Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,

some time ago I discovered this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Chaos-Maestro-Support-Builds/first

and i’m running it ALL the time, love how it makes a BIG difference in a team while dungeoning etc.
Yet everytime i PUG, or semi-pug, i have to explain and defend the build.. (only in the beginning though, ppl start to love it rather quickly)
So is there any reason, there’s no international love for support mesmer? It seems like nobody knows it exists.. :p
As if you wanna go support, you have to go ele or G…
is this true?

Dedicated support builds are always bad in dungeons. Sorry, that’s the end of the story.

To be effective, you need to DPS and support. Ele can do this well— 21 might stacks + full DPS = awesome. Guardian can do this well— aegis + stability + protection + full DPS = awesome. Anything that sacrifices a lot of DPS is bad, because at the end of the day, parties can survive merely by using active defenses (dodges, evades, blocks, etc).

The build you linked does no damage, and the support is not good for dungeons either— no might and no (consistent) aegis. Fury is better provided by ele or ranger. No one needs you to heal them in dungeons. They do need you to condition cleanse (that’s one of your jobs as mesmer), but you can do that with a full zerker DPS melee build by just slotting Mantra of Resolve and Null Field.

In fact, I would wager that this build ends up contributing negative DPS— if you’re constantly dropping Chaos Storm (which is the only way to get boons up, really) then I bet you’re going to ruin perfectly good fire fields that an elementalist or a guardian could drop, and will prevent your team from stacking might.

Note that support of this form isn’t bad in WvW. Dedicated support builds can be very useful there.

Edit: I’ll mention one more useful form of support you provide as a mesmer— reflections. That is the sort of active damage mitigation + DPS which is useful in dungeons.

Well Fractals is a place that likes support, cause stuff there tend to kill faster than dungeons.

AsteriskCGY.5931:

Well Fractals is a place that likes support, cause stuff there tend to kill faster than dungeons.

Not really. You want ~good~ support in Fractals— Aegis and Stability and protection, on a reliable basis. A guardian in full zerker can provide that. Weakness on enemies is a great bit of support in fractals— but warrior provides that reliably (or anyone with skale venom). And again, guard and warr can provide this support with no DPS loss.

At the same time, the useful support that a mesmer provides— reflections and condition cleanse— are indeed very good in fractals. But again— it’s the useful variety, with no DPS loss, and not the healing + unreliable smorgasbord that the chaos build provides.

maxinion.8396:

At the same time, the useful support that a mesmer provides— reflections and condition cleanse— are indeed very good in fractals. But again— it’s the useful variety, with no DPS loss, and not the healing + unreliable smorgasbord that the chaos build provides.

Ah, maxinion, you wound me.

You’re pretty much right, though. The Chaos Maestro build demonstrates all the ways a Mesmer can build for support and offers a build that grabs pretty much everything a Support-Mesmer can do all at once. It also shows different boonsharing techniques (not just chaos storm) to be effective in different situations but the entire guide is not focused on dungeons, though 90% of what is explained can be run in full zerk gear.

Building a proper support build doesn’t mean loading up on all the support you can; it means having the right tools for the right situations. If you’re running with a somewhat incompetent group, those heals/stream of buffs (from many sources, not just Staff 5) can make the difference between a smooth run and several wipes. If your party can dodge fine, supply might, ect. then you don’t need to sacrifice just to have overlapping effects. If Your group is advanced, coordinated, and built and prepped for speedruns, then you’re not going to have need for mantra heals, healing power, or the defense of the staff (though, I’m not sure what you mean by ‘negative’ DPS. Chaos storm and iWarden do decent to really good damage, the DPS loss comes mostly from the auto-attack you’re locked into for about 7 seconds). Even then, I usually run with Signet of Inspiration/Feedback/Mantra of Resolve in a lot of dungeon scenarios. It’s about knowing the situation and adapting accordingly, filling out any gaps along the way; the Chaos Maestro build is meant to be extremely flexible… and in no way did it said the build requires +Healing Power gear.

