Guild Wars 2

Hey fellow mesmers! I was hoping to get some input on my build. Would really like some help fine tuning it. Thanks in advance!

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.5|1.1g.h14|c.1p.h1h.f.1p.h1|1n.7r.1n.7r.1g.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r.1n.7r|1p.61.1p.61.1p.61.1g.67.2t.0.1i.61|u39a.a4.u53c.0.0|16.7|31.3b.3d.34.3o|e

I use GS and sword/torch and try to be invisible as often as I can.
I have a berzerker GS with sigil of air. My sword and torch are both valkyrie with a sigil of battle on my sword and a sigil of accuracy on my torch.

I have Knight’s armor except for a berzerker coat and 6 runes of melandru for the decreased stun duration.

My traits are:
30 III,IX,X for the torch CD and GS CD
10 IV for the sword CD, wondering if maybe master of manipulation is better
30 III,V,XII for blink CD and prismatic understanding
0
0

My trinkets are mostly valkyrie with a couple berzerker and a cavalier mixed in.

It works pretty well, but I would appreciate any help fine tuning it because I know I am not a very good theory crafter.

You do have a lot of survival ability in this build. But I doubt your damage. Your build is more like a phantasm build but image has low damage. I think torch is a good weapon for shatter mesmer since it helps you with gap closer and surprising shatter.
Could you explain why it works pretty well and under what circumstance?

Thanks for the reply Yuchen. It works well for me in that I have good survivability and enough damage to win almost every 1v1 and I can usually keep 2 or 3 enemies busy for long periods of time. I figure if they are busy trying to kill me they aren’t capping camps, helping the zerg, etc. And let’s face it, frustrating 2 or 3 people who just can’t seem to get you down and never know where you are is fun. =)

I do realize that I lack a bit of damage with it, although I have been transitioning to more power and less toughness as you can see from the one piece of berzerker armor and a couple of berzerker trinkets. But it scares me a bit because I am not quick with my fingers on the skill usage.

Should I be shattering more with this build, like once a cycle? I don’t really shatter much with this build because I wasn’t sure it did enough damage to warrant losing the clones I have out.

In the build, better not shatter for damage due to the lack of DE trait to generate clone when dodging and trait that considers yourself as a clone. And the damage is not high. You may shatter for daze and invulnerability.

This build is very viable to be a mimic star. Mimic your clone’s motion and confuse others will be interesting.

I think master of manipulation is good since 1200 range of blink will be more helpful to escape and catch. But sword CD is OK as well. Choose the one you like better.

I like rune of centaur better since u have 2 stun breakers which are enough to deal with stuns. But you do not have swiftness.

What aspect of wvw are you attempting to use this build in?

@ Yuchen, thank you so much for the feedback! Good stuff. I use melandru over centaur because I don’t really mind the lack of swiftness and like I said earlier, my fingers are kinda slow. By the time i get to my stun breaks the stun has already warn off. =(

@ Pyro, thanks for responding. =) I use it mostly for solo or havoc squad and that is what I enjoy doing the most.

Well, it’s interesting. You’ve got strong defense, which is good, but your offense is going to suffer a bit. Your crit chance is very low, and so your phantasm crit chance is low too. I’d consider dropping 10 points out of domination into dueling, and taking phantasmal fury.

Having the torch cooldown trait is nice, but unnecessary I think. You’re going to want to save the prestige for when you really need it, and you don’t need the cooldown on that to do it. The iMage is useless of course, and so the cooldown doesn’t really help there either.

@shimmerless, thanks for the feedback! Do you think it would be better to sacrifice the vitality that the beryl gives me or to sacrifice some of my toughness that the Knight’s armor gives me?

@Pyro, thanks for continuing the discussion with me. Do you think that i have enough power and could sacrifice some for precision? Also, I use prestige often as part of my fighting style, plus it’s nice to use it often with prismatic understanding. I feel like if I’m not go to be invisible as often as I can I might as well use a pistol instead of a torch. What are your thoughts on that? I’d also like to know your thoughts on sword CD vs. blink distance. Really appreciate the feedback.

@MacLeod: Removing 10 points from domination into dueling makes you lose 100 power, gain 4% crit chance, 10% crit damage, and an additional 20% crit chance for your phantasms (that last one is the biggie). To put that in % terms, you are losing ~4% power and gaining ~10% more crit chance, ~16% crit power, and an additional 54% crit chance for your phantasms.

