Guild Wars 2

( CLICK HERE for Part 2. Edits and additional info provided by kubertz, keenlam, and Necrotize)

1) Mesmer Lockdown
2) Frustrating With Interrupts
3) What Other Classes Hate About You
4) Videos of Mesmer-induced Rage

WHAT IS LOCKDOWN?
When you break combat down to its simplest terms, you find that almost everything can be mitigated in some way.

Movement – Cripple/Chill/Torment/Immobilize
Cooldowns – Chill/Interrupt
Projectiles – Reflect
Skill Use – Daze/Stun/Confusion/Blind
Healing – Poison
Damage – Weakness
AoE – Retaliation
Boons/Conditions – Removal

Mesmer have enough tools that we can quite easily shutdown any (and even all) of the above in a single build without having to sacrifice damage. Though a boss may be immune to daze/stun, Weakness, Vulnerability, & Chill (Debilitating dissipation, Dazzling, Hydromancy Sigils) still cuts their damage by 50%, increases skill cooldowns, and more vulnerable to damage.

CONTROL, MESMER-STYLE

Mesmer have 4 main ways to control opponents.

Boon Removal
Null Field, iDisenchanter, Arcane Thievery, Sword 1, Greatsword 3, Shattered Concentration (Domination VII)
Mesmer have wonderful AoE boon removal. Shattered Conditions combined with Null Field can make you a boon-nullifying nightmare on the battlefield. This is especially good against enemies that like to stack Might, Fury, Vigor or Stability. A sneaky combo is Arcane Thievery + Signet of Inspiration to steal long-lasting boons (Example: Signet of Rage is a very common elite among Warriors that grants 30 seconds of Might, Fury, and Swiftness… Did a sinister grin tug at your lips yet?).

Reflects
Feedback, Mimic, Medic’s Feedback (Inspiration I), Warden’s Feedback (Inspiration VIII), Masterful Reflection (Illusions IV)
Linger out of melee-range and what happens? Most likely, the enemy will try to shoot you. Projectiles are a very common form of attack, and skills like Feedback turn that damage right back on the enemy. Reflects are not affected by power, but are affected by critical chance and critical damage. A reflected projectile will count as YOUR attack, and thus proc any corresponding sigils. An excellent write-up with examples is depicted in Ansau’s Reflection Guide.

Confusion and Conditions
Cry of Frustration [F2], Scepter 3, Torch 5, Illusionary Retribution (Illusions 5), Confusing Enchantments (Domination VIII), Blinding Befuddlement(Illusions IX), Confusing Combatants (Dueling 25)
Confusion is a stacking condition that does damage to the opponent for every skill they use. It does half as much damage in PvP/WvW as it does in PvE, but can still be a very strong source of damage and highly discourages players from attacking. As long as we conveniently ignore Superior Runes of Perplexity (/shakefist @ Thieves with these runes) then we can say that Confusion is a nearly Mesmer-exclusive condition, sort of like Fear for Necromancers. Engineer are the only other class that can output confusion reliably, but they aren’t supported with traits the way we are. Torment is another punishing condition that deals double damage to moving enemies. Our Scepter’s counterattack can inflict large amounts of Torment that can do several thousand damage to enemies. In addition to this, Mesmer can easily inflict AoE Cripple (-50% movement)/ Weakness (50% damage) / 3xVulnerability (1% more damage per stack) / 3xBleeds simply by spitting out clones and allowing them to be killed via Crippling Dissipation and Debilitating Dissipation (Domination V/ Chaos V).

Chain Dazes/Stuns
Equipping Mantra of Distraction allows us to link together our dazes (and stuns w/ Confounding Suggestions – Domination XII) in a way that’s only rivaled by Warriors. Unlike Warriors, we trade the damaging aspect of our control abilities for the ability to cast them at range (Daze Mantra/Magic Bullet/Counterblade) but also can be highly rewarded for well-timed interrupts. Dazing aggressively (Daze Mantra >> Counter Blade >> [F3] Diversion >> Daze Mantra) often leads to interrupts and an opponent locked down for 5+ seconds in a single rotation.

