Guild Wars 2

Let me start off with saying that this is a signet build. But after roaming for pretty much two solid days, I find that it is more than meets the eye. So don’t just toss it based on the idea that they don’t work.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4kUk51U7oW-71;9;49JT9-5;017-3783;3S-J6;26TsW6TsWh-kv-BR7;3LVFWKXPYe3a43s-CN1c;9;9;9;9;9;9;14-6O

This build is very anti-condition heavy while stacking lots of toughness. It has high defensive capabilities while having reasonably good out put in terms of damage. If you die to a necro. Your doing it wrong, even they should not be able to keep conditions on you between your removals and your distortions. I wouldn’t claim that you can stay right up in their face though.

The better you get at timing, the more powerful you become with this build. I pick up bountiful interruption for might stacking to give this build a bit more power, so the better you get with your 2 interrupts the more damaging you will ultimately be. You also need to be aware of your signets. Putting to many on cool down means you will lack this build’s defensive abilities and you become vulnerable to attack. Using them as creatively as possible will keep you in the game. Since it does apply distortion, you can use it to escape guardian’s circles, trigger necro wells and even chain them together to get inside a tower that is under attack. And when things go bad start casting mass invis and part way through pop signet of midnight to make sure you can finish it.

The signets all have their specific uses. Midnight is your go-to defensive signet. It is also the first one you should use when your going to try to avoid a bunch of damage . Since it has a low cool-down you should use it often, and in group fights it can be used to stop an enemy from stomping your ally.

Inspiration is kind of the odd ball. It doesn’t really have a fantastic use until you fight with a group, then it shines as the best of the 3 signets in terms of group support.
Up till that level you just use it as a lesser version of signet of midnight and should be your second signet used if your trying to avoid damage.

Finally, signet of domination should be your interrupt/cc. Its difficult to time to to its small cast time, but if your enemy is going to do something rather predictable lick a heal or an auto attack you can generally use it as an interrupt. It should be your last resort in terms of damage avoidance. Only use it for that purpose if your other 2 signets are on cool down.

Your out put should rely on your reasonably high power / crit damage so most of the time you should use your phantasms, but don’t get all worked up about trying to keep them a live or replacing them with a clones. It still has the capacity to do good burst damage if needed with shatter or reasonable damage alone with blurred frenzy.

Over all it is a fast passed build with a high skill ceiling. You can always get better with your distortions or your interrupts. You’ll be amazed what you can pull off with this build. The sky is the limit.

On a separate note if any one can come up with a better gear set up feel free to suggest it ^.^

This is actually pretty neat! I have never seen this done before and it looks very unique. It seems very tanky but able to do a good amount of damage. The only weakness is that you only have mass invis as an escape tool. You could replace 1 signet for decoy or blink but if you think you are doing fine then keep full signets. Also, do you really need that much toughness haha. That is really tanky. Finally, couldn’t you substitute bountiful interrupt for staff cd? The cooldowns (mostly phase retreat) are very long. Otherwise, this build looks like something I might want to test sometime soon. Nice job.

I am very intrigued by this build as well. Would like some expert Mesmers to chime in and have their opinions stated about this particular build.

I think that the Signet of Midnight is sorta useless you know, and trading it for Signet of Illusions won’t work out that well because you are not Shatter spec. Signet of Domination is only good for one use. Sure the 3 sec stun is great, but I just think that people can just break stun and run out of that hole. So if you were to get rid of those 2 signets, I don’t think other signets will be viable and thus it will not become a Signet build cause it only has one signet. I dont know. Dont take my words to heart you know. Peace…

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

I think that the Signet of Midnight is sorta useless you know, and trading it for Signet of Illusions won’t work out that well because you are not Shatter spec. Signet of Domination is only good for one use. Sure the 3 sec stun is great, but I just think that people can just break stun and run out of that hole. So if you were to get rid of those 2 signets, I don’t think other signets will be viable and thus it will not become a Signet build cause it only has one signet. I dont know. Dont take my words to heart you know. Peace…

umm… midnight as AMAZING with the traits. its my favorite out of the 3. It provides most of my extra survivability the blind and then the distortio nand the condition removal on that low of cd is fantastic and has changed the direction of the battle more times than I can count.

