Guild Wars 2

synergy, those two GM traits with signet of inspriration be. strong support build it is.

i know people been talking about Boutiful Disillusionment with Illusionary Persona but no one has really posted any observation with these two GM traits.

i’ve taken it to wvw and it is viable in zerg play but i believe it shines in the group roaming style. excuse my button smashing style, everyone starts plays aggressively once they see the boons on them.. the signet does live up to it’s name here.
here’s the wvw video http://youtu.be/MX03OtxsGqs
in the video there’s a thf that daggerstorm as i throw up mimic. the video quality isn’t that great but i saw thf life bar slowly dropping. it’s the the health bar when you target but the bar when you hover the mouse cursor over the player. not sure if it was me doing that damage. after that, thf healed up quick with that evade/heal skill but as you can see power ranger quickly dropped the thf once i targeted. took like a big chuck of blood away.

i also took the bountiful persona build into spvp and i would say it was viable…needs a little tweak here and there.

in wvw, i played it with power stats (soldiers gear with runes of centaur) with a focus on retaliation giving traits 0/2/6/0/6 with retaliatory shield and confusing cry (you will need an illusion to shatter for retaliation boon from confusing cry since IP alone will not grant it) if you do get it to shatter, you get might to go along with your retaliation which makes sense. i did notice something though…devs might want to “update” tool tip for f2 with BD but i’m going to be hush hush about it because i like it the way it is incorrect. so gentlemen and ladies check it out and play test this build and remember we lost a kitten good mesmer on the forums. /salute pyro

Hello there,
Will try build in tPvP to see how well it performs.

Shadowkiller.6725:

and remember we lost a kitten good mesmer on the forums. /salute pyro

He quit the class ? Wise choice.

Before I play it, going 0 0 6 2 6 for vigor on shatter + Celestial ammulet/Traveler runes. Power is useless in my opinion for this kind of build. Damage is trash anyways i suppose. Retaliation without power isn’t threatening either.

I played a bit in hotjoin to warp up. If you don’t have shatter food you die, badly.

He did not quit. He got banned for asking us to PM a dev to undo a stealth nerf on distortion which in a way killed mesmer..

Shadowkiller.6725:

i know people been talking about Boutiful Disillusionment with Illusionary Persona but no one has really posted any observation with these two GM traits.

People probably don’t talk about it because there is no real synergy to be found.

Shadowkiller.6725:

i did notice something though…devs might want to “update” tool tip for f2 with BD but i’m going to be hush hush about it because i like it the way it is incorrect.

Are you sure? Looks all right to me. Maybe you got tricked by Shattered Strength?

@Pyro banned – The retaliation thing? top lel.

Played the build in solo queue.

• It’s kittening great to win teamfights as long as Storm, Null field and Signet are up. Great to win teamfights when no Storm. Good when no signet.

• Worse than meta in 1vsX and 1vs1 is a waste of time/potential impact on the game.

• Almost exclusive defensive shatter gameplay

• You need to camp either Mid or Far point assault

/build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsfWlknpUt1pxANcrNivBZ6GEgLeqLg6dcjhA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwpAoYZAA

i told pyro about anet ninjas..hey finally came for him…i bet they were like 2-3 of them taking turns to CnD and Backstabbing pyro. i betm anet ninjas…t pyro took one down but the other would throw SR on top and res his friends back and forth. they probaly the types to hang around the wall of a tower or keep to get an easy CnD

have used centaur runes and would have constant swiftness for me and the group once the swiftness boon from inspiration signet procced or from a kind guard shout or warrior warhorn. i swear sometimes we would run circles around outter SM looking for skrimishes…you know how the centaurs roll around their camps. i’ve also tried 2xalterism+4xlyssa for some extra boon stacking to share. used chocolate omnom for 20% boon duration…most boon only about 1/2 to 2 second increase but i’ve notice that might is our longest lasting boon, it’s base duration around 15s and also i use choco omnom for the swiftness from centaurs. sometimes if i keep my heals up i can get 2m swiftness and then share it. the healing skill i use is mirrors with menders purity.

Xaylin.1860:

Shadowkiller.6725:

i know people been talking about Boutiful Disillusionment with Illusionary Persona but no one has really posted any observation with these two GM traits.

People probably don’t talk about it because there is no real synergy to be found.

Shadowkiller.6725:

i did notice something though…devs might want to “update” tool tip for f2 with BD but i’m going to be hush hush about it because i like it the way it is incorrect.

Are you sure? Looks all right to me. Maybe you got tricked by Shattered Strength?

it can be hard to see sometimes but i’ll guide you. try doing this….with the GM traits BD and IP use your F2 shatter and then observe the boons you recieve….after that…press any other shatter skills besides F2 and observe…do you know what is anet ninjas?

Miku Lawrence.6329:

@Pyro banned – The retaliation thing? top lel.

Played the build in solo queue.

• It’s kittening great to win teamfights as long as Storm, Null field and Signet are up. Great to win teamfights when no Storm. Good when no signet.

• Worse than meta in 1vsX and 1vs1 is a waste of time/potential impact on the game.

