Guild Wars 2

This idea spawned from my desire to create a build for my WvW adventures (which I’m writing about and will likely post soon since I need some haallp!) I wanted it to be good for roaming and group fights without being too heavy on the pockets. This build is literally brand new, an idea I came up with yesterday, but so far it’s been giving me very interesting results. As with almost all of my support builds, this is a variant of the Chaos Maestro (Inspired in part by Qaelyn. Ty man! )

- Sword-Focus/Staff
- 0/5/20/25/20
- Chaos: III, VIII / Inspiration: I, VIII / Illusions: III, X
- Zerker Amulet, Runes of Lyssa, Superior Sigil of Battle/Accuracy, Superior Sigil of Hydromancy
- Blink, Arcane Thievery, Signet of Inspiration

Role: Support/Control
Strengths: Mobility, AoE Control, Projectile Reflection, Dat Boonstorm
Weaknesses: Average Damage, Subpar condition removal

So far this build is off to a really good start. I try and make as best use of the Mesmer RNG as possible by grabbing RNG boons from all sources: Lyssa Runes’ heal, Bountiful interrupt, signet of inspiraton, Chaos Armor, and Staff. Though I only have 20% boon duration, Interrupts, Arcane Thievery and Lyssa’d Mass Invis usually gives me enough boons for long enough duration to be worth sharing.

I’ve only tested the build in PvP so far, as I needed a venue to throw everything together and run experiments, but I think I’m in love. Decent damage, good control, awesome team support and strong defenses (conditions notwithstanding). I don’t feel underpowered or disadvantaged much at all, I never lost a match and even outnumbered I felt I lost moreso because of my lack of experience with the build than any inherent weaknesses (could also depend on the opponents though).

The only things on my radar to change right now is Medic’s Feedback for Mender’s Purity, but I realllyy love Medic’s Feedback, especially for WvW, and Illusionary Elasticity. I like the damage boost it gives Staff auto, but if those points could be better placed elsewhere (like 5 points to slide to dueling or Inspiration) then I’ll drop it.

OK, so after some more testing I feel that. The boonsharing is strong. Damage is decent, I’m really liking the chill, but defenses are ehhh… moderate.

The build in it’s current form still needs some work, as right now it has the trademark support achilles of needing friend to really shine and being somewhat weak on it’s own. I feel this is more of an issue of traits than anything else, and I’ll be sliding those points away from Illusionary Elasticity into either Dueling or Inspiration.

There’s something powerful here though, and I feel like I’m close to bringing it out. Will update after a week or so of more testing.

Almost ready to do a bigger writeup on the build, and it’s gone through some interesting changes.

- Sword-Focus/Greatsword (gasp!)
- 0/10/20/25/15
- Dueling: II / Chaos: III, VIII / Inspiration: I, VIII / Illusions: III
- Zerker Amulet, Runes of Lyssa, Superior Sigil of Battle/Accuracy, Superior Sigil of Hydromancy
- Blink, Arcane Thievery, Signet of Inspiration

The boonsharing in the build was strong before, but the damage was lacking. I decided to balance this a bit at first by pushing for higher damage by adding Phantasmal Fury and higher precision/crit damage. That was nice, but the fact is that Staff will simply always fall short in terms of damage compared to just about every other Mesmer weapon.

So… I dusted off the old Crystal Guardian (dat showoff) and decided that I’d finally give it a shot… It worked gloriously!

I’ve always hated on the Greatsword for being too straightforward and uncreative, but in this build I don’t need it to be anything more than it already is: hella damaging with good enemy control.

AoE Cripple, AoE Knockback, AoE Boonstrip (dat control!) High damage AND might stacking? Yeah, paired with Sword/Focus it’s been glorious.

So now the build feels like it’s pretty much complete, and just needs a bit more testing. Going back to playing a Phantasm build after running shatter for so long definitely takes some adjustment, but this build has both excellent team support AND good soloability.

Who are you and what have you done with Chaos Archangel! He ALWAYS uses staff no matter what O. O. Anyway, the build sounds interesting and I will have to try it in my wvw raid tonight. Also, that crystal guardian is so cool! I love using that gs on my mes <3

i wouldnt dare to make interrupt builds without my dmg on interrupt trait, in wvw it makes like 4 k dmg crit each time i interrupt+ i still got my dmg from phantasms/shatters etc, and u mostly interrupt multiple times

@Wyrden

I curious to know how you get 4k damage from Halting Strike?

4k with zerker gear + foodbuff only?

I never reached that damage, mine was almost 3k the max, 2.8k to be exact and that was against a full glass thief, also with the vuln stacks and full zerker gear. So far your damage was the highest I’ve seen.

I’ve seen Halting Strike do upwards 5k on eles o-o

For real? Dude I still can’t believe it. If this was the case alhtough it is a bit more tricky to land, IMO it would be good to pair it off with Mental torment.

Can someone confirm this for me? Also, that 4k or 5k is that per HS?

Well it only gets that high occasionally. Sadly, I wasnt able to get a screenshot of that 5k, but I’m guessing might stacks and vulnerability stacks played a part in it. Normally, my HS would go somewhere around 1.5k to 2k…

well on heavy armoured classes its low, but on thiefs i frequently get 5k(wvw full zerker btw), on others it varies between 3-4.5 k crits

also u ever seen the sword 4 block? i once critted 4,3 k w it on another mesmer

The sword 4 block synergizes well with a phantasm lockdown build also because if you use the daze, it won’t make a clone to overwrite your existing phantasms So you can just keep using it for interrupts

What armor and weapon stats would people suggest for WvW purpose?