Guild Wars 2

Yes! thank you a million for this! Just decided to drop the PU phantasm kitten and play like a real mesmer. Was a bit more difficult than I anticipated and I’ve been humiliated by scouts and assaulters in wvwvw all kittening night long. kitten them though. Its very rewarding when those shatters sits there like they should even though I’m struggling with that.

Yeah I don’t have much experience with Shatter in WvW, but it can work. Especially taking Decoy along with Mass Invis since stealth is so strong. Let me know if you have any questions!

I just had to swing in on my phone to say that this guide is incredible. There are a few things I wanted to point out and question when I have more time but I really can’t stress enough that this is something EVERYONE should check out, lots of really great info that’ll no doubt step your game up.

Just to give an idea of how great this guide is, I haven’t even gotten 10 pages in and I’ve already learned/improved as a player from reading this… And I don’t even run this spec!

And dat throwback Bill Nye the Science Guy quote had me open: “Everyone you ever meet knows something you don’t.”

Fantastic guide! Haven’t read the whole thing yet but I like what I see so far.
Thanks for the effort, supcutie. Dis is awesome =)

Oh and, sticky pls.

Hey Supcuite~! I love you, no kitten =)

This is amazing :O. I barely started reading this and I am amazed at the work that’s been put into this guide. Thanks for making this! I also now have something great to read at school <3

Seems like a great guide and I’d love to read it if the “fancy for fancy’s sake” website it’s on would let me download it. :/

Wow thanks for the kind words everyone! <3
Also Qaelyn, sorry if you can’t access it, here is another download link: hopefully it works!
http://bit.ly/SupcutieGuide

Awesome guide mate, really appreciate the contents and the time you spent putting it together, have learnt a lot.

Sooooo loooooong (but great). I’ve been running a very, very similar setup and love every second of it.

I have to admit tho, I run sword/pistol and have come to rely on it. Do you ever take a different offhand?

Supcutie.2538:

Wow thanks for the kind words everyone! <3
Also Qaelyn, sorry if you can’t access it, here is another download link: hopefully it works!
http://bit.ly/mesmerguidebackup2

Much better, thanks!

I’m frankly astonished at the amount of content in that document. There’s probably more useful info and tips in that PDF than the total of all advice I’ve read on this forum about running a shatter build since I started playing.

I write long technical documents for a living and it takes a lot to impress me.

TBH your play level is so far above mine that my main problem would actually be finding a way to put all of that into practice. You should offer tutoring services for gold or something. Need an apprentice?

Oh and I had to chuckle at this line from your “Cons” list — “If you are forced to 1v1 defending a node , it will almost always get neutralized in the process” — because I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve been told that a PU/hybrid mesmer is “useless” in PvP for that very reason. (Not saying anything about PU vs. shatter effectiveness in PvP, just that it’s nice to see that other specs have similar issues.)

I liked the guide, but its reeeaaaallly long :o

This is very helpful and in-depth. Thank you for sharing it!

If you want, I’d be happy to restructure and reformat the guide so it’s easier to see what’s in it, organize related info together, add bookmark navigation on the side, etc. Again, I do this stuff for a living. Just let me know by PM; I’ll need the original document.

Woah that’s long! :o

Will have a read of that once I’m done farming for my backpiece…

I dont post very often, but this time I just have to say: thank you! for this awesome guide!

The amount of detail you had in there is stunning, also your knowledge of the different classes (I dont have the time to play them, so Im quite lost with many skills of my adverseries).
I especially liked the “combos”, and imedieatly tried some of those.

And I laughed a bit, when reading under “pros”: good 1v1, and then for every description of a class you can meet 1v1: “hard” “very hard” “medium-hard” :-)

I will for sure have some questions after reading your guide a second time!

Just a bump for a great guide.

Also, for those who saw it before, it’s been updated. I worked with Supcutie to restructure the document into sections, it has a clickable table of contents and the tips should be easier to find and read now.

Hiya, this was really helpful! I’m not very good with Shatter, but now I’ll certainly have to look back into it again after reading this. Much appreciated

Amazing guide ! I’m trying to do more and more spvp these days because playing solo shatter in wvw is really hard. It helps a lot !

And I’d like to quote this:

“Be nice! Everyone has something to offer. Don’t burn bridges for your ego. You’ll be surprised how far being nice and good gets you”.

Thank you for sharing !

supcutie, thank you for sharing.

This is Brilliant – an absolute must-read for new and experienced shatter mesmers alike. Well structured, comprehensive in-depth presentation and bespoke video guides to go with it. Although I focus mainly on WvW, your guide taught me some new tricks This sort of write-up makes me glad that I’m rocking shatter and not completely defecting to PU.

