Guild Wars 2

Please feel free to comment, or correct any and everything!

That said, other classes have sustainable builds in cele builds with might stacking and constant heals/regen. While I tried and enjoyed those classes and builds, I just can’t forget about how much fun I have as a mesmer. So, I’ve been focused on making a similar build for mesmers.

The build I’m currently using and have had success with is…..

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsaRlknpGtlpxRNcrNipxc6qiaLSGQDlskxB-TZBFwACeAAf2fYxRAoaZAAnCAA

Weapons/Armor
-S/P with Fire and Air: When you iLeap>Shatter>Blurred Frenzy, you should proc those runes for amazing burst.

-GS with Air and Energy: GS is amazing for offense, but I find energy sigil is necessary to help me escape if I get jumped after swapping. It also produces shatter fodder.

-Berserker/Assassins with Centaur Runes: Typical for burst. I prefer centaur. Some prefer traveller. Pick your favorite.

Traits
-Halting Strike: With pistol, gs, and MoD, we have 4 interrupts that are all quickly executed for amazing damage and lockdown. (Shoutout to CI: great practice for this)

-Shattered Concentration: To sustain ourselves in a fight we either have to build up our might/regen/prot or strip others of theirs. Our might stacking ability is not exceptional without sacrificing some burst, so we strip others!

-Phantasmal Fury: Between pistol and gs we get more damage and extra bleed.

-Deceptive Evasion: Any shatter defense and burst need this trait at the moment :/

-Mender’s Purity: Conditions bad.

-Restorative Mantras: I know it may sound weird since were not using MoR, but it adds another source of healing for us while reloading MoD in decoy (scales with healing).

-Shattered Conditions: Make sure those pesky conditions don’t stick while you fight. You should be shattering often to keep burst up. (Keep CoF off CD for a quick cleanse)

Utilities
-Ether Feast: Now cleanses 2 conditions. I don’t recommend MoR as the heal since decoy/distortion/dazes can only cover 1 mantra cast. Thats not to say that MoR is bad, just suboptimal.

-MoD: I can’t live without this after playing CI. Halting strike damage is amazing, if a teef jumps you, just daze them during their combo and you can recover (set up iDuelist). See an enemy heal going off? Cancel it. They have no more dodges and you want a guaranteed iLeap? Daze em! The utility is limitless.

-Blink: I can’t praise this enough. Positioning is the most important part of survival. Why take damage, when you can get out of the way?

-Decoy: Similar to blink. The invis is amazing to reset, cover casts, or stunbreak.

Looks interesting! I love the idea of someone working in the Inspiration tree and experimenting with Shattered Conditions. When I have some time, I’ll give some further critique, but nice job so far!

I’ve seen builds like this before, and they can perform quite efficiently.

That being said, they perform in absolutely no way even remotely approaching what a cele ele does.to obtain that sort of healing sustain on Mesmer requires a ton of investment into defensive gear and traits, at the sacrifice of almost all offense.

The build you have here works just fine, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll sustain like an ele in it.

Also, you may want to change that first one to say ‘shattered concentration’.

@Mail: Thanks! Hopefully it works for you, I’ll be interested to hear what you like/dislike.

@Fay: Agreed that this can’t be a cele ele. We need to do a lot more dodging/invis/blink moving in and out of the fight, but it seems to have enough to combat cele builds and sustain better than a lot of the builds I’ve tested. Also, thanks for the catch haha, thought I’d caught my typos on the first edit :P

I’m not sure I’m understanding what you mean by “sustain”. What’s the purpose of this build? What role is it intended for?

I like this build, nice! Just one thing… Since you seem to have enough HP, why not switching berserker for assassin? You would end up with the same HP as if you were with zerker amulet and no point in inspiration, rougly, which is a pretty popular health pool. However, it would sensibly boost your damage.

See how it goes

I really like the feel of this build. Great job!

I actually used assassin’s ammy instead of zerker for the extra dmg. Also, instead of MoD, I used MoP. It does the same amount as Halting Strike without needing an interrupt on MoD. It also serves as an on-demand healing due to it’s extremely low CD.

MoD is probably better overall as a utility (stopping stomps/rezzes and interrupting heals) but I like the feel of MoP in a weird build like this.

edit: I also used Pack Runes. What was your rationale behind Centaur? I think there are plenty of other Power based runes that would be better, but maybe there’s something you’ve thought of that I didn’t.

@Ross: ‘Sustain’ here refers to being able to stay in a fight and contribute to your team (or to the duel without a reset) Ex. When against a condi build, instead of having to reset or die with our lack of continuous condi cleanse, you can shatter to remove them and apply pressure. Or if your heal is on CD you can find cover/decoy and charge your mantra to get a heal. If this heal becomes more useful than MoD, then you can swap it for MoP and still get out damage (see Mails comment)

As for roles, it mostly still fits the shatter playstyle of a burst dps roamer (much of it still in AoE/Cleave), but lets you lockdown a target’s key skills if you keep MoD. With shattered conditions and restorative mantras, you also provide utility with AoE cleanse and small heal for teammates. If necessary, holding points is more possible than traditional shatter, but still not easy since its not a bunker.

@trooper: Just tested assassin’s over berserker ammy, the dps boost definitely feels worth the hp loss. Thanks for the tip!

@Mail: Thanks! After some testing I agree on the assassin’s ammy. I haven’t really tested MoP yet for the build I’ll have to give that a shot! This would also let you replace halting strike if another dom trait sounds more useful.

As for the Centaur runes, I prefer to have swiftness when needed. In WvW it can become perma-swiftness to escape/roam, and in PvP you can give your team swiftness out the gate, on your way to take a node (don’t get caught), or to escape/reposition. If you don’t mind losing this, then Pack runes are a great option. Come to think of it, Air runes may also work well.

Yeah, MoP has less utility than MoD overall, but I think in a build like this, it actually gets more bang for its buck considering you’re running heal on mantra charge.

I think halting strike is still good in this build, but the illusion buff would also be nice considering that you aren’t shattering ALL the time except when being condi bombed or you want the burst of Mind Wrack. 30%+ increase in dmg for your phantasms is ALOT.

• Pack Runes vs Centaur:
  I guess Centaur gives you more control over when you want swiftness, but outside of that, I think Pack is better considering that it also gives you might and fury. The CD is lower, but it also gives you an insane amount of precision along power. I actually think it’s kind of ridiculous how good Pack Runes are. But for wvw, that’s outside of my expertise, so maybe Centaur is better there!