Guild Wars 2

What spec relies the most on misdirection and mental confusion to win?

That’s what I want. A sword power spec is always “out front” juking and dodging like a melee fighter. I want something that only the mesmer can do.

What spec/strategy would that be?

Clones were supposed to be a distraction, but once you target the real one, you can’t loose him/her except if he/she stealths (+ we shatter them all the time anyway). So that’s not it.
Confusion/torment were supposed to act as soft-lockdown, so that people would actually hesitate attacking until they got rid of them. But I don’t feel people are doing that. They just die and blame us for being OP.
So the only thing left I would say is hard-lockdown, meaning interrupts build. There’s nothing more frustrating than missing your attack + having a 15s CD on it + being severely punished for it by vuln + high damage + boons on opponent + …
We are not the only class being able to interrupt, and one may even say that some other classes have more ways to do it, but no other classes is as punishing as we are when we interrupt.

Silverkey,

What are the top ways to efficiently interrupt? What weapons?

Thanks.

>25% evasion uptime from one skill probably also is unique to mesmer XD

The answer heavily depends on the game mode you’re playing. Right now you can probably win any 1v1 while permanently stealthed by spamming phantasms due to PU.
Actual “misdirection” would emphasise Manipulations, Staff and some stealth, but with the knee-jerk nerfs you’ll be hard-pressed to achieve a proper “win condition” with that. Against noobs just go staff condi and mash 1+2 without moving much.
Interrupt is more or less unique to mesmer but, as the name implies, is more about control and interdiction. The enemy knows what you’re doing, but if you’re more skilled than them they can’t do anything about it.

Photoloss,

I have not been able to achieve anything close to 60 seconds of stealth with two high-hitting phantasms out.

Can you clarify?

Laserbolt.6731:

Photoloss,

I have not been able to achieve anything close to 60 seconds of stealth with two high-hitting phantasms out.

Can you clarify?

The Prestige-Decoy-Veil(double-dip)-Mimic!Veil(double-dip again)-Mass Invis is 38s.
By then The Prestige will be up again, 44s. Decoy also up again, 50s. Maybe another Prestige for 56s, can’t be bothered to do the math on The Pledge.

That’s probably the maximum you can manage without external conditions (otherwise Desperate Decoy for another 6s every ~30s, and runes for another 3-4s if you’re lucky)

That’s your elite, full utility bar, 2 trait lines and one offhand, leaving Pistol(OH Sword?)+Ether Signet for 2 quick duelists, and traited Sword for 25% evasion uptime to camp it out until the 72s cooldowns are up again. And IP Distortion “for free”.

While not exactly realistic, or effective in the capture point format, this probably is the most braindead way of annoying people in 1v1 fights.

Photoloss, thanks, you saved me a lot of time puzzing out the stealth you were talking about.

“leaving Pistol(OH Sword?)+Ether Signet for 2 quick duelists”

I am afraid I am ignorant on this. How can the Ether Signet gives a faster duelist?

Laserbolt.6731:

“leaving Pistol(OH Sword?)+Ether Signet for 2 quick duelists”

I am afraid I am ignorant on this. How can the Ether Signet gives a faster duelist?

Cooldown reset to get the second one up immediately. Cast times and wasting your heal don’t matter much since you still have >30s of stealth :P

So the heal resets the cooldown then?

Signet of the ether description: “Heal yourself and refresh all phantasm skill recharges.”
This signet has a long cooldown, so its active heal is weak compared to ether feast for example. But it is very much used in PvE in particular since once you know well the dungeons, the heal is not needed while the added phantasm is.

I have a slightly offtopic question:

With so much steath now, what Mesmers can do soloing dungeons? I mean, is possible to do something neat with this new trick package?

Thank, Silverkey.

Mesmers now have access to a lot of soft control along with the hard dazes and stuns. Also keep in mind, Confounding Suggestions is not the be-all end-all. Plenty of Mesmers played CI without it before the patch and they did fine.

Daze will always be strong regardless if it stuns. And some of our weapons, the greatsword and focus, offer crowd another type of crowd control, which also allows you breathing room.

Blinding dissipation is an amazing trait that allows you to blind an enemy in a pinch. And mesmers, when traited, have access to a lot of personal reflects. Or if you’re running a focus, with that interrupt skill, it has two long-lasting reflect skills (which can also be combined for a condition cleanse.) You have lots of ways to ensure your survival and manipulate the opponent. I think every traitline we have focuses on punishing the enemy for acting, rather than directly rewarding the mesmer.

Thanks, everybody.