@OP- People do know about it, it just happens to find more use in WvW than in dungeons. And even then its somewhat rare because A) People don’t really recognize the build in action, especially since it has a lot of variants. It’s a build that can’t really be explained without a big obnoxious guide or getting behind the wheels and playing it. A lot of people write it off theoretically as a result. B) It’s one of the more difficult Mesmer builds to play, especially since you have to be a bit vocal about what you do to get the full effectiveness. So props to you for running it! But yeah, your healing gear would be better used in WvW-related scenarios. Even if you don’t change anything else, full zerker could make you much more valuable to your team.

As for your questions about what classes offer “better” support, I had the same questions and made a thread in each of the other class forums to gather/compare data.

Mesmer can offer support as good as Engineer/Elementalists/Guardian, but in different ways and we completely blow away Warrior/Thief/Ranger/Necro. You can google the threads by typing in “Support Elementalist Support Mesmer” or whichever other class in place of ele.

Well Fractals is a place that likes support, cause stuff there tend to kill faster than dungeons

Support like protection, aegis, weakness and blind? Things which other, not mesmer classes can apply better, and consistently?

If you’re running with a somewhat incompetent group, those heals/stream of buffs (from many sources, not just Staff 5) can make the difference between a smooth run and several wipes.

Not really. If we take Arah as an example, since it’s the dungeon most people mess up, a mesmer healing their team does basically nothing at boss fights. If we take path 2 since this is the one incompetent groups mess up on the most, it’s chaining reflects which saves your group at Brie (not healing), it’s well-timed focus pulling of inquest adds which saves the group from a mass of damage (or you just pull the abom away in which case you don’t even need to do that), and healing isn’t going to save anyone on Lupicus – if your group is unprepared with the wrong weapons (weapon choice basically makes or breaks your survivability on this fight) and aren’t familiar with the mechanics, healing isn’t going to save them from ~8,000 damage projectile blasts filling the entire room or ~14,000 damage kicks/swipes. Heals won’t save at Alphard since if she pulls (which is a one-shot on berserker gear, two-shot on other stats), she CC’s you for the next few seconds and reapplies the one-shot damage so healing again does nothing. For Brie, you reflect the weak projectiles and then if your party sit in the red circles and die … well you can’t help that.

This is why “support” in the healing sense is basically always bad, you’re better off actively mitigating mechanics through dodging or reflection than trying to outheal it – in many cases it isn’t even possible. Try out healing Archdiviner one-shotting in FOTM 50, it just doesn’t work unsurprisingly.

Let’s say you drop an ethereal field and then almost immediately afterwards the fire field goes down, and the ele now has their LH on. Every auto chain they’re now blasting chaos armour rather than might stacks. That’s what he means by negative DPS, ethereal fields are quite literally the worst fields in PvE – at least with light fields you have whirl finishers to condition cleanse, ethereals have nothing going for them.

Even then, I usually run with Signet of Inspiration/Feedback/Mantra of Resolve in a lot of dungeon scenarios.

Signet of Inspiration really is just a dud. If you’re in an organised group you’re capping might and fury, and in a bad group you’re not even getting the boons in the first place to double. It’s just a lose-lose utility.

Mesmer can offer support as good as Engineer/Elementalists/Guardian, but in different ways and we completely blow away Warrior/Thief/Ranger/Necro.

Considering warriors have access to banners, team-wide might and fury, a power modifier (empower allies), vulnerability stacking (axe/mace skills and rending strikes trait) and a fair bit of CC, I’d be careful before trying to claim mesmers blow them away. Rangers have fire field, team-wide might and fury, damage modifier (frost spirit), precision modifier (spotter), CC (path of scars to pull mobs in to corners, IIRC) and I’m not sure, but they might have a modifier while carrying bundles like thieves do. They also have access to vulnerability stacking and reflection with off-hand axe.

Mesmers provide condition cleansing, projectile reflection, CC, stability and vulnerability stacking, but are sorely lacking in might and fury stacking, damage modifiers and party stat modifiers like warriors and rangers.

Maybe it’s worth actually looking at what other classes are capable of before making such bold claims.

@Chaos: I’m sorry about the attack— I mean no offense! It’s a really nice and creative build, and I could see it being very useful for WvW or PvP. I don’t have any expertise in those areas though, so I was just replying to the OP’s question about bringing this into dungeons.

