Guild Wars 2

I know that the title sounds like a continuation of this thread but it’s not.. Sorta.

If you play Mesmer and have crafted your own build then I’m sure you’ve heard it before, whether PvP, PvE, or WvW:

“What is that? Whatever the hell you’re running isn’t viable.”

Many Mesmer players are a creative bunch, and there are loads of traits and utilities that are a lot of fun or highly interesting to use but don’t fit into the meta for one reason or another, and thus get labeled as unviable. As a result, builds that take these traits often too-quickly fall to the wayside.

Lets get something straight: Meta builds are meta for a reason, and that reason is usually because of all the competition, they’re the best at what they do. Shatter is the best in PvP, PU is the best at WvW roaming, Mantra/Phant is the best in PvE. But this does not mean that anything that isn’t one of these specific builds is bad.. quite the opposite.

I often feel that people get too caught up in terms and labels. “Viable” gets misused too frequently, good builds will be labeled “bad” if they are not the the absolute best, and creativity gets stunted as a result. These labels often don’t take one major factor into account: player skill.

Many of us have had instances where we’ve been happily playing our custom-made build and kicking all of the butts until we’re suddenly told that what our trait combo, amulet/gear sucks, even though they’ve worked fine for our purposes. This can often be helpful, and one should always keep an open mind for new information on how to improve but -IMO- one should never simply blindly compromise their ideas.

This is especially important in PvP, where meta builds reign in abundance. You’ll often hear that what you’re running isn’t viable if it is not shatter, ESPECIALLY if it is condition-based, but what is often overlooked is that there are actually a LOT of different good builds that can work very well all the way up until you reach the highest levels. But ask yourself: Are you playing PvP to compete against top tier teams and go to tournaments? If so, then you’re likely already playing shatter or have found a team that you can build around. These people are the few, but for the majority it really matters way less on what build you’re running as much as how well you’re running it.

6/6/0/2/0 can work. 0/4/6/4/0 can work. 4/4/6 condi can work and so can plenty of other combinations as long as the player behind the build is competent enough to make it work.

There’s the argument that if you could make these builds work, then you could make shatter work even better, and this is true to an extent, but again .. if you’re not playing for serious competition, then why shoehorn yourself into a build you don’t actually feel like running?

TL:DR- Don’t be afraid to explore! Your build isn’t as important as the skill of the player behind it, and experiencing different styles of play only serves to improve.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Lets get something straight: Meta builds are meta for a reason, and that reason is usually because of all the competition, they’re the best at what they do. Shatter is the best in PvP.

I would like to debate this claim right here. I think CI mes is equal to shatter if played at the top level correctly. The only reason “top players” think CI is inferior is because they played CI like shatter, which you just cant do. You have to play CI like a opportunist, you cant just yolo in and expect to do damage.

I change build almost weekly so I am all ears and find what you say interesting and happy you posted it.

As you say, I too get a nice streak of winning duels and/or ranked/unranked games and that is when I think I finally found the well balanced build for my play style. But then I run into that thief which may have just outplayed me (but I do not want to openly admit it and blame the build for the fail) and suddendly everything falls to pieces. I scratch everything from the board and start with new ideas all over again.

Skills may be behind the problem but there are certain situations where I feel neither skills nor builds are the issue, but it’s the profession itself. And it’s not a conicidence if some of the pros have switched their main char.

I get joy from crafting and testing builds by myself. Other people get joy from being the best they can be by using meta builds.

But im sick of only seeing shatter mesmer videos and shatter mesmer guides. Youd be forgiven for thinking that the only viable build for mesmer is shatter. This is not the case.

Shatter is very powerful and most top teir pvp teams run shatter in tournaments. Does this make shatter viable? Yes, but just because its the most popular build doesnt make it the only viable build out there.

Ive been absolutely destroyed in wvw and pvp by players running unique builds. This is because they are good players and they have adapted their builds and playstyles to the current pvp wvw environment and not on what is in fashion.

Take this point. A lot of classes are running heavy boon stacking/might stacking builds. There are also a lot more condition and hybrid spec builds in response to this.

A shatter mesmer is a ganker. That is what it excels at. But it becomes increasingly difficult for a player to gank something that is balls deep in boons, throwing out cc and aoes everywhere.

Some of the veteran mesmers on here that have saturated the forums with their opinions might say, “I can eeal with that, shatter is amazing”. I would argue on the contrary. Shatter is not amazing, you are and I think you would have just as much success playing a different build because you are a good mesmer.