INTERRUPTS
An interrupt is when you daze/stun/knockdown/knockback/launch/ect. an opponent in the middle of their attack. Nearly every skill has a cast time and thus can be interrupted, but channeled skills (such as Mantra charges) are particularly succeptable to being interrupted. Mesmer is the only class with traits that reward for interrupting. Like Signets and Mantras it isn’t recommended to make a full-interrupt build as much as to use the various interrupts as spices to add to your build. Offhand Sword, Focus, and Mantra of Distraction are are most reliable and consistent means of interrupting enemies. When not interrupting channeled attacks or skills with long cast-times, Interrupts are best used aggressively; chaining one potential interrupt after another to keep the enemy locked down and unable to retaliate.

Halting Strike - Domination II
Halting Strike does a chunk of damage to the opponent whenever you interrupt them. It is NOT a skill meant for condition-heavy builds as the trait scales off of Power. Halting Strike competes with Mental Torment and Empowered Illusions for a spot in builds, and in many cases it loses the battle of viability versus those other traits depending on the build. If you’re planning to spec for Phantasm damage, you take Empowered Illusions, if you have Illusionary Persona for a shatter-heavy build, then the obvious choice is Mental Torment.. But if you happen to be wielding an offhand-sword, using Mantra of Distraction, and intend on using both Shatters AND Phantasms for damage, then Halting Strike is for you. (Protip: Save 1 Mantra of Distraction charge for enemies trying to heal themselves. Feel like a champ when you interrupt their heals AND damage them.)

Furious Interruption - Dueling XII
Furious Interruption grants 3 seconds of Quickness whenever you interrupt a foe with a 15 second cooldown. Like most 30-point traits, you have to build around it to really make it shine. It is a difficult trait to learn to properly utilize at first due to the sometimes-random nature of interrupts, but weapons like mainhand Sword, Scepter, and Greatsword can gain a considerable damage boost when this trait is used properly. The 3s Quickness is also great for stomping, rezzing, and charging Mantras.

Bountiful Interruption -Chaos VIII
Bountiful Interruption grants 5x Might and a random boon for every enemy you interrupt. Unlike the other two interruption traits, this ability works better with AoE skills such as Temporal Curtian (Focus 4) and Illusionary Wave (Greatsword 5). Bountiful Interruption not only increases your damage for each person you interrupt (thus making Halting Strike progressively more deadly) it synergizes really well with Signet of Inspiration for boonsharing. Arcane Thievery + Bountiful Interruption + Lyssa Runes = Profit.

Chaotic Interruption -Chaos XI
Chaotic Interruption instantly immobilizes enemy and hits them with either crippled, chilled, or blind on interrupt. It’s good for both single targets and groups and can be especially strong in PvP for keeping enemies off of points combined with abilities such as Imbued Diversion (Illusions XII), Temporal Curtian (Focus 4) and Illusionary Wave (Greatsword 5). It’s also good for setting up a shatter burst on debilitated foes.

HOW TO MAKE OTHER CLASSES HATE YOU

• Guardians and Warriors hate… Boon removal & Clone deaths.
  Guardians and Warriors thrive on boons such as Protection, Stability, and Fury for both doing damage and survival. A Warrior without Stability, or a Guardian without Protection can end up being a hilariously easy kill. Many of these soldiers also are at their best while in melee. Clone-death traits makes it difficult for them to attack you in melee without risking being crippled/weakness, effectively making them.. well, suck.

• Rangers and Engineers hate… Reflection & Arcane Thievery.
  Pretty self-explainatory, but not always a constant rule. Reflection shuts down a huge majority of what Rangers and Engineers can do for damage and throws it right back in their faces. Feedback and traited Focus together can really shut these classes out of a fight for a bit. Arcane Thievery works well against a few boon-stacking specs, such as the HGH Might-stacking Engineer and Vigor/Regen-stacking Rangers.

• Thieves and Elementalists hate… Halting Strike & Chaotic Interruption.
  Thieves and Elementalists both have very low base HP, and thus are classes that must maintain their mobility in order to be effective. Elementalists are very succeptable to interrupts, and Halting Strike hits them very hard due to their low armor. Chaotic Interruption deserves mention here because all of the conditions it applies can really ruin these squishy opponents’ day. Mantra of Distraction with Halting Strike hurts Eles particularly hard since their heals are rather easy to interrupt and Halting Strike can very easily finish them off. In my experience, certain Thief-specs are very interruptable as well, but I don’t play Thief well enough to be able to explain how/why.

