Guild Wars 2

It’s been over a year since I had published the Chaos Maestro build and in that time I’ve become soo much more experienced since then. Taking the experience I’ve gained from dabbling with nearly every type of Mesmer, I wanted to revisit the original concept that I first championed: boonshare!

For those who don’t know about Mesmer’s boonsharing capabilities, Alissah created a great general overview of how to manipulate Signet of Inspiration for your party which can be seen by clicking here.

There’s been a number of fantastic boonshare builds released, my favorites include (some slightly outdated):

- Zumi’s Phantasmal Boons

- Sensotix’s Bountiful Interruption tPvP Build

- Arganthium’s LSD

- Azo’s GvG Inspiration build that I can’t find the link for currently. x.x

Right now I’m currently working on an sPvP variant of the Chaos Maestro (which is less of a concrete build and more of a sample of how to put together a Mesmer support build. Shoutouts to AsteriskCGY.5931 for championing it! ) which so far is looking like this:

0/4/6/4/0

Sword/Focus – Staff Blink / Null Field / Signet of Inspiration

The thing I’m liking about this build so far is that you don’t need signet to share a lot of boons. You can grant Regen, Swiftness, Might, Fury, Retaliation, Vigor and Aegis via Runes and weapon skills all without needing the signet, allowing you flexibility in your utility choices.

So far I’ve been having a blast, but there’s quite a bit to learn (& remember x.x) with this unique playstyle. Such as:

• Sticking close to allies both to collect & share boons
• Using Focus for more than just it’s pull, keeping it out for it’s nearly full duration.
• Comboing Chaos Storm + Armor as often as possible

Has anyone else recently been running a boonshare build? If so, what’s your experience been?

PvE wise, did some very amateur and situational testing. If you don’t have 2 eles to keep might stacked perm at 25, the signet can add 2-12% increased DPS from might stacking your group, the higher end being if the boss dies before the stacks you gave run out so around ~40 seconds or so. But you would never run a non zerk spec like this in PvE.

SPvP wise, mesmer is pretty much pigeon holed into playing soft target teamfighter. As any other role can be done better by another class. The main reason mesmer getting in that role is almost all contained in our power tree, with the vuln stacking via daze/interrupt, boon stripping from shattering.

I think you could still keep the feel of the spec and adjust it a bit to be more viable, boon sharing might be incredibly strong, or it might just be fluff that gets stripped by a necro or opposing mesmer on the other team almost immediately.

Support type builds always sound fun, but the way this game was designed really inhibits it, everyone is expected to be self sufficient and able to perform without the help of others.

I used a similar build with the Signet for PvE/Dungeons, however i brought BD.

The extra fury and Retal made certain situations a fair bit easier for the party as did all the reflects. a single guard with a staff was enough to give us 24 stacks of might during a fight or one ele spamming might ended up about the same.

The issue i see with boon share in PvP is you need to find a partner to latch onto and discuss before hand to stay near the phantasms for the Regen and you for any extras off staff. Its very difficult to play soft support with PuGs as often everyone is just running all over the place and out of your reach.

Relying on AI as pulsing boon spots is also a bit problematic the moment anyone with a lot of AoE shows up and your phants fold like cheap lawn chairs under the pressure.

Phants i would suggest that stay alive and have a higher chance to spread the love would be located on Sword or GS, as lovely as Focus is for its pulls and swiftness the warden often doesnt end up where I personally want it to during the fight (ignoring the fact that its still, also buggy)

Staff by itself is handy for pumping up Melee party members just with the auto attack and clone spam, Chaos storm is a bit RNG but can be a life saver itself.

I’m not sure how CI exactly meshes with the play style, I would suggest attempting BD even tho Pyro will be quick to fart and poo all over that. Using your shatters to grant yourself Fury/regen/Retaliation/Might which, if you take the signet, can be spread. Fury greatly increasing potential for low crit chance party members in raw damage. Retaliation to punish AoE users for hitting you and your party.. etc..

It’s not the greatest GM trait but it may be worth a look. As would PU for the agies/protection but PU ties up atleast 1 if not 2 of your skill slots.

as stated above tho, Support styled builds are not the most optimal as there are so many professions and builds that thrive off of being selfish and self-sustaining. You may have to get used to the idea of staying out of the main fray or finding a way to remain hard to catch, staying just out of reach while your friend(s) do the work. still remaining somewhat self sufficient at the same time.

