Guild Wars 2

Hey my fellow mesmer awesomnists,

I am lately playing more and more shatter mesmer in PvP. While I accept to not have a single condition removal, I learned to deal with it a bit and was today even holding 3 enemies – 1 mesmer (no idea what kinda build), 1 PU condition mesmer and a condi thief – for over a minute before they finally killed my pretty little Si Lly.

However, I have problems with AI builds. Especially engineers and phantasm mesmers. So I wanted to ask if you guys have some tips and tricks for me, how to deal with them.

I am running the normal 4/4/0/0/6 shatter build with 2x energy sigil and 2x sigil of fire, zerker amulet and decoy, blink & portal. (I love the mobility, makes it easy to outcap the opponent).

Engi’s – I take it by AI you mean turrets?
The turret cooldown starts once the turret is destroyed, and they really dont have that much hp. Use your greatsword and start with the rifle turret, sit at max range and take there turrets down. After that you have an engi with no utilities = (no stun breaks) and only there rifle (kinda useless on its own) left sitting there helpless, have fun bursting them the f… down.

Phant Mesmers – Yeah, they kinda suck a bit to fight. Prioritise the phantasms, take iduelist out instantly… the bleed stacks wont give you a chance, its a tough matchup, but keep on top of his phants (he can only put out 2 every 15-20 secs) and you can pressure him down.

You might want to do a slight shuffle of your sigils depending on your weapon sets. I like air/fire on my GS, battle/endurance on my staff. (or air/fire on sword if I take it over GS). In saying that there’s nothing wrong with your sigil setup and your preference is best for you :]

Just curious, but why don’t you have a condi removal skill? I always thought Disenchanter/Null Field/Mantra had a place in shatter builds.

Honestly, if you were able to hold off a PU condie mesmer and a P/D thief for over a minute without condition removals, they must have been extraordinarily bad.

At any rate, assuming equal skill levels, a good phantasm build will always trounce a shatter build. However, always assuming equal skill levels isn’t quite valid, so here are some tips:

Kill the first phantasms quickly with blurred frenzy so that they don’t hurt you, then go all out pressure on the mesmer. If the phant mesmer gets several phantasms set up without you killing them, you’ll lose rapidly. You need to put them on the defensive and control the fight so that you can kill phantasms as they’re spawned instead of running around trying to avoid them.

Veruah.5302:

Just curious, but why don’t you have a condi removal skill? I always thought Disenchanter/Null Field/Mantra had a place in shatter builds.

I’m guessing OP took Decoy, Mirror Image, and Blink, which is a good set for shatter.

Null field is bad for just cleansing condi, I only run it (or Feeback) when I use staff for the Chaos Armor bonus.

Veruah.5302:

Just curious, but why don’t you have a condi removal skill? I always thought Disenchanter/Null Field/Mantra had a place in shatter builds.

I use decoy, blink and portal for PvP. I could take a condi removal, but then I’d loose one of the utilities I can’t life without. However, I am not complaining about that. I accept the fact, that I have no condi removal and that I have to kill a condi build, before it can dish out any serious stack of condies.

Fay.2357:

Honestly, if you were able to hold off a PU condie mesmer and a P/D thief for over a minute without condition removals, they must have been extraordinarily bad.

They might have been. I saw those 3 players and knew I am not gonna survive that. I but tried and wanted to keep them busy as long as possible. So I used obstacles, dodged, pushed back, dazed and so one. I knew the PU condi mesmer would only be a problem, if I’d focus him or his illusions. So I stayed at distance. The condie thief and the other mesmer was the real trouble. It was going all so fast, but the thiev didn’t hit me with anything serious for some time and using obstacles helped me avoid some of the damage. I am not sure if it was a full minute. But I used push back 2 times and didn’t use it right away when the fight started. I think I also used 2 times chaos storm. I realize I was incredibly lucky surviving that long. Maybe they were really bad ^^

@topic
Thanks for the tips so far. I will try to focus the AI down then…

Veruah.5302:

Just curious, but why don’t you have a condi removal skill? I always thought Disenchanter/Null Field/Mantra had a place in shatter builds.

Portal vs Condi removal – the difference between team support and cap rotations, or selfish in combat potential. Depends whether people play with synergised teams, for someone else to help with Condi removal, or disorganised pugs in hotjoin – where you’re better off going for self preservation.

