Guild Wars 2

Anyone else find that there’s a little place where your stuck with absolutely nothing except maybe a doge at the end of a burst combo?

This is just my opinion but I think we need more for the aftermath.

Majority of the shatter builds end up using all the utilities and skills on both weapon sets, and 1 or 2 utilities in combination (depending on the build or how the fight went) then we have almost nothing, not even a weapon swap.

We had a buff not to long ago (December) which would make most of those moments be a kill, or to much preassure on a foe to keep them licking their wounds. But that was cried as OP, So we’re back to a spot where it still feels like something is missing.

Putting other classes in perspective, and how we work in PvE, most can keep it up after their bursts. Even if a warrior misses his 100b he can still either get away or burst fairly well even if its not a 1 hit K.O. Quickness100b

Ele is always switching his attunements so never really has a true down time, and after their burst they pretty much heal to full.

Thief cloaks and runs away or reopened combat on his terms.

Even necro has death shroud to tank out for a bit.

And mes PvE is no problem we just doge make a clone and have a 50% chance for our clone to take aggro for a second, and even then incoming Dmg from a mob that’s not a champion or boss is no problem since a bunker guardian would hit harder.

I think there should be something up in the domination or dueling tree that allows for a bit persistence in a fight other than being like “Doge/Dur Free shots!”

Now most ppl be like “l2p noob you have distort blahhh”

Ok well lets assume that’s the case B-frenzy is usually popped as part of the burst otherwise THINGS DON’T DIE which one would imagen is a key feature to PvP.

And having distort up implies we have clones to use at most that’s maybe 2 seconds worth and that’s with illusionary persona. And we’re still clocking about 5 sec left on weapon swap.

This is not always the case but it is true that we lack a lot more than other classes after the initial damage combo.

Suggestions:

Well more damage was seen as OP so that’s out, so prob more survivabillity things?

F5 cloak shatter? Not as good as distort but you can get away and at the very least it drops the target.

Longer cloaks in general? Little less helpful since we’d traid off another utility slot for it but gives more options.

a trait – “when a clone is created not from a weapon skill cloak for 1-seconds” farther up dueling or domination tree? (I think scrapping illusion vaulnerbility and putting dazzling in its place or combining the two and adding this as a master minor wouldn’t be so bad)

Maybe weapon swap c/d reducer?

I guess point for balance to the above really would have to be so phant builds that go 25 into inspiration don’t want to go for this without giving up something key for their build.

anyways Thoughts? Or am I just crazy?

TL;DR: imo – shatter need something after initial burst combo!

Swap weapons. Use other abilities. Use autoattacks. Pop elite for bonus. IP Diversion because more Vuln is good. Do a barreldodge roll

Suggestion: practice more. The combo is far from the only thing the build can do.

Sidenote: autoattacks aren’t inherently bad.

I don’t undertsand if you’re talking about pve or spvp, because you give pve arguments and the say that you can’t os with shatter anymore (so i guess it’s more pvp related ?).
In sPvP I don’t have any down time, you have to manage your phantasm and shatter and let them use auto-shot before shattering etc. Most mesmer I see just spam their shatter (f1-f2-f3) and then do nothing, it’s not how a shatter should be played.
Shatter spec is a spike spec. It means you do some damage and then spike. That’s where teamplay come, and having a necro who does constant damage is the perfect ally to mesmer. He pressure and you spike to death.
If you want constant damage you should play phantasm spec. Or hybrid if you don’t like the shatter spec.
In phantasm spec you should shatter when you have both phantasm cd up.
In shatter spec you have to construct your burst and unleash it at the right time. It’s one of the hardest profession that I play, but it gives me good result and I still think it’s too op (the recent nerf was just a reverse to release state of mesmer).

Renny.6571:

Well my shatters apply confusion per clone, so there’s that..

If you get someone low enough where their heal will kill them that’d be fine but that rarely happens and just doesn’t last long enough to deter someone form beating on you. Waiting it out your still stuck in C/Ds

In sPvP I don’t have any down time, you have to manage your phantasm and shatter and let them use auto-shot before shattering etc.

^

That too. Back when I played with IP shatter, I could output continuous streams of 4x Mind Wracks on cooldown for almost a minute before my abilities were staggered in a way that messed it up. I could do it for about 45 seconds without Deceptive Evasion.

Back then, Troll farming gave a lot of opportunity to practice sustained rotations.