The thing is, these are the common thoughts/misconceptions about boonshare builds.

Mesmers being pigeonholed currently is pretty true, but at the same time it’s builds that go OUTSIDE of the box that open up new diversity for the class. Lockdown builds are a perfect example: before they became meta no one would’ve really thought to run one because of the same reasons. “Another class can do it better” or “Mesmer just aren’t good at it” I argue that we can boonshare as good as other classes and better than most. The classes that match our boonsharing offer different boons under different conditions, and we don’t compete with that; we compliment it.

I didn’t wanna respond to the above replies until I had more practice with the build in pvp and could give an honest assessment rather than speculate on what the build could be, and I can happily say that the results have been surprisingly positive.

It isn’t difficult to share boons at all, and it doesn’t even require a team that’s all that organized. The burden ends up almost entirely on the boonshare Mesmer, but the playstyle is surprisingly smooth. I run CI in the build because CI makes it significantly easier for me to do damage with my phantasms (warlock and warden) and I did try BD, Disillusionment made the build feel cumbersome and clunky.

The playstyle is similar to a standard lockdown build, just with increased emphasis on sticking closer to allies. It’s unique in that each ally now is not only a potential source of damage, but of boons. Guardians are my best friends, Engineers, Eles, and some Rangers are big help, and the other classes don’t really give boons that frequently.

That’s all from a PvP perspective, PvE-wise I would go a significantly more damage-focused route since it’s easier to share boons in clustered/organized parties if it’s necessary.

All in all, I think there is some true potential here. The build works well in hotjoin and solo/team queue and is effective whether or not my group is organized. I’m hoping to work more with Warlord of Chaos to see exactly how high-level such a build can compete.

Interestingly enough, these are the exact same traits (except MP vs. vigorous revelation) as the chaotic perdition build I posted awhile back, using staff and sw/f but mine is a condition build, not shatter focused and doesn’t take the signet (though probably could).

I’ve found it works rather well both in solo and team queue matches but stopped using it for now since iWarden got worse after the latest patch. CI is a beast in that build along with a heavy chill focus, and makes a noticeable difference in group combat.

So yeah I can see you kinda looking at CI being more support based.

Warden’s been reaalllyy frustrating me lately. So much so that I’m tempted to go back to Sword/Sword and I would if it weren’t for Temporal Curtain being so kitten awesome.

I don’t exactly see CI as being support-based, actually. I just see it as a very good trait that has more use beyond lockdown-oriented builds.

Is vash’s support mes build still viable after all the changes? I’ve seen his vid about a month ago, would be nice to show the style for support mesmer here or something.

here under you can see my variant of the chaos-build.

I don’t use it for pvp; i tried but i like bursting ppl down in pvp and that’s something.. well.. this build isn’t made for… ..so didn’t try it long enough in pvp to really say something about it.

it works great in dungeons/fractal though when the balance is not that great (bv: ppl keep dying because they’re not verry expierienced with dung/fractals.; when party is too squishy,…); I always run it with zerker/assassinsmix except staff (clerics). i combine it with reflects (feedback (apart from focus reflects), condiclean (mantra of resolve or nullfield.. i have a tendency to choose nullfield because of extra chaos armor you can get out of that) and signetboonshare.
When this still doesn’t work i switch to clerics gear.
Note that it is my secondary build in dungeons; i prefer going shatter but that doesn’t always do the trick. I just switch to the needs of the group.

the boonshare build works great in wvw too. In zerging you can go full support with this build + clerics gear. It has some insane survivability too (you gotto love it when you’re the last mesmer standing, able to portal peeps back in).
nullfield (nullfield just before zergs run into eachother… got to LOVE that)
I do choose this build MAINLY for the survivability though. the chaos storm is some nice aoe but the build doesn’t really WORK when you don’t have a party to support :p or knows how to act on this build. It really shines when in a party with friends who know that when i shout “bs” they all come my way, just go to some phantasms or me if they need extra heal and protection.
I don’t really feal this disadvantage in dungeons, where ppl just stay closer to eachoter.

let me know if you guys have hints and tips; i’m a no-daily player so I guess i still have a lot to learn…