Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

With the latest change of Harmonious Mantra being in Dueling traitline, recently I have been experimenting a WvW specialist build (0/6/6/2/0) that makes use of MoP 3 charges to achieve a nasty burst dmg in less in than 4s, rivalling the best burst of dps ranger (rapid fire + fury + quickness).

I list the build here:
My original version: Marksman of Pain
Warlord of Chaos’ more aggressive version: Marksman of Pain and Mental Torment

Its role as a long-range assault, sniper so to speak, making use of PU and stealth mechanic to disengage when things go bad. With PU and stealth giving you a solid defense, you can go all out dps with zerker (or assassin) gear, you can grab traveller rune to have speed and give you positional advantage.

Now the burst dmg from MoP is probably not our best in terms of dmg (that would be IP 4-clone Mind Wrack in my reckoning), but it requires less setup and less reliant on AI.

So what do u guys think? I’m interested to hear opinions from mesmer pros here whether or not this build can be decent as dueling 1v1 build as well, as for group fight, I have had very good experience with it so i think its solid.

Please discuss.

Edited: The build came out of the discussion about the use of Mantra of Pain in a PU power build before and I have updated the link with the refined version of the build.

Assassin gear works better than Zerker for this build since you really want MoP to crit.
My food and gear choice is based on what I have available and for my optimized survivability. I’m sure you guys can trade the toughness/vit for even more dmg.

I like this build. My only recommendation is to swap mirror for a traited mantra heal. The multiple condi-cleanse would be nice, especially while disengaging with immob, chill, or cripple on you.

Hi Dhampyr, glad u like the build.

I’ll be honest, I still suck at micro-manage mantra charges (have never play any mantra build) especially in the heat of battle, so I figure I stick with only MoP atm. But i can see the benefits of heal mantra. Having said that, Mirror heal has its own synergy with the build, since most of the time, enemies will need to attack u from range and most likely with projectiles, Mirror provides extra defense and offense with the reflect.

I’m thinking of switching out air sigil on gs for the sigil of intelligence for the three guaranteed critical hits of MoP Power Spike.

Also, just a note from my experience, it helps a lot to turn off autoattack with this build since spamming gs aa will reveal your position, unsuitable for the sneaky sniper playstyle, unless u r really good at positioning and/or distracting enemies with a gs clone.

Dhampyr.2104:

I like this build. My only recommendation is to swap mirror for a traited mantra heal. The multiple condi-cleanse would be nice, especially while disengaging with immob, chill, or cripple on you.

This. Seems like travesty to not take advantage of the mass condi cleanse.

Additionally, Mirror is a poor choice in a PU build because reflects in stealth trigger Revealed.

Your choice in Bountiful Disruption is questionable since you only have GS 5 + Shatter3 as interrupt sources. I would suggest -Blink CD or Mirror of Anguish instead.

Honestly, I rather like the idea. I’m just unsure of how effective it’ll actually be.

I think bountiful interruption is a poor choice. You’d be better off with manipulation cooldowns. That combined with long range manipulation will really allow you to maneuver effectively.

As others have said, mirror isn’t the best choice. The heal mantra would be very effective in this build.

You might actually be better off with Assassin’s gear instead of zerker. Mantra of pain scales…oddly…with power. Critical hits, however, are always a given.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I will take your advice on board about heal mantra and manipulation cd trait.

@Pyro: MoP scales… how oddly? Full on assassin’s gear, interesting, but would the crit-chance increase outweigh the loss in power overall?
Also, whats your opinion on the sigil, air vs intelligence?

I like the idea, it looks interesting. Might be a silly question but…. What about using staff? Warlock seems nicer than berserker for duels and you turn off the aa anyway.

Side note: Mantra heal allows centaur runes for cheap people such as me.

keenlam.4753:

@Pyro: MoP scales… how oddly?

Hard to say really. I can say that it doesn’t scale properly with weapon damage, it uses some other modifier. It does scale with power, but I’ve been entirely unable to determine exactly how it scales. It’s as unreliable as all getout, which is why I’d much rather gamble on a static crit damage boost than power.

As for sigils…neither. I’ll never run a pvp build, let alone a dueling build, that doesn’t have an energy sigil in each weaponset. That’s just my opinion, but I’ll stick by it for sure.

I was running a max-range/max-damage mantra build for a while (before the patch, with 30 points in Domination for Harmonious Mantras). Had MoP slotted for extra burst. Also good for tagging some extra targets when zerging in WvW.