As far as sword cd vs blink distance, that’s a matter of preference. Seven Mirror swore by blink distance, I prefer sword cds usually. Try them both out.

Even traited, the prestige is on far too long of a cooldown to be popping in and out of stealth all the time. It is still used as more of a situational tool as opposed to something that you can spam. Losing the cooldown trait definitely does make it a bit more situational, but the basic use is unchanged.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@MacLeod: Removing 10 points from domination into dueling makes you lose 100 power, gain 4% crit chance, 10% crit damage, and an additional 20% crit chance for your phantasms (that last one is the biggie). To put that in % terms, you are losing ~4% power and gaining ~10% more crit chance, ~16% crit power, and an additional 54% crit chance for your phantasms.

Awesome breakdown, thank you! That is the part of theory crafting that I am just terrible at.

As far as the torch CD here is how a fight usually goes for me (and please feel free to make suggestions), start off with GS get my zerker out as fast as I can, then use mirror blade and tag them a few times with the laser (if they are ranged) or tag them until they get too close (if they are melee). Then I decoy, switch to sword/torch, ileap, blurred frenzy, prestige, blink behind them, switch to GS and start over. Obviously I deviate from that when I need to, but that is what I basically try to do. By the time I get back to my sword the 2nd time the prestige is off of CD when traited (or very close). I’m scared of the extra time it will take to get off CD if I don’t trait for it. Anyway, that is why I’m reluctant to get rid of that. I will definitely give it a try and see how it goes though.

Thanks again for discussing this with me.

I use a build quite close to this. It ends up looking more like what pyro is taking about. It’s lots of fun and extremely frustrating to deal with if your on the receiving end.
Let your phantasms do most of your fighting. Use stealth to help out your cd’s. You have 2 blocks, both which will hurt bad. Dump sword clones out while stealthed to confuse the hell out of your opponents. When stealth ends run at your opponent just like the clones. Oh, laugh while doing it. Laugh maniacally.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArf8clwzipXUzmGb9IipH9WwBckUoavWJF42FC-j0DBocC0YLQUgAUEIkIhmKBK5BKBiIjtKqIasaHYqSLqW5CwgDwbAzdYR1CBMaBA-w

@Samiell, thanks for the response. Your build does look like a lot of fun! Thank you for sharing. Does the lack of CD reduction ever bother you? And how do you like the scepter?

Cd’s are easy to manage with stealth. It lets you confuse your target/targets and reset your position. Septor is meh for the power build, I use it for blocks and applying #3 from stealth. Torment hits for wayyyy more if you swap this to a condition build using doom as your offhand sigils and changing sw/sw to staff.
It’s not a wham bam build. It takes some hard work to make work how you want but the end result, knowing you beat someone and they still don’t know what the hell happened=Priceless.
I actually prefer this trait setup as a condition build more BUT it shines in a 1v1 best.; http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWlwzipXUzmGb9IipH9WwBckUoavWJF42FC-j0CBINCi0CIUgAUHRMHqIaslgBpKaasaIYqUER1eDYuDER1SBAxaA-w

Thanks for the input Samiell! I really appreciate it. And yes, beating people and knowing that they have no idea what just happened is priceless. That’s why I like it when I can take on 2 or 3 people for awhile, because the longer it takes for them to beat you, the madder they get. =)

I have a similar trait setup, only difference is i have 20 points in duelling for DE.
I don’t need the CD reduction on torch so far, though my setup don’t have much condition removal.

My utillity skills are:
Ether Feast
Decoy
Blink (reduced CD trait)
Veil when i bigger groups and Archane Thievery in small/solo (reduced CD trait)
Mass invissibility

I have full knight gear, except back (berserker), weapons (soldier).
I use Centaur runes for speed (goes well with +30% boon)
Sigil of fire on GS, Perception on Sword and Restoration on Torch (works wonders in Zerg fights).

My stats are around:
2200 toughnes
3400 attack (with GS 50 pow and sharpening stone)
57% Crit chance with percention sigil full stacked, (+20% trait for phantasm)
16.8k hp (will increase that with 2500 hp from wxp rank ‘Defence against guards’)

Food:
Sharpening Stone
Meat and Stew (100% might on dogde, +40% endurance refill, so nice with DE, dunno if it stacks with vigor though).

