Guild Wars 2

NYRKKIPAULA.8051:

What BlackDevil said, PU power builds have almost the same burst kittenter (as some people think you need to build up for phantasms to do damage or run a torch offhand…).

Also to note is while traiting chaos line you get +300 toughness and 30% boonduration while illusions give shatter recharge rate and condidamage, which means you can run a fairly tanky build with as much offensive stats as a shatter. TBH the only thing I really miss when running a PU build is the on demand distortion when using shatters.

In GvGs a PU mesmer is better at surviving other hitman squads and applies the same if not better pressure to backline classes than a shatter. In WvW raids your job is mostly to just veil and maybe timewarp (which then gets applied to your support/tank class roles and is completely wasted).

I run both shatter and pu builds while playing wvw (be it roaming, raiding or gvg), having fun with both specs but pu is just overall better spec to roam with.

Ok glad you brought up the point that PU and phantasms: Ok PU works in 2 ways to give a build advantage: conditions , 20 20 30 or 10 20 30 10 or 20 30 0 20 , the important

Sharper images 2nd tier trait in dueling #15

damage trait is Illusions inflict bleeding on critical hits.

Bleeding: 5 s (213 damage)

since as a power or hybrid mesmer you don’t have access to the 20% phant boost, or the shatter’s illusion regeneration boost (illusionary celerity) as well you will have to sacrifice either GS cd trait for torch or sacrifice 10 in domination for mender’s purity, you will have no weapon cds, or unless you sacrifice DE for duelist discipline (pistol cd) , Shatter and PU hybrid power builds have same or it can be disputed burst, PU relies on phantasms if you go full power like i do, so destroy my phantasms and me having no cds pretty much gets me killed and thus PU is a way to stall, 1v1 it works it is strong, 1vx it gets harder and since i have to sacrifice 10 in dueling for 10 in inspiration for mender’s purity, or run null field , arcane thievery, I will still have limited access to condi cleanse on me, fighting a hard condition build will destroy me if I don’t play smart, stealthing can cleanse you for some, but it won’t do much since our regen isn’t that high compared to thieves regen and the 1 sec of stealth is alright but not when you have like 5-6 conditions on you ticking.

I run rampagers with centaur zerk weapons and trinkets , 10 20 30 10 or 20 20 30. high burst high damage , and etc, but i run condition food, because the dueling tier trait with phantasms is insane, you can melt bunker builds because you are not only applying damage but bleeding, the sacrifice is in condition sustain, or at times against a good guardian, he can destroy your phantasms quick enough. Against bad players , yes I can handle it and win , but vs 2 good players , I can assure you I may not live if i try to keep up the damage and I am forced to retreat or die.

Because people think it’s Overpowered, and rightfully…it sorta is. It’s extremely hard to beat a PU mesmer using Guardian/Warrior/Ranger/Engi/Elementalist/Necro, but I generally just switch to P/D thief and destroy them if they are annoying me. Fire with lava. P/D always wins.

PU based builds, specifically the Blackwater variant, is very easy to play and has plenty room for error. That is the main reason I still run it.

Doomdesire.9365:

Because people think it’s Overpowered, and rightfully…it sorta is. It’s extremely hard to beat a PU mesmer using Guardian/Warrior/Ranger/Engi/Elementalist/Necro, but I generally just switch to P/D thief and destroy them if they are annoying me. Fire with lava. P/D always wins.

That was stupid thing to say. I killed a lot of P/D thieves. Only good thieves can kill my mes in 1v1. I don’t think you are one otherwise you would know killing good PU power and especially cond troll mesmer is not easy.

Ptolemy.5086:

Doomdesire.9365:

Because people think it’s Overpowered, and rightfully…it sorta is. It’s extremely hard to beat a PU mesmer using Guardian/Warrior/Ranger/Engi/Elementalist/Necro, but I generally just switch to P/D thief and destroy them if they are annoying me. Fire with lava. P/D always wins.

That was stupid thing to say. I killed a lot of P/D thieves. Only good thieves can kill my mes in 1v1. I don’t think you are one otherwise you would know killing good PU power and especially cond troll mesmer is not easy.