The damage from MoP is nothing spectacular, but often it was the last missing bit to burst someone into downstate. My favorite burst combination was iWarlock + iZerker + MoP. The iWarlock from staff has a delay, its damage doesn’t come instant (it often has to move a bit first and the projectile speed is slow). You can immediately switch to greatsword and cast a iZerker so they’ll hit both at the same time. Add a MoP nuke and watch them drop from full health into downstate in an instant. (best used when sneaking up from behind on unaware or otherwise distracted enemies, because a single dodge roll might ruin your entire burst)

Aside of that, I often found myself using MoP as a healing ability (with Restorative Mantras trait). Being able to heal my group members was really helpful. But that’s impossible to include in a 0 6 6 2 0 build, you’d have to give up PU for that (or give up Harmonious Mantras, but mantra builds without HM aren’t viable).

Of course I was using the mantra heal with Menders Purity. It’s simply great. (I was even using this before Menders Purity got buffed, had the cleansing mantra slotted for extra condi-removal, but that’s obsolete now.)

Conclusion:
In my old mantra-build MoP had 3 different uses.
- extra burst
- tagging enemies
- (group) heal

Now I play a different build and I do not miss the burst, but I do miss the tagging ability and the group heal.

@Toeofdoom: believe it or not, i did try the build with staff as it has been my long time favourite weapon, but staff attacks are slow and it didn’t feel right for a bursty build when u want to burst people down hard then gtfo. I think staff would be more suitable for a more sustained build like 0/4/6/4/0 where u grab Restorative Mantras.

@Snoxx: agree with you that when MoP charge doesn’t crit, its dmg is just slightly more powerful than gs aa at max range… so pretty meh, but when it crits, it can proc both fire and air sigils, and unlike gs aa the dmg is consistent at any range; also, the way MoP works, its next to impossible for enemies to mitigate it.

I do realize the weakness of this build is lack of AoE dmg (thus bag-tagging), but its a specialist build that aims to assassinate a key target in group fight so AoE is outside the original purpose.

Side note: I do find it quite amusing to pretend you’re a clone spamming gs aa while secretly Power Spike enemies from range, and when enemies figure out which one is the real you, you just stealth away.

Yes, MoP can proc fire and air sigils. This reminds me about another unconventional use of MoP in my old build:

- slowing down runners

I had sigil of doom in both weapons (GS and staff) to slow down runners. But with staff they often outrun your autoattack projectiles, Phase Retreat doesn’t work against runners, and the iWarlock is way too slow. But MoP can fix this problem.

If someone attempts to run away, you’d always try to catch ‘em with GS, it’s the perfect weapon for chasing. But if iZerker and autoattack is not enough, you switch to staff and nuke him with MoP. That’s instant poison on your target at 1200 range, slowing him down. After that you might be able to kill him with an iWarlock, or at least you should be able to keep up long enough to switch back to GS. That’s instant poison again, followed by a iZerker soon after …

Works as well with sword/xxxx instead of staff.

@Snoxx: sorry but I dont understand your logic, how poison slows down a runner? Did u mean torment or chilled?

He means hitting them so they lose the OOC-speed. Staff is really bad for that due to the slow projectile speed.

keenlam.4753:

@Toeofdoom: believe it or not, i did try the build with staff as it has been my long time favourite weapon, but staff attacks are slow and it didn’t feel right for a bursty build when u want to burst people down hard then gtfo. I think staff would be more suitable for a more sustained build like 0/4/6/4/0 where u grab Restorative Mantras.

Fair enough, just wondered with the traits lining up and phase retreat allowing mantra charges (from memory).

For a slightly more ridiculous option… You could go sw/sw and sw/t! I tried a full melee mantra 2/6/0/6/0 and while it was noticeably worse than using greatsword, it also had no stealth. I want to try this variant

@keenlam:
I think poison has some tiny slow effect built in (not just the OOC vs. infight speed difference). After I started using Doom sigils on both weaponsets I was able to chase more runners than before.

Snoxx.7943:

@keenlam:
I think poison has some tiny slow effect built in (not just the OOC vs. infight speed difference). After I started using Doom sigils on both weaponsets I was able to chase more runners than before.

It doesn’t.

Seems I was mistaken at this point. Did some tests in the mists, no speed debuff included.

Sorry for the confusion and thanks for the clarification

Updated the link with the refined version of the build.
Anyone else has tried this build? Please let me know what you think.

I tried the full melee version in hotjoin to get a feel for it. pu easily makes up for the loss of restorative mantras. On the damage side it didn’t seem great but my DE/stealth/full melee PvP skills are very rusty. I’ll keep trying and test wvw roