Guild Wars 2

Basically I theory crafted these after prior thread and the idea of max power on Mesmer. I’m going to start working on this gear but I was wondering if anyone had input on these 3.
General concept: Full PVT, max power/tankiness for WvW front line build. Stack might with interrupts. Stack retaliation with mimic + retaliatory shield. All of the following builds will be around ~3800 power/4800 attack ? 480 retaliation dmg. You read that right. With full Power high gear, you can reach about 2593 power. With sharpening stones, 2784 power. With might, +875 power. With bloodlust, +250 power.

Power Overwhelming:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgUQNAR8dlwz6pHVTlGa9IhpHE33Cn0DTn6TXqguB-jUCBofCyEEwUBBK1sIas1WMasVYAKbYqXER1WzFRrWKgLWGB-w
30/10/30/0/0. +5 power infusions on everything, 25 stacks of bloodlust, and 25 might from bountiful interruption will hit 4000 POWER! For 500 retaliation damage. 5k attack, 3k defense and 22k health. Sigil of Force ftw. Runes of Holbrook/Melandru + Lemongrass could be used at the cost of 200 power.

Mantra of Masochism:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgUQNAsdWl4z6pHSTlGa9IhpHE33InUBTX6huvdsB-jECBofCiEEgUBBK1sIasFYFRjVZDT9iIq2auIa1SBYiyI-w
10/30/30/0/0 although 0/30/20/20/0 for some extra mantra healing could work. It’s a mantra spam build that is meant to be super tank. Can bring decent group condi removal/stability. Has ~3600 armor while casting mantras due to the recent buffs. Runes of the Forge for 17 seconds of protection on a 60 second ICD. Illusionary membrane at 5 every 15 seconds. Random protection from bountiful interruption and chaos armor just might be able to get perma protection as well. Remember to use Mantra of stability with Mimic and Blurred Frenzy. This build will “ONLY” have 3400 power.

Empower Allies:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgUQRAsd8clwz6pHQTlGa9IhpHE33Cn0DT76TXqguB-jkCBofBkgAkKAI1sIaslhBp6KslXRTZDT9iIq2auIa1SBYiyI-w
30/10/30/0/0: 95% boon duration. By rotating your 2 AOE interrupts, you should always have 25 might. Mimic will stack 29 seconds of retaliation. Then share it with your allies. Even if your allies have zero extra power, they will hit a minimum 332 retaliation when you share those boons.

I believe retaliation is nerfed to 66% of its normal power in WvW, so it’s not quite as strong. You’ll be hitting about 328.

If that’s how you like to play you should roll a warrior or a guardian.

Basically you are trying to mimic warriors by full PVT gear and traiting for power as much as possible. Throwing some retalliation into it doesn’t help either.

Just trying to get max power and toughness with a class doesn’t make it a viable WvW build right away. In fact you are actually sacrificing surviability and DPS with your setup compared to other builds.

But on the other hand if this is how you have the most fun playing then it’s perfectly fine.

I once tried going full pvt and I’ve always though its not a good idea. A lot of Mesmer skills scale quite bad with power. Only BF, Mind Wrack, iDuelist, iWarden, iSwordman, iWarlock, prestige and maybe one or two skills take a lot of advantage of having high power.
That means having high power is only reliable from duels to maybe 3vs3.

Then, retaliation it was nerf to the ground, same as confusion, so making it one ofw the main sources of damage is not a good idea, just because the damage you will receive will always be higher than what you will be doing with retaliation.

The retaliation damage nerf for wvw was not on the wiki =/
Thanks for mentioning that.

With the mantra build, the crit chance/dmg will be lower than a zerker build but the power will be so much higher that the damage should sort of even out. 4000 power isn’t going to hit like a wet noodle even if it doesn’t crit that often. I would consider the retaliation a bonus. If power is reliable in 3v3, then why isn’t it viable in a larger zerg? I would consider condi to be even worst as the numbers/condi clears increase.

I guess for anyone that has actually frontlined with a guardian/warrior, what makes them so much tankier/better compared to these builds? The warrior doesn’t have protection and only has endure pain (x2 if traited), shield stance (usually not) and the new heal. We have blurred frenzy and mimic for our damage mitigations and distortion (not happening in zergs). However, BF and mimic have much shorter CDs than the warrior skills. Likewise guardians have their heal and ult as the several second blocks but those are 30 and 90 second CDs. They can give aoe stability and condi clearing but so do mantras.

Most guardians I see are just spamming staff auto attack so that isn’t exactly spectacular dps. Warriors do bring cc with the hammer but that is why I tried incorporating interrupts into these builds.

I am not claiming that this build is an immortal mesmer (RIP) but would they be really so bad on the frontline? Would they die so much faster than a warrior/guardian that I would be rally fodder? I genuinely don’t know the answer to this since I have never tried to frontline before. I’m just not convinced by your arguments since I’m not seeing them backed up with any hard evidence/theory.

DuckDuck, as I have time, so this will be a long post. I’ve also changed a little bit my mind, a frontline melee mesmer can have his point, but I do doubt we will ever have the potential of warriors/guards.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

If power is reliable in 3v3, then why isn’t it viable in a larger zerg? I would consider condi to be even worst as the numbers/condi clears increase.

It’s not cause the power itself, mesmer skills are the reason. Single-target mesmer skills are the ones that scale better with power, expect BF, Mind Wrack and The Prestige, which also scale quite well.
Unless you’re running a pure shatter build with sword trait, I’ve experienced having decent critical damage and critical chance grants you much bigger numbers.
I also remind you that critical hits are applied after final damage calculation, so toughness has a small impact on them.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I guess for anyone that has actually frontlined with a guardian/warrior, what makes them so much tankier/better compared to these builds?

There are 5 things they share that make them so important in frontline:
- The first is healing. The best way to survive in the frontline is through heals. That’s why a group of 10 people can survive against a zerg of 40. Warriors have Healing Signet that grants a 400 health/s passive heal, this is huge, and they heal 1750 with every shout (aoe heal). Then, guards are the kings of healing skills, so no need to explain why they are good on this.
- The second, some sort related with the first, is the huge amount of Blast finishers they can do. A guard can blast every 5s, and warriors every 10s with earthshaker and every 16s with #5 traited warhorn. That means they’re the masters of combo finishers. However, mesmers only have 1 blast finisher on a 30s skill and is a bad blast finisher cause it needs 3s from skill activation to do the blast.
- The third is the stability, the most important boon is the frontline. They can apply quite long stability on their party with just 1 skill, and those have good CD’s. Yes, mesmers also have the mantra, but the fact that we need 3s to cast it and to click 3 times to do the same as guards/warriors make us less wanted for it. Also, with mantra we only give stability, while they also give swiftness and retaliation.
- The fourth is condi-cleansing. With the rune of Soldier they both can clean up to 2 conditions with shouts (Most of their builds have, at least, 2 shouts). Yes, we have Mantra of Resolve, but it only does that, cleaning conditions.
- And the 5th is obvious, they have heavy armor and we, light armor. They start with +300 armor than us.

As you can see, we can do nearly everything they do, except of blasting combos, but they do it much more efficient. With one non-casting skill, they grant long stability+another boon and cure conditions. Also, they heal a lot more than us and they have quite a lot of more armor, so in the end, they survive more, even they don’t have that much evade-skills we do.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Most guardians I see are just spamming staff auto attack so that isn’t exactly spectacular dps. Warriors do bring cc with the hammer but that is why I tried incorporating interrupts into these builds.

There’s a reason some warrior hammer skills have seen their damage nerfed in this last patch. See these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaRGUCXfqfQ
Also, this one shows the totally OP damage warriors can have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je7ktc2MHqs
And Guards don’t do that damage cause they are nearly always traited full supportive, as they shine on it, but this doesn’t mean they cannot provide good DPS. Here’s a video of an offensive guard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQFawIvP9qU

Also, we are quite bad on aoe interrupts. Chaos Storm is random. Diversion needs to be traited, so no. Counter Blade does not work being in melee with the internal CD. Magic bullet only affects 2 enemies (plus the blind). Only illusionary Wave has some potential, but it’s in a ranged weapon, and I find staff better for the type of builds we’re discussing.
I wouldn’t focus on interrupts. Instead, we have a lot and easy ways to apply control conditions (Blind, cripple, poisson…). I’d focus more on this type of cc.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I am not claiming that this build is an immortal mesmer (RIP) but would they be really so bad on the frontline? Would they die so much faster than a warrior/guardian that I would be rally fodder?

It’s not enough if you ask yourself you’d survive more on the melee. You have to ask yourself what your build can bring being in melee. For me, a pseudo-melee mesmer brings good support and cc via conditions, but doing that you end having poor DPS.

Continuing… (Post length exceeded).

SO…

I see a mantra/control conditions build the only one that can have some potential. Mantra of Resolve and Concentration, Crippling Dissipation+DE, Harmonious Mantras, Restorative Mantras, 2900 armor and 21k base health (without Defense guard buff) would be, FOR ME, essential things to bring/have in a frontline melee build.

It’s an interesting idea to theorycraft, it can also be a good for commanding, and see which will be the results and how is compared to the heavy classes performance, but one must be extremely pacient, tons of people will eat you for running a melee-train mesmer.

Just a real quick note: armor affects critical hits exactly the same amount it affects everything else.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Just a real quick note: armor affects critical hits exactly the same amount it affects everything else.

I’ve done some maths and you’re right, I felt, don’t know why, the reduction was bigger on normal hits.

Weakness used to only affect normal hits and not critical hits? However, that is no longer the case. Might have been confused with that?