So basically all I want to say is shatter gank montage videos are boring. Youtube mesmer and most of what you see are shatter vids. Im not impressed anymore and its becoming so predictable. What i want to see is a video of mantra mes killin fools or a confuse bomber in spite of the nerf, not because shatter is bad but because youre an awesome hipster mesmer and i want to have your babies.

Love.

I tried the traditional shatter build, but moved to various mantra mesmer builds and CI builds soon after. The most important part of a build is how it fits your style of play and for some shatter mesmer is the perfect build and others would like to experiment and find what works best for their style of play. I try lots of traits other people never consider because they refuse to believe anything can be better than the meta. I see a ton of mantra mesmers 2v1 in WvW running traits i have never seen before and PU mesmers carryign teams in Tpvp even after the PU nerf ( it wasn’t that powerful in the first place and the " random boons " seem to come out with might roughly 1/3 of the time wrecking any hopes of high protection duration [can someone else test and prove its not just my bad luck ? ])

• note – please excuse spelling errors

• Also, Chaos, what build are you running now ? I know its a little off topic but very curious.

Used to run the current Mesmer meta way back. It was considered a bad build by forum-tards despite my consistently strong play.

There have been no patches making any significant changes to the build since then.

Now all the “flavour of the month” kids have all caught up, I’m well versed in builds that perform very well versus double ranged Mesmer.

It’s all too easy.

I just started playing again after a long break from GW2.

Been running 0-4-4-0-6 scepter/focus Staff .
Sigil of Bursting, Sigil of Doom and rune of Undead in Spvp.
Runes of perplexity in WvW roaming.

Fun spec.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

These labels often don’t take one major factor into account: player skill.

I’m going to go ahead and take a bit of an issue with this argument here. This is a discussion I’ve had a lot of times before, and a lot of people seem quite confused on this point.

The quality of a build and the quality of a player are two separate variables that have no inherent connection.

So what does this mean? Well, it means that you can absolutely analyze and label builds as ‘good’ or ‘great’ or ‘worse’ or ‘horrid’. It means that you don’t have to ever worry about if those builds could potentially be played amazingly. It means you’re allowed to make assumptions such as ‘competent player fighting competent player’ or ‘competent player fighting incompetent player’ or ‘incompetent player fighting competent player’ to try and analyze the effectiveness of the build.

It also means that the quality of a player can’t be determined by the build they’re using, and more importantly it means that the effectiveness of a build can’t be determined by how effectively a player is actually using it. Let me put this in a slightly different way.

I could trait 2/2/2/2/2 and murder people all day long in hotjoin/unranked/ranked to some extent. Does this mean that 2/2/2/2/2 is a fantastic build that everyone should use? No, absolutely not. It means that I as a player understand the interactions between skills and builds and classes and players and am able to brute force an awful build into working. It’s like if you’re trying to drill a hole through something with nothing but a toothpick; it’ll work if you put enough force behind it, but a drill press would do a better job with less effort.

If you’re going around kicking butt while traited 2/2/2/2/2…then props to you because you’re probably an incredible player…but that has absolutely zero bearing on how good the build you’re using is.

The take-home message here is that crafting an effective build and using that build effectively are two completely separate skillsets. One should endeavor to be great at both of them, to both fully understand why your build is effective, how to make it more effective, how to modify it and adapt it and adjust to changes as they happen AND how to play it and execute combos and skills and everything successfully. This also means that if you’re performing fantastically, criticism of your build may still be valid, and if you’re failing miserably with the meta builds…you might just need some more practice.

As an aside…

Brew Pinch.5731:

Used to run the current Mesmer meta way back. It was considered a bad build by forum-tards despite my consistently strong play.

Yes, double-ranged shatter was considered a bad build back then because it was a bad build back then.

Brew Pinch.5731:

There have been no patches making any significant changes to the build since then.

And this is why. Everything else got nerfed, broken, and nerfed again. Congratulations on consistently playing a rather poor build that eventually ended up as the best due to the Anet version of ‘process of elimination’: Eliminate everything that works well.

Fay.2357:

It’s like if you’re trying to drill a hole through something with nothing but a toothpick; it’ll work if you put enough force behind it, but a drill press would do a better job with less effort.

