Guild Wars 2

First I’d like to thank osicat for breaking me out of the mindset that I had to take Chaos X if I was using the staff. Experimenting with the Shattercat build taught me that the staff is still an excellent weapon even without the 20% cooldown trait.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with various shatter builds (my personal requirement for a shatter build is Dueling X and Illusions XI) and found one that really clicked with me. The build trades some of the up front burst potential of the “shattercat” build for some increased survivability and a few interesting tricks.

The build is here:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW8dl0zKq3UTmGb9IyJFQ3yh6R3ldfXJF82FC;T8Ag1yqEUJpSVliKqiMFJKyWkrIZRrRGFs/A

Staff + Sword / Focus
Healing: Mirror
Utilities: Decoy / Mirror Images / Blink
Elite: Mass Invisibility
Dueling 20 (IV Blade Training, X Deceptive Evasion)
Inspiration 20 (IV Menders Purity, VIII Warden’s Feedback)
Illusions (IV Masterful Reflection, VII Illusionary Elasticity, XI Illusionary Persona)

Gear: Light Mortal Armor (replaced Grenth runes with Lyssa)
Rampager Jewelry

This build gets quite a bit of survivability from a few things:

1. Mirror is a low cooldown heal that reflects projectiles
2. Heal removes a condition with menders purity
3. Heal gives a random boon with Runes of Lyssa
4. Mass Invisibility removes all conditions + gives all boons with Runes of Lyssa
5. Chaos Storm / Chaos Armor
6. Distortion from Illusionary Persona
7. Distortion from Sword #2
8. Phase Retreat (Staff #2)

The build obviously does not do as much up front damage kittentercat- but it does hit pretty hard.

I’ll be doing some tests with full rampagers once I can afford another full set of Lyssa runes – but I find I’m liking the balanced mix of traits from Light Mortal karma armor (which I initially picked up just because I liked the looks).

Anyway – I love the mesmer class (I don’t play anything else), and I wanted to share in case someone else might enjoy this build. Any questions happily answered!

Oh – I call it shatterpong because the multiple ways to reflect projectiles back at attackers (mirror heal, temporal curtain, and illusionary warden) made me think of playing pong.

Have fun out there.

I tiny url’d your link because as it is, it doesnt work with a simple click-
http://tinyurl.com/b4r4weh

Omg dude !!! 89% crit . I’m going to try it now just cuz it looks awesome. BTW thanks to Osicat for his awesome vids.

Your trait point buy is exactly the same as mine btw, but different traits chosen. I started with the same runes, but now only have 2 Lysa and a then two other sets. I’ve gone for a confusion shatter build.

Seems like a solid build mate and Fun to see ppl in the community accualy theorycraft new ways to play instead of dig themself down after GS got nerfed.

Have you thought of use “vigor to you and allys on shatter”? Would grant nice survival with close to perma dodge + clone generation due to vigor on crits with 89% crit chanse + vigour on shatters.

Osicat.4139:

Seems like a solid build mate and Fun to see ppl in the community accualy theorycraft new ways to play instead of dig themself down after GS got nerfed.

Have you thought of use “vigor to you and allys on shatter”? Would grant nice survival with close to perma dodge + clone generation due to vigor on crits with 89% crit chanse + vigour on shatters.

I haven’t tried that trait yet because I like how menders purity covers for not running with a condition removal utility – but I’ll give it a shot. Mass Invis + Runes of Lyssa is a pretty good condition removal panic button although the cooldown on Mass Invis is pretty long.

Runes of Lyssa + + Signet of Inspiration (transfer boons to allies) is great fun in a dungeon group in a boss encounter with this setup as well.

I played with the build in WvW last night some more, and had a fantastic time with it. I’m going to settle into the build for awhile and see what I can do.

Osicat – I tried vigor on shatter today for a bit – very interesting. I’m going to take it out for a longer spin in WvW tonight. With a sigil of energy on my staff and sword, and that trait, I feel like a perpetual vigor machine. Being able to generate clones faster than I can shatter them is not bad – since staff clones manage to get in an attack or two sometimes before the next shatter, they end up adding some conditions.

I’m also finding that dropping the Illusionary Warden when someone closes into melee range while I hit shatter for distortion, then following it up with sword #2 is a really nice combo. It’s an interesting shift in gameplay from the Illusionary Duelist. Which is not to say “better” – just really different.

Raven.8531:

Omg dude !!! 89% crit . I’m going to try it now just cuz it looks awesome. BTW thanks to Osicat for his awesome vids.

I may be wrong but I think that is incorrect because of the pvp trinket selected?

Yeah, it’s probably more like ~45%.

Ha! Osicat does not make mistakes. Isnt it 105% with food, Osi?