you happen to be seeing a lot of interrupts as you play.

Dueling doesn’t have much for you other than the condie version of power block in mistrust. Same deal here; it can be strong if you somehow find yourself pumping out interrupts. Evasive mirror deserves an honorable mention, but the personal nature of the trait makes it have limited usefulness in a WvW group.

Chaos is obviously strong. You’ve got manipulation cooldowns, PU, and CI. Same deal as before with CI, but PU is a nice boost for veil.

Inspiration has solid choices too, more on that later.

Illusions has some very niche utility stuff that ultimately isn’t very effective in a WvW group fight. Not recommended.

Overall, chaos/insp is the best pair of traitlines unless you’re looking to get something specific out of the other ones. With that in mind, let’s look at your traits.

Chaos
No issues here really, just keep in mind the potential usefulness of CI if you’re getting interrupts.

Inspiration
These are solid except for your grandmaster. You’ve taken the glamour trait, but the only glamour you’re using (ignoring the res bubble) is the one that doesn’t work with the trait. Resistance is only applied at the moment of creation, not on everyone that passes through the veil. I know, it’s a concept deserving of public ridicule for the short bus passenger that designed it, but that’s how it works. With that in mind, take illusionary inspiration instead. Most of the time it’ll be useless, but sometimes it’ll be a nice extra boon share for whatever you’ve got on you, and only sometimes useless is better than always useless.

Chrono
There’s honestly a lot of really poor options in chrono. You’re mainly taking it for shield, 25% minor, and CS. You’re not using enough wells to make the well trait worth it, but the other options suck, so you’re stuck with that one. You’re not generating enough alacrity to make improved alacrity worth it, but the other options are garbage in a WvW fight, so you’re stuck with it. Seize the moment is honestly pretty underwhelming too, but it’ll work I suppose.

Gearing
I’d go with a mix of zerker, knights, and valk gear to get you the defense required to stay alive without totally borking your offense. Runes are mostly up to you. You could use melandru for defense, pack/scholar for offense, whatever you want really.

Fay as always your are a wealth of knowledge and I appreciate you responding to me!

Based on your recommendations I’ve changed out the well of calamity for mantra of distration and changed my traits to include CI. I think on a norm this is the better way to more effectively lock down enemy ele’s and interrupt their casting. Still keeping Chaos, Insp & Chrono as they are just too good unless going full glass on shatter. I’m contemplating 2,2,2 on the Chrono line just for quickness when shattering to increase dps. Gravity well has been very effective when cast on a caster back line as they don’t have any good source of stability. On a front line with stability it is useless. I will play around with Signet of Humility though because there is a huge amount of CC in tier 2 which I play in. So that may be the more survivable option. I also feel while gravity well is strong in some situations, in others it leaves you very vulnerable for a couple of brief seconds. I’ve made all the changes you recommended.

Gearing I’m thinking of starting with knights armor, pack runes, zerk everything else. See how that goes and adjust based on survivability.

I GREATLY appreciate you responding. Hopefully I covered it all. If I missed anything or if u think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to hit me up.

Thanks again!!!!

Dark Night.5601:

Fay.2357:

The short answer to your question is that there really aren’t any Mesmer builds that are actually good for WvW group play. There’s a lot of niche utility stuff that some groups will want (veil-kitten anyone?) but it doesn’t actually count as being a build. Since you’ve posted a concept build though, I’ll work from that.

Weapons
Sword/shield+GS is probably the best weaponset. You could potentially use a staff instead of gs, but that would limit you to having useful long range pressure once every 35 seconds. Sword is obviously strong, the shield block is a life saver, and the shield wall is probably the only skill that Mesmer has that can legitimately be called ‘great’ for WvW group play.

Utilities
Your utilities might need some work. Ether feast is fine, but consider the heal well for group healing and condition removal if you can place it right. Veil so that you can fulfill our holy duty as veil-kitten of course. Blink is a good choice as well.

Well of calamity though…it’s not very good. The range is short (900), the aoe is small (240), and the damage is nothing short of abysmal. If your group is able to effectively force melee-range fights and corral the enemy into a fairly packed location, you’ll be able to at least tag with the well. However, if your group isn’t reliably forcing skirmishes you’ll mainly be sitting there with calamity going ‘gosh, it sure would be cool if I had a 1200 range aoe that actually did something’.

Unfortunately, there’s not really any better offensive utility options. You could take mantra of pain, but it’s even less usable than calamity. You could take portal if you wanted to go full raid-kitten, but honestly I can’t in good faith recommend that you do that. You could go supporty with well of action or precognition, or even mantra of concentration for aoe stunbreaks.

