Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. I’ve spent the last couple of months playing a lot of large-scale WvW and GvG. It’s no secret that a lot of folks are frustrated right now and there’s a sense of pessimism through the community. In light of this, I just wanted to keep things positive and share some awesome things you can do with Mimic.

This is a frontline boonshare build, so if that’s not your thing I understand and you can read something else. But if you’re curious and want to dominate your enemies into submission learn more about the build I recommend paying a visit to the wiki and brushing up on skill mechanics and cooldowns.

Recommended Reading on the Wiki

Mimic
Signet of Inspiration
Illusionary Inspiration
Continuum Split

Just as a background for folks that might not be as familiar with the WvW scene, the majority of Mesmer builds you see out there tend to focus either on solo/small-scale roaming or large-scale utility for the zerg, e.g., “veil-bots”. Back when the specialization rework was released the summer before HoT, the introduction of Illusionary Inspiration opened the door for a viable third option, the frontline boonshare Mesmer. With HoT bringing the Chronomancer elite spec and the shield offhand, everything was in place for guilds to begin theorycrafting and implementing boonshare into their team compositions.

So here’s the build that we’ll be working with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWl0nhq0YBawPNQtGLEHV9l+pl6ZFcBfmZAkALEA-T1xHQBwT9HwpPAgK/W3+DPUJY+eCAA4UAIKgMD-w

Chaos/Inspiration/Chrono is a fairly popular and forgiving trait setup. It doesn’t require the timings and group training that Domination/Inspiration/Chrono uses, and has a lower barrier to entry with respect to beginners and gearing.

Now, if you’ve been keeping up the patches, you know that Signet of Inspiration received a major overhaul fall 2016. They essentially changed certain boons from stacking in intensity to stacking in duration, effectively eliminating prebuffing and nerfing might/stability stacking. However, that same change buffed resistance and quickness application by letting the signet use the Mesmer’s boon duration. That’s huge.

The biggest shortcoming for Chaos boonshare has always been not doing enough. Your Signets have 30s cooldowns which means you’re designed to win the endurance race, not the fight that’s over in 20s after the first push. The addition of Mimic takes care of this weakness. It gives you the “burst sustain” your team needs to survive. When you factor in signet changes, one properly trained Mesmer now has the carry potential to win entire fights for his team. Let’s see how it’s done.

Video Tutorials and Gameplay

Skill Breakdown
Fast Version
Gameplay on NA
Gameplay on EU

So what’s going on here? I’m pumping out six casts of Signet of Inspiration to buff my team. In order to pull this off, you’ll want to start in sword then swap to staff for sigil proc. Activate continuum split during the after-cast of Warlock to get Illusionary Inspiration and the illusion for CS duration. Time Warp, signet, then Mimic. Your skills will reset after CS ends and you’ll still have Echo on your buff bar. Use your shatter skills during CS for Inspiring Distortion and boon generation. When you revert back, you should be able to finish your rotation without getting interrupted. Weapon swap for another sigil proc before casting the last two signets.

Illusion generation is paramount to having enough time to get through your rotation. Quickness helps a great deal, so make sure you’re shattering or opening with Tides of Time. In the middle of a zerg fight, it can be too risky to cast everything without getting cut off early. You can mitigate this with Distortion for the rift, leaving either signet or Mimic out of the rotation, using Phase Retreat for an extra illusion, or by simply not having terrible positioning.

Let me know what you guys think. Feedback appreciated!

nice man

i have tried to take it into pvp but the amulet are but squishy although is some scenarios doable

nice work gg

Thanks, I appreciate it.

One thing I forgot to mention is that you don’t necessarily need 66% boon duration in order to make these boonshare builds work. If you’re using Chaos, you will always have Chaotic Persistence. That can really add up!

So if you’re running full Minstrel’s, you’re pretty close to capping out on boon duration (assuming sigil, nourishment, CP) before you even factor the runes. One really nice option for those of you that don’t have a dedicated guild to run with is to use Revenant runes. The 10s ICD lines up well with your mantra heal, and it allows you to share resistance more reliably between Continuum Split rotations.

You can also take this build into the healing route by doubling down on Restorative Mantras, the trait that provides AoE healing after you finish casting a Mantra. Mantra of Pain is pretty popular. Some folks go all the way and get the healing nourishment and sigils.

Tempted to try this in PvP with Mender’s Amulet and Rune of Leadership.

Abelisk.4527:

Tempted to try this in PvP with Mender’s Amulet and Rune of Leadership.

i have. nice but for now still you need good group to fully benefit the boons

usually the might stacks have been 6 so not that needed. all the other boons is nice but think more power build will do better than semi support build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWl0nhS0YBawPNQtGLEH1ZFcBfWdl+plqZAkALEA-TJxGAB2XG4gnAg57PAwpAAA

no 7 skills switch to well or recall if more alacrity is needed

or use paladin cause the heal points doesnt scale much with mantra

great guide man

For some reason this doesn’t work in PvP

Edit: read my comment below

I don’t think this build has enough active sustain to be worth its salt in a PvP setting. There’s little if any offensive pressure in a 1v1 scenario.