also I am open to changes, but I would like to keep the 3 signets, but if its a significant improvement I might just change it ^.^

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

I think that the Signet of Midnight is sorta useless you know, and trading it for Signet of Illusions won’t work out that well because you are not Shatter spec. Signet of Domination is only good for one use. Sure the 3 sec stun is great, but I just think that people can just break stun and run out of that hole. So if you were to get rid of those 2 signets, I don’t think other signets will be viable and thus it will not become a Signet build cause it only has one signet. I dont know. Dont take my words to heart you know. Peace…

LOL @ This guy

I play signet Mesmer often.

I don’t feel Bountiful Interruption is going to land many time (Actually, Interrupt build is very hard to play. You need to go all in to get good results). As for my signet build, I go 20/20/30/0/0. Traited torch, Prismatic Understanding (You have Mass Invisibility) and Lyssa runes (Even more condition removers). With the Lyssa Runes, your Signet of Inspiration comes handy if you want to share your boons.

I sometime switch Signet of Domination with Signet of Illusion. You use Signet of Illusion as a Distortion (F4) recharge. More invulnerability, but long casting from the Signet.

Since Blurred Frenzy can take damage now (I mean, like from Retaliation), use Signet of Midnight at the same time for 100 % invulnerability. Signet of Midnight is amazing when finishing a person : Guardian trying to knock you back ? Signet of Midnight !

My second weapons are Sc/F or GS (relying on Signet of Inspiration and Lyssa Runes for Swiftness). GS is for damage, Sc/F for swiftness and range.

Variants : You can also play with Sw/F or Sw or P, GS + Signet for more damage which the build lacks (Signet build cons is lower damage). Pop a Decoy in the build instead of Signet of Domination to take advantage of PU.

You have Sword, Pistol and Staff, but you have nothing traited. Maybe you should try to trait one of them, the cooldown reduction is crucial.

Funny enough, I was fiddling with builds today and ended up with a clone-condition build with all signet utils. Sure enough, the distortion from Blurred Inscriptions gave a lot more survivability than I was expecting (particularly with Midnight, like you were saying)… I can definitely see how you would take a shining to this build. Cleansing Inscriptions seems like it could be handy, but do you find it makes enough of a difference? I’d be worried that dropping one condition would just feel like a drop in the bucket.

Since Domination & Midnight are really the stronger signets and Illusions isn’t so handy in this kind of a build, I wonder what kind of trade-off might help you consider taking a non-signet for your third util? I haven’t had a super good look at how the build might get varied up, but there are a ton of other great utilities that could give this build some oomph. Any strengths in particular you could imagine getting even better, or weaknesses that could be better covered?

Krispera.5087:

I play signet Mesmer often.

I don’t feel Bountiful Interruption is going to land many time (Actually, Interrupt build is very hard to play. You need to go all in to get good results). As for my signet build, I go 20/20/30/0/0. Traited torch, Prismatic Understanding (You have Mass Invisibility) and Lyssa runes (Even more condition removers). With the Lyssa Runes, your Signet of Inspiration comes handy if you want to share your boons.

I sometime switch Signet of Domination with Signet of Illusion. You use Signet of Illusion as a Distortion (F4) recharge. More invulnerability, but long casting from the Signet.

Since Blurred Frenzy can take damage now (I mean, like from Retaliation), use Signet of Midnight at the same time for 100 % invulnerability. Signet of Midnight is amazing when finishing a person : Guardian trying to knock you back ? Signet of Midnight !

My second weapons are Sc/F or GS (relying on Signet of Inspiration and Lyssa Runes for Swiftness). GS is for damage, Sc/F for swiftness and range.

