Guild Wars 2

Yesterday while being a mindless drone at my mindless job (Office Services.. ughh) I had enough free time to let my mind wander and come up with some build concepts. These builds are ENTIRELY untested, and I may never get around to trying them all out, but I figured they may catch someone’s interest.

MELEE MESMER

Take 1

Sword/Sword+Staff 10/20/10/0/30 – Blink (or Mirror Images), Null Field, Mantra of Concentration

Dom: V(or I) / Dueling: IV, X / Chaos: V / Illusions: III, VI, XI (or VII)

In order to stay effective in melee, you need a way to keep the enemy from escaping and a way to keep yourself from getting owned by massive amounts of AoE damage. The idea behind this build is to be able to excel at focusing down single targets while providing team support with Null Field, Chaos Storm, Stability, and AoE enemy control via clone deaths. Clone Deaths are also very important for single-target combat because of the weakness and cripple your dying clones provide, and since you’ll be doing majority of fighting with Swords, sword clones chase down their targets. Alternatively, you could slide the 10 points from Domination into Chaos or Dueling.

• High Damage
• AoE control via Cripple and Weakness/Vuln/Bleeds on clone death
• Domination points can be redistributed
• Weakness: Enemy Stability.

Take 2
Sword/Sword+Staff 10/30/0/0/30 – Blink (or Decoy), Mantra of Distraction, Null Field

Dom II / Dueling IV, X, XII / Illusions: III, VI, XI

Same idea as above, but with a larger focus on proccing Furious Interruption (Referred to as FI from here on). FI, in my experience, is actually a rather strong trait when paired with Sword or Greatsword. When you can predict it, the 3-second quickness is wonderful for a number of things, from charging mantras to dealing additional damage to especially rezzing people (enemy about to stomp, interrupt with daze mantra while healing for Quickness rez). This build sacrifices it’s focus on clone-death’s for additional damage.

Take 3
Sword/Sword – Scepter/Focus (or Greatsword) 30/10/30/0/0 – Mantra of Distraction, Mantra of Concentration, Blink (or Decoy)

Dom II, V, XI / Dueling IV / Chaos: V, VIII, XII

A more interrupt-focused setup that uses Mantra of Distraction and swords to proc interrupts and net huge rewards. Would definitely invest in condition (or boon) duration here or perhaps Melandru runes and sigils of generosity to mitigate condition damage. In my mind this would be a difficult build to master, and the spec definitely still needs some tweaking, but Chaotic Interruption and the improved Mantra of Concentration definitely need some love, which brings me to…

DEBILITATION MAESTRO
Sword/Focus – Staff (or Greatsword) 10/30/30/0/0 – Blink (or Decoy or Signet of Midnight), Null Field, Signet of Inspiration

Dom: II(or V or III) / Dueling: II(or IV), X, XII / Chaos: V, VIII, XI – 2x Sigil of Hydromancy, Runes of Lyssa

This one I’m eager to try out. The goal is simple: Mass interrupts to proc a hell of a lot of boons to share with your team, similar to Sensotix’s Bountiful Interruption. While the build becomes stronger with the more interrupts you’re able to land, nailing two at a time would be enough boons to share with Signet of Inspiration. It offers lower damage than the other builds, but the focus here is more enemy control than direct damage anyways.

MANTRA OF PAIN-TRAIN
Staff/Greatsword 30/5/0/10/25 or 30/20/10/0/10 – Mantra of Pain, Blink (or Decoy), Mantra of Resolve

Domination: III, X, XI / Inspiration: I, / Illusions: III, X or Dueling: II, X / Chaos: V

Mantra of Pain is another under-explored skill that few people find reason to stick into their skillbar. In a zerker build, each charge can do over 1k damage, which could be a significant damage boost to ranged phantasm builds. It also allows you some extra damage while playing defensively with staff. I feel like there’s a bit of untapped potential with MoPain, especially with weapons like Staff & Greatsword, and this build attempts to capitolize on that.

Sure, after a while you get bored of facetolling on known builds anyway :P

Ill come back with some time with results :O I already use 10/20/10/0/30 for shatter, dat Blink :P

I really think they did an amazing job with Mesmer btw. Love all the build diversity and experimenting :D

Some neat ideas. I feel like the “Mantra of Pain Train” could be more fun as a riff on Pyro’s “overpowered phantasm dueling” build, with the added flavor of constant bonus armor, healing, and damage from MoP spam — just swap out one each of the Dueling and Inspiration traits for Protected + Restorative Mantras, and take MoP for one of the utility skills.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

MANTRA OF PAIN-TRAIN
Staff/Greatsword 30/5/0/10/25 or 30/20/10/0/10 – Mantra of Pain, Blink (or Decoy), Mantra of Resolve

Domination: III, X, XI / Inspiration: I, / Illusions: III, X or Dueling: II, X / Chaos: V

Mantra of Pain is another under-explored skill that few people find reason to stick into their skillbar. In a zerker build, each charge can do over 1k damage, which could be a significant damage boost to ranged phantasm builds. It also allows you some extra damage while playing defensively with staff. I feel like there’s a bit of untapped potential with MoPain, especially with weapons like Staff & Greatsword, and this build attempts to capitolize on that.