This started off as a silly thought experiment for me but now I’m seriously thinking about this. As I said before, I have never frontlined, especially on my mesmer, so thank you so much for all the advice.

What about this build? 30/20/0/20/0. Meets the specs you listed off earlier. I also think sword auto attack will also be doing decent damage with it so it’s not like we don’t have any sustainable power. By decent I mean comparable to the sword auto I saw the warriors using. No more self might stacks/random fury but that’s what FGJ is for ^^.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgUQRAsd8fl4z6pHSTlGa9IyJFQnzR6Rp9arWJF32FC-jECBofDimgAk+IQUBwpmFRjtupIasKbYaYER1SBUxyI-w

If the two areas we fall behind in are blast finishers and healing, I decided to try and add a bit of that. No way we can catch up on blast finishers but the traited torch for the delayed bomb, blast finisher and aoe blind can help. It’s also our only non illusion dependant offhand.

So healing wise, every 8(cd)3(charge)3(discharge) = every 14 seconds, self heal would be 2766×3= 8298. Aoe healing would be 2673+176 x 6 sec regen. Total self heal from spamming would be about 900 per second. Furthermore, the other 2 mantras would also do the aoe heal. Something I noticed in those videos you posted is that they would dive, fall back, count a few seconds to recover then dive again. That recovery stage seems perfect for mantra play. Spam mantras while diving, then recharge them to heal allies.

Thoughts? and TY again.

Hm I think that’s better. Not sure about sword on both sets, but maybe it could work. At least you’d always have BF handy right off CD.

My opinion – take 10 from dueling and throw it into inspiration for the full 30 to trait your focus, which is invaluable in WvW. Also don’t forget about blasting on that curtain for nice AoE retaliation.

That’s something similar I had in mind.

30/20/0/20/0 would be the best for me. Even may be better scepter/focus + sword/torch, so you have one ranged and one melee set.

Power can be bumped through lot of different ways. The maximum amount of power we can have is around 3800 with all buffs. I find 1900 base power (no foods and bloodlust/might stacks) a good number (half of the maximum). With all the added, you put up to 3200 power, which means around 84% of the maximum we can reach, and that is pretty big.
If you have problems to get them, it’s better to focus on power. But unless you’re playing with a pug zerg where nobody is bumping might, balancing power-critical hits will grant better DPS. Try to mix with sentinel/cavalier/valkyrie/knight.

The heals are astonishing. 13,6k self-healing in 9s + 5,5k aoe healing in the first 5s (regeneration apart). Also the condi-cleansing is amazing. In 6s, 12 self-conditions + 6 aoe conditions.

PD: If they added a blast finisher on the start of Prestige…

This thread has got me thinking aswell about more zerg viable mesmers.
Been toying around with mainly pvt builds on buildcraft now.
And there seems to be something that is often overlooked, which is sigils on the weapons.
When in zerg fights, ‘on kill’ sigils should be very usefull as people you tagged die left and right you constantly get kills. What if you use sigils as ‘Superior sigil of stamina’ and ‘Superior sigil or restoration’ or ‘Superior sigil of luck’
Thats basically free endurance, free boons, free healing everytime someone dies.
Offcourse you can only have max 2 sigils active at a time, so you aren’t getting all 3 of those.

Blasting for retal got me thinking. Most ppl blast for might but we’re mesmers so sure, we can mix things up. We can charge/spam our heals without wasting them like other classes so why not make our heals the source of AOE might/fury: Runes of Altruism.

5 Mesmers with Runes of altruism would be giving AOE 15 stacks of might for 11.5 seconds and 29 seconds of fury on a 15 second CD. Rather than using veil before charging in, 1 mesmer drops temporal curtain while the rest Prestige in it. Charge in invisible while appearing with an AOE bomb, 20 seconds AOE burning and 18 seconds of AOE retaliation.

Water field combos would be lacking but I think mantra healing could come close. 5 mesmers spamming mantra of stability would be overkill. Same with resolve, given that each build has a crap ton of condi removal. So an extra mantra of pain here or there could be more “dps/heal focused.”

Furthermore, signet of inspiration on 2 mesmers would cap Might for the group. However, I have another question about retal that I can try testing later. If retal only stacks 5 times, does signet of inspiration combine those numbers and count as 1 stack? The same would go for stability. 3 stack max for 6 seconds. Would a double signet of inspiration turn that into 18 seconds or 6 seconds?

Protection would be the only boon that would be hard to come by for the group and runes of altruism would be taking away the regen I initially thought of… So leaping through ethereal fields with sword 3 for chaos armor. 1 or 2 mesmers bring null field/feedback instead of the redundant mantras. Random regen and protection while also having random blind/cripple (and confusion). 1 chaos armor alone would be weak on the blinding but since most attacks are AOE, wouldn’t a group of mesmers be able to “spam” counter blinds.

A 100% mesmer zerg frontline? with all the boons o_O.