• Almost exclusive defensive shatter gameplay

• You need to camp either Mid or Far point assault

/build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsfWlknpUt1pxANcrNivBZ6GEgLeqLg6dcjhA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwpAoYZAA

about the distortion thing, it wasnt immunity anymore, it got stealth ‘bugged’ (nerfed for sure) to evade only therefore shocking aura, static field, engi shield 5, line of warding, ele staff earth 4, etc still hit us, and retaliation either

the f 4 shatter

Aw sucks.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

@Pyro banned – The retaliation thing? top lel.

Played the build in solo queue.

• It’s kittening great to win teamfights as long as Storm, Null field and Signet are up. Great to win teamfights when no Storm. Good when no signet.

• Worse than meta in 1vsX and 1vs1 is a waste of time/potential impact on the game.

• Almost exclusive defensive shatter gameplay

• You need to camp either Mid or Far point assault

/build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsfWlknpUt1pxANcrNivBZ6GEgLeqLg6dcjhA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwpAoYZAA

ur build doesnt have any stunbreak, i wont count staff 2 as a stunbreaker:p

Ok Staff 2 and Sword 2 aren’t stun breakers.

Edit: right, played with Decoy instead of Illusion of Life, the trait was some other random stuff.

pyro really looked out for the mesmer community. the change was supposed to change blurred frenzy distortion only. mesmers that blurred frenzied a player with retaliation would not get hurt and back then retaliation was a big killer. it was considered imbalanced skill and i think pyro agreed that it was imbalanced but it changed our f4 non-damaging f4 shatter as well one of our most useful skill in wvw and spvp..changes to our profession skill was very unfair

Hi ShadowKiller, yeah as xaylin pointed out, I’m pretty sure you are noticing the extra might stack from shattered strength.

My personal experience with BD has overall not been very good. I do believe 6 in illusions is the only path to even remotely talking about a decent build using it and I’ve personally run maimed more condition focused which I find works best.

That said, in the end I dropped the idea because I couldn’t keep sustained damage up enough to bring down bunkers or even semi-bunker-ish specs.

So, about BD in general:

• Retaliation: You have some decent uptime potential but what is that really getting you that you can’t get with just spec’ing into retaliatory shield for a lot less trait expenditure? RS alone with mimic and your scepter/sword blocks is more than enough to keep retal up.

• Might: cry of frustration works in a build in one of two ways 1) full spike damage in a shatter spec or 2) full confusion damage in a condition spec. This is my biggest problem with BD in that you have this large identity crisis in figuring out how best to use cry of frustration besides just spamming it to spam it. In your soldier’s gear, cry of frustration isn’t going to do much damage. In addition, the big insult to all of us is the might it provides is less than what a sigil of battle does. With battle sigils you get 3 might at a base 20s every 10s. With cry of frustration you get 3 might for 15s every 23s, even then assuming you’re shattering full illusions right off recharge. What a joke, right?

• Fury: This is decent, but fully traited still on a ~35s recharge. Even then, you’re not going to be spamming diversion, you’re going to be using it when you need it, so getting this fury is very situational.

• Regeneration: This is a bit underrated in my opinion – 8s base regeneration when you pop distortion isn’t bad, but worth spending a full 6 points for? Not in my opinion.

I applaud your experimentation of this trait and thanks for the vid. I just don’t think using BD in a build is viable right now.

take down another player with this build? forget it…everytime i am by myself with this build i loose 1v1. takes them awhile but all i can do is run away and apply boons on demand. that’s why i like testing out this builld.

the thing about cry of frustration is that it’s giving 3 stacks of might with no illusions out so it’s bugged is what i am tryingto say. if anything it should only give 1 stack of might from shattered strength and IP. the other shatter skills should also give a stack of might if no illusions are out but it doesn’t.i just find it interesting that Restoritive illusions with IP. i read somewhere that an extra illussion is beging counted for so you get healed for more that what the tooltip says. and shattered illusions doesn’t work with IP.

Ourcore mechanic as mesmer is so messed up int he inside that there is no room for build diversity from the outside. all mesmer build is some form of DPS…it’s either a burst type or a slow and burn type but always dps. it’s like joining a single pick dota game, you know some kid be clicking at a certain spot on the loading screen so when the protraits of heroes come up they are the first to get the hero..stealth assassin aways…in every match someone picks him…and if you want to win and have gg…youre going to have to carry that sob

when chaos posted his maestro build waaaayyy back in the day…lol…i barely saw any other mesmer play that build…everyone wkittentering each other like mad monkeys cause of you could get 7-8 illusions out and mindwrack would count all of them. it sounds insane now but back then it was thought to be normal and later called it a bug.

anet pls hire me as a liason for mesmers

Yeah I was incorrect before about requiring a 3 illusion shatter – been a couple weeks since I played a build with the trait.

I don’t believe it’s bugged – all IP shatters with no illusions do proc BD, and it makes sense since it procs “on shatter”, not “per illusion”. Even looking at it that way, it’s really quite useless to use it that way to get the minimal boons you receive.

And yeah, unfortunately our other “on shatter” traits unfortunately aren’t all consistent where IP is concerned.

