Guild Wars 2

Hello my Mesmer friends, this is my first post on the forums so I hope I posted it right, but anyway to the topic at hand, I’ve recently levelled a mesmer for wvw roaming, I initially intended to go with a condition build. But after trying it I was extremely disappointed with the damage output, (maybe it was just me), so now after watching vash’s videos on youtube I’ve decided I’m gonna try going shatter mesmer, I love the high risk high reward play style, now here Lyes the problem, I absolutely love my staff, them chaos armor prove and phase retreat just turn me on aha, so would it be viable to run staff/gs on an average 20/20/0/0/30 build? Or perhaps even vash’s 10/30/0/0/30 build?, I understand the skill cap is high for shatter mesmer and being new to mesmers having such low hp and armor is certain to lead to many frustrating deaths, would it be viable to swap some trinkets out for my Valkyrie or something of the sort to increases survival but still have viable damage? Thank you for any help in advance.

As a shatter Mesmer you can easily use Staff, that’s fine. I would probably use a Sword for your secondary weapon set regardless though, as that invulnerability-burst is rather good to have. The offhand you can decide on yourself I guess. Some people like Torch for the stealth, others Focus (e.g., to pull thieves & co. out of Shadow Refuge or off cliffs), some like Pistol or even a secondary Sword, but regardless, most of our kind will run Sword main hand on one of the sets.

As for traits, you can go with the more standard 20/20/0/0/30, or a variety of other combinations. I guess the main importance of a standard Shatter build is 10/20/0/0/30 and the remaining 10 points you can distribute where you want. It’s not that you must have Deceptive Evasion either, it just makes things easier to burst. Perhaps give it a go without the clones on dodge. You can learn to create clones and Phantasms relatively quickly, without relying on dodging them into existence. That frees 30 points in total for you to place anywhere else.

From experience, I’d say you should be able to get by just fine with full Berserker. If you want a bit of survivability, go ahead and trade in a few Valkyrie pieces or something of that sorts. Perhaps go ahead and make a more hybrid build altogether, e.g., balancing conditions and physical damage. You can do that with shatter-focused playstyles as well.

I personally enjoy a combination of Dire and Berserker. In the end, I think the best advice anyone can give you, is to try things out. Don’t settle on a single way of playing our profession. There’s so many fun ways to play a Mesmer, and so many things you can make work. Experiment, try think about what downsides there are to a specific build you may have in mind, and then look for ways to improving it. Be that through Runes, Sigils, Traits, weapon choices and/or equipment stats. Trying things out can be very entertaining.

If money’s of a concern, you can get a feel for things in sPvP as well. You don’t have as much control over your stats granted, but you can get a feel for the general idea of a build there. If it works in sPvP, chances are it will be far more effective in WvW.

Test them all and see what you like best, there’s no right or wrong choice here.

20 domination gets you boon strip, or torch/gs traits, depending on which weapons you like to use, as well as the vuln on daze – always useful.

30 duelling allows you to take sword trait, DE and 1200 blink all together.

I prefer 30 duelling as the 9s BF allows it to come off cool down fast enough and often synchronised with MW to allow a second burst before switching weapon sets. But obviously lacking boon strip against boon heavy classes.

Weapon choice is entirely subjective – use whatever gives you the most satisfaction.
I like staff, and also Sw/T – of course has different strengths and weaknesses compared to other weapons, but just have to adapt around that – for example no easy chase unlike with GS izerker and spatial surge, so have to sometimes let things go or be creative with use of terrain and position.

As for stats – well you want to avoid damage as much as possible in the first place – especially conditions. Definitely prioritise power/pre/crit and then toughness. Vitality only enough that you feel comfortable with – I would say over 18k is excessive – prefer between 16-18k base (don’t forget buffs on top of that). Look up some builds in the popular guides and the stat thresholds they go for – try to build equipment around this.

Thanks a lot for both your replies they helped a lot, I’ll give your suggestion a try. And mess about making my traits fit my play style, the main reason I asked this question was because i hate grinding gold, so trying stuff out, and replacing stuff is abit of a pain, and i learned with my guard stats on paper don’t always work as effectively as you think, I don’t get a lot of time to play nowdays anyway, I’ll be happy when I can log on and just enjoy some roaming with no grind aha, thanks again

You could hop into spvp to mess around – sure the gear is not identical, but you can test build concepts and strategies without worrying about paying for gear.

In any case I would wait until after the patch before buying any gear for wvw now – you’d likely have to pay more to change things otherwise. For this sort of build, I’d mix and match between zerker, cavalier, knight, soldier (maybe), valkyrie (maybe), and if you really need the precision possibly one or two assassin.

Look at the overall numbers and also which pieces are easiest/cheapest to swap if you want to change traits. For example switching between 10/30 and 20/20 is 100 precision to 100 power – always useful to be able to swap out the fewest pieces of equipment to redistribute stats.

I i did do some spvp, I just found it painful while not being so skilled on mesmer, where as in wvw there’s always that route for escape if needed. Less so in spvp, I also main a guardian what I mainly use in tpvp, it’s a big difference to get used to aha, where as in wvw, I’m already pretty capable of escaping and setting shatters up

Yeah, you are kind of forced to fight on point, although the terrain in pvp maps often allows for easier escape than in open fields in wvw. Especially with staff, blinks, stealths – and the small, winding structures in pvp maps.

As you know anyway, spvp will certainly hone combat skills with no loss, so you feel more confident in engaging in combat in wvw. I’d recommend sticking with it for the next few days, adjust build, and then buy gear after the patch.

Sounds like a plan :P thanks alot

Staff+GS is really good against engis and necros because you can easily outrange them (be sure to have Traveler runes so you have high movement speed).

BUT it is really lackluster against thieves.

From my experience, I find GS+Sw/P is the best setup to have even as a Shatter Mesmer for roaming: you get all the defensive tools provided by Sw, and then good ways to deal with thieves (the GS knockback for when they are in Shadow Refuge and the iDuelist which still shoots when the thief is Stealthed).
Torch is viable too. Focus is not viable anymore imho, the Phantasm is useless and the Pull is easily predictable. It can be used to force a dodge, but that’s only it.
Keep in mind that Shatter Mesmers’s best defense is their offensive potential. The more damage&pressure you put out, the easier the fight will be.