Guild Wars 2

Build: -> http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgME1AV0A-g~

I sacrificed a lot for a ton more utility, survivability and escapes. Fought long and hard about that one. In the end, my animosity to corpse runs won over my wish to be able to shatter more.

Prismatic Understanding is, as sad as it may be, a no brainer. I need that thing to escape the million blobs and gank squads, all of them having nothing better to do than to hunt a single player all over the kittening map.

Inspiration is also a must have. Reflect on focus skills is far too strong in the open field to not have it, lack of synergy be kitten ed. I need to reflect kitten and I need to do so almost all the kittening time. Also, swiftness.

And, well, Illussions is where the torment is. So yeah, I have to stick around.

Honestly, I hate the new system. I’d love to be able to spread my points all over the place, instead I HAVE to chose three and ONLY three. There is so much good stuff in Dueling, and dat Blurred Inscriptions has a kittenton of synergy with Illussionary Inspiration.

Maybe I turn away from shatter and try something else entirely.

Edit: Weapons are scepter/focus & staff.

if you take the manipulation trait in chaos then you can get a mirror for reflects after using a manipulation. Pair it with arcane thievery, blink and mass invis and you should have plenty.

Can’t comment on the rest of the traits as the link doesn’t work on my tablet, I just see the standard ele page.

Mirror on manipulation is useful and I’m planning to use it, but it’s no contender to focus. Focus is too powerful a tool. Placeable reflects of quite high duration, pulls in a thousand different situations, AoE snare, good lord the swiftness alone makes it a must have.

I also need a full utility bar of stealth. I’m no thief, I can’t just spam stealth and teleports all day long. I need several stealth cooldowns to get away from a blob or, worst case, a ganksquad of 5-10 guild people hounding me all over the map.

Doesn’t mean I don’t use other skills, I just hotswap them if need be. The initial setup simply is a full bar of stealth. It’s just too strong a defence (and sometimes offence) to be able to compete with arcane thievery. AT won’t save me if I get jumped by a zerker thief the ten thousandth time while I’m already busy fighting a power ranger and condition engineer. Dropping a veil to GTFO is a life-saver. On of the reasons why I’m considering to use Temporal Enchanter. Dat Super Speed / Resistance OH kitten combo.

Why dulfy doesn’t work for you I don’t know, but here’s another one from intothemists. It’s a quite fragmented calculator, but you should get the gist.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=0R;9;5c5;0Vz0;1X;4WUV;0056257236;4UNm6awl6NX8aNX8aw-keAzqJ-cKYLvcv7wcw7xcx7DZWN74J0;4V05NV05NV05NV05N7YBm-VBm;9;9;6k0;3V6-7-F5OZ0F

Keep in mind that most of the build is early alpha, I’ll have to play it in the field to adjust the whole thing in the right direction.

TL;DR: I need to survive everything a T1 WvW map throws at me and still kill something. Not being able to create enough clones is going to severely cramp my shatters. Also, condition removal.

The most annoying thing is having to choose between Warden’s Feedback and Restorative Illusions.

Personally I’m waiting for chrono before going full dire, but I like this build and might give it a shot.

Dear Lord, Warden’s Feeback AND Restorative Illussions would solve so many problems.

Tbh I think Restorative Illusions should have moved up to grandmaster when merging it with Shattered Conditions and also kept it as aoe removal for allies – it is by far the most grandmaster worthy trait in the entire line.

Oh I don’t know, they’re all pretty useful and have several synergies. Illusionary Inspiration for example is a killer with Blurred Inscriptions.

Phoenix.7928:

Oh I don’t know, they’re all pretty useful and have several synergies. Illusionary Inspiration for example is a killer with Blurred Inscriptions.

Agreed, among the most exciting boosts have come to the prospect of viable support builds. The above combo and really the entire Inspiration line and it’s various synergies are just amazing for support.

I think after all the dust settles on various Power, Condie, and Lockdown shatter builds, we will see the emergence of very powerful support oriented Mesmer builds. Glamours look fantastic with the GM tait, boon-sharing on a whole new level, Distortion sharing & synergies with Signets, etc.

I hope that the “heal allies on healing yourself” trait has better scaling with Healing Power. Not that I expect big things, but it would be nice to have something outside of Regen worth scaling with HP.

Phoenix.7928:

Oh I don’t know, they’re all pretty useful and have several synergies. Illusionary Inspiration for example is a killer with Blurred Inscriptions.

Yeah I definitely see that.

I’m just sad it’s not possible to take RI and WF at the same time, so I’d be on board any way of splitting them up.

This build would be immensely improved by going into dueling for the more standard DE setup. There’s a lot of reasons for that.

Firstly, what are you getting out of inspiration?

Your adept is persisting images. This gives your phantasms 20% more hp, and spawns them with a bit of retal. This does almost nothing for you. Retaliation will do effectively zero damage in this build, so that’s useless. Additionally, this is a shatter build that doesn’t use DE, which means you’re going to be seriously starved for illusions. Any phantasms you drop will rarely last long enough to make use of that trait before dying.