Elaborating on one point you asked about: I do think that this build could sometimes deal negative DPS in dungeons, but only when running with a might stacking s+x LH elementalist. Two reasons for this. First, if you’re wearing cleric’s or magi’s, the warden does next to no damage compared to what a zerker wearing swordsman would do. You’re really down to very low percentage of damage that you’re capable off the bat. Though as you say, you can technically run in zerker, and then there is only the loss when auto-attacking with staff (which is still a loss, but not as large as the gear choice). Second: a good elementalist is going to lay down fire fields all day long and blast them all day long to provide 20+ stacks of might for the party. 20+ stacks for the entire party is a ~significant~ gain in DPS. As I understand, a large portion of the gameplay here is to lay down the chaos storm with staff 5 (and then share boons more with Signet of Inspiration, etc.). This is a rather long ethereal field. The elementalist is going to be prevented from might stacking when this happens. Either they don’t notice the eth field, lay down their field on top and blast, only to get the eth combo— 8 chaos armors for everyone, hooray— or they stop their rotation and wait for the eth field to end before dropping down their fire field and continuing. Either way, it’s a loss to party DPS, because the ele is stuck auto-attacking with scepter (which is very bad) or they waste their might stacking rotation.

Whenever I play my elementalist, there is nothing worse than a Guardian dropping unnecessary light fields or a Mesmer dropping Feedback on enemies that don’t use projectiles, or a necromancer dropping wells, or a staff Mesmer spamming 5 on top of me. Those sorts of situations really do contribute negative DPS.

@hendo: I think Chaos mostly means the support that you can provide in WvW with mesmer is quite good compared to the other classes. Things like frost spirit/spotter/banners are not as useful in zergs, so the mesmer might be able to pull ahead in those sorts of situations. Maybe.

Unfortunately. Zerker is the PvE meta but if you want to do good damage while still doing a small amount of support without sacrificing too much damage you can always check out my Mantra berserker build which uses the restorative mantra heal trait for extra AOE healing Hecate. But for the most elitist of groups you might not get away with even that (Despite being very effective either way).

Except you’re sacrificing 100 precision, 10% crit damage, and up to 25% in (multiplicative) damage modifiers, so it really is sacrificing too much damage. Even worse, every single inspiration trait you’ve taken is a complete blank, and you’re running a mantra build without empowering mantras.

The condescending remark about “elitists” is completely uncalled for and is a poor attempt at defending your build by trying to place yourself on some sort of moral pedestal.

hendo.1940:

damage damage damage damage …

You’re taking what I said out of context.

You’re not always going to bring the same traits/utilities to every situation. A smart support player, in any gamemode, has to make the decision of what’s best for the group at the time. Stubbornly trying to heal through something that’s beyond your healing output is foolish, especially when, you could mitigate it in other ways such as pulls and reflects.

You’re not entirely correct about Signet of Inspiration or the boons Mesmer can provide, but that’s a somewhat different debate. Again, if might/fury is capped then I’m not going to bring it, and if there’s not enough boons then it’s not the right tool for the situation. That’s just smart play, just like if I’m seeing an Ele with fire fields and lightning hammers, then obviously I’m not going to interrupt his flow.

I should’ve clarified about the support comparison though, I was referring to more -versus player scenarios than dungeons.

Fay’s build would work fine. Yes, it’s a damage sacrifice but if you’re anyone but an elitist it really won’t be a big deal. Most pugs run “sub-optimal” builds that’re in shambles. Fay’s build is solid, despite the damage sacrifice, for anything that’s not a speedrun.

Why is it you can’t just be civil and quote me properly rather than just writing damage?

You’re taking what I said out of context.
You’re not always going to bring the same traits/utilities to every situation. A smart support player, in any gamemode, has to make the decision of what’s best for the group at the time. Stubbornly trying to heal through something that’s beyond your healing output is foolish, especially when, you could mitigate it in other ways such as pulls and reflects.

Right, and what I’m trying to say is that there is basically always a better way to mitigate damage than trying to heal your party.

You’re not entirely correct about Signet of Inspiration or the boons Mesmer can provide, but that’s a somewhat different debate.