Ultimately there’s no obvious choice here. Pick a third utility based on what you want/need. Just don’t go taking calamity and expect it to actually be skill that feels good to use, because it’s not. It feels clunky, it feels weak, and that’s when it works at all. More often people just move out of it or the fight is too spread out for it to hit more than 1 person.

Gravity well is fine as an elite. It suffers from all the same problems as calamity, but it’s got decent cc. The other option is taking moa and not using it, because the passive cc reduction can be handy in WvW.

Traits
Your traits need a bit of work. Chaos/insp/chrono is fine, but I’ll do a quick review of the other options.

Chrono is obviously required, so there’s 2 more to fill. Domination has good power options, but a lot of it is geared towards shatters and phantasms which don’t work in WvW group fights. It does have power block, and this is a potentially strong trait if you’re able to get interrupts reliably. This is unlikely, but keep it in mind if you happen to be seeing a lot of interrupts as you play.

Dueling doesn’t have much for you other than the condie version of power block in mistrust. Same deal here; it can be strong if you somehow find yourself pumping out interrupts. Evasive mirror deserves an honorable mention, but the personal nature of the trait makes it have limited usefulness in a WvW group.

Chaos is obviously strong. You’ve got manipulation cooldowns, PU, and CI. Same deal as before with CI, but PU is a nice boost for veil.

Inspiration has solid choices too, more on that later.

Illusions has some very niche utility stuff that ultimately isn’t very effective in a WvW group fight. Not recommended.

Overall, chaos/insp is the best pair of traitlines unless you’re looking to get something specific out of the other ones. With that in mind, let’s look at your traits.

Chaos
No issues here really, just keep in mind the potential usefulness of CI if you’re getting interrupts.

Inspiration
These are solid except for your grandmaster. You’ve taken the glamour trait, but the only glamour you’re using (ignoring the res bubble) is the one that doesn’t work with the trait. Resistance is only applied at the moment of creation, not on everyone that passes through the veil. I know, it’s a concept deserving of public ridicule for the short bus passenger that designed it, but that’s how it works. With that in mind, take illusionary inspiration instead. Most of the time it’ll be useless, but sometimes it’ll be a nice extra boon share for whatever you’ve got on you, and only sometimes useless is better than always useless.

Chrono
There’s honestly a lot of really poor options in chrono. You’re mainly taking it for shield, 25% minor, and CS. You’re not using enough wells to make the well trait worth it, but the other options suck, so you’re stuck with that one. You’re not generating enough alacrity to make improved alacrity worth it, but the other options are garbage in a WvW fight, so you’re stuck with it. Seize the moment is honestly pretty underwhelming too, but it’ll work I suppose.

Gearing
I’d go with a mix of zerker, knights, and valk gear to get you the defense required to stay alive without totally borking your offense. Runes are mostly up to you. You could use melandru for defense, pack/scholar for offense, whatever you want really.

Fay as always your are a wealth of knowledge and I appreciate you responding to me!

Based on your recommendations I’ve changed out the well of calamity for mantra of distration and changed my traits to include CI. I think on a norm this is the better way to more effectively lock down enemy ele’s and interrupt their casting. Still keeping Chaos, Insp & Chrono as they are just too good unless going full glass on shatter. I’m contemplating 2,2,2 on the Chrono line just for quickness when shattering to increase dps. Gravity well has been very effective when cast on a caster back line as they don’t have any good source of stability. On a front line with stability it is useless. I will play around with Signet of Humility though because there is a huge amount of CC in tier 2 which I play in. So that may be the more survivable option. I also feel while gravity well is strong in some situations, in others it leaves you very vulnerable for a couple of brief seconds. I’ve made all the changes you recommended.

Gearing I’m thinking of starting with knights armor, pack runes, zerk everything else. See how that goes and adjust based on survivability.

I GREATLY appreciate you responding. Hopefully I covered it all. If I missed anything or if u think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to hit me up.

Thanks again!!!!

If you can get close enough to the backline to hit them with gravity well, it can work nicely. The problem comes from the fact that grav well only has 900 range, a small radius, and a slow cast. Often the backline will have moved by the time you’ve actually gotten the skill off, and it whiffs.

MoD, like MoP, can work. It’s just really really clunky. The fact that it requires a target to function makes it extremely easy to waste. If your target happens to be just beyond 1200 range it totally fizzles. If there’s a ton of skill spam and it’s hard to select a target in the area you want, you can’t use it. You can tab-target of course, but this usually selects some frontline guardian with 10 stab, so that’s not very good either. Experiment with it though, and see how it works for you. You may find it to be good enough for your purposes.

Be careful with the healing well that you don’t overwrite water fields.

Some people claim the Mesmer boon bots are OP (like Venoms). Personally I didn’t find boon sharing that powerful, but maybe I didn’t have a good build.