You sir are an artist. Keep up the good work mate and keep the tutorials coming (Shatter vs X = great idea). Props from the UK!

P.S. @forum mods: This deserves a sticky.

This is amazing; thanks so much!

Great guide ! I’ve got 1 question though. I was previously playing 10/30/0/30/0 with GS and s/p(phantasm spec) and my damage with that build was quite a bit higher than with the shatter build. Is it supposed to be like that or am i doing something wrong?

Absolutely awesome guide!

Thanks, Supcutie.

Absolutely amazing guide dude. Thank you so much for taking the time to put this together.

May the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless you with many noodles.

R’amen.

@Noxrawr, problem with phantasm is the phantasms die. It’s a good spec for 1v1s, but this spec offers overall more versatility.

@Godmoney, R’amen!

This guide is the perfect antidote to the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome I see displayed on the sPvP forums.

I am talking about those people I see regularly who smugly and arrogantly declare that GW2 sPvP is so very, very simple.

(Dunning-Kruger Syndrome is when people understand a topic so little that they wrongly believe that the little they know about it is all there is to know about it!)

Osicat?… No offense but this build has been around since the 2nd month of release.

Nazer.7301:

Osicat?… No offense but this build has been around since the 2nd month of release.

http://galeri3.uludagsozluk.com/138/facepalm_227785.jpg

teogeos.1364:

Nazer.7301:

Osicat?… No offense but this build has been around since the 2nd month of release.

http://galeri3.uludagsozluk.com/138/facepalm_227785.jpg

I was talking about the build, not the pro-tip guide. If I want pvp pro-tips I’ll go give countless a kitten.

Yo BTW, updated the build links in the guide, apparently intothemists changed the trait numbers in the illusion tree because of the Dec. 10 patch I think, so it changed from Illusionary Invigoration to Dazzling Glamours, which is not what we want! So yeah now it’s back to normal

Nazer.7301:

teogeos.1364:

Nazer.7301:

Osicat?… No offense but this build has been around since the 2nd month of release.

http://galeri3.uludagsozluk.com/138/facepalm_227785.jpg

I was talking about the build, not the pro-tip guide. If I want pvp pro-tips I’ll go give countless a kitten.

http://galeri3.uludagsozluk.com/138/facepalm_227785.jpg

Just wanted to thank Supcutie for the amazingly informative and well put together guide. I had limited experience with shatter builds and play-style so I learned a lot and inspired me to give shatter another go.

It’s ironic though that some of the really interesting shatter tricks you point out I learned 2 days before ArenaNet posted their balance preview, threatening many of those pro tips. Thanks for trying to turn the heat up on ’em a bit for their recklessness.

Great stuff, man!

Amazing guide Supcutie, will help me a lot to learn the shatter play style. Got my Mesmer to 80 yesterday (first 80) and have been going shatter since I first tried it out. Looking forward to putting your guide into practice in PvP.
Great work.

Just wanted to let everyone know that the guide has been successfully formatted and uploaded by Fay, and can be found here:

http://mesmerguides.com/supcutie.html

Pyroatheist.9031:

Just wanted to let everyone know that the guide has been successfully formatted and uploaded by Fay, and can be found here:

http://mesmerguides.com/supcutie.html

Awesometastic work! This way it is lot more accessible.

kubetz.3058:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Just wanted to let everyone know that the guide has been successfully formatted and uploaded by Fay, and can be found here:

http://mesmerguides.com/supcutie.html

Awesometastic work! This way it is lot more accessible.

Thank you, Glad you like it I’m working on getting more people’s guides and builds on there as well as the other general information. Working together on the website with Pyro. I hope Supcutie’s guide will be easier to use this way so enjoy

Alrighty everyone another update! I added an addendum to the bottom of the guide. Basically everything in the guide is still relevant but I’m using two new builds for Team queue in hopes of being viable. One is sword/torch GS with Halting Strike. Other is the older Staff Halting Strike Shatter spec. They are both linked and discussed in the addendum section. The addendum section also is hyperlinked within the document just as the other sections in the table of contents. The addendum section will be good for the guide so people can constantly check back and see what I’m up to.

In addition to that I also added some notes under Ether Feast about when to heal. There are a few other random changes as well, but check it out! (Including a secret you might want to find in the guide!!!)

http://bit.ly/SupcutieGuide

Bump for a good, useful guide

Okay guys, Version 2 is out! Check the original post for details!
If you think I have earned it, consider voting for me as a North American All-Star for Gamescom! I’m on page 2
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/allstarsvote

Thanks for the support everyone!

Supcutie.2538:

Okay guys, Version 2 is out! Check the original post for details!
If you think I have earned it, consider voting for me as a North American All-Star for Gamescom!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/allstarsvote

Thanks for the support everyone!

