Guild Wars 2

After being inspired by Joe’s video of the Shatter Mesmer, I decided that I would want to try my crack at it again since I had so much fun playing it the first time (I even made a video previously as a Shatter Mesmer). This time asa Staff + Sword/Pistol build rather than Sceptor/Pistol + Sword Torch.

I don’t claim to be a pro or the best at shatter, and I know that I am far from it compared to other people who have extensive experience with it like Joe or Osicat. The video is mainly clips from my first week playing a shatter mesmer. I understand that the shatter mesmer has a lot of weaknesses, many which I have experienced first hand. I understand that it flat out just can’t beat certain builds or isn’t good in certain situations. However I feel like it can still be a very rewarding spec and enjoy the element of risk and the hit and run playstyle this build tends to be conducive to. And of course it’s really high burst damage! Who doesn’t enjoy taking somebody from 100-0 instantly?.

I started picking up some new tricks and really learned a lot playing the class. I also went through a lot of frustrations as well, mainly through realizing that I just could not beat certain people playing certain builds, but I’ve mainly come to grips with that and accept it, and try to get better.

Anyways, I developed my own personal build, of course by taking input from others and what they are running and doing a bit of testing myself.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8alknpItlpxRNcrRSrxcqjQ9VbVGpCokTUNA-TlCFABNcBA0TTgc7PAwRAQgDCASK/ySJ4jq/ciOhFeAABAQAM0hO0hO0h2QP6Nv5RHapAMXYE-w

This is exactly the build that I run. Keep in mind I am mostly a solo roamer Normally people go 20 into domination, but I felt like I needed 10 inspiration for Mender’s Purity. It makes conditions a lot more easier to deal with, and I felt like conditions were just too much of an achilles heel for me. Retaliation on Phantasms I will take
gladly as well. I also love the extra 300 range on blink. The rest of my trait choices are kind of self explanatory.

As a solo roaming mesmer, I feel like it is mandatory to have a decent amount of toughness and vitality. Especially in larger fights, you simply just can’t get by on active defenses alone. You are always going to get hit. I found having around 2,500 armor to be a sweet spot. With guard buffs and WvW buffs, I can easily hit 20K+ HP which I find very good. Without any swiftness, Traveler’s I feel like are mandatory for me.

Despite building for more survivability, I feel like my damage still rivals a glass cannon build, easily. I might have maybe 200 less power, and maybe 20% less crit chance but this build still hits extremely hard.

As far as my sigils go, for my sword/pistol I took the sigil of air and fire. This seemed like a no brainer to me. Proccing Fire and Air on shatters adds about 2-3K to my shatters. Even the F2 Shatter can hit hard with these sigils. I also elected to go for the Sigil of Energy and Sigil of Leeching on my staff. The sigil of energy is amazing for
pretty much any build, or any class for that matter. I opted for the sigil of Leeching becase I felt like my mesmer lacked a lot of sustain. So 1K HP every swap to staff seemed like a good option. It also does an extra 1K damage so more damage at the same time.

As far as my food goes, I’m sure the Omnomberry ghost has caught some of your attention. Again, this goes back to me feeling like my mesmer lacks a lot of sustain. The food has a 66% chance on a crit to heal you, on a 1s ICD. This food I feel synergizes with the natural aggressive playstyle that is needed when playing this build. Why not sustain yourself while being aggressive at the same time, or let your aggressiveness be your sustain. It actually heals a really good amount, Like 350 each time it procs and this can add up to a lot over time. I can sometimes get 2 of these procs in a decent shatter combo. Not only that, it also does damage. It deals about 350 damage, plus it gives you extra precision so you can argue it is even better than power foods. Another 350-700 on my shatter combo is hardly something to complain about.

The main weakness of this build is that it is overly reliant on landing great shatter combos. Of course however you can play it like a Phantasm build when needed but other than that the damage is more upfront rather than sustained. Landing
good shatters on thieves and mesmers were just very difficult in general, even elementalists and guardians. Necros, Warriors, Engis and Rangers it was fairly easy. That is kind of where I see a Greatsword would come in handy, however the cost is too high to pay in my opinion.

Another main weakness is it’s lack of chasing ability. At least with the greatsword it has an auto-attack that easily hits at 1,200 range, and a cripple at 1,200 range. A staff has a slow moving projectile as an auto-attack with 1-2 seconds of chill.

Another weakness is still sustain, Elementalists and Guardians have miles better sustain without even speccing much into it. Warriors have good sustain as well but I feel like poison severely cripples their Healing Signet. Even Thieves can spec for
great sustain. These classes I feel have the edge against my mesmer if the fights drag on long enough.

Main strengths however are extremely high instant burst on a semi-low CD. Excellent kiting and active defense options, decent CC, etc.

Anyways here is the video, let me know what you think, any comments, criticisms, questions, racism, w/e is appreciated. It will take about an hour to upload from now

As your video still not ready I might say,why not using the usual build and jsut take lemongrass pot for cond reduce?
or even use the healing mantra with menders purity which can be healing + resolve and you have a free utility spot?

^agreed, I don’t see why you need the cleanse on Utility’s if you have Mendors Purity, since you do have a Condi Removal then maybe take Mirror Images? Or Mimic?

Processing, any eta?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYFsomuREo4

Yeah my bad, something overnight happened which cancelled my upload as I went to sleep. Anyways hopefully this one should be up in an hour or so.

But yeah to answer your questions

@Sandrox

I’ve tried the Lemongrass and honestly with the duration of conditions that are being put on me, it didn’t seem very helpful at all, or as good as having another source of condition removal. To me condi removal > condi duration. Plus it allows me to use the Omnomberry Ghost which I really like for extra sustain and damage.

