Guild Wars 2

As a power shatter mesmer, I was thinking of something like this

Domination – Rending Shatter + Shattered Concentration + Imagined Burden
Dueling – Desperate Decoy + Blinding Dissipation/Evasive Mirror/Fencer’s Finesse+Deceptive Evasion
Illusion – Compounding Power + Shattered Strength + Master of Fragmentation

But when I look at the Chaos line -

“Prismatic Understanding: Stealth applied by your mesmer skills lasts 100% longer. Additionally every second you are stealthed you randomly gain aegis, might, protection, regeneration or swiftness.”

Old PU gives +1s of stealth to all our stealth skills but the new PU just makes me wet. So next week we will be getting -

The Prestige – 6 sec of stealth
Decoy – 6 sec of stealth
Mass Invis – 10 SEC OF STEALTH (72 sec CD!!! with Master of Manipulations)

I am thinking of utilizing this huge PU buff and the Chaos trait line should be sth like this –
Master of Manipulation (duh, reduced blink CD) + Mirror of Anguish + PU

Praise Lyssa, we have better chance against thieves now! But the question is, which trait line should I give up for Chaos considering that I still want to play power-based shatter build. I’m thinking about trading domination/illusions for chaos.

Thoughts?

Yep, that’s what I’m thinking of doing with my build, dom/duel/chaos, with more or less the exact same trait choices.

I was running a shatter build using manipulations already, but then they throw that 10 second mass invis out there, and I was like O_O.

However, bountiful disillusionment is still worth considering as well for a shatter build.

I typically don’t run my particular build with a torch though (prefer pistol), but a 10 second AoE stealth is no joke.

Then with the new mimic one could even do double decoy for 12 seconds… though that would mean giving up blink or arcane thievery (does one really need a blink with access to 22 seconds of stealth from which they can summon iZerkers?).

Don’t forget mimic for double use of any of those

Chiemi.3781:

Don’t forget mimic for double use of any of those

Well, you can only use mimic on a utility skill, not a weapon, heal, or elite skill, so only decoy or veil really applies.

What I’m thinking of now is… 5 mesmsers, all traited with PU, basically cycling decoy and mass invis in succession to stay in perma stealth as they run through WvW. Then they find some roamer, and unload a bunch of iZerkers from stealth, using the chronomancer’s kitten to put more out there… I mean just think of 10+ iZerkers instantly descending onto some poor dumb shmoe chasing after a yak… and the whole time the mesmers are entirely in stealth.

Speaking of Mimic, what do you guys think of that? It seems kinda like a “we ran outta ideas, so we’ll let you take up 2 utility slots to use one of them twice” basically.

I am not really a fan of things like this that clearly are OPd when used with the strong utilities, and well won’t do a thing for the already unused utilities cuz no one will take them either.

I do see this being an interesting option for Blink, Decoy, Mirror Images, or of course now that Glamours are back in a big way you can just basically double-up on your favorite Glamour. (3s of Resitance for Glamours is niiiice!)

I am baffled by the amount of changes from the previous round, and they seem to huge that it’s hard to believe any of this will be even close to balanced. All these weeks of discussions about “new” changes, and now they pull the rug out and change everything yet again. Former GMs become minors, minors become Masters, it’s really too much information to absorb!

I love it though. As someone else said above, at least this will really shake things up and that I’m all for as well. I do see a number of neat and potentially OPd items, like summoning a PD on block! lol! Wow… I could see a melee build emerging with several of the interesting changes to Sword, Signets, etc.

Edit:
Mimic in Chronomancy Shatter build. (Power or MtD, just swap shatters around)
F5 → Mimic+MI+F2 → MI+F1 → F5 → Mimic+MI+F2 → MI+F1

Without anything else that’s a 2 Clone CoF followed almost instantly by a 3 Clone MW, and “deja vu” all over again.

4x MI in a matter of seconds, who needs DE again? ;-)

66600 will be many players’ choice for power-based mesmer after the new patch comes online.
All three GM in chaos line are solid and there are good master/adept traits to choose from as well.

There is one advantage mesmer has over thief, when engi try to smoke us out, our illusions may take the hit for their master and forced “locked on” into CD.

Don’t get too excited there girlfriends. Deceptive evasion is still a necessary evil in all of your builds if you want to be a quick burst in and out shatter mesmer.