Next you’ve got warden’s feedback. This gives reflects, which is awesome. Unfortunately, it also requires you to run a focus in a PU build. You’ve even already stated that you feel the need for a bar full of stealth, so no torch?

Lastly you’ve got mental defense, which is a really cool trait and in theory synergizes very well with protected phantasms…but not in this build. This is a shatter build, and you can’t rely on not needing to shatter that defender.

Basically, in a build designed to make the most of the defender no matter how it pops up, that trait is fantastic. However, you can’t directly control when that defender spawns. In a shatter build, that means it will often spawn right when you’re needing to shatter, and it’ll be gone before it does anything at all. That makes it a poor choice in this type of build.

Now let’s see what you could get out of dueling…

You could take desperate decoy, more stealth that you’re trying so hard to stack.

In the major slot, you get two very interesting choices. Blinding dissipation provides far more defensive utility than the pDefender could ever hope to. On the other hand, evasive mirror is a perfect replacement for warden’s feedback.

Personally, I feel that blinding dissipation is better as long as you’re cognizant of your positioning and cooldowns to ensure that you can close distance safely, but if you’re not as confident about that, evasive mirror could be a better choice.

Lastly, you’d get DE, the benefits are obvious.

Overall, veil is not even remotely worth a slot on your bar. It wasn’t worth it before, and it’s not worth it now. Your bar is going to be blink (obvious reasons), decoy (obvious reasons) and one free utility. That one free utility needs to be a condition removal, or you’ll keel over and die the very first time a necro, engineer, or condie thief even looks at you. PU won’t save you,you’ll just die in stealth. I’d recommend either the mantra or pDisenchanter. Either way, veil isn’t a viable option if you don’t want to be easy prey for any condie roamer.

Lastly, I noticed you’re taking master of manipulation. Be careful with this one and MI, because the reflect persisting after stealth could get you in trouble if you’re fighting a longbow ranger or something that has channeled projectile attacks.

Oh, hey. You again.

You right with most stuff. Mental Defense I only took because it’s one more illussion to shatter. So yeah, I’m probably going to be starved like hell. I’m playing around with a nerfed MtD shatter right now on live in exotic gear and with DE and Mirror Images, holy kitten can I shatter. Clone generation might be the reason this won’t work and force me to concessions.

Anyway, I chose utility and speed over clone generation because I’m dead without said utility and speed. Torch won’t save me from a guild ganksquad full of zerkers spreading out to find and kill me, especially if I already popped some cooldowns. Catching 15s of swiftness, pulling them and THEN vanishing into stealth with super speed and condition resistance might allow me to give them the slip however.

I probably don’t have to tell you what a pain it is to run from one end of a WvW map to another without swiftness whatsoever. Right now I got my old reta tank mesmer build and spam stealth for swiftness procs on top of my focus swiftness, so I got used to perma swiftness as a mesmer over the last…what, a year or two?

Yeah, that’s what torch is up against.

And please, let’s not talk about Persisting Images. We both know the only reason I took it is because it’s the less worse option in the adept tier. -.-

Well, it’s survivability in a highly volatile environment VS better performance in 1on1’s.

Maybe I drop the whole shatter thing and go…what. Spamming staff1?

So you use dire armor instead of say rabid for extra vitality? I was thinking of doing that myself for WvW for a while. Is that absolutely necessary or is that more a temporary training wheels thing? I’m new to condi mesmer so I definitely need some wheels right now

Elvirais.5472:

So you use dire armor instead of say rabid for extra vitality? I was thinking of doing that myself for WvW for a while. Is that absolutely necessary or is that more a temporary training wheels thing? I’m new to condi mesmer so I definitely need some wheels right now

The main reason to use rabid is:
- Sharper Images (illusions proc bleeding on critical hits)
- Confusing Combatants (overhauled trait so you and illusions have a chance to proc confusion on critical hits)
- Critical Infusion (gain vigour on critical hits)
- Any “on crit” sigils you might want

So if you’re going in Duelling for example, you will want decent precision to make the most of those traits. If you’re not taking Duelling then you have the luxury of going full dire or whatever.

Elvirais.5472:

So you use dire armor instead of say rabid for extra vitality? I was thinking of doing that myself for WvW for a while. Is that absolutely necessary or is that more a temporary training wheels thing? I’m new to condi mesmer so I definitely need some wheels right now

What Curunen said, plus:

High health PLUS high armor allows you to survive blobs trampling over you, thieves backstabbing you midfight, burst setups from glass cannons, and so on.

It depends really on where you play and how. T1 WvW is pure cancer. kittentons of guild squads hunting solo roamers all over the kittening map, one big-kitten zerg after another, zerker thieves behind every bush. So it might be a good thing to get a big, fat health buffer.

Phoenix.7928:

It depends really on where you play and how. T1 WvW is pure cancer. kittentons of guild squads hunting solo roamers all over the kittening map, one big-kitten zerg after another, zerker thieves behind every bush. So it might be a good thing to get a big, fat health buffer.

LOL.

Good summary.

T2 isn’t much better for true solo roaming, but it is quite easy to find a small squad you can run with. Pugs of 2-5 people are the most common.