Voted , good luck and thanks for the awesome guides!

Hey Supcutie, this is beyond awesome. I was looking at the part with the discussion on Ether Feast over Signet of the Ether and thinking on your build. I know clone on dodge is a great source, but maybe I’m a little too shatter happy since mine seem always on cooldown and these clones seem excessive(But I also only solo que and WvW so I know it’s quite different in tPvP).

Have you ever tried Blurred Inscriptions? With Signet of Ether, I found this heal followed by a distortion pretty clutch in several panic GTFO situations or wanting to get an uninterrupted phantasm off and if you also do Master of Reflections and maybe even Signet of Illusions you can have some good on command fight reset/delay(for when a teammate is rolling to you, want to get a Mass Invis off or whatnot) with potentially a starting advantage. Now I’m curious if those cancels would work with setting this trait off, I might have to test that.

Also voted for you and your teammate(and Hel). Do awesome and show them despite how much anet breaks us with their ‘fixes’, our mesmer players are great enough to make a name and place for ourselves.

Dracatis.1908:

Hey Supcutie, this is beyond awesome. I was looking at the part with the discussion on Ether Feast over Signet of the Ether and thinking on your build. I know clone on dodge is a great source, but maybe I’m a little too shatter happy since mine seem always on cooldown and these clones seem excessive(But I also only solo que and WvW so I know it’s quite different in tPvP).

Have you ever tried Blurred Inscriptions? With Signet of Ether, I found this heal followed by a distortion pretty clutch in several panic GTFO situations or wanting to get an uninterrupted phantasm off and if you also do Master of Reflections and maybe even Signet of Illusions you can have some good on command fight reset/delay(for when a teammate is rolling to you, want to get a Mass Invis off or whatnot) with potentially a starting advantage. Now I’m curious if those cancels would work with setting this trait off, I might have to test that.

Also voted for you and your teammate(and Hel). Do awesome and show them despite how much anet breaks us with their ‘fixes’, our mesmer players are great enough to make a name and place for ourselves.

As in taking blurred inscriptions over deceptive evasion? No, that’s a horrid idea. For a shatter build functional at all, deceptive evasion is absolutely required. You need that guaranteed rapid source of clones for shatters. That’s not even going into other more objective reasons that it’s a bad trait. Signets for mesmer either have poor actives or aren’t something you want to burn for defense, so the trait just fails miserably in all sorts of ways.

Fay.2357:

As in taking blurred inscriptions over deceptive evasion? No, that’s a horrid idea. For a shatter build functional at all, deceptive evasion is absolutely required. You need that guaranteed rapid source of clones for shatters. That’s not even going into other more objective reasons that it’s a bad trait. Signets for mesmer either have poor actives or aren’t something you want to burn for defense, so the trait just fails miserably in all sorts of ways.

So you wouldn’t burn the Signet of Ether for defense? Or Signet of Illusions to get your shatters back so you can use IP more and maybe a Distortion for 2 sets of invuln frames? Or Signet of Inspirations to share your buffs? Or Signet of Domination for that clutch heavy stun of a Guardian or Thief? I mean… I can see not using Midnight, that thing is worthless unless your running a Staff/Boon build with Signet of Inspirations and maybe a Boon Guardian but I’m starting to think you have an overwhelming fear of anything with a cast time/long CD Fay.

I mean especially with the Sword nerf we got, Deceptive Evasion can screw up your swap so maybe it’s time to branch out and try something new if you still like Sword… (Not that I think Supcutie would make the mistake of wasting a clone, but not everyone is as experienced at shatter builds…).

But I’m not talking to you Fay, I’m asking if Supcutie has tried it out of late especially since they fixed it for Master of Reflections(which they put as a potiential good trait to run).

Dracatis.1908:

So you wouldn’t burn the Signet of Ether for defense?

Well, let me give you a list of reasons why you signet of ether is bad in a shatter build. You can’t make good use of the phantasm refresh. It has a quite long cooldown, and doesn’t have a strong active heal. The passive heal is weaker than ether feast even if you can keep out 3 illusions 100% of the time….and you won’t. It’s just a worse heal in every way.

So, if you take it in a shatter build just for blurred inscriptions, you’re already handicapping yourself heavily.

Dracatis.1908:

Or Signet of Illusions to get your shatters back so you can use IP more and maybe a Distortion for 2 sets of invuln frames?

Yes…once every 90 seconds. There’s a good reason that not even signet builds take signet of illusions. It’s simply not worth it.

Dracatis.1908:

Or Signet of Inspirations to share your buffs?

This would be reasonable, except that you don’t have any particularly strong buffs to share. Maybe if you were running a PU boon stacking build…but then you’d be totally useless and obviously not in a shatter build.