Variants : You can also play with Sw/F or Sw or P, GS + Signet for more damage which the build lacks (Signet build cons is lower damage). Pop a Decoy in the build instead of Signet of Domination to take advantage of PU.

You have Sword, Pistol and Staff, but you have nothing traited. Maybe you should try to trait one of them, the cooldown reduction is crucial.

I’ve run LOTS of builds using BI and I’ve gotten rather skilled at interrupting while other people can run the build differently and pick up the staff trait if they want. But I’ve always had a love for BI. But I will give the staff trait a try some time.

vutak.3186:

Funny enough, I was fiddling with builds today and ended up with a clone-condition build with all signet utils. Sure enough, the distortion from Blurred Inscriptions gave a lot more survivability than I was expecting (particularly with Midnight, like you were saying)… I can definitely see how you would take a shining to this build. Cleansing Inscriptions seems like it could be handy, but do you find it makes enough of a difference? I’d be worried that dropping one condition would just feel like a drop in the bucket.

Since Domination & Midnight are really the stronger signets and Illusions isn’t so handy in this kind of a build, I wonder what kind of trade-off might help you consider taking a non-signet for your third util? I haven’t had a super good look at how the build might get varied up, but there are a ton of other great utilities that could give this build some oomph. Any strengths in particular you could imagine getting even better, or weaknesses that could be better covered?

It does have issues escaping or getting hard focused by 2 heavy damage builds. So blink or decoy probably would be helpful. But this build things can always be changed out. But sometimes I just enjoy the troll factor of “you just got beat by a signet Mesmer.”

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

I think that the Signet of Midnight is sorta useless you know, and trading it for Signet of Illusions won’t work out that well because you are not Shatter spec. Signet of Domination is only good for one use. Sure the 3 sec stun is great, but I just think that people can just break stun and run out of that hole. So if you were to get rid of those 2 signets, I don’t think other signets will be viable and thus it will not become a Signet build cause it only has one signet. I dont know. Dont take my words to heart you know. Peace…

Gonna have to say signet of midnight is amazing especially when coupled with signet of inspiration. In group play the two of these synergize verywell especially when you have any specific boon duration runes *cough*Protection*cough*

Ok wow… I’m going to add this to my list of builds I should play. I hope it works in Spvp, because i cant afford a 5th gear set at this time :’(

edit: ever considered moving 10 inspiration to 10 domination for empowered illusions? I’m just tossing out random thoughts here.

Alissah.9281:

Ok wow… I’m going to add this to my list of builds I should play. I hope it works in Spvp, because i cant afford a 5th gear set at this time :’(

edit: ever considered moving 10 inspiration to 10 domination for empowered illusions? I’m just tossing out random thoughts here.

I have given that some thought, but I lose one condition removal and then lose vitality which kinda hurts if I run into a condition based build. It kinda hurts O.O, but if you really want to give it a shot, it’ll probably be a good bit more damaging.

Question: Why take -condition duration food if you condition removal is strong enough to keep you alive? One or the other makes sense, but both seems a waste?

What about →
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsa7dl0zKonQTgGbNJhpH923HHVhuTqgrLpQ37G-jUzAYtioRTLWGNJKQ5wioxWFDS1Nsl3optx0wAq4FVbuV0M5p2uDIEwiJA-w

Or →
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsa7dl0zKonQTgGb9IhpH923HnUBXX6hu3duB-jUzAYtioRTLWGNJKQ5wioxWFDS1Nsl3optx0wAq4FVbuV0M5p2uDIEwiJA-w

Alternative: 30 in dueling could have deceptive evasion, only swap Chaos IV with V.

Could also run boon duration food for 90% boon duration. You’re going to be taking a lot of hits without stealth/blink outside of your distortions, so constant protection with constant high sources of retaliation are a good mix.