I’ve played this setup for 2 weeks now and it’s my favorite ever, it fits my playstile.
I’m here to mez with people, and this works well by using stealth and DE all the time.
I might go more dmg later on, but i still decen’t, I don’t have a hard time killing stuff.
In Zergs i works so well, easy to survive and put out damage at the same time.

This is pretty nit picky of me, but if you want to optimize stats:

Knight’s Chest instead of Berserker Chest

Berserker Shoulders, Gloves and Boots instead of Knight’s.

Comparison:
Zerk Chest + Knight’s “small pieces”
173 Power
144 Precision
102 Toughness
5 Critical Damage

or

Knight Chest + Zerk “small pieces”
174 Power
144 Precision
101 Toughness
6% Critical Damage.

So basically,
Lose 1 Toughness
Gain 1 Power and 1% Critical Damage

Unless my math is incorrect, which is possible! It’s a minor change, but if you wanna min-max to your full potential, this gear combination will net you a tiny amount more damage!

MacLeod.4208:

Pyroatheist.9031:

@MacLeod: Removing 10 points from domination into dueling makes you lose 100 power, gain 4% crit chance, 10% crit damage, and an additional 20% crit chance for your phantasms (that last one is the biggie). To put that in % terms, you are losing ~4% power and gaining ~10% more crit chance, ~16% crit power, and an additional 54% crit chance for your phantasms.

Awesome breakdown, thank you! That is the part of theory crafting that I am just terrible at.

As far as the torch CD here is how a fight usually goes for me (and please feel free to make suggestions), start off with GS get my zerker out as fast as I can, then use mirror blade and tag them a few times with the laser (if they are ranged) or tag them until they get too close (if they are melee). Then I decoy, switch to sword/torch, ileap, blurred frenzy, prestige, blink behind them, switch to GS and start over. Obviously I deviate from that when I need to, but that is what I basically try to do. By the time I get back to my sword the 2nd time the prestige is off of CD when traited (or very close). I’m scared of the extra time it will take to get off CD if I don’t trait for it. Anyway, that is why I’m reluctant to get rid of that. I will definitely give it a try and see how it goes though.

Thanks again for discussing this with me.

The cooldown will certainly be a bit longer. It won’t flow quite as smoothly. You’ll most likely want to play both ways, see if the extra damage you’re able to pull seems to be worth the longer cooldown.

Thanks everyone! Really appreciate the feedback.

Samiell.1259:

I use a build quite close to this. It ends up looking more like what pyro is taking about. It’s lots of fun and extremely frustrating to deal with if your on the receiving end.
Let your phantasms do most of your fighting. Use stealth to help out your cd’s. You have 2 blocks, both which will hurt bad. Dump sword clones out while stealthed to confuse the hell out of your opponents. When stealth ends run at your opponent just like the clones. Oh, laugh while doing it. Laugh maniacally.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArf8clwzipXUzmGb9IipH9WwBckUoavWJF42FC-j0DBocC0YLQUgAUEIkIhmKBK5BKBiIjtKqIasaHYqSLqW5CwgDwbAzdYR1CBMaBA-w

I like the build @Samiell, but i’d suggest swapping Debilitating Dissipation with either Master of Manipulation for a shorter cooldown on both blink and arcane thievery, or with Mirror of Anguish if you’re running into someone who’s using a lot of crowd control. I think you’ll get more milage out of it.

I love the idea of building around stealth though; I mostly run a standard phantasm build and this looks like it could be a lot of fun in wvw.

Jay.5604:

Food:
Sharpening Stone
Meat and Stew (100% might on dogde, +40% endurance refill, so nice with DE, dunno if it stacks with vigor though).

Sadly not. Vigor gives you +100% endurance refill and it’s capped at that. I looked into an engie build that had perma +220% endurance refill but it wasn’t possible, which is a shame.

Even.4687:

Jay.5604:

Food:
Sharpening Stone
Meat and Stew (100% might on dogde, +40% endurance refill, so nice with DE, dunno if it stacks with vigor though).

Sadly not. Vigor gives you +100% endurance refill and it’s capped at that. I looked into an engie build that had perma +220% endurance refill but it wasn’t possible, which is a shame.

Oh, that’s really a shame, but there is still times where Vigor isn’t up, like when retreating to reset the fight. It’s still the food I’ll prefer to use, but I’m open to ideas for what will fit better with my setup.