I’m running zerker gear because I don’t think for the most part the extra protection would make any difference. If you get hit by an 18-wheeler on the highway, it’s probably not going to matter whether or not you were wearing a bike helmet.

lujate.5432:

Some people claim the Mesmer boon bots are OP (like Venoms). Personally I didn’t find boon sharing that powerful, but maybe I didn’t have a good build.

I’d say that boonshare is really just a compound issue of the times. It allows stacking of effects that are not meant to work as cover, to, well, work as cover. However it is only really effective if you have the other balance issues on your side. Facing a larger group or running few numbers overall you can’t really maintain a boon cover against the control effects anyway. So, in the end, boonshare is mostly seen on the type of guilds who run 30 vs. 15 anyway to counter groups who attempt to circumvent the hard-cc disadvantage (of playing 15 vs. 30) by stacking soft cc.

As for the rest of the topic, the go-to builds for 15-20 man guild groups have always been power builds for havoc parties. Granted, they are not as competetive to other classes these days and hybrid condi shatters first came about when people began experimenting with dropping their GS after all the power nerfs last summer, but it’s still the starting point for understanding basic group play as Mesmer, I’d say.

Start out playing havoc and taking regroups from thieves (while understanding that you may not be their ideal companion anymore), learn how to provide MI-saves and over time learn how to setup targets for them. From there you can experiment with more modern builds that combines a shotcall role with escape pressure from some condi. Nothing is ideal though, the class has taken a step back overall and it is the most blantant in WvW and organized WvW group-play. However, what I’ve suggested is still arguably the best way to fill a role in a WvW group.

There may be specialist support builds and whatnot out there but they are either lesser alternatives, may not fit into groups, require specific situations or conditions where other things than just the class decides the outcome. So veils are mostly a thing of the past (esp. at 15-20) while things like ranged support or well-play is more for the realm of zerging or guild-busting with zergs or zergy guilds where builds are not as decisive as other issues.

So since I’ve been playing in group with a bursting mesmer for a while
now, I would like to put my two cents here. In short, I am running this
build: WvW Zerg Bursting Chronomancer
I mainly play with a group of 20~50 against another group of 20~50,
acting as a bomb and taking enemies down with low health or glassy ones.

This is basically a power build because condition damage doesn’t work
too well in this context and shatters could hardly hit with condition
weapons. Greatsword is somehow the only viable weapon for AoE damage.

I need at least two stun breaks to survive due to lack of stability,
and Decoy and Blink are the best ones especially for Blink, it’s
truly a life saver because this build is quite glassy. Only 3 pieces
of trinkets are Captain and the rest are all Berserker. I should heal
or blink even if I only took one shot in general.

Mirror was taken due to fast recharge so it works well with
Mender’s Purity. Cleansing two conditions is not a lot, but with
15 seconds cooldown it’s acceptable. Also given this pirate ship meta,
reflection could come in handy when I’m aimed by a Ranger, too.

Restorative Illusions is not always necessary. I only take it when
we’re out of number and having only around 20 people. If cleansing
is not an issue, I’ll take Protected Phantasms instead. Fighting
against 20+ people, illusions basically die immediately so this would
be necessary to land Phantasmal Berserker, and it still dies immediately
after distortion ran out so I would shatter it immediately, too.

So here’s how a fight goes:

Basically just stay a bit behind our train. Whenever I see a good chance
or whenever the commander calls, drop Gravity Well and Continuum Split.
Drop Well of Calamity accordingly if it’s not a good enough chance,
or when Gravity Well is on cooldown. Use Blink as a gap closer accordingly.
Sometimes Decoy would work, too.

Shatter fast and don’t try to save illusions. Shatter works very well
when I’m around the enemies with Illusionary Reversion and Chronophantasma.
Just smash the buttons when enemies are around. This would be a very
strong burst with Greatsword. Use Blink and Decoy to escape accordingly.
(or even Decoy to shatter for the extra illusion)

Take Veil or Portal Entre accordingly, of curse.
Swap a Berserker ring with a Solider ring if we’re so out of number.

*

On the other hand, I really admire how ND (Never Die) plays. I don’t know
how they run Chronomancer in detail, but this would be the build from my
observation: WvW Zerg Support Chronomancer
Eat this food: Plate of Mussels Gnashblade

A lot of slots are empty because I have no idea. Try your own creativity.
This build is very, very cooperative though. Heralds are much needed as well.

Basically it’s a boon sharing build, stacking 25 stacks of stability and
maintain permanent resistance. The use of Temporal Curtain was very impressive
as well. They could kill 5+ people standing on the wall in a burst.

