Guild Wars 2

This is a build I’ve been able to run in PvE, PvP, AND WvW to good effect. It is not a ‘meta’ build and there likely will never be many people running it. There’s a lot to learn here, so if you’ve never played anything like this build then please give yourself time and the build a fair shot before passing judgement. That said, even from the start this build has been fun as hell. =P

INTERRUPT MAESTRO
Another variant in the “Chaos Maestro” line of builds. This build, like all the other ‘Maestro’ builds, is a support build. It focuses on aggressive boon sharing and enemy movement/boon disruption.

Playstyle: Phantasm

Role: Support & Control

Strengths: Boon gathering & sharing / AoE CC / Grows stronger as the fight progresses / Good in solo & team fights / Works in all venues of the game.

Weaknesses: Takes time to reach full strength / Complex and requires decent timing / Works better with an ally. / Necromancers.

THE BUILD
Link to Build Editor

• Sword-Focus/Greatsword (or Staff)
• 0/10/20/25/15
• Dueling: II / Chaos: III, VIII / Inspiration: I, VIII / Illusions: III
• Zerker Amulet (or Soldiers or Cavalier/zerker mix), Runes of Altruism (Lyssa for PvP), Superior Sigil of Battle/Accuracy, Superior Sigil of Hydromancy
• Blink/ Arcane Thievery/ Signet of Inspiration

The traits, weapons, and utilities in this build are meant to focus on two things: Phantasm damage and boon gathering. This is achieved via weapon skills like Temporal Curtain and Mirror Blade, via interrupts from Curtain and Illusionary Wave, and from summoning phantasms, using your heal, and every 10 seconds… Essentially you’re always gaining boons.

Control is another big factor of the build. Temporal Curtain, Illusionary Wave, AoE Chill on weaponswap, iLeap, Arcane Thievery, Mind Spike and your Phantasms allow you to control enemy movement (Thieves and Mesmer), enemy boon management (Warriors/Guardians), and mitigate enemy projectile damage. (Giving a big ‘eff you’ to Engineers and Rangers)

(Reserved for overview & playstyle guide)

(Reserved for vids. There shall be vids!)

Good stuff – very, very similar to my paladin 2.0 “might master”. It was recently updated to use sw/sw to be more “meta friendly” instead of GS but GS still works just fine. The build was never intended for anything but PvE/Dungeons, but with your work here I’m kinda curious about it.

I can definitely attest to the boon acquisition, though it’s primarily might (and lots of it). Trait distribution is essentially the same, though one major difference is that I take vigorous revelation and confusing cry for the vigor/retal. Hence there is a bit of a shatter spice after the phantasms get an attack off. Have you thought about going that route at all?

Have you considered swapping 10 in illusions to domination for signet recharge? I haven’t read chaos maestro rotation for awhile… With the cooldowns (3 20sec+ skills & signet?) it seems to me you would be waiting for the signet to recharge. Definitely an interesting setup, trick will be saving a few skills for defense.

@skcamow: I wanted the boonsharing in this build to feel more smooth and natural, almost passive, and not something that you’d be focusing too much attention on. While I’d love to throw Vigorous Revelations in there (and I may after the Vigor nerf) I usually keep that first Inspiration slot open incase I need to switch Arcane Thievery for a glamour. Also, Mender’s Purity is the only major form of condition removal in the build so it gets priority over Vigorous. After checking the Paladin 2.0 I definitely see what you mean about similar traits and ideals, but I dunno if I’d take blade training or the shatter traits since this build is so heavily phantasm-focused, and Mantra of Recovery /Arcane Thievery tend to be rather important parts of the playstyle.

@Dekk: I definitely considered it, but the passive for the Signet is almost as important as the active. People underestimate how useful the passive can be since it’s so RNG, but most of the boons (besides 1x Might) are actually very helpful since I don’t have a staff to proc Aegis & Retaliation. I don’t need the Signet on a lower cooldown because I’m not actively blowing it every chance I get, and I don’t feel it’s more valuable than having all my clone/Phantasm-based skills (including iLeap and MirrorBlade) on a lower cooldown.

If I were to go that route though, I’d probably shave 5 from Inspiration and 5 from Dueling to get it.

OMG i didn’t even notice GS instead of staff, that could be sacrilege! carry on