Guild Wars 2

I’ve been running a power chronomancer build since the end of last season to fairly good effect. It did well in unranked, and is doing quite well in ranked play this season too. Just thought I’d share it for those who would like to play a power mesmer.

The biggest problem with power shatter in today’s meta is that it is too squishy with all the power creep and CC going on, while not bringing enough sustained damage of its own. This build aims to address that; here it is:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAse7clknhy0YjawWNwsGLPH1ZBEAHW9geoLK6i1YHAA-T5wHAB2XGAgHAA77PAA

Perhaps the most unusual thing about this power build is the use of the scepter. I was initially not sure about this as well, as greatsword skills are quite essential to a power mesmer’s burst. However, the recent buffs to scepter can really be felt here, with the autoattack dealing significantly more damage than the GS at close range, and skill #3 capable of doing 6-7k to light targets. Having so much power also means scepter #2 and OH sword #4 do absolutely massive amounts of damage. These two blocks are also significantly faster after the last patch, and actually land their damage reliably now.

I feel the most important thing here is how well the build makes use of the illusions line. PoM and reduced CD on shatters and illusions are huge boosts to our survivability. Scepter #2 has a cooldown of just 4.75s with malicious sorcery, and sword #4 sits at 9.5, allowing you to be blocking almost all the time. This means that even in our offensive weapon set, we still have a fair amount of defence.

Survivability is boosted even more with inspiration, chronomancer, scrapper runes and sigil of energy. I know the sigil has been nerfed, but I still like it. Sword and shield are still used when things really get rough. I find that the toughness from demolisher is more important than the vitality from marauder, as inspirations has quite a lot of cleanses.

With the two hard-hitting but singular blocks, where this build really excels at is in duels, and I’ve had success fighting all the classes on point. The biggest counter to this build is actually another mesmer, as the clones negate the two blocks.

All in all I find it’s a decent build with good roaming capabilities, but isn’t too bad in team fights either. Whether it’s better than a condi mesmer with the recent nerfs is debatable, but I like power mesmer, and this build works in the current meta.

Why shield? You already have blink, decoy, distortion, Moa, continuum split, illusionary riposte and blurred frenzy. Why not pistol for interrupt and more damage? Outside of shattersplash and BF you’re also exclusively singletarget.

Other than that, looks like a fun build. Have to try this out as well, but swapping out my GS feels… weird. Simply because of the knockback utility, you’re taking that out and adding nothing in that can prevent stomps/clear points etc, and without any offhand cc you’re relying on F3 shatter to do all your interrupts and cc aside from Moa.

As for traits I always take Phantasmal haste over Shattered strength since the most reliable (if any) of our damage comes from the Phantas, but this is more of a personal choice simply because I don’t like relying too much on shatter for damage and our direct attacks are… crap.

This is pretty much the build I was running pre-patch, except that I used Mercenary rather than Demolisher (making it a hybrid rather than a power build) and condi-focused runes and sigils.

It’s still a relatively squishy build without the active defenses like the blocks, and without having Phase Retreat or the greatsword knockback on hand as a gap-opener. Fitting a pistol in could be useful, particularly with the nerf to Mental Defense – of the two offhands, though, I’d say that it’s the shield that you really want to keep and it’d be the offhand sword that you replace with the pistol. When you’re not running Duelling, the two phantasms are similar in purpose, so it’s largely a matter of whether you prefer to have an additional block (which will spawn another clone) or the control potential of pistol.

Currently, I’ve reverted to using staff as the ranged option, but if I was to go back to scepter now I’d probably use pistol. Part of the reason I used sword before was to increase the chance of Mental Defense triggering on recharge – with the longer internal recharge it has now, that’s now less useful.

@Crowley
Running pistol over shield would be viable in 1v1 scenarios, but when you’re getting focused in a team fight the shield is absolutely necessary. GS5’s knockback is nice but is on a really high cooldown, and don’t forget sword #4 is a 5-target daze too, on 1/3 the cooldown. As to the AOE, well scepter #3 is also a small AOE, but you’re right there isn’t much AOE damage. Then again, the damage that GS put out isn’t really much to begin with, and we’re better off focusing one person and leaving the AOE to necros etc.

I agree that phantasmal haste is a good choice, but illusions master is a bit of a crapshoot for me. I don’t take phantasmal haste simply because my phantasms usually don’t last long.

@draxynnic
This build does indeed work better with mercenary’s, as it puts out quite a lot of conditions as well, but I wanted to stick with power. I take OH sword for the phantasm and the block. Pistol #5 is nice but in today’s meta where everyone has stability, you’re not going to be stunning a whole lot. Sword #4 can do more than 4k on a crit with 1/3 the CD of pistol #5, and can be turned into a daze if needed. The sword phantasm is also more difficult to dodge than the pistol one, and can’t be LOS’d easily.

Staff is a great, but can’t work as the offensive weapon for a power build.

Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend a staff for a pure power build either – I’m using it with Carrion. It does benefit from having decent power, but conditions are a more important part of its damage output. Part of the reason I switched was that I was finding I was losing 1v1s with staff/sword/shield mesmers – that could be due to other factors, or a case of sceptre/X being better in some circumstances while staff is better in others, but the best way to identify which weapon works better is to experiment with both!

I think you may be overselling Counter Blade there. Yes, it can theoretically daze up to five targets… but the odds of getting five targets nicely lined up is pretty low, and a 1s daze is probably better suited for interrupts than for attempting to line up as many targets as possible. Magic Bullet, if not blocked or prevented by stability (both of which also apply to Counter Blade) will pretty much always control three targets if three targets are available between the stun, daze, and blind… and the 2s stun on the primary target can be more tactically useful.

Regarding the phantasms… I think which is better is a matter of style. Sword is better at pursuing the target, and may be more durable (I think it evades while performing an attack, but don’t quote me on that). Pistol is easier to place in a location where it isn’t going to be cleaved, or where it take long enough coming in to prolong the daze from an F3 shatter. Delivering the damage through eight hits rather than one can also be an advantage at times.

That said, I wouldn’t say that pistol is clearly better either. OH sword being indirectly nerfed through the Mental Defense nerf does make it less attractive than it was, though.