Well that’s just silly. The only meaningful use for MoP is mantra healing – you’ll get none of it in any setup due to not having 20 points in the vitality tree. And you dont want the 3 mantra trait as that will only delay the channel by another second.

Mantra of Pain being mostly only useful for healing is what I thought too. Hell, Ive even advised people as such for months now.. But I think that thats just the most obvious use for it.

I feel MoPain is largely underexplored. Its a 1200 range hit for over 1k, so with Harmonious Mantras and Greatsword it seems to me MoPain could also have another use in long range “sniper” builds. I could be totally off here, but I simply wanna try to forge a build to make use of MoPain without tying it to Restorative Mantras… for science!

If that’s how you want to play it I’d go 30/30/0/0/10 with Halting Strike, GS training, Empowering Mantras and Compounding Power. I’ve run a super squishy backline zerg sniper like that, 3k GS autos with double mantra spam (daze hurts too with Halting) and the occasional Mirror Blade + iZerker spin + Mind Wrack really wrecks people. Of course, if the battle turns you’re dead meat.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Mantra of Pain being mostly only useful for healing is what I thought too. Hell, Ive even advised people as such for months now.. But I think that thats just the most obvious use for it.

I feel MoPain is largely underexplored. Its a 1200 range hit for over 1k, so with Harmonious Mantras and Greatsword it seems to me MoPain could also have another use in long range “sniper” builds. I could be totally off here, but I simply wanna try to forge a build to make use of MoPain without tying it to Restorative Mantras… for science!

I was just mucking around and threw this together. Given mantras give you so many interrupts, I wondered if furious interrupts couldn’t find a home in a MoPain focused build. You’d know that the moment you interrupted your foe you could fire off 3x MoPain’s in the 3 seconds of quickness you’re given. I also wondered if some interesting sigil choices might make for some good bonus damage (MoPain spike during a focus pull with impact sigil).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsf7dlwzKonSTiGb9IBqCYn0DT/6VX6xsvNtB-jEDBojDiGdBDpBhWIZ0ywEHBiKAM5pIasVNFRjVbDTDjIq2uDQKgImAA-w

Chaos Archangel.5071:

…snip…

MELEE MESMER

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Take 1

Sword/Sword+Staff 10/20/10/0/30 – Blink (or Mirror Images), Null Field, Mantra of Concentration

Dom: V(or I) / Dueling: IV, X / Chaos: V / Illusions: III, VI, XI (or VII)

…snip…

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Take 2
Sword/Sword+Staff 10/30/0/0/30 – Blink (or Decoy), Mantra of Distraction, Null Field

Dom II / Dueling IV, X, XII / Illusions: III, VI, XI

…snip…

Are we talking about PvP/WvW or PvE? I’ll assume the first.

I’m a bit surprised by your trait choices. Why would you go for 30 in Illusions if you want to use the Clones on Death traits? You won’t want to shatter your illusions when using those.

Crippling Dissipation is awesome but I think I would switch some traits and utilities.

My take 1

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAscWlwzip3TTqGbNJiJFBHxdqA0RqQpV6Bvdh6GA

You will have all on deah traits which is pretty nice (cripple + confusion + bleed/weakness/vuln). You will also have a lot of retaliation (sword block + Mimic) and an additional condition cleanse which could also be switched for Glamour Mastery. Master of Manipulation could be switched for Phantasmal Healing if needed.

My take 2

If it’s a situation with 1v2+ I personally prefer the Torch over OH Sword because of the area blind. The block is only useful when facing few opponents so you can actually time it right.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfWlwzipXVTqGbNJi5DB3pCMHJFl2rVmBvdhA

Cleanses by using the Torch trait and group support through glamours which I just love. However, the glamours could easily be replaced by mantras or manipulation skills when switching the 10 points in Inspiration to another traitline.

A general issue I see with melee Mesmers is the trade-off between survivability and damage. I personally play a pretty melee heavy berserker build in PvP myself but it requires a lot of disengaging. So if you really want to stay in melee you might have to switch out some berserker slots for soldiers/knights to improve your health/armor which will decrease your damage output quite a bit (most likely less crits and crit damage). However, I feel that the melee damage of a Mesmer is rather lacking if not using damaging on crit sigils (flame burst).