Guild Wars 2

SIMPLY RABID MESMER

I’m a new player and would like to share my mesmer build. My goals are twofold. I would like to get constructive advice from veteran players to improve the build in all game environments and I’d also like to help other new players developed their own version of the build by providing my own insight.

I will provide explanations for all my choices and delve into the thought process behind my selections.

This is my first character for GW2. The theme stems from my choice of Sylvari as a mesmer. I noticed their cultural armor used rabid stats (primary: condition damage; secondary: precision, toughness.) While this really doesn’t mean anything in game terms as to what stats are best, it felt right. As I played through the game, I saw the Nightmare Armor set from the Twilight Arbor dungeon and really liked the outfit’s look on my female Sylvari. Low and behold, it came in rabid stats too. I was sure the inspiration from the Nightmare Court was right for this character.

Full rabid gear is ideal for this build, as the build is basically built around it. Choices of traits, weapons and skills all stem from the stat selection. Thus, I call the build Simply Rabid Mesmer.

The build is designed primarily for the most challenging aspects of the game, so most PvE is out. Dungeons and fractals are still a concern and especially PvP and WvW usage.

Weapons: Staff, Scepter/Torch

When deciding on weapons, I looked at two aspects. First, which weapons made the least use of the power stat. Each damaging weapon skill has a base damage value and then is multiplied by a certain ratio based on Power. The lower the ratio, the worse that skill will be for users of Power enhancing items, therefore those skills are likely to be better for me.
Second, since my primary stat is condition damage, I looked for weapons that applied the most damaging conditions. While leveling I enjoyed playing Staff and Greatsword the most, but Greatsword excels in Power builds as it has high Power Coefficients for its abilities and does little in the way of condition application. Staff is great and Scepter/Torch is the best match.

Specializations: Illusions, Dueling, Chaos

My theory on specializations is that they correlate to being useful with certain stats. I mentioned earlier the greatsword being good with Power. Power correlates with the Domination specialization. Likewise, I can match rabid stats to their own specializations. This, combined with some common sense decisions, led me to choose Illusion, Domination and Chaos.

Illusions— Illusions is the ideal specialization for condition damage stat users and the backbone of the Simply Rabid build. It’s passive skills add Confusion to all shatters, amazingly reduce recharge on all illusion skills, increases confusion duration, and reduces recharge on shatters. All are extremely useful passives for a mesmer, especially one doing condition damage. Illusions works exceptionally well with Scepter and Torch skills.

The first trait choice is:
Compounding Power: increases damage and condition damage
Persistence of Memory: shatters recharge phantasms
The Pledge: improves torch skills
I like the first option here, a generic buff of damage across the board for all your skills. The second seems a poor choice. The Pledge will probably be a popular choice but I dislike a talent that effects only 20% of my skills and only when I have that weapon equipped. For a specialized build where I was going for maximum stealth this would be chosen.

The second trait choice is:
Shattered Strength: shattering grants might
Phantasmal Haste: phantasms attack more often
Maim the Disillusioned: shatters inflict torment
I prefer the third option, to apply damaging conditions is what this build is all about. Phantasms die to fast to make much use of haste and I’m not based much around boons.

The third trait choice is:
Ineptitude: inflicts blinds and causes confusion when you blind.
Master of Fragmentation: improves shatters
Malicious Sorcery: improves scepter skills
I choose the first option here. As you will find, the build had a lot of ways to blind opponents which in turn causes confusion (a damaging condition.) Malicious Sorcery will probably be popular but like The Pledge, it only effects a few of my skills and only when I have that weapon equipped. Master of Fragmentation is a weaker version of Ineptitude in this build.

Dueling— Dueling is the specialization of choice for precision users and therefore will be taken by many. This is the specialization I care for the least actually, but two things make it very hard to drop: Sharper Images allows illusions to inflict bleeding on critical hits and Deceptive Evasion creates a clone at your current position when you dodge. I really like the Restorative Illusions trait from the Inspiration specialization to heal and remove conditions on shatter, but I feel proactive abilities are usually the best so I stick with Dueling.

The first trait choice is:
Phantasmal Fury: phantasms have fury
Desperate Decoy: cloak and leave a clone when you reach half health
Duelist’s Discipline: improves pistol skills
I prefer the second option. the cloak effect is doubled in this build and it triggers with no activation. It can save you without any action on your part. The choice between that and Phantasmal Fury is tough. Certainly in PvE Phantasmal Fury allows more damage output, but in PvP the phantasms are quick to die and unfortunately the trait doesn’t benefit clones.

The second trait choice is:
Blinding Dissipation: blinds foes on shatter
Evasive Mirror: reflect projectiles on evasion
Fencer’s Finesse: improves sword skills
The first option is amazing. Combined with Ineptitude, Blinding Dissipation causes all shatters to inflict blind and confusion. This is atomic! Evasive Mirror is far less useful plus the Chaos line will give us plenty of mirror.

