Guild Wars 2

Sorry for probably creating the 100000th thread asking for build advice :/

I have a lvl 80 mesmer I quickly leveled up when this game first came out. I have never done any sort of WvW with it and I got to lvl 80 in a very lazy way by pretty much relying on Greatsword only. (I know, that’s painful for any true mesmer)

Lately I’ve been getting a little bit tired of my engineer and I decided to give my mesmer a second chance.

And here I am now, completely lost! I’ve browsed through the stickied build list and checked all those shattercat variations but I am having a hard time determining which builds actualy fulfill my needs xD

In a perfect world my dream mesmer would be able to:

• Have high survivability and have good mobility
• Making use of some sneaky tactics involving stealth
• Offer the best possible group support and utility (like portals, feedback, aoe confusion and blind, aoe retaliation and reflect blablub)

I do not really care about high burst or sustained power based dmg, I wouldnt mind for some confusion stacking together with cond dmg though.

I also don’t mind starting out with a build that comes with a high skill cap in itself.
I might be a mesmer noob but I think I have pretty much “mastered” the engi class when it comes to pushing kittenloads of buttons, CD management and making best use of combos and trait synergy.

ANY input and links to build that match this description would be highly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

TLDR
Someone please link me a tried and trusted WvW build focussed on survivability and group support & utility

Here’s a build I ran for a little while. It worked great roaming in a small group and even solo, and with a few quick switches it converts to support in bigger groups quite well.

Armor: Rabid w/Centaur Runes.
Amulet/Rings: Rabid.
Accessory/Back: Knights.
Sword: Soldiers w/Sigil of Blood.
Staff/Torch: Carrion w/Sigils of Energy.
(Backup staff w/ Corruption)

When roaming:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMmmmc9cMabLoMabLo0GG0xmacaVoq

When with a group:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMmmzc9cMCrnmMabLo0GG0xmaVaVRs

The roaming setup gives you plenty of stealth, mobility, and confusion bombing with CoF. I added a little power into the mix b/c I found that it goes farther that eeking out a little extra c/dam, esp when you can setup a CoF -> iLeap -> swap -> MI/BF/MW combo. The best time to do this after your foe unleashes a big burst or you have his escape skills on CD. If he hits you with his burst, bust your heal before the CoF to heal up and grant swiftness to all rushing illusions.

With all the toughness, stealth, mobility, and confusion, you are pretty hard to take down and can escape well. Those that chase you usually fail or die spamming CC/movement skills from confusion. Depending on my mood, sometimes I’ll switch Chaos III for IV or V and Illusion V for VII, too.

The group setup allows you to spread confusion far and wide with glamours and CS, grant swiftness to allies and portal them for ambushes/escapes. Pretty simple there. If it’s a PUG where portal doesn’t help as much, you can swap it for Veil. Even in a PUG you can pop it at the frontline when you close in, and players tend to run over it, and it spreads confusion.

Hey, being lazy is no crime… ^^

If you cannot find what you want in the list, it is up to you to support the community by finding a new build.

My tip would be, to go with a tanky build (bunker) and start your journey from there. Let us know the result…

Put up a TLDR b/c that’s a ain’t wall of text, I’m guessing you need something along the lines of survivability? For survivability should use a bunker build and damage should look into Osi’s build and maybe tweak. Just my input.

Sincerely,
Riox

TLDR added :p I support laziness both for myself and others!

Hi.

I would start with the Shatter Cat Heavy spec, run the original setup when you run solo/smal team but change utilitys for when you run in group of 5+. If you run group you drop the mirror immage for a feedback. This give you null field and feedback for group support, if they dont need null field get portal but to be a good portal mesmer for your group you need alot of understanding of wvwvw and tactics, best let a experienced mesmer handle that part.

Here is a vid of the shatter cat heavy:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcr9k_K7TfE

For builds etc go to my guide, its sticky on 1 st page in this forum.

/Osicat

Thanks a lot, I was already busy browsing your builds

Could something similar to the shatter cat heavy (with some trait adjustments I guess) also work with Cond/Power/Vit gear?
Is there some killer argument to choose prec over vit?
Or is it that you feel toughness is more useful opposed to vit?

Cheers & thanks already!

Main reason for prec is for the nifty vigor minor trait in the dueling tree that allows you to dodge up armies of clones. I have a build I’ve been working on actually that rather fits your description. When I get home on my computer I’ll post up some info.

As a suggestion, I would just flat out try, 0/0/30/30/10 for “Distortion Grants Reflection talent” or 0/10/30/30/0 for an extra stealth at 25% health.

If you do spec this way, pay attention as you’re placing points. Notice the talents that grant Protection from Regen, and how phantasms can be traited to grant Regen.

Both specs allow you begin to understand combo fields with the use of glamor skills and any leap skills you might want to use, also including “blast” finishers, like "the “prestige” (torch 4) which throws chaos armor onto people around you. Personally, when I run bunker spec, I like Staff- sword/torch-focus Sword . The constant Chaos Armor, distortion, each weapon skill set has a leap finisher. With the sword you can pop off -sword three- iIlusionary leap for 2x the chaos armor.

You really are a beast at this point and with enough toughness and vitality gear, its going to take a train to kill you in WvW.

Socket 2x Rune of Earth 2x Rune of Water, 2x Rune of the Monk is almost like turning on God Mode.

Any who, the spec it self is really just a template to help you understand the idea of this play style, eventually, If you like these kinds of builds, I would mess around with Mantras combined with the added utility of torch 4 -The prestige-, mass stealth, Veil, Decoy, null field and the ability to remove conditions when you heal COMBINED with 24/7 Chaos Armor… it almost unfair.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_earth
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Monk
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Water

Good luck.

Toughness and vitality usually work best together, but if you have to pick one or the other, toughness usually wins out.

Reasoning behind that is because stacking high amounts of vitality gives you a big health pool that can be burned through easily, but your heal doesn’t scale with vitality so you can’t restore it effectively in combat. Toughness allows you to maintain a reasonable amount of hp while making it harder for enemies to burn through it, and keeping your heal scaled better relative to hp amount.

Precision is valuable too, for the above-mentioned reasons. Don’t be afraid to find a base build that sounds good and experiment with traits and gear to work out what’s best for what you want it to do. It’s a synergystic puzzle – traits are the framework, with armor and runes and sigils filling out the whole picture. It’s a pretty flexible system, just have to put the pieces together the right way. There’s a lot that probably hasn’t been tried (mostly for obvious reasons) and you might hit on the next big build combo.