If I were to try make this work, keeping your heal and utils, here’s what I might try (taking all the above option into consideration)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsa7dl0zKonQTgGb9IhpHB33HnUBXX6hu39sB-jUzAYtioRTLWGNJKQ5wioxWFDS1Nsl3optx0wAq4FVbuV0M5p2uDIEwiJA-w

Ross Biddle.2367:

Question: Why take -condition duration food if you condition removal is strong enough to keep you alive? One or the other makes sense, but both seems a waste?

What about ->
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsa7dl0zKonQTgGbNJhpH923HHVhuTqgrLpQ37G-jUzAYtioRTLWGNJKQ5wioxWFDS1Nsl3optx0wAq4FVbuV0M5p2uDIEwiJA-w

Or ->
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsa7dl0zKonQTgGb9IhpH923HnUBXX6hu3duB-jUzAYtioRTLWGNJKQ5wioxWFDS1Nsl3optx0wAq4FVbuV0M5p2uDIEwiJA-w

Alternative: 30 in dueling could have deceptive evasion, only swap Chaos IV with V.

Could also run boon duration food for 90% boon duration. You’re going to be taking a lot of hits without stealth/blink outside of your distortions, so constant protection with constant high sources of retaliation are a good mix.

If I were to try make this work, keeping your heal and utils, here’s what I might try (taking all the above option into consideration)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsa7dl0zKonQTgGb9IhpHB33HnUBXX6hu39sB-jUzAYtioRTLWGNJKQ5wioxWFDS1Nsl3optx0wAq4FVbuV0M5p2uDIEwiJA-w

This is good stuff here. The reflect on distortion trait I already tried.. not effective as one might think, considering I’m going to be distorted for 1 second at a time I might reflect one or 2 projectiles at best but other than thakittens not really worth taking. This build with out the food and the point in inspire really ends up lacking vitality, which is why I went with those. When you strip it of both, it might have a reasonable amount of condition removal but a necro might give you a beating, in a drawn out battle. so I thinks it kinda of one or the other. Doing both might leave this build with far to little hit points. But, testing 10 points in dueling was before and still is on the list of things I’m going to do tomorrow. Along with several fantastic ideas posted in here =)

can u contact me ingame?

Can anyone tell me how viable this build is for a zerg or group combat?

but it does look for an awesome 1v1 build, could maybe work for spvp with that distortion and cond removal

Narsil, I can actually play om the front lines with guardians and warriors in zergs, though this build does have issues being hard focused in small level group combat due to its lack of stealth, but it lasts long enough that your group will hopefully kill them before they kill you. You will get focused due to the idea of “oh look its a non-stealth Mesmer, easy kill.” That many groups appear to have. (this build is tanky and will still last a long time even under great amounts of pressure.) as for the spvp. Lets just say…. I have some one on it. muahahahahahahaha.

If this build is just meant to survive, you won’t be surviving very long. But if it modified to do other things whilst surviving (like more damage) it would be pretty good I think.

Then again, I’m judging just by seeing, not by playing so… shrug

Dirame.8521:

If this build is just meant to survive, you won’t be surviving very long. But if it modified to do other things whilst surviving (like more damage) it would be pretty good I think.

Then again, I’m judging just by seeing, not by playing so… shrug

I don’t see your reasoning here? Its made with high toughness and high amounts of condition removal so it pretty much has the 2 bases covered on top of that you have the distortions from the signets adding to its survival. While you don’t heave stealth they can continue to focus you, by no means will you go down easy.

P.S. I also gave 10/30/30/0/0 a try. It is defiantly a bit more damaging due to the extra crit chance and crit damage And the extra clone summons I can do pretty effective shatters.