I don’t see pirate ship meta on them and they could take down double or
even triple enemies (e.g. 15 vs 30). Both tanky and destructive.
In the end often enemies just ran away seeing them.

This definitely doesn’t work without a voice chat.

edited: fix my actual infusion

I don’t have much time, so:
This is the build I use: http://goo.gl/r3zfSJ
And this is how I play it and how it performs: http://goo.gl/r3zfSJ

You’re basically a ranged DPS with CC.
Feedback is better against pug zergs, against guilds Well of Recall does more.
I don’t take Veil cause my guild relies on blasting smoke.

Ansau.7326:

I don’t have much time, so:
This is the build I use: http://goo.gl/r3zfSJ
And this is how I play it and how it performs: http://goo.gl/r3zfSJ

You’re basically a ranged DPS with CC.
Feedback is better against pug zergs, against guilds Well of Recall does more.
I don’t take Veil cause my guild relies on blasting smoke.

You used same link twice, i would realy want to see, how you perform on that build.

Lool sorry :P
Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTvC5aMHrSM

Ansau.7326:

Lool sorry :P
Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTvC5aMHrSM

Ok now that ive seen you play. What is it that your doing better than elementalist or necromancer or even revenant, to justify your space in raid/map, since you are not using any of special mesmer mechanics(veil,portal). Only thing i can think of is gravity well, but is that realy enough.
I just want to know your oppiniong, becouse i realy think mesmer is only realy usefull for gimics, even boonshare in guild teams is kinda gimicky. And all of this relies on our utilities.

Basically because I’m tons of ways better with a mesmer than with a ele/necro. And because if I had to play any other profession I wouldn’t play at all.

Better have an alive mesmer than a dead ele/necro.
Better play with 20 guys + a mesmer than play with 20 guys.

Ansau.7326:

Basically because I’m tons of ways better with a mesmer than with a ele/necro. And because if I had to play any other profession I wouldn’t play at all.

Better have an alive mesmer than a dead ele/necro.
Better play with 20 guys + a mesmer than play with 20 guys.

Taught so, ty. Its basicly the same for me. Though i acctuly use veil, though i kinda hate it anyway.

SloRules.3560:

Ansau.7326:

Lool sorry :P
Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTvC5aMHrSM

Ok now that ive seen you play. What is it that your doing better than elementalist or necromancer or even revenant, to justify your space in raid/map, since you are not using any of special mesmer mechanics(veil,portal). Only thing i can think of is gravity well, but is that realy enough.
I just want to know your oppiniong, becouse i realy think mesmer is only realy usefull for gimics, even boonshare in guild teams is kinda gimicky. And all of this relies on our utilities.

Dam, you don’t pull any punches, do you!

Dam, you don’t pull any punches, do you!

Im just frustrated with my role as a mesmer. Am i realy only a gimick user? Before HOT there was a role for focus party, but that is not the case anymore, even if you get people to do so, maps are absolutly terible for this, since you dont have space to manouver around, and gunflames/rev hammer 2 basicly 1 hits you.
Illusions just die if you dont take distortion for them, but doing so you give up one of best traits mesmer has, i mean 1 condi clear per shatter and healing is just so good.
Well of precognision opened up many posibilities, but they nerfed it to the ground.
Reflects? in pug groups enough guardians run wall of reflection, while against guilds its almost useless.
Signets, i laugh at them, exept for inspiration, but still what use is it outside of gvg.
Manipulations, again only 1 good, acctuly godlike blink.
While phantasms are like guardian weapons, no one even knows they exist.
Not to mention traitlines, we can agree chrono is better than basic mesmer, so thats 1, you cant play without condi clear anymore so thats inspiration and we are at 2. So what are you going to chose now, with a class that relies hugely on its traits. Well whatever you do chose it seems incomplete.

I feel the key issue is that too many stuffs are relying on shattering (especially for conditions play), and we all know that illusions just die immediately without Protected Phantasms (and this only works for phantasms), and even with it, we can’t save 3 phantasms, so there’s no places for 3 illusions burst. (not to mention giving up Restorative Illusions, without it mesmer can’t survive from any conditions spike)

This is probably ok in PvE because now they take 95% reduced damages from AoE, along with other kinds of pets. I don’t know if it’s a technical limitation, but I believe WvW needs something like this as well, or the entire shattering mechanism won’t work well, and therefore mesmer as a whole won’t work well.

The other issue is surely that the entire Inspiration line is way too important to cleanse conditions. But I guess this is easier to solve though, just add more ways to cleanse conditions then we could probably give up Inspiration. Then we would have much more choices to pick from.

SloRules.3560:

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I’m with you. The sad truth is that anyone who runs Mesmer in group WvW will learn that probably the best thing they can do for their group is run one of the darling classes instead.