Except, I’m entirely correct and you’re just arguing for the sake of it. I’ve covered all of the mesmers purposes in dungeons (except one – I forgot to mention portals, which are pretty great in certain situations) which, to reiterate are condition cleansing, projectile reflection, CC, stability and vulnerability stacking.

Fay’s build would work fine. Yes, it’s a damage sacrifice but if you’re anyone but an elitist it really won’t be a big deal. Most pugs run “sub-optimal” builds that’re in shambles. Fay’s build is solid, despite the damage sacrifice, for anything that’s not a speedrun.

Why? Why are you throwing around the word “elitist” for? Is it because I’m arguing from a different perspective? Mesmers are scarce on damage modifiers, and Fay’s build sacrifices up to a gigantic 25% in damage modifiers. Let that sink in – it’s huge. It’s also the only personal damage modifiers the mesmers have via traiting. It hits both phantasm damage modifiers, but reflects will be weak because the build sacrifices precision, critical damage and a mesmer’s only damage modifiers.

And then if you look at the traits themselves, they’re traiting greatsword which is a low DPS weapon a mesmer shouldn’t be using in dungeons, toughness while channeling mantras which is a trait you should absolutely never use in PvE (and I can’t even think of a time I’d ever want to use it in PvP or WvW).

In inspiration they have medic’s feedback which is completely unnecessary (a mesmer has almost full reflect uptime with glamour mastery and warden’s feedback), mender’s purity which isn’t needed when you have access to mantra of resolve which is insanely good for cleansing, and then restorative mantras – and we’ve already been over the lack of use healing has.

It’s an enormous damage sacrifice due to taking zero damage modifiers, a low DPS weapon, where quite literally every single trait except empowered illusions and blade training are complete blanks in PvE, and as a result – is not solid. Your standard 0/30/0/25/15 will take both personal damage modifiers, a phantasm damage modifier, weapon traiting for faster cooldowns and greater reflect uptime, faster glamour cooldown and phantasmal fury which is a DPS boost for phantasms.

I don’t see why people are throwing around the word elitist, it’s not as if saying it automatically makes you right and me wrong, it just comes across as a weak ad hominem and appears to demonstrate a person’s unwillingness to argue with the facts.

All of this is from a PvE perspective of course, greatsword works in PvP formats and mender’s purity is worth taking in PvP.

Short question regarding support mesmer in PvP:
Wouldn’t a boon removal in the enemy team just counter the whole boon sharing support? Since most mesmer I met were using Shattered Concentration (Dom VII) (or/and nullfield) which removes boons on aoe pretty good I thought boon sharing weren’t that effective in pvp.

Edit:
@ hendo:
Short question for you too (this time PvE
[10 / 20…] or [0 / 30…] and why?
On the one hand you can have +100 power and +15% dmg from your main dmg sources (phantasms) — (I think we can miss the 10% condduration since we’re talking about pve)
On the other hand you have +100 precision (4.7% crit chance) + 10% critdmg and + 1.04³% or 1.04²% dmg for mantras.
I’m using [10 / 20…] with100% uptime reflection just by having wardens out. They deal more dmg through their attack with +100power and have +15% multiplicator on reflect and dmg. I only reflect with nullfield when it’s neccessary so I don’t feel like taking mantras and +4²/4³% dmg on my own reflects. (Lupicus is another story there I surely take 30 in precision) so: what’s better regarding phantasms:

15% dmg + 100power (i believe this one)
or
4.7% crit + 10% critdmg

@Hendo: You know what? You’re right. We’re arguing from two different perspectives, and I was rude because your response to Fay annoyed me.

I apologize. (Even on the internet “I was wrong, my bad.” Is difficult to type. >_<)

Everything you’ve written is valid, and I’m not trying to downplay that. What I’m saying is that most of what you’ve argued for is, yet again, from a “damage-first” perspective to someone asking about support-focused builds. As far as dungeons are concerned, you’re absolutely right that the most optimal way to play really narrows you down into two or three builds, none of which trait into Chaos.

I disagree about Signet because of how extensively I’ve used it, but I’m disagreeing because of Open World PvE/WvW/PvP experiences as well as certain runes I’ve used (such as Altruism). I use it to double up on boons I already apply. AoE Might/Fury from runes, Swiftness/Aegis/Retaliation from Curtain & Chaos Storm/Armor, Vigor from Shatters and Crits, Regeneration from Phantasms, Protection from PU, and that’s ignoring the boons I get from allies and the signet itself.