No, they’re easy to kill with a P/D thief. WvW anyways. I’ve lost to maybe 3 PU mesmers on my ~2K hours on p/d thief

eldenbri.1059:

PU stands for the prismatic understanding trait that is at the grandmaster level in the chaos line. It extends stealth duration by one second and it grants one of three boons for every second you are in stealth.

Generally the complaining you see about it is from other players who feel it is overpowered. The complaints typically come down to three underlying reasons:
- they just don’t like stealth and complain about any use of stealth (and probably complain about thieves as well)
- they don’t like a particular build that uses the PU trait called the Blackwater build – this build has weaknesses if you bother to learn about it (including just running away) but when people mindlessly attack the clones in this build, they will lose
- they don’t like that one of the possible boons under stealth is aegis – so the Mesmer coming out of stealth will typically get a free block on the first attack

I think that’s a pretty fair synopsis

You guys seem to get the free ride when it comes to stealth. Nothing but slander for thief due to stealth… I rarely see a “nerf X” post in this forum. Care to trade places? ; ;

NinjaEd.3946:

You guys seem to get the free ride when it comes to stealth. Nothing but slander for thief due to stealth… I rarely see a “nerf X” post in this forum. Care to trade places? ; ;

You conveniently seem to forget that mesmer is unviable at top level pvp, thieves aren’t.

Pyroatheist.9031:

NinjaEd.3946:

You guys seem to get the free ride when it comes to stealth. Nothing but slander for thief due to stealth… I rarely see a “nerf X” post in this forum. Care to trade places? ; ;

You conveniently seem to forget that mesmer is unviable at top level pvp, thieves aren’t.

Well, misha’s portals did prove that partly wrong. But then again those portals wouldn’t have been so good if the coordination was kitten. So I guess the effectiveness of a mesmer in a team is depending for a big part on the players you’re working with.

kitten , you all have waaaay too much invested in this thread. As do a lot of mesmers and thieves right now on the forums. The emotion is boiling over, because of a video game mechanic. It’s approaching insanity in here.

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

MailMail.6534:

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

Because chaotic interruption isn’t particularly good?

It can be good in mass-combat situations where both Sword #4 and GS #5 can cause multiple interrupts. But then you also got to ask yourself, if I cause CI on 3-4 people in a zerg of 40, what does that do for us? Barely a dent, unless the enemy zerg was retreating.

Still a good switch from PU in a 20/20/30 setup when joining a zerg, but still… hardly impressive.

I think the 3 interrupt GM traits (Domination, Duelling, Chaos) are rather well-balanced, but at the same time the Chaos-one gets hyped too much.

Doomdesire.9365:

Ptolemy.5086:

Doomdesire.9365:

Because people think it’s Overpowered, and rightfully…it sorta is. It’s extremely hard to beat a PU mesmer using Guardian/Warrior/Ranger/Engi/Elementalist/Necro, but I generally just switch to P/D thief and destroy them if they are annoying me. Fire with lava. P/D always wins.

That was stupid thing to say. I killed a lot of P/D thieves. Only good thieves can kill my mes in 1v1. I don’t think you are one otherwise you would know killing good PU power and especially cond troll mesmer is not easy.

No, they’re easy to kill with a P/D thief. WvW anyways. I’ve lost to maybe 3 PU mesmers on my ~2K hours on p/d thief

My guess you are on one of those empty T5-6 WVW servers . Probably during 2k hours you met only 3 PU mesmers and each one of them kill you.

Pyroatheist.9031:

MailMail.6534:

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

Because chaotic interruption isn’t particularly good?

On the contrary… In my experience it has been devastating in lockdown builds, especially in combination to Temporal Curtain. You can essentially trait it with many of the Mesmer weapons, but I like the focus pull the most.

MailMail.6534:

Pyroatheist.9031:

MailMail.6534:

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

Because chaotic interruption isn’t particularly good?