I see your point with the Healing Mantra, I forget whether it clears condis when you ready the skill for activation or when you actually use it. If the latter, it would basically be a power cleanse + heal and I would definitely do that. I didn’t even think of that.

Seems okay. The second thief is a heartseeker spamming idiot. I enjoy bursting those down.. I myself am somewhat new to shatter, and I too got inspired to start playing shatter by Joes video alongside battling Osicat while he was in a shatter set. The thing I do now is I run with 4 different weapon sets, I like each for something.
I have the following:

Staff/Gs
Gs / Sw/T
Staff /Sw/F
Staff /Sw/P

Some of your trait choices I can understand, the big mistake you did is took Menders Purity. I understand why you did so, I’d love it if I could justify doing that but boon strip on shatter is just too good to give up. If the enemy has protection, instead of 10k, a 3 clone shatter will hit 6,6k which is A LOT less. You should really go for mantra of healing if you’re using menders purity.

I usually run dual energy + dual air along with hoelbrak runes. I can use phase retreat for mobility, so I don’t really need traveler. Plus hoelbrak are cheaper and put out a lot more damage. I’ll be using hoelbrak and when I make some gold get a traveler and strength set. I’m full zerker but I’m thinking of going with some knights or soldiers pieces in order to have more survivability (as someone mentioned)

Shatter is tons of fun and there are dozens of weapon combinations one can use with it, you’re never, ever bored playing it. I love it. Very hard to play but when you win a 1v3 it feels so good. Very rewarding!

I’d suggest you try out some different setups, my personal favorite is staff + sw/f. Focus can be used for swiftness, reflection and there is a nice combo that is somewhat hard to avoid. You lay down your curtain, begin spawning the phantasm and pull the guy so he can’t dodge anything. While he is knocked down illi leap to him and blurred frenzy. Watch his conditions, when the immobility runs out, shatter. Very good opening damage.
Staff + Gs is fun but harder to play.
Have a wonderful day, happy gaming!

Jurica.1742:

Some of your trait choices I can understand, the big mistake you did is took Menders Purity. I understand why you did so, I’d love it if I could justify doing that but boon strip on shatter is just too good to give up.

Not only the boon removal,the vurnability on daze.When I start to fight i blurr frenzy with diversion doing alot of dmg before even using MW,and then I use Miror image and use MW.

But good video nonetheless.

I enjoyed the video. Nice to actually see some 1vx clips, since I find a lot of 1v1 exclusively when I browse through youtube. As for everyone’s critiques on not taking 20 in Domination, I think that taking Mender’s Purity is fine since you state that you are playing a more defensive variant of shatter and since you show that you still kill people.

You’ve got a very bad habit of wasting mass invis and magic bullet. You tend to use mass invis without a particularly good reason for it…and then break the stealth a moment later with some sort of ranged attack. Magic bullet you have a tendency to just use it into shield stance or various forms of stability, wasting it.

Hello guys, back from work so I got a chance to read all of your comments, which by the way thank you much love.

@ Jurica

I do somewhat agree with you about the boon strip on shatter, it is amazing I completely agree with you, you can keep opponents with no boons for pretty much the entire fight which would be helpful against Warriors, Guardians and especially Elementalists.

However Mender’s Purity has saved my butt more times than I can count, I don’t necessarily see it as a mistake but more like a sacrifice that I feel needs to be made in order to fulfill a different end if you know what I mean. I wish I could have both traits, but both traits have their advantages in different situations.

I’ve only been playing this variant of Shatter for less than a week or so, and would definitely like to try out new weapon combinations, they all seem very interesting and all have their own set of strengths and weaknesses.

@ Sandrox

Completely agreed here as well. Vulnerability with daze, especially with a Staff + Sword/Pistol build is amazing. I can stack vulnerability up to 15 and it isn’t unusual to have the full 25. I think I miss this trait more than shattered concentration.

@ Palu

Ty for the comments and I am glad you enjoyed my video!

@ Pyroathiest

I noticed too a little bit, I don’t think it was all too often but I could be wrong I would have to rewatch my video. I did notice a mistake I made which was using Mass Invis in a Chaos Storm. I do like to remain aggressive alot, even while seemingly playing defensively so I guess that may be a fault of mine, breaking stealth early. But I like to do so to drop target for the most part, or set myself up for something else as opposed to waiting for heal CD’s sometimes. I think at least part of my Magic Bullet wastage is due to partly that I don’t realize how quick the cast time is and that sometimes I use it when not in such a good position. I try to time it so that it hits as stability turns off. Some of it I think is that I tend to make up my mind about what I want to do next instead of reacting to the changing situation. This has it’s strengths and faults, but as a result sometimes I don’t realize it fast enough or cancel the skill fast enough and I pop the skill a second or two after they use stability.

The way I see it however is that mistakes are always going to happen, I acknowledge that I probably made a lot during some of the fights. There is a lot of things to keep in mind and keep track of during a fight that some things inevitably get overlooked. And a lot of decisions are made on the fly and almost spontaneously that mistakes do occur. Good opponents tend to force other players into making mistakes. But I am glad that people do point out these things because you don’t always see it or take notice. That would be something I would pay more mind to in the future. Always appreciate a comment from one of the most knowledgable mesmers in the game.

killahmayne.9518:

The way I see it however is that mistakes are always going to happen, I acknowledge that I probably made a lot during some of the fights.

This is absolutely true, mistakes happen. I just mentioned those 2 particular ones because you tended to repeat them over and over, at least from what it seemed in the video.

I guess, point taken