Dracatis.1908:

Or Signet of Domination for that clutch heavy stun of a Guardian or Thief?

This too would be theoretically useful if you didn’t have a large toolset of aoe interrupts at your disposal. Now you’re taking a utility with a useless passive and isn’t a stunbreak just for a single target interrupt every 30 seconds or so. Again, not worth it.

Dracatis.1908:

but I’m starting to think you have an overwhelming fear of anything with a cast time/long CD Fay

Nothing wrong with having a cast time, but stunbreakers are an added utility that no signet other than midnight has, and if you run without stunbreakers, you die.

A long cd is absolutely something to avoid at all costs unless the skill is worth it. See: veil in wvw is worth the long cd because you can stealth an entire zerg. Illusion of Life is worth it in tPvP because temporarily ressing all of your downed players from 1200 range is incredibly strong. Signet of illusions is not worth it, because refreshing your shatter skills once every 90 seconds simply isn’t strong.

Dracatis.1908:

I mean especially with the Sword nerf we got, Deceptive Evasion can screw up your swap so maybe it’s time to branch out and try something new if you still like Sword… (Not that I think Supcutie would make the mistake of wasting a clone, but not everyone is as experienced at shatter builds…).

I mean, go ahead and try playing without DE. You’ll fight someone with any cleave at all, and you’ll never be able to shatter.

Dracatis.1908:

But I’m not talking to you Fay, I’m asking if Supcutie has tried it out of late especially since they fixed it for Master of Reflections(which they put as a potiential good trait to run).

I can guarantee you that he’s never used signet of the ether seriously in a shatter build, and I can likewise guarantee you that he’s never used signet of illusions seriously in a shatter build, and I can also guarantee you that he’s never used blurred inscriptions seriously in a shatter build, for the reasons I stated above. You don’t have to believe me, but that’s the truth.

Man you love to debate yet seem unwilling to believe there is more then one way to win at this game Fay. The best thing about Mesmer(if most of the stuff wasn’t broken) is that we have have some of the biggest diversity of potientially viable builds. So to break your brain I’ll answer your points in reverse.

Fay.2357:

I can guarantee you that he’s never… blah blah blah

I can guarantee you as a good player with an open mind he probably has seen changes come and tried them out to see how they play out. While you can plainly disregard and think something doesn’t work, if someone says it is working for them, then it might be worth revisiting to see if it might work for you.

Fay.2357:

Signet of illusions is not worth it, because refreshing your shatter skills once every 90 seconds simply isn’t strong… I mean, go ahead and try playing without DE. You’ll fight someone with any cleave at all, and you’ll never be able to shatter.

A) ‘Worthless’ Signet of Illusions giving illusions health to survive cleave? And you only use the active when you need that defense or final spike damage. The CD becomes moot as you transverse the map.
B) Not all clones are melee (in fact most aren’t)
C) I rarely ever used DE, while I don’t have a ton of shatter spec experience, especially compared to Supcutie, I don’t feel I’ve been too hampered without it. Though I do more WvW then PvP and clones die too easy there.

Fay.2357:

…and if you run without stunbreakers, you die.

Duh, I wasn’t saying turn this into a full signet build and I wasn’t saying Inspirations or even Domination fit the build, just that their actives can be useful(just debating your point there not applied to the topic directly). I’m not even suggesting a change of build really. But if you read the .pdf Supcutie mentioned that sometimes it was useful to run Master of Reflections so I was simply curious if he ever took it out to the next level. There is no way you can lose Decoy in this build(Though without DE you might want Mirror Images instead, depending on Mass Invis for your stealth). I like how he uses Portal. Blink, personally for this switch up, this is what I’ve give up for a Signet.

One thing I’ve found in WvW is adapting in the middle of battle can really swing it in your favor so I’m good at breaking combat and changing builds on the fly(despite the equipment page being more annoying at least traits is a little easier), even if I’m not the best fighter the change up gives me a big advantage in their confusion.

Fay.2357:

You can’t make good use of the phantasm refresh.

Wut? Well first, without DE your going to be shattering more phantasms after they attack and then you heal and get them back to hit again?

But really I just want to get Supcutie’s opinion and maybe a trial of it with skills far strong then I.

I’m not debating with you. I provided a short response to your question. You questioned that, so I provided a more complete response. Both myself and Supcutie have thoroughly tested all of the builds and concepts you mentioned. The reason neither us nor anyone else in this game actually does them is because they don’t work well. Believe what you want though, I can’t force you to listen.

about the heal signet, its not just bad, its terribad for shatters…

it doesnt reset clone , it resets just phtantasms, phantasms mostly have longer cast time, u can only get 1 additional phantasm each weapset, and 1 single shatter isnt worth for u to have way way way less healing.