The third trait choice is:
Harmonious Mantra: bonuses to mantras
Mistrust: area confusion on interrupt
Deceptive Evasion: create clone on dodge
Deceptive evasion is just so good you want it for nearly every build. It fuels shatters like nothing else can. Harmonious Mantras is excellent in a build built around it but this isn’kitten Mistrust is no good for us because we don’t interrupt enough to warrant it.

Chaos— Chaos is the toughness spec, and as such it adds defensive options. It is great for staff users. It inherently gives regeneration when below 75% health, protection when you gain regeneration which reduces damage by 33%, as well as increasing boon and condition duration for every boon on you (works well with Prismatic Understanding to increase our condition duration.)

The first trait choice is:
Descent into Madness: reduces damage from falls plus benefit
Illusionary Defense: take reduced damage, 3% for each illusion
Master of Manipulation: gain mirror on manipulation and reduce recharge time
Descent into Madness at first to me seemed terrible. After many deaths from falling during map exploration it occurred to me that this trait was golden. I died way more to falls than mobs when running around. Take this when you are exploring and doing jump puzzles, but only then. Illusionary Defense isn’t bad, but Master of Manipulation is the real gem here. Simply Rabid Mesmer utilizes Mirror, Blink, Mass Invisibility and, in PvP, Arcane Thievery which all benefit.

The second trait choice is:
Mirror of Anguish: mirror disabilities back at opponent
Chaotic Transference: gain condition damage based on toughness
Chaotic Dampening: improves staff skills
While I don’t like traits that buff only a few of your skills, Chaotic Dampening is a doozy. I really like it because Chaos Armor and Chaos Storm are so boss. However Chaotic Transference boosts your Condition Damage by 10% of you toughness. Rabid gear provides that toughness and it amounts to almost 200 extra condition damage. This is too good to pass up. Mirror of Anguish is a useful ability in a PvP environment but not to be chosen when the build can utilize Chaotic Transference..

The third trait choice is:
Chaotic Interruption: immobilize foes on interrupt and gain effects
Prismatic Understanding: double stealth durations and gain boons
Bountiful Disillusionment: shatter gives stability
All of these are excellent options. I find Prismatic Understanding (PU) to be the choice that ties this build’s weapons, skills and traits together into a cohesive whole. Beware, PvP pros come from everywhere to tell you PU is bad in PvP. On the flip side I recently watched The Lord Helseth win the EU ESL monthly finals using PU. I’ve been successful with it in the lower ranks and enjoy it immensely. In all other modes it gives you a lot of freedom.

Skills

Heal: Mirror
Ether Feast is the de facto heal spell for mesmers, however Mirror works very well in this build because of master of manipulation. This doubles its reflect time to 4 seconds and reduces its recharge to 12 seconds. Thus, Mirror will heal more damage per second that Ether Feast unless 2 or more illusions are constantly maintained. I think that it is difficult to maintain 2 illusions at all times and given the mirror bonus effect (which can stop more damage than the heal can restore), Mirror is the best choice. The big fallback is that, when you want healing you usually want to heal as much as possible right that moment.

Elite: Mass Invisibility
This spell is fantastic in Simply Rabid Mesmer. The stealth is doubled to ten seconds due to Prismatic Understanding as well as granting boons. The refresh time is dropped by 18 seconds due to Master of Manipulation and you get two seconds of mirror.

Utility: Decoy, Blink, situational
Decoy and Blink are both fantastic skills on their own. In this build Decoy benefits from Prismatic Understanding and Blink benefits from Master of Manipulation.
The third skill is completely situational to the environment. Options include:
Signet of Inspiration: exploring, mesmer is the slowest class
Signet of Midnight: extra damage for big PvE fights
Arcane Thievery: PvP and WvW if roaming, gets Master of Manipulation bonus
Feedback: many dungeons, players will ask for this
Portal: special situations like swamp fractal

Runes and Sigils

I’m especially interested in input on these and they are by no means finalized. Much probably has to do with what environment you most enjoy playing in. Myself, I like to mix it up in all aspects of the game so versatility is important.

Runes— I have three runes in mind. 1) Traveler. Mesmer is so pitifully slow for large scale movement. These can help immensely. I suppose Speed are a cheaper option here. 2) Nightmare. These offer Condition Damage and Condition Duration. I like the generic duration benefit over a rune like Krait because we deal lots of various damage dealing conditions in this build. 3) Undead. These add another 7% of our Toughness to Condition Damage in addition to the 10% from Chaotic Transference, in addition to adding more toughness.

Sigils— Right now I’m using sigils that benefit from my fairly high precision stat: Earth, Air, Fire, and Blood. In PvP I also mix in an Energy for clone spamming and a purity for condition removal. Advice here is appreciated as I’m pretty darn new to the game. I’m especially interested in what environments are stat stacking sigils useful, ie Sigil of Corruption. They look extremely powerful but I doubt their reliability for PvP or WvW and in short fractals.

Thank you for taking the time to read about the build. I hope you enjoy it and together we can improve it.

I’ll be in game on my purple lady Mesmer, Melifluer. My home is Yak’s Bend. Be sure to say hi if you see me!