On the contrary… In my experience it has been devastating in lockdown builds, especially in combination to Temporal Curtain. You can essentially trait it with many of the Mesmer weapons, but I like the focus pull the most.

Yeah CI is definitely good, but not as good as PU.

skcamow.3527:

MailMail.6534:

Pyroatheist.9031:

MailMail.6534:

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

Because chaotic interruption isn’t particularly good?

On the contrary… In my experience it has been devastating in lockdown builds, especially in combination to Temporal Curtain. You can essentially trait it with many of the Mesmer weapons, but I like the focus pull the most.

Yeah CI is definitely good, but not as good as PU.

A good Lockdown Mesmer will be able to beat a good PU mesmer. All it takes is simply finding the right Mesmer (which is easy) and then you know… locking him down. Chill will kitten the CD of stealth, and most lockdowns “should” be able to keep the damage high & steady.

MailMail.6534:

skcamow.3527:

MailMail.6534:

Pyroatheist.9031:

MailMail.6534:

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

Because chaotic interruption isn’t particularly good?

On the contrary… In my experience it has been devastating in lockdown builds, especially in combination to Temporal Curtain. You can essentially trait it with many of the Mesmer weapons, but I like the focus pull the most.

Yeah CI is definitely good, but not as good as PU.

A good Lockdown Mesmer will be able to beat a good PU mesmer. All it takes is simply finding the right Mesmer (which is easy) and then you know… locking him down. Chill will kitten the CD of stealth, and most lockdowns “should” be able to keep the damage high & steady.

Yeah….that’s not true at all. PU mesmers don’t have many things that actually can even be interrupted, and it’s fairly easy to bait out a lot of the interrupts and just stunbreak them. Additionally, lockdown mesmers are forced to spend a lot of their build devoted to (obviously) lockdown, and are often very low on condition removal.

Pyroatheist.9031:

MailMail.6534:

skcamow.3527:

MailMail.6534:

Pyroatheist.9031:

MailMail.6534:

All I’ve got to say is: why use PU when you could be using Chaotic Interruption instead?! :O

Because chaotic interruption isn’t particularly good?

On the contrary… In my experience it has been devastating in lockdown builds, especially in combination to Temporal Curtain. You can essentially trait it with many of the Mesmer weapons, but I like the focus pull the most.

Yeah CI is definitely good, but not as good as PU.

A good Lockdown Mesmer will be able to beat a good PU mesmer. All it takes is simply finding the right Mesmer (which is easy) and then you know… locking him down. Chill will kitten the CD of stealth, and most lockdowns “should” be able to keep the damage high & steady.

Yeah….that’s not true at all. PU mesmers don’t have many things that actually can even be interrupted, and it’s fairly easy to bait out a lot of the interrupts and just stunbreak them. Additionally, lockdown mesmers are forced to spend a lot of their build devoted to (obviously) lockdown, and are often very low on condition removal.

Shh don’t tell him about Blink , Decoy and Mirror of Anguish…

Ok I like interrupt builds, but they have one main problem: Stability. Try fighting 2 good warriors or a good warrior alone, or a p/d thief, a GS ranger, a good guardian, and the perplexity rocket boots engie.

Going 30 into chaos is a huge sacrifice, PU only because of the boons and stealth bonus, but outside of that I would rather go glass, go 30 20 0 20 or 30 20 0 0 20 or something, go big or go home. alot of roaming builds are meant to counter cc because of the cc warrior wave we had earlier. I know people want interrupt to be the next big thing, but trust me we would be flooded with posts about nerfs, and Mesmer being OP with too much CC, stealth and phantasm damage or something.

Im going to wait till conditions get toned down. First people were angry about the DPS meta, now they are angry about the condition meta. I don’t know how mesmer will be next patches or all classes as a whole.

From the perspective of someone who is not a mesmer. I play engineer.

When I see a mesmer roaming in WvW, and it’s a PU mes I automatically think “aww, a PU mesmer”, and rocket boot away to safety. My only gripe with PU mesmer is something that is true for all stealth. I can’t aggressively counter it. I just block, reflect and dodge and counter it passively.