I see it as an optimal build is like a glove made for five fingers, but many of us got maybe three fingers working, maybe a thumb in the middle of the hand. Some builds can actually make use of that miss placed thumb in a way a five-finger glove can’t even though it’s not optimal.

I made a weird hybrid build that really worked for me, but I sort of gave up on it after discussing it on the forum. After reading this thread I think I’ll maybe go back to it.
Dropping that build did improve my shattering skills, which I started playing after that though.

I love the GS and the scepter and can really make use of the skills naturally, I don’t have to think on how to use them, I just do it. The GS however isn’t very good for condition builds but it does have might, boon ripping and snare and range which is essential for hunting down prey in WvW.

I wish I had five fingers though and using these less optimal builds maybe hurts my skill development. On the other side, using weird non meta builds can be an advantage when opponents have difficulties reading my game play.. so basically, I don’t know what to do.

But! It doesn’t matter, because I love mesmerizing with ALL builds, this forum and the deep analysis you all make on the builds, thank you all build critics.

Sry to derail a little…

@Chaos
I remember when you were playing s/s+Staff CS. I think it was the beginning of your Lockdown journey, if I am right.
Why did you drop it in favour of CI+s/f+Staff?

I have been going back and forth from CI to CS lately and ultimately having fun with s/s+Staff. What did you find not good enough in a 6/4/4 CS?

Thanks

@Pyro: I agree completely, though I may have worded it wrong. What I argue is that player skill is more important than the build being run in most cases. As you become more and more competitive, the build options begin to narrow of course, but most players shouldn’t think that “shatter or nothing” is the way to go if they’re not endeavoring to be that competitive.

@trooper: There were a couple reasons I ended up switching over. For a long time I stubbornly clung to CS but as I experimented more with CI I began to realize a few things…

4/4/6 is an extremely strong build, arguably as strong kittenter and in some cases even stronger (as in, there are some build matchups where CI is a stronger choice), but what drew me to CI is the synergy the trait has with staff and focus. Sword/Focus – Staff is not a weaponset you commonly see, and the Phantasms of these two sets can barely hit a three-legged dolyak on their own. Chaotic Interruption allows me a way to reliably ensure my phantasm’s damage (and iWarlock loves the 20% damage boost that comes from applying 2 conditions per interrupt) . Also, both weapons allow for a lot of team support and are just really versatile in general. IMO You can be extremely creative with sword/focus-staff and adapt to more situations than you could with sw/sw – staff.

Also, I’ve grown fond of interrupting over chaining stuns. The interrupt “playstyle” is more appealing to me, and since I’ve become pretty good at it it is much harder for me to go back to the RNG style of 50/50 stun chance. Dazes don’t have the same oomph as immobilizes.

And finally, it’s more durable. 6/4/4 is pretty beefy too, but having the ability to land blinds on interrupt, the extra 100 toughness, and having a focus on hand allow me to fight harder and stay in the paint longer in teamfights without having to fall back and heal. Combined with Pack runes (glorious with a focus and 30 Chaos) and 4/4/6 just ends up offering me more than 6/4/4 did.

… That being said, I’m currently running 6/2/0/0/6 sw/sw-Staff to get over my horrible dodge-wasting problem.

Excellent post Chaos, it mirrors my own feelings on the matter, but does so more concisely and eloquent!

One thing that is frequently completely left out of all of this is the fact that various factors completely beyond the players control may be impacting their success at playing a meta build. What gookitteno my team as a GC Shatter Mesmer, when I have a poor latency-prone connection, and/or am latency prone in the head? ;-) All I will be doing is running from the spawn back to the action, only to be insta-gibbed again…and again. Been there, done that, and it simply ain’t working for me.

As you said, I might not be able to compete at the highest levels with those issues, but maybe I’m not trying? Some will say you should play another profession, but I personally love the Mesmer profession and I still consistently do much better on non-meta builds on a Mesmer, then meta builds on non-Mesmer professions. I hate FoTM professions/builds anyway.

Lastly, there is also something to be said for taking your enemy “out of book”, perhaps less in high level organized play, but certainly in the PUG environment of the unranked arena. Thieves especially love to jump on Mesmers as pretty much their favorite target, so it’s not just hilarious & satisfying to watch them bite their teeth out on you, but it keeps all enemies on their toes about Mesmers and their capabilities. If we all only ever play 1 or 2 meta builds, then we are making it easier on our enemies to know how to hard counter us.