I updated the build to reflect the changes made from your suggestions ans my testing! It now has less HP and less roughness but much higher damage stats! I also changed it to 10/30/30/0/0 for the clone on dodge roll allowing this to be more effective at shatters.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4kUk51U7oW-71;9;49TT;05;0179378;4S-J6;26TsW6TsWh-Fv-BR7;3LVFWKXPYe3a43H0CN1k;9;9;9;9;9;9;14-6C

im wondering if this build would work in tpvp.. hmm.. i just cant see a way to build it tho :S

I intend to work on that at some point, though I’m not real into spvp I know the basics.

wow. this looks like a solid build. very high toughness and damage. Im more used to a shatter build so im not sure how i would take not having a blink or decoy available when i needed it.
For the pistol off hand have you thought about using a superior sigil of strength? 30% on crit get more might. has a 2 sec internal cd but might you get lasts 10 sec (i think)

I have been running a simillar build for the past few weeks in PVE and dungeons. I was going for a support build with signet of inspiration and PU without loosing DPS, hence why the triple sword setup. It has been working great so far, i can stick to melee in the mobs face without even dodging too much while my swordmans stab them to dead.

As pointed before, traited signet of midnight is amazing, i only wish anet would do as with mantras and make the 1 sec of distortion and the condition cleansing party wide. We need some love for the signets too.

Build link:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8clwzKqnQTgGb9IipHB3xBckK4alewb72FC-jwBBYfCyUEwkIBK5pIaslhFRjVXDT5iIqWKATEGB-e

I wonder if you could make a shatter build with signets. I will have to see if it can work for spvp. I have a lot of ideas from this build.

Not sure why you’re running Mass Invis and Decoy in dungeons, they don’t really do anything. Not much point traiting your signets for condition removal either when you could either slot in an approprate utility skill or use phantasmal warden on temporal curtain.

MI and decoy are for sharing protection via signet of inspiration.

And for condi removal, i only use it when solo PVE, in dungeons i slot bountifull interruption and let a guardian friend take care of conditions.

i ve the wvw version some kind of this build.. as a initiator role..
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-One-vs-Many-Invul-Shatter-WvW/2548923
When i use it first time on January while i was checking different viabilities builds..

now i am using it in wvw if not on offical raid, http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfWlwzip3UzhGa9ICqHgX39dkK4aleYbX4uB-jEDBocQoLBkYAigAhsAgEBM5TQM5RZtypIas6aYKXER1W0FRrWKAmEGB-w (however my ascendant trinkets are little differ and dont ve celestials.. just randomly i put)
some variations i make instaf of staff gs.. with 20 duel and 2o domi for +MW or gs training

my goal is with that build is in wvw, initiate go invul busy them while your group is on way to push or let enemy in combat and retreat.. easy to pass bunker enemy.. very mobile build.. is some fun build however where i find some intersting efficienties.. up links videos are old, bad just some randomly, give some tips.. after nerfes as on BF i back to this build..

This build should be pretty fun with the new runes coming the 26th.

would you mind telling me those runes? All these new skills updates are sort of overwhelming. I have never even heard of anti toxin spray until like 1 week after….

New runes will give toughness, -condi duration, and aegis on activating a signet.

(and you’ll get them from fractals new “Fractured” release)

That’s Awesome! I’m Defiantly going to have to get a set! But from fractals…. quivers

Ugh yeah from fractals only. Hope it’s not account bound.
Still, I feel like PU + Signets will be even more bunky/tanky.
Just hope those runes will not be in PvP, but I can’t wait to play with them.

I haven’t read through every post but I feel that I’d try this but, i’d want more damage, especially since you seem to just have straight damage.

I heard something about armor any more than 2700-2800? is wasted stats because it caps sort of and doesn’t affect inc damage as much? not sure if this is true.

But for me I’ve felt that nothing more than 2.5k is necessary, but that might be because of having a decoy or blink avail. But you do have your staff which is so powerful for defense anyway, I feel you can reduce some toughness and go full or close to full zerker gear.

Other than that, it sounds like it might be fun, but might be too clunky and feel too naked for my ninja playstyle personally. I seem to always have blink and/or decoy at least.

But yeah i think you can opt for more damage. But yeah you’re trading a lot of, reflection/projectile defense, stealth stun breaks and positioning (only have phase retreat)