I’d like a skill that lets me inflict revealed before they stealth, like what rangers have. Give all classes a way to inflict revealed on skills THAT ARE NOT WIDELY USED ALREADY that require a clicked target to work (that way you need to inflict revealed BEFORE they stealth). Which means don’t add it to an engineer’s grenade kit, kitten .

Unfortunately, some of the skills that would best reflect the type of ability that would reveal stealth (engineer’s analyze, warrior’s on my mark, thief scorpion wire) are, like, instant cast. Skills that reveal should be interruptable, because designing a counter to something should have its own counter. Although Ranger’s sic em does not have a cast time. Oddly enough. Also, at the moment guardians have no single-target ability that is niche that can be fit with this, unless they put it on a spirit weapon (HAHAHA no).

Also, I have a question. After reading some of these posts here, apparently some people run PU mesmers in sPvP. I’ve encountered only one so far (most mesmers I encounter use the shatter and old phantasm builds). It was quite easy to deal with as the typical rabid condi bunker engineer. They’d never hold the point that long because they kept stealthing. Even if I die I could just come back and recap. Is PU mesmer actually good in sPvP?

There is a lot of counterplay to PU mesmers that’s not passive though. As another mesmer I usually do things like:

- Bait out scepter 2. If I have scepter out, throw an auto at it then scepter block to basically reflect it back onto them.
- Scepter 2 block any AoE they drop (hitting the last tick of null field and sending 5 stacks of torment right as their condi cleanse goes on cooldown is my favorite)
- Invuln / Stealth when they summon phantasms. Kill the phantasms with AoE cleave or torch 4. Summon clones while stealthed to give another target to the phantasms and make them waste their attack.
- Interrupt phant summons / heals with pistol 5 and daze shatter.

PU mesmers can be fun fights. However, it’s pretty shameful how completely terrible most people that play it are. I find that my PU build is a pretty even match against p/d condi thieves, condi necros, phantasm mesmers, and some really solid s/d thieves, so it can lead to some fun duels.

Eastcorn.5901:

From the perspective of someone who is not a mesmer. I play engineer.

When I see a mesmer roaming in WvW, and it’s a PU mes I automatically think “aww, a PU mesmer”, and rocket boot away to safety. My only gripe with PU mesmer is something that is true for all stealth. I can’t aggressively counter it. I just block, reflect and dodge and counter it passively.

I’d like a skill that lets me inflict revealed before they stealth, like what rangers have. Give all classes a way to inflict revealed on skills THAT ARE NOT WIDELY USED ALREADY that require a clicked target to work (that way you need to inflict revealed BEFORE they stealth). Which means don’t add it to an engineer’s grenade kit, kitten .

Unfortunately, some of the skills that would best reflect the type of ability that would reveal stealth (engineer’s analyze, warrior’s on my mark, thief scorpion wire) are, like, instant cast. Skills that reveal should be interruptable, because designing a counter to something should have its own counter. Although Ranger’s sic em does not have a cast time. Oddly enough. Also, at the moment guardians have no single-target ability that is niche that can be fit with this, unless they put it on a spirit weapon (HAHAHA no).

Also, I have a question. After reading some of these posts here, apparently some people run PU mesmers in sPvP. I’ve encountered only one so far (most mesmers I encounter use the shatter and old phantasm builds). It was quite easy to deal with as the typical rabid condi bunker engineer. They’d never hold the point that long because they kept stealthing. Even if I die I could just come back and recap. Is PU mesmer actually good in sPvP?

Yeah, having options for counter playable revealed is absolutely a good idea. Anet might have to change some things to make it work, but it’s definitely a good idea.

As far as PU in tPvP goes, it’s a strong build in solo queue and lower rank team queue, but I wouldn’t recommend using it in high level team queue. A good PU Mesmer can duel without relying on stealth. The stealth is basically a tool that allows the Mesmer to effectively control an outnumbered fight without dying, if necessary. If a team lets a PU Mesmer control a 2v1 on a point, then they’ve lost. Check the guide in my sig for more specifics.