Geiir.7603:

Just wanted to add why thief hate interrupts. There’s three builds that will be completely destroyed if you interrupt them at the right moment. You have Cloak and Dagger (dagger off-hand). This skill cost 6 initiative (of 12) and give the thief stealth. Most WvW thieves remove conditions, heal and blind when they stealth. Interrupting this ability will leave the thief very vulnerable. The other one is Black Powder + Heartseeker. This is the combo 90% of the WvW population hate. But if you interrupt their heartseeker you deny them stealth and they just wasted 9 initiative! That is a really bad situation for a thief to be in.

Oh, and there’s one more thing. Backstab. Hitting a clone when we thought we had you instead is the worst feeling in the world. The thief get 3 seconds where he can’t stealth and he didn’t damage you. This is a very bad situation and the thief is probably very open to get bursted now.

• Necromancer hate… Mantra of Distraction & Boon Removal.
  Have you ever seen a Necromancer go Lich/Plague form only to have their long-lasting Stability get ripped off them by a crafty Mesmer? It’s hilarious. Suddenly that giant lich is getting yanked left & right, dazed and stunned, and is nothing but a big green target for everyone else. Serves them right for flaunting those incredible glowing 6-pack abs liches have for.. whatever reason. When they’re not using wells or Staff, Necromancer are actually rather easy to interrupt.

• Mesmer hate… Condition Damage.
  I’ll be honest.. There’s no one particular way to keep a Mesmer locked down. Too many teleports and stealths for that pathetic nonsense that those other inferior pedestrian classes can’t hand-…er, Mesmer fanboyism leaking in. Apologies. Anyways, while Mesmer are resiliant to hard CC (stuns, dazes, ect.) conditions tend to screw us over sideways with no lubricant. Most Mesmer carry only one form of condition removal, and that tends to be either on a long cooldown (Null Field) or tied to some silly stipulation (Arcane Thievery needs a target / iDisenchanter can be destroyed/shattered ). Condition damage and condition debilitations are the best way to take down a slippery Mesmer.

VIDEOS (If you have a video of yourself making people hate you, link it in the comments!)

Alissah makes Spiderman hate her (at 3:00) running a 30/20/20 variant of Mind Crush. She explains how she counts his dodges before her burst, knows his location while stealth, and her mentality vs D/D Thieves.

Lahel makes opponents hate him in WvW with a well-timed focus pull (1:00). His lockdown build is known as “Shackel’d”

Yo Angel… been playing top end pvp for awhile and trying to make something like this viable in pvp. besides maybe a mantra support build, is there a specific interrupt/ control build that you’ve seen viable in top tier (top 100) pvp?

Awesome guide, seriously making me reconsider my pure mind wrack burst build and the last part “(blank) hate…” sections were a very nice touch.

Out of curiosity, which GM trait would you recommend taking a full interruption build into account, Illusionary Persona or Imbued Diversion? Obviously the Imbued Diversion could have incredible stopping power in groups but you also lose the 4x mind wrack, 8x confusion stacks, 4 seconds of distortion and the ability to use those skills without illusions up(should you ever really need to).

Edit: Also for the sake of covering every skill, you should add Masterful Reflection(Illusion IV) which reflects projectiles while using distortion.

Hi Chaos
Another awesome writeup.
Just want to point out some typos and misinformation to make your thread even more better

Chaos Archangel.5071:

We’re the only class that has traits that reward successfully interrupting your opponent

This is not true. Warrior has Distracting Strikes and Ranger has Moment of Clarity
However, its quite clear that Interrupt is not centric to those classes as it is to mesmers. So just want to clarify here, no argument needed.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Cry of Frustration [F4], Scepter 3, Torch 5, Illusionary Retribution (Illusions 5), Confusing Enchantments (Domination VIII), Blinding Befuddlement(Illusions IX), Confusing Combatants (Dueling 25)

Cry of Frustration is F2 shatter, unless you keybind to F4

Chaos Archangel.5071:

In addition to this, Mesmer can easily inflict AoE Cripple (-50% movement)/ Weakness (50% damage) / 3xVulnerability (1% more damage per stack) / 3xBleeds simply by spitting out clones and allowing them to be killed via Debilitating Dissipation[/i] and Crippling Dissipation (Chaos V/ Domination V).