As for the term “elitist.” I’m not using it as an insult, and I don’t think Fay was either. By elitist I mean someone who prefers speedruns, min/maxing, and would kick out or not play with those who’re of a like mind. I didn’t mean it any more offensively than I’d call someone who likes to talk for their character a Roleplayer.

@Max: I see what ya mean. You had me here like . “o_O Is he saying staff practically HEALS enemies!?”

@Me Games Ma: Well, like I said it’s time & place. Boonsharing works, you just need to know when/why use it. A lot of shatter Mesmer also trait their GS, or run torch. Even then, you could focus them down BEFORE boonsharing or wait for the shatter to drop, or Mass Invis, ect. Also boonsharing allows you to drop “cover boons” (like conditions) to keep the ones you care about from being cleansed.

If you’re running in a PUG that did not specify “speed run”, or “experienced only”, or “level 80 only”, I’m perfectly fine running a build like the Chaos Maestro or Fay’s build or my Paladin builds in zerker gear. In those situations you have no clue what your comp is going to be, if 2 people are running condition builds, one person running clerics, etc etc. Your run may be slow but at least you’re going to be able to do a decent amount of damage yourself and support your party at the same time.

Given the forums represent such an immensely small portion of the GW2 population, you can safely assume (most of the time) that people asking for speed runs know the meta, and people who don’t ask for that aren’t aware. So if it’s a speed run, out of respect to the other groups members, you better be running something reasonably close to the dungeon meta. If it’s not a “speed run”, play whatever build you want.

Signet of Inspiration really is just a dud. If you’re in an organised group you’re capping might and fury, and in a bad group you’re not even getting the boons in the first place to double. It’s just a lose-lose utility.

About this – I disagree that a mesmer running a meta friendly build taking this is a dud. I run this personally on speed runs and I can’t tell you how often I’m refreshing those 25 might stacks, fury and what have you my party is generating. It’s NOT a wasted skill on your bar by any stretch. If you’re trying to compete with that extra 4% damage on a full empowering mantras getup, I can maybe see your point but I’d never dismiss it as a dud.

Thank you guys! I learned a lot today about mesmering

speaking as a non-everyday-player and a non-prof mesmer (she’s my main though)
I would like to share some thoughts and would love to hear about that.
I think we all agree that Chaos Maestro is a great build for wvw.
I do run magis/clerics gear for that (with a little berserker tweak in the jewels, but not full); tell me if this is a bad idea. I like the idea of being a full-support player in zergs (like i loved playing monk in gw1) with some nice utility’s too. I like the survival i have due to the gear. I just LOVE to be the “last surviving mesmer” (==> commander in middle of big zerg-fight : “plz tell me there’s still a mesmer alive to port up” – me “me ^^”)
I do understand this is not ideal for fractals and dungeons. But I don’t like the idea of running full berzerker; going full dmg-way. I don’t like the squishyness and it just doesn’t feel as versatile and challenging as this build.. :/ I would like decent dmg though..

So do you think there’s any build possible, not too far from this one (it really suits my playstyle) that is good for fractals and dungeons? Weaponchanges/gearchanges/little differences in playstyle: good survival, good dmg, good support (or is that asking too much?)
so i could change between the two; fthe one that suits the situation/team-needs without going everytime to the trait-guy?

cheers!

You’re very welcome Rentlle, I’m glad it was useful for you~

Thankfully the featurepatch is going to let you swap traits without going to a trainer, so you’ll at least be able to get that done easily

Wrt to the build… try swapping to full zerker gear and run the same build for now. You’ll have a lot more toughness and vitality than a normal zerker build (because of all the Chaos), so it won’t be as squishy, and the gameplay will be much the same.

Keep in mind you are slowing down your team with this build— but that can be fine. If you’re running dungeons with friends and casual PUGs, then it doesn’t matter so much. Just promise me that you’ll use the sword auto-attack as much as you can, and won’t camp range with staff.

The update is awesome :0. I hope the’ll install build templates too, so that makes it easier to change between builds.
I’ll try what you suggested and no worries, I never camp