I prefer the latter. :p

Mind you, all the Condi removals have aoe, so not really selfish, and slightly different role (rewards using melee and staying in a fight with allies, instead of mobility and focus on decapping) – albeit not the most efficient role, or it would be more widespread in team play.

Yeah, I thought I would be all super cool mes and portal my team from spawn to mid when I first began doing PvP. I got tired of spamming “USE MY PORTAL!” and just slotted another skill.

An example of why I like Condi removal – can pop off those nasty immobilises instantly, often preventing you from eating a face full of damage (eg if caught in a ranger’s entangle), or pop off poison on demand if you want to heal.

Curunen.8729:

An example of why I like Condi removal – can pop off those nasty immobilises instantly, often preventing you from eating a face full of damage (eg if caught in a ranger’s entangle), or pop off poison on demand if you want to heal.

… or you are about to fall to death in Skyhammer under a chain of fear from a Necro holding the point

trooper.2650:

Curunen.8729:

An example of why I like Condi removal – can pop off those nasty immobilises instantly, often preventing you from eating a face full of damage (eg if caught in a ranger’s entangle), or pop off poison on demand if you want to heal.

… or you are about to fall to death in Skyhammer under a chain of fear from a Necro holding the point

That too.

Since you bring portal, you can choose your fights. AI builds take awhile to burst down so quickly determine if you can win the fight before you actually fully commit to it. If the engi/mesmer got a good cleave on you to start, just drop a portal and leave. Then help your teammates elsewhere. By helping your teammates, you will secure their fight and then easily roll into any other point and overrun the enemy. You can then port 1 of them with you back to home to recover it or rotate towards their home. Then pick off them as they try to recover the points.

If you are fighting this at home, that means they have a 1-3-1 split vs your 1-4 split. Your team should win mid and/or have the upperhand. If you join, ideally you’ll wreck the mid fight faster which allows more team members to peel off and help recover other points faster. If you are fighting this at far…you shouldn’t be pushing far against a strong 1v1 build.

AI builds are bad against any type of team pressure. That’s why you don’t see them run into team fights that often. Just test the waters first if you run into a 1v1 with a AI build, and if you got a good burst on them then continue, but if you miss all your bursts or their build seems super tanky of which you cannot burst down—just disengage and come back later using your portal (or push their home which may have a weaker 1v1 build).

You’ll find that often times, what gives you win in spvp is not always winning your 1v1s but knowing what’s the optimal place for you to be to advance your points. That could either be at home fighting a 1v1 to prevent a point to be captured, or helping a team fight destroy the opposing enemies faster so you can overrun their other players constantly.

If you go the assist team fight route (given the enemy team is split 1-3-1), you can get 5 pts per kill + guarnteed point capture + team help in home by the time the enemy can get 10 pt tics on the home point (it takes 10 ticks to get a capture pt iirc then 1pt per second). If you have two people who are good, killing 1 guy should be easymode, then you get 5 pts and then a point capture with two points capped at the end of this. If the enemy team is a pug as most are, they probably won’t regroup—so you just keep outnumbering them and winning.

If you find yourself in the poo vs s phant mesmer you ckittene LoS to control the AI. move around a corner to huddle them together and sword 2 or just cleave AA to take them down. You might want to dodge as they round the corner though as their cd might be off.

They are a stupid crutch for bads and designed to dominate 1v1.

But they are out playable at least in terms of killing, the territory game type makes them really strong do to context

My advice is if you just want to put the guy in the ground, kite.

Turret engies you can kite away from their turrets if you don’t have the c/ds to spare destroying them. Higher ground around most cap points will help you so much.

As for Phant just run until you get a good angle and can hold momentum, hit and run with good ambushes work. Also invuln early and have them blow cool downs on setup.

Versus Phant Mesmers you need to use the terrain, it can group up the AI and most of the players aren’t very bright and will cast Phants while obstructed. Also using Distortion 1sec from IP as they cast a Phant fails the summon too. Don’t use your stealth until they use theirs – stops them secretly summoning on you. Try to kill the zerkers and other damaging Phants while using positioning to beat them.

Turret Engis just try to out range them using height advantage, you can pretty much beat them with that tactic because the Turrets are static. Be careful when trying to stomp though!

Thanks for all the tips. I have already incorporated some of them into my play style. I need to practice a bit more, but they seem to get more and more manageable. I got the hang especially against turret engies in the last few games.