Yeah, this isn’t really going to work well in PvP, that’s just a different beast entirely. This class of builds are most powerful when you’re pumping boons to the full 5 additional targets for support. Any less than that and you start becoming that much less effective. In PvP it’s rare to have more than 3 allies on a point together, making this sort of thing simply inefficient.

Now personally, I prefer playing the variant that uses signets to keep a ~6s rotation of invuln sharing alongside the boonshare. I posted a guide on that a while ago and have been meaning to update it but I’m lazy. The variant here will also do the job of boonshare, but I feel that it’s simply missing out on the powerful other utility that mesmer can offer for both offensive and defensive capabilities in a Frontline.

never mind, I was just adjusting to the rotations.

I was thinking that you couldn’t fit all the skills in the CS hence why I said it doesn’t work.

As for teamfights I think it can work with Diviner’s.

EDIT: Ok so I took this build into a high-tier Ranked game and won. We were against top players and this was effective enough to survive against lots of builds.

Here’s what I used. Paladin is probably the best option for PvP.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWl0nhq0YBawPNQtGLEHlZAkAL0ZFcBfW9l+plKA-TJxHABAcKA++JAQfZAx3fAA

Alright so this build is a fair bunker. With all cooldowns up you will be able to survive decently in a fight as long as all cooldowns are up. Time Warp weakens enemies attacking you while buffing yourself, and you have pretty much permanent Stab. Paladin’s toughness works well with the healing from the Restorative Mantras / Mantra of Recovery, and Mantra of Concentration is an amazing stun breaker and group Stab proc. Although the CD on MoC is 25, all the alacrity you’ll be getting reduces it realistically to about 15-20 seconds.

The best way to counter a Necromancer’s condition spam is Resistance through CS, but that might not be reliable. The proc of Mantra of Recovery however will work for condi cleansing.

So yah gg TY expandas for this amazing build. Mimic is awesome!

I am very interested in a boonshare mesmer build for large-scale WvW battles, as opposed to my current (very effective, but ultra-boring) Epidemic Necro setup.

Would you consider a version where the armor & trinkets would be Commander’s, with Leadership runes? For the toughness and boon duration, along with some not-so-shabby damage.

Or a Minstrel’s set with Monk runes would make more sense, given the opportunities to heal with mantras? I am seeing that it can produce some very decent healing and obviously has loads of survivability, but that’s mostly that.

Thanks for the long explainer and the videos!

Hi Skot.

I’ve used both of the gear combinations you’ve listed and I think for large scale battles you’ll get more mileage out of the Minstrel’s set with Monk runes. The reason is because, as you alluded to with your necro build, conditions are extremely prevalent in the zerg fights you see today. Having a health buffer allows you to use your cooldowns more proactively instead of reactively. Due to Chaotic Persistence, I think you’ll be fine on boon duration as long as you remember to proc your Concentration sigils.

Thank you so much, expandas. Very valuable info.

I am also thinking of a third option, Wanderer’s armor with Leadership or Durability runes. I’m especially intrigued by the insane HP pool along with toughness, which will make this toon very hard to kill.

Our server has a meta build consisting of a mix of Wanderer’s and Berserker’s with runes of Durability, around 100% boon duration and one Sigil of Concentration – not focused on mimic, tho, which I am eager to explore. I am going to make some tweaks to that to accommodate this playstyle.

Hi guys. I’ve got some new footage of me running the build to share with you. Enjoy!

Dragonbrand Redux

Have you tried this in a pug zerg fights in WvW? Personally i don’t have a WvW guild. So the best i can do is run a boonshare build in a pug zerg. However the problem i have here is that mesmer does not get prioritized for the frontline. So with that the commander or the one that manages the squad puts me in the backline subsquad. With eles, and/or other random stuff. And this renders the boonshare kinda useless since i cant be in the frontline duo to lack of stability. Which forces me to mainly camp gs or staff and play a build like this

I understand what you mean. Most drivers tend to be guardians and the thought that Mesmer can provide the support their party desperately needs escapes them!

The build was designed around zerg fights in WvW. It’s for these situations where you find yourself in a party no stability and being moved back to your original subsquad each time you protest that I recommend running Mantra of Concentration. The crucial thing about those three stacks of stability is that you have a small buffer from the ICD on stability removal to start your rotation. Revenant runes will also come in handy if you find yourself dying to conditions.

Honestly I couldn’t ever imagine running boonshare mesmer in an unorganized pug blob. Boonshare mesmer is so heavily reliant on the input from other classes to really shine. It can do ok on it’s own, but if you’re trying to solo pump out boons you’re just not going to be efficient compared to getting seeded by an ele, guard, and rev.

