Guild Wars 2

Decided to gear out a Mesmer after being intrigued with some of the gameplay. I’ve never really played a Mesmer outside of casual PvE with guildies so it was something new and exciting for me (I main a warrior).

I posted a build a few days (props to Pwent and especially Osicat for helping me to refine it).

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4VPVz097RW-71;9;4JJ;0T08-09;527AIwl3S;1m9fgm9fgm-kvVJFYg;1V1-60G1GYRZR41i-H-2c;9;9;9;9;9;9;0V8-6C

A standard 20/20/0/0/30, nothing special at all. I did try 10/20/0/10/30 but I liked the vulnerability on daze and torch cooldowns better. I did try different traits in the adept dueling line (like reduced CD on sword, mantra cooldown, stealth at 25%) but the extra 300 range on manipulations was very helpful in escaping and creating a gap to set myself up for shatters. I also sometimes use the precision stacking sigil or condition (sometimes I’m too lazy to stack it up but I feel like when I do I die less because I have a real incentive not to die.

I am more tanky then most shatter setups. If I was roaming with a few more people I would probably go more glass but I feel it is necessary for going solo, especially when not using PU. Thieves for the most part are the culprit, any squishier and I would get hit by 10K Backstabs. Still with 2,500 armor I get hit with 7-8K Backstabs on average. However, I still feel my damage is still very high and bursty so I haven’t compromised that all too much.

I know most people run greatsword with a shatter setup, (iBerserker does good damage, cripples and allows you to shatter better) and is good for chasing. However I felt the skills were a bit too slow and clunky. I found myself not always being able to keep the distance so I went for something different like Scepter/Pistol. The block on the scepter is really nice, #3 is decent. Pistol still allows me to keep pressure with iDuelist and stop people with Magic Bullet. The gameplay felt smoother, less clunky and I found a nice combo I like to use. Also puts to good use my 300 condition damage, because it has torment, bleeds from iduelist and more confusion.

A lot of people telling me, hey, you should go PU, it is a lot better for roaming, more survivability, escapability, etc. However I feel like that if you don’t go 30 into illusions, it isn’t a shatter build anymore and certainly doesn’t feel like one either. With PU, it becomes more like a phantasm build that can use shatters but not nearly as potent. I just enjoy the more active gameplay of shatters and it’s more high risk/high reward gameplay of it.

I go shatter realizing though that against some classes and builds I am at a disadvantage. Good thieves using x/D builds have gave me fits mostly, especially pistols. Condi warriors are for the most part unkillable with this build but if I played it well I wouldn’t die either. Staff mesmers seemed to have an advantage as well, if they used their teleport every time I went for a shatter. Even some PU builds were tough to deal with. Condi necros could be tough as well, but I usually stalled the fight when they use DS and then wait till their out of it to shatter them, found that it worked well.

Anyways enough talking, video here. Don’t judge me too harshly, I know I still have a lot to learn about playing Mesmer as I have been only roaming for a few days now for 2-3 hours at a time. Any comments, suggestions, criticisms welcome.

Nice gameplay! I’m a really big fan of the scepter/pistol combination too.

Very nicely done, I especially enjoyed the victories against the PU users. Go Shatter go!

Keep it up ~

Question about Runes, your thoughts on using 2 Energy Runes instead of the one? Whenever I ran DE in builds, having double energy was great.

Looks like a shatter build I could get behind.

EnderzShadow.2506:

Looked at your build, in domination you took mental torment?
A mistake I presume as you dont use a greatsword.

Greatsword training is the gs trait. Mental torment is mind wrack.

My bad… mixed something up when I first read that—-

Still curious about the energy runes—-

Vid inspired me to try out scepter / torch and sword / pistol and I like it. The extra torch stealth (+ burning) makes it easier to set up shatter combos vs players who dodge. Having pistol and the sword #2 and scepter #2 on a swap seems to make life a little easier vs x/dagger thieves (usually I’d run gs or staff plus sword/x).

I really liked the cinema effect at the beginning, but the letters could’ve been a bit brighter in my oppinion :P.

The gameplay looked solid too, even if it was a bit long for me.

Really great video! Made me want to start a mesmer since it looks like an absolute blast. Also, holy crap warrior healing kitten …

thx for the replies you guys, haven’t been playing as much due to work and what not so I couldn’t get to the comments. Glad I could inspire people.

And as for energy runes, running two seems like it would be great. However with one, plus perma vigor (for the most part) I don’t feel like I lack any dodges. It’ll be something I have to try though, it seems like I could be very liberal with when i dodge.

wow very impressive for a beginner, makes me wanna go shatter again. I always felt GS was too slow too, gonna try your weapon setup.

unfortunately i can´t watch it in germany but as long u post shatter videos /cheers

Umm, at 9:12 you’re fighting a warrior and he goes into mist form? what? I played very little warrior but I can’t remember anything that lets them do that o.O

METAShift.2913:

Umm, at 9:12 you’re fighting a warrior and he goes into mist form? what? I played very little warrior but I can’t remember anything that lets them do that o.O

Vampirism runes. Theyre pretty sucky tbh