Guild Wars 2

With the patch that has reworked many of the reliabilities of the Mesmer and Guild Wars 2 in general, does the community have any insight on the following questions:

Which builds are still viable and which new builds have been created?

Any particular combat notes about the patch?

For those below Level 80, how does one manage to make it there with Grandmaster traits so far off?

This thread is geared towards new or very casual players who may not have the insight and necessaries to survive. Please try to provide appropriate answers.

Great topic. I’m a new player and I’m very confused about the changes in the patch.

Guardian is very viable.

Get on and do some testing like the rest of us?

Can I hold your hand for you today on your way to work too?

We are back to the days of trial and error, too many changes for Mesmer,

Mesmer was my favorite profession, I put hundreds of gold & hours in my character, post patch all builds seem weaker, still looking that build but now losing hope.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Get on and do some testing like the rest of us?

Can I hold your hand for you today on your way to work too?

Thanks Ross. It’s nice to see that the feature pack didn’t include any improvements to players attitudes.

I think the general consensus is that in WVW burst builds like shatter are weaker now than before relative to other builds, especially conditions builds. I’ve been running a hybrid build and it got much stronger though, so I’m happy.

Definitely the “cheese” PU condi builds still work just fine, and I’d say hybrids by the same token.

Lockdown got buffed with a surprisingly awesome GM trait, that, at least for now, is putting everything on a 10 sec cd, even auto attack. Don’t think Lockdown is super viable in wvw, but in spvp I think it’s a contender for dominant spec with power block.

It’s possible that there may be new condition builds using the new GM in Illusions, but personally I don’t see it beating the standard condi builds with PU. You need deceptive evasion to really stack torment with it, so you give up PU and I don’t think you’ll have the pressure to play it like a shatter spec, especially without IP. But who knows some people might find a way to make it awesome.

For me, I’m loving my hybrid build for wvw and in spvp I run lockdown since the ferocity change doesn’t matter there anyways.