I’ve been running with an organized group for close to a year now. In that time the way we comp has evolved from me being the one mesmer with veil and some other gimmicky stuff to having a boonshare distortion mesmer in every single subsquad as an integral part of the way we organize and play. The thing is that making this work requires group coordination, otherwise you just end up as a single mesmer pumping some boons that don’t ever end up being used. I couldn’t imagine trying to play this in a pug blob, it would just be awful.

Edit: @expandas: Just noticed that in your other thread you noted that you mesmer for BorP. That sorta needs to be a wee bit of a disclaimer here: What works for BorP isn’t going to work for the vast majority of other groups in the game. Most groups don’t have the organization and imagination to fiddle with new comps and make them work, and boonshare mesmer very much requires a comp built at least partially around it. I’m lucky that DIE was able to do that for the builds I came up with, and BorP has always been pushing the edges of the meta, but most groups can’t or won’t do the same.

expandas.7051:

The build was designed around zerg fights in WvW. It’s for these situations where you find yourself in a party no stability and being moved back to your original subsquad each time you protest that I recommend running Mantra of Concentration. The crucial thing about those three stacks of stability is that you have a small buffer from the ICD on stability removal to start your rotation. Revenant runes will also come in handy if you find yourself dying to conditions.

I tried the Mantra of Concentration. But i am personally not too keen on it duo to its long channeling time combined with the cooldown. Nor can i upkeep it myself.

Fay.2357:

Honestly I couldn’t ever imagine running boonshare mesmer in an unorganized pug blob. Boonshare mesmer is so heavily reliant on the input from other classes to really shine. It can do ok on it’s own, but if you’re trying to solo pump out boons you’re just not going to be efficient compared to getting seeded by an ele, guard, and rev.

Honestly it does pretty good as long as that stability is provided by 2 guardians. Which a subsquad ussualy has in a pug blob. But yeah as mentioned before. I or mesmer gets mostly paired up with backline or other stuff. And in those cases i swap my build to what i posted earlier here

I’ve got some new footage to share from last night. The patch didn’t really affect this build, but the buff to Bountiful Disillusionment rewards good positioning. My Arcdps was reset so unfortunately I don’t know what the resistance up-time was at the end.

@Fay/GWMO

I hear what you guys are saying. My perspective isn’t very helpful for the new player trying to run this build with the open tag. No matter if it’s NA or EU chances are you’re going to shafted in terms of party composition by virtue of playing this class. It’s unfortunate and it kittenes me off that bad things happen to good people. Part of the reason why I started playing with proper guilds is because I wanted to get away from all that. Until the mindset changes and your average driver appreciates Mesmers, you might indeed be better off playing a different build, perhaps running Temporal Enchanter or mantra healing.

Hey guys,

I discovered a neat behavior for Mantras and wanted to share it with you. There was a period of time before where Mantra skill cooldowns would tick down after you had finished channeling the skill. This was very strong in game modes like WvW because you jump into the fray, use all of your Mantra sequence skill charges, then immediately charge the skill back up again. I believe I now know exactly how ArenaNet patched this behavior and how you can now cheat the skill cooldowns with Continuum Split.

After rewatching one of my videos which you can find here, I noticed I was able to consume the remaining charges for both Mantras during Continuum Split, and then have those skills available to channel again after leaving CS. This was really interesting behavior and I did some testing to figure out what was happening.

It turns out that Mantra skill cooldowns still tick down after you channel them. However, ArenaNet changed the corresponding sequence skills, e.g., Power Return, Power Break, to reset the skill cooldowns each time you use one. However, the skill cooldowns don’t stop ticking! You might have noticed this whenever you’ve change heal/utility skills off of Mantra and back to it.

Knowing this, there are two ways you can cheat the Mantra skill cooldowns. Method A is to simply cast the Mantra skill and wait out the cooldown (ticking internally) before using all charges during Continuum Split. Method B is to use all but the last charge on the Mantra before waiting out the cooldown and comboing with CS. Method A is more efficient and could see use in PvE applications whereas Method B is more practical in PvP/WvW scenarios where you’re unlikely to have very long CS durations.

I also want to you guys know that I’ve been collaborating with my guildie Arete, who is a WvW moderator for Metabattle, to update the page for Mesmer in WvW. The new build takes a Mantra based approach, similar to the one in this guide. We’ve even min/maxed the boon duration with the new living story nourishment and stacking sigil so you now longer need the expensive concentration sigils. This massively simplifies your rotations because you no longer need to time things with weapon swap. You can check it out here: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Support_Chrono

Lastly, this is my final post on the forums. Unfortunately I no longer have the time nor heart to continue playing this game. It’s been explicitly stated that there are to be no intrinsic improvements to WvW for the rest of the year and given their record I do not have confidence that things will ever change. I’d like to thank all those who have set out time over the years to prepare resources and help out others on this forum. Its your ingenuity and dedication to this class that have helped keep Mesmer one step ahead and rebounding after each setback. Keep up the good work!