Debilitating Dissipation = Chaos V
Crippling Dissipation = Dom V
You had it switched around. It might confuse new mesmers.

That’s all.
Thank you and keep up the good work.

I like this!

There’s something about your writing that makes it realy enjoyable to read c:

I don’t really see anythind I’d improve atm, apart from the things people above pointed out.

Great writeup as always, Chaos!

Just my notes to some parts:

• Movement Lockdown – Immobilize is missing from the list.
• Confusion – Engineers have solid access to confusion too, but it is not supported by traits like in the case of Mesmer, so I guess that is the reason you are not mentioning them. Bomb #3, Toolkit #3, Pistol #3 can stack 12-14 stacks of confusion.
• Thieves – You are probably referring to D/P thieves. If you interrupt their Black Powder (1/2s cast) they just lost 1/2 of their initiative and you denied them their stealth (smoke field + leap combo). That is more often than not a “gg” for them.

UPDATED: 10/29/13

Thanks guys! I’ll be honest, had a lot of fun writing this one.

@twity: Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure of playing top tier PvP just yet. kitten ed sure I’m tryina get there though. The way the condition-meta is now, its hard to advise for any Mesmer build, but I’m positive conditions will be shaved soon enough, in which case I’d lean towards Sensotix’s Bountiful Interruption tPvP build. It does great damage, offers exceptional boon support, and utilized Chaotic Interruption really well to keep enemies immobilized off-points. I’ve been running my Mind Crush almost exclusively and every time it falls short I feel its more because of an error on my part rather than anything really wrong with the build. It’s been working well for me, but I’ve practiced with it for a while now. Overall though, I think that this lockdown playstyle could make for an interesting niche for Mesmer in tPvP and if you’d like I’d definitely be happy to meet up in-game and talk shop to see if we can craft a workable build. I’m positive there’s something gold in this playstyle that hasn’t fully be utilized yet.

@Necrotize: Thanks for the kind words bro! Much appreciated. For your question, I think it depends on which grandmaster you’re interested in taking. Furious Interruption, IMO, would work better with iPersona because of the instant melee-range daze you can pull off without need for a clone. Of course, iPersona is also superior because it also boosts your survivability and offense considerably… But I wouldn’t count out Imbued Diversion, it’d shine harder with Chaotic Interruption and I’ve been running without iPersona for a while now without much need for it (but then again I’m running a 30/30/10/0/0 setup, so I’ve got a lot of damage). It boils down to how much control you wanna have; Imbued Diversion will help you dominate groups better (and can be GLORIOUS with Confounding Suggestions) but iPersona is a more flexible and reliable boost.

@keenlam/kubertz: Updated and gave credit where it’s due, thanks!

@Alissah: I hope ya don’t mind if I threw your video in. Your description of your fight against that thief is such a perfect example that I couldn’t help it.

I would add that rangers and thieves typically melt to confusion.

Also….you’re still here? ;-)

Still here wasting away at work? Still playin GW? or still on the forums?

Either way… Yes. x_x

Updated 11/25/13

- Added insert about Chain-dazes. Would love to provide a video if anyone has.

Bumping cuz since this guide was made Lockdown has gone from obscure to widely used and respeced… which is AWESOME.

Just wanted to add why thief hate interrupts. There’s three builds that will be completely destroyed if you interrupt them at the right moment. You have Cloak and Dagger (dagger off-hand). This skill cost 6 initiative (of 12) and give the thief stealth. Most WvW thieves remove conditions, heal and blind when they stealth. Interrupting this ability will leave the thief very vulnerable. The other one is Black Powder + Heartseeker. This is the combo 90% of the WvW population hate. But if you interrupt their heartseeker you deny them stealth and they just wasted 9 initiative! That is a really bad situation for a thief to be in.

Oh, and there’s one more thing. Backstab. Hitting a clone when we thought we had you instead is the worst feeling in the world. The thief get 3 seconds where he can’t stealth and he didn’t damage you. This is a very bad situation and the thief is probably very open to get bursted now.

Other than that I gotta say that this is a great guide! Enjoyed reading it and guess my Mesmer learnt from it too

Ty Geiir. I added what ya said into the guide.

But, but… I don’t want people to hate me – I want to give hugs after a fight!

:p