I played around a lot with BD for a long time and had some minor success with it but the core issue with the trait is that it is an:

1. on shatter trait
2. duplicate

while its great to have traits that use our classes core mechanic, this one tends to step on the toes of everything related to it. the boons are lovely but shatters are situational. boons are also situational.

i dont need Retaliation after i use a large spike, the opponent is more likely to be healing or trying to get away.

Might on top of confusion is good and fits well to boost my pressure

Fury after an interrupt .. normally i’m interrupting to save my kitten and get away or get a heal in, and sometimes to set up a burst but in this case my interrupt usually doesnt come from shattering (as my largest burst is then on the back burner till i can pop more clones)

Regen ontop of invuln is nice but either i dont have the Healing to make it really effective or i’m using F4 to negate being focus bust into the dirt so the regen doesnt help a lot once i can take damage again.

This trait is also GM meaning you may or may not have room to take another, in this case, IP, using two lines for all your points severely limits what type of builds you can/should use.

if you give up DE, a solid choice for any shatter build, you limit your Damage and bursts by a considerable amount. if you chose to take DE, you then lose IP for always ready shattering.

BD also shares/copies the Might on Shatter and Retal on Cry areas, which IP already synergizes with extremely well and don’t really need to be duplicated with a GM trait.

BD also does lend itself to builds which rely on clones and phantasms being up for long periods of time and doesn’t offer much in the way of Defensive play in the Defense related Line, its much more of a middle ground/baton pass type of trait that would find a better home in Dueling or Inspiration.

While they have a synergy to them(IP + BD), the current placement of the two traits means its to the detriment of the other and to the player using them. if BD were a Master or Minor trait this would be drastically different.. but its just not the case.

I don’t think that being ‘on shatter’ represents an issue for BD. Actually, I feel that this was a smart move of ANet in general. By introducing an ‘on shatter’ effect they tried moving away from ‘per Illusion’ effects which are the main reason for DE and IP basically being mandatory for shatter builds. However, the devs screwed up the implementation of the trait due to different reasons.

The main reason probably is what you mentioned earlier. The benefit you gain through using BD isn’t unique enough. It can be duplicated through different ways. Chaos even got a trait which I personally consider more powerful/useful even though it requires a higher skill level. Additionally, the placement of the respective boons provided is debatable. A different choice of boons might have been better, too (e.g. Fury, Protection). I made long post about it back then because I felt they were extremly underhwelming.

Another issue I see with BD is the lack of complementary traits. Yes, you can build a boon sharing build around it but Mesmers lack additional traits which promote ‘on shatter’ playstyles over the classic ‘per Illusion’ set up. As long as this doesn’t change people probably won’t really go for it.

i tell you, that IP with any shattering traits gets me so excited sometimes…i just want to button smash all f keys ftw. unfortunately this is not the case. i would like to thank everyone for their valid points. after reviewing it it and giving it some thought i agree, definately underwhelming for it’s worth

Xaylin.1860:

I don’t think that being ‘on shatter’ represents an issue for BD. Actually, I feel that this was a smart move of ANet in general. By introducing an ‘on shatter’ effect they tried moving away from ‘per Illusion’ effects which are the main reason for DE and IP basically being mandatory for shatter builds. However, the devs screwed up the implementation of the trait due to different reasons.

Being on shatter isn’t a reason on its own exactly, but think of it as a compounding factor.

Shatter traits are required to have 1 of 2 qualities:

1. Be in master or lower tier
2. Be powerful enough on their own that they are worth sacrificing either DE or IP for

BD doesn’t fit the second criterion even remotely, and so that makes it bad. It’s generally weak as well, the boons are short duration and underwhelming, but it’s the on-shatter that really kills it.

Fay.2357:

Being on shatter isn’t a reason on its own exactly, but think of it as a compounding factor.

Shatter traits are required to have 1 of 2 qualities:

1. Be in master or lower tier
2. Be powerful enough on their own that they are worth sacrificing either DE or IP for

BD doesn’t fit the second criterion even remotely, and so that makes it bad. It’s generally weak as well, the boons are short duration and underwhelming, but it’s the on-shatter that really kills it.

I’d argue that it doesn’t have to fit the second criterion at all. Because it doesn’t benefit from the number of clones. As soon as you’re not looking to play a shatter build with maximum offensive potential but a stronger support focus you will be fine. Of course, it will never beat standard 4/4/0/0/6 builds damagewise but it doesn’t have to. It just has to be appealing enough for a different playstyle.

But you are right about BD itself. It is underhwelming as it is right now. Personally, I’d like it to provide area boons like Vigorous Revelation and have the boons revised. Vigorous Revelation could even be moved to Chaos since it is boon focussed and basically shares the mechanic of BD (We know ANet loves tooltip fixes ). Furthermore, Restorative Illusions could be turned into a ‘on shatter’ trait (and potentially moved down a tier), too. This way you would have three supportive shatter traits at your disposal which do not rely on DE and IP because they do not scale with the number of Illusions. I can imagine this opening up a different and more supportive shatter playstyle.