Guild Wars 2

Okay so I am still leveling my mesmer and trying different things out. I mainly want to use him for high level fractals and WvW but the occasional PvP is fun too. I can only try builds out in pvp since i am not 80 and dont have all of the traits/gear for WvW yet. I am trying to figure out what builds i like most and am having trouble understanding lockdown builds the most.

I understand the phantasm builds (condi and power) mainly get their damage by keeping up phantasms to do direct/condi damage and shattering clones when needed.

Shatter builds obviously mainly set up shatter bursts for damage.

When it comes to lockdown I know they mainly focus on CC and manipulating the enemy with interrupts etc. I just dont know how they deal a majority of their damage. If any one could like a good updated guide on how they are played that would be great. Thanks!

If you trait for Halting Strike in Dominations that will give you a “burst” when you interrupt. Another key point with interrupt is to catch the heal skill; if you can keep them from healing then it does not wholly matter if you’re doing a lot of damage or wearing them down because you are preventing them from recovering. You’re also looking for skills with exaggerated animations or long channel times (Axe & Dagger 2 with necro have a long channel, Earthshaker has a very telegraphed animation). If you’re running CI (4/4/6/0/0) this should do a fair amount of damage on interrupt as well as stack on a few conditions. Immobilize is your friend.

I am not very familiar with the other lockdown build. I have yet to play with it.

Doing damage with Lockdown is the main reason as to why it’s so difficult to learn. You need to have an understanding of manipulating shatters, phantasms, AND condition damage…

SHATTERS
Shattering with CI is harder than in a shatter build due to the lack of Illusionary Persona (Illusions XI) and longer cooldowns. To compensate, try to time your shatters with a bit more precision. Mind Wrack when enemies are surrounded by your clones or you’re dodging through them. Use Diversion [F3] to try to proc Halting Strike as Calliope mentioned. If you’re running CI (Chaos – XI) , Diversion shatters help immobilize enemies for your Phantasms to do damage. Speaking of which..

PHANTASMS
Phantasms are going to be a pretty significant source of damage for you, and will be one of your main ways of bursting down single targets. Unlike in a shatter build, where you’ll let the Phantasm get one attack off before shattering, in a lockdown build you want to try to allow for the phantasm to get two attacks off. Keeping phants up isn’t hard, but immobilizing enemies into the phantasms (such as temporal curtain cast -> summon focus iWarden -> pull curtain mid-summon so opponent is immob’d in the warden’s spin) attacks takes practice.

CONDITIONS
Condition damage isn’t something you’ll be actively aiming to apply, but should still keep in mind nonetheless. Most lockdown builds take Bountiful Interruption, which grants 5x Might per interrupt. After two interrupts, your condition damage starts to really sting, and weapons like staff, pistol, and scepter get a nice damage boost. It also doesn’t hurt that many lockdown builds have plenty of cover conditions to smother enemies with.

INTERRUPTS
Halting Strike can hit a thief or another mesmer for over 4k. Landing two interrupts within about 10 seconds can be devastating for squishier opponents, and still brutal on others. The honest truth is that you will NOT be doing significant damage without landing interrupts, thus learning how to manage landing an interrupt every 10-15 seconds or so is crucial, even if it means interrupting autoattacks.

If all that seems daunting.. well at first it is. Eventually it becomes so second-nature that it everything just seems to flow naturally. Focus on learning one aspect of lockdown at a time, starting with interrupts and moving on to shatters. Get into the habit of leaving phantasms lingering and shattering BEFORE summoning a phant (diversion into iWarlock is glorious).

If ya ever have any questions, always feel free!

^this and to help break it down into simpler terms….

Lockdown builds won’t have the 4 illusion shatters of a “shatter build”

Lockdown builds won’t have the sustained damage of a phantasm build. Since the lockdown phantasms are weaker and are shattered more often then a phantasm build.

So a lockdown build doesn’t have the spike or sustain of those other builds.

But lockdown builds will be:
- applying “vulnerability” with its daze’s and interrupts. (Domination minor traits)
- getting “Might” from Bountiful Interrupts trait.
- immobilizing the enemy with either CI or CS to help shatters land
- and if played correctly will be STOPPING the enemy from healing/attacking/cc/getting boons, etc.

I’m learning the sw/sw+Staff lockdown, and I have to say that offhand sword is nice, as it has a (not easy to use, but) low-CD rupt (traited 16 second), so you can get the feeling of rupting with it. (I mean who wanna miss a chance to interrupt 2-3 ressing ppl with 1 skill? Best use for sword #4 )
And as it’s not so fast to cast, you’ll do more “random rupts” with it (rupt AA for might/immob/setting up a burst), so you have to learn to use your mantra rupt wisely, otherwise you will have a hard time ^^

Btw mid-endfight, when I have ~10-15 stack might, enemy has ~10-20 stack vulnerability, cough some cough condition from staff/CI, your iWarlock will hit around the same as iZerker, but you still have the defensive-style of staff, which is needed for me to learn rupting
So maybe before you go for the (reaaaaly nice) sw/focus setup, maybe a sw/sw can get you started. Ohhh, and don’t forget the iSwordsman, it can surprise the enemy while they’re immobilized from a rupt, doing nice dmg.

(iWarlock will attack every ~7 seconds, iSwordsman every ~4.5 seconds, it’s rare to shatter them before 2 attacks, most of the time it’s emergency/learning mistake.
iDuelist (pistol) would attack every ~7.5s, while iWarden(focus) every ~14s, so with offhand sword you took the fastest one. Double Sword for the win! :P )

Lockdown is a lot of fun in PvP.

I tend to run something similar to this:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Lockdown

A few points:

In my experience people aren’t used to fighting a lockdown mesmer, at least in your average sPvP game which immediately gives you an advantage.

After some practice you tend to get a ‘feel’ about what professions will cast when and time your skills accordingly. It’s a process, when your first starting out it can feel like you waste a lot of your interrupts.

Stability is your single worst enemy when engaging an enemy when you use a lockdown build. Always check for it, first and foremost.

If stability is up or your skills are on C/D, don’t be afraid to throw out some phantasms and break LoS/pull back and wait. Placing small pressure on them may still make them use skills and wear them down if they cant handle phantasms well.

It’s important to remember while you may not have the ‘spike’ as some people pointed out, the main point of your build is to shut someone down. If your playing your build well they won’t be healing and casting either and go down to attrition.

GL HF out there.