What I love about this new system though is all the possibilities for mixing and matching. While I think a shatter mesmer with long stealth uptime could be deadly, it wouldn’t do as much burst as a shatter mesmer taking Dom, Dul, Illuss. This is simply due to the giant damage modifiers we recieved in Domination and Illusion trees.

I’m actually more interested in shatter specs with lots of sustain that take inspiration, or shatter lockdown specs. I don’t like the idea of us getting too much stealth. I think there is enough stealth in this game already.

What do you guys think about the new iMage?

I’m kinda split. Part of me says “Yay! More Burn!” and another is kinda peeved about the loss of condie-removal and the fact that 1 stack of Burn for 6s under the new system seems possibly weaker then 4 stacks of Confusion for 4s under the current system. More reliable yes, but possibly quite a bit weaker too.

Maybe if they at least fixed the projectile bounce to work like Mirror Blade, so that if there is only one target it’ll bounce between enemy, you, and back to enemy to inflict another stack of Burn. :P (Of course I must admit that Fury is a huge improvement over Retal.)

In the end, they need to boost the projectile speed on that guy and also on Stadd and Scepter. (Speaking of, the Scepter GM looks plain bad for a GM. That 15% on a weapon with a flawed mechanic just doesn’t really help, I think I’d rather have the 180 Condition Damage TYVM. Not to even mention the 50% increased Torment damage! lol! Was that an April Fools joke! )

Windwalker.7421:

I’m kinda split. Part of me says “Yay! More Burn!” and another is kinda peeved about the loss of condie-removal and the fact that 1 stack of Burn for 6s under the new system seems possibly weaker then 4 stacks of Confusion for 4s under the current system. More reliable yes, but possibly quite a bit weaker too.

“The Pledge”

Torch skills remove 1 condition from you when activated. While you are stealthed torch skills recharge 1.5% of their maximum recharge every second.

The new mimic will be worth extensive testing. It reminds me of good old arcane echo from gw1.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

There is one advantage mesmer has over thief, when engi try to smoke us out, our illusions may take the hit for their master and forced “locked on” into CD.

I assume you mean the other post of Exciton.8942 in the other thread.
I imagine that, if the skill that hit us or our illusions is an AOE, it can reveal up to the max of players/illusions that the skill can hit inside its area with the first tick before “Lock On” go into CD.

ENGINEER -> Tools -> Master:
Lock On: Striking a foe in stealth analyzes them, revealing them and inflicting them with 10 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds. This trait has a 20 second internal cooldown.

Zoser.7245:

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

There is one advantage mesmer has over thief, when engi try to smoke us out, our illusions may take the hit for their master and forced “locked on” into CD.

I assume you mean the other post of Exciton.8942 in the other thread.
I imagine that, if the skill that hit us or our illusions is an AOE, it can reveal up to the max of players/illusions that the skill can hit inside its area with the first tick before “Lock On” go into CD.

ENGINEER -> Tools -> Master:
Lock On: Striking a foe in stealth analyzes them, revealing them and inflicting them with 10 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds. This trait has a 20 second internal cooldown.

You could be right, but no where it says target limits or ICD per foe. In the end I think its wording issue and we can only be sure until some official clear it out.

fluxit.8247:

Windwalker.7421:

I’m kinda split. Part of me says “Yay! More Burn!” and another is kinda peeved about the loss of condie-removal and the fact that 1 stack of Burn for 6s under the new system seems possibly weaker then 4 stacks of Confusion for 4s under the current system. More reliable yes, but possibly quite a bit weaker too.

“The Pledge”

Torch skills remove 1 condition from you when activated. While you are stealthed torch skills recharge 1.5% of their maximum recharge every second.

Not the same. Also, the reacharge SUCKS.

Zoser.7245:

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

There is one advantage mesmer has over thief, when engi try to smoke us out, our illusions may take the hit for their master and forced “locked on” into CD.

I assume you mean the other post of Exciton.8942 in the other thread.
I imagine that, if the skill that hit us or our illusions is an AOE, it can reveal up to the max of players/illusions that the skill can hit inside its area with the first tick before “Lock On” go into CD.

ENGINEER -> Tools -> Master:
Lock On: Striking a foe in stealth analyzes them, revealing them and inflicting them with 10 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds. This trait has a 20 second internal cooldown.

Ye this won’t trigger on clones except if the clones are in stealth, IE via mass invis.