Guild Wars 2

What builds have you guys been using with success in FotM lvl 20+? I’ve found that running a full condition build (rabid armor with undead runes, chrysocola jewelry, 0/20/20/0/30 traits to get bleeds on illusion crits) makes me fairly durable, but my damage is absolutely pitiful, because the staff autoattack is so slow, and scepter is just horrible.

On the other hand, if I go full berserker then I die in one hit, so I basically have to stand back and use greatsword, which is better damage, but still not that great compared to a glass cannon of any other class.

For other Mesmers who are on FotM lvl 20+: what build works for you? When you respond please state what FotM level you’re at and what levels you usually run.

Do you use Illusionary Elasticity? That allows Winds of Chaos to hit the same enemy twice (assuming there’s no other enemies nearby), effectively doubling your personal Staff DPS. Three Staff Clones are also roughly equivalent to one extra you casting Winds of Chaos.

Personally I’m only FotM level 15, I imagine level 20+ is much more difficult so I can’t comment. I’m very happy with a Staff condition build however: as you say it’s very durable, and I don’t find its damage worse than a Power build (which I have been using until level 10).

20/20/0/0/30 – Rampagers Gear + Undead Runes + Rabid for condition dmg (or Knight’s for harder hitting lasers) Jewlery. This will give you strong condition damage a fair bit of a toughness and will not be skimping out on some power and the ever so much needed precision. Staff/GS setup. GS+3x clones will easily break 12+ bleeds by itself (from bleed/crit trait) while still having good direct damage and decent bleed ticks. Primarily I’ll use GS when I have ethereal fields up for the Whirling Finisher from iZerker and Projection finisher from #2. When you have power from this setup & staff keeping 1 Warlock + 2 Staff clones up is a pretty good call as the warlock scales with “both” power and total number of unique conditions. Shatters causing confusions will still hit fairly hard especially if you weave in and out of melee range for you being the 4th shatter.

Alternatively with that build you can take Glamours cause confusion on entrance/exit, Glamours Cause Blindness (pro utility in fractals for keeping yourself and others alive) and cause confusion on blindness so you can get quite a bit of confusion damage on some of those quick hitting Fractal mobs. It helps takes the edge off the damage being a bit subpar.

The damage on trash won’t match a beserker’s setup but on vet mobs and bosses it’ll be on par and surpass it in a lot of cases where you have to do a lot of evasion and can’t keep direct damage up as oppose to being mobile with your conditions still doing dmg.

Alternatively on the build like yours 0/20/20/0/30(i sometimes run this too) will still work out well but the extra +20% condi duration is nothing to scoff at as well as the trait to cripple foes on clone death, great for when you have to kite. Having said that the 20% reduction on the staff cooldowns can be a lifesaver getting off that extra chaos storm to proc aegis. Deffinitely a play style choice.

Just adjusting your gear a bit I think will help a lot.

10/30/0/0/30 Melee Power shatter build
Just reached level 20 with a more of less “full” Berserker setup but now I wonder how I should balance my gear to get more defensive stats..

Krag.6210:

10/30/0/0/30 Melee Power shatter build
Just reached level 20 with a more of less “full” Berserker setup but now I wonder how I should balance my gear to get more defensive stats..

I’d say your best bet would be to probably swap out your runes(dolyaks perhaps,) and some if not all of your jewelry(knight’s or soldier). You’ll lose some damage but you don’t do any when you’re dead. It depends on what type of damage you find that is killing you in some causes more vitality may be the better bet but if you’re dying to heavy hits/burst dmg then toughness would be the better route to go.

My runes are all Divinity ones so I suppose they’re good enough for both defense and offense.
Other than that, I don’t mind changing my gear but I want to make sure I don’t waste mats and money.
I have 18k+ hp atm but zero toughness.

undead runes, weapons, armor, backpack, all accessories with toughness/condition damage/precision, 0/20/20/0/30 is the absolute best for me and by far my fav. Sig of Dom, Feedback which i change a lot depending on the frac (for mirror images) and null field. You don’t really have many options here anyway, you can run a knight set for toughness/power/precision but i personally prefer a condition mes for hardest part of the game. Remeber to spam Distortion while under agony and have Illusionary Persona for an additional 1 sec of invulnerability which WILL save u many many times. I never thought Distortion could be that useful in pve but in fractals its a must.

0/20/0/20/30
this build helped me a lot.
can do shatter/healer depends on which boss we dealing.

i’d say go full Knight gear, with a phantasm focused build using GS and Sword/Pistol also you can pick Staff instead of GS, with iDuellist you get tons of bleeds and considerable direct damage, while Staff + toughness from gear gives you enough survivability, also Staff’s phantasm is quite strong

My mesmer is currently on 23. Here is the build I use. Keep in mind, I got to 23 WITHOUT any agony resist.

10 – I
15 – II
25 – V – X
0
20 – I – VII

Power: 1717
Precision: 1,370
Toughness: 1,808
Vitality: 1,357
Condition Damage: 914

Main Hand: Staff
Offhand: Greatsword or Sword/Focus

Utilities: Mirror Images, Blink, Feedback or Null field depending on the encounter.

The damage isn’t too bad, and the survivability is great.

I really love this thread. I am close to hitting level 20 and I’m curious if there is anymore advice, builds or in general just opinions of others who have already met such levels.

10/30/0/0/30

I’d posted a similar question about this a couple weeks ago, with the goal of long-term fotm planning in mind. On another fansite I ran across a guy whose philosophy is:
a) a mesmer is not built to take damage but to avoid damage
b) best defense (other than avoiding stuff via dodging/confusion/etc) is max offense, ie full-on dps to kill stuff as fast as possible to decrease the number of attacks against your group
c) toughness only benefits “you”, not the party (since you are not DPSing max)*
d) eventually fotm difficulty will get so insane that almost everything will one hit a mesmer regardless of defensive traits, so may as well get used to avoiding damage early and practice

*His theory being with “c” above that toughness doesn’t even benefit “you” either, but rather only helps a ‘lazy’ mesmer —- ie one that is taking hits that he could/should have avoided via mesmer-specific skills and enemy-anticipation skills. Now.. add onto this that vitality doesn’t help much, at least with respect to agony (since it’s a percentage of HP hit) and the diminishing dps you get from investing in it, and there is an argument for full dps fotm mesmer IF one can pull it off.

Which he did. I saw a vid of him with only 5% agony res in a 28 and he did it no problem. Saw another one with him doing a 36 without issues. After that, i was sold on his philosophy and am feebly trying to emulate it. It just rang true for some reason. So far i’m not even close to his ‘skill’ level but I still believe in his philosophy and will keep at it.

Here’s where i came across him: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/75587-12-fractals-build/page__st__30

I’m still in my teens and usually only die from ignorance/slow reflex. The only time i felt glass cannon mesmer was a liability was in a PUG against the grawl boss on 15 (or something) and we were all glass cannons of various non-guardian/non-warrior professions, and we just couldn’t survive. A few other spots in fractals give a hard time, but (hopefully) that’s where practice comes in with respect to anticipation. Perhaps recent vids of people soloing certain bosses lend credence to the ‘avoid with practice’ type mentality.

Lemur I completely agree with that perspective, as a mesmer you should go maximum pew pew and use your skills (both player and hotbar) to “tank” damage.

When people ask me what Spec I am, I always reply “Glass cannon Tank”…. Usually gets a blank response, but when I dont die and end up soloing fractal bosses people are impressed and they say it’s a really ‘tanky’ gear/spec when in reality it’s very limited to what gear and talents you use … within reason

I also run 0/20/20/0/30 Build atm, and I have to say it’s damage is anything but bad.. Are you shattering for confusion damage? Your clone up time is ridiculous so there’s little reason not to have three clones almost immediately after a shatter. If you’re simply doing condition with that build you’re only doing it half way so yeah your damage isn’t going to be great.

What Lemur is not taking into account is that the toughness doesn’t only benefit you, it also benefit’s you’re clones and quite a lot. Clones staying alive to stack bleeds making it to the mob/boss to shatter is huge part of your dps.

So no Toughness is not useless in moderation.

@War Siren

I read through the thread that LemurTron linked and I also am convinced by Alcard (the one playing the amazing mesmer) on the idea that toughness is useless past a certain level of fotm.

Watching the videos of fotm 48 & 49, you see hits for 24k. Toughness won’t take the edge off these sorts of hits in any reasonable sense. Your only option is learning to best utilize your class skills and dodges to avoid damage. No matter how tough your clones are, they will pop in one hit.

Personally, I have a semi-tanky mesmer. If I plan to do fotm, after a certain point (like, 15 or 20) I’ll start switching to a full glass cannon. Until then, I’ll practice dodging/distorting everything in preparation.

I’m not saying this build is viable for other areas of the game, such as dungeons or wvw, as the damage doesn’t scale up like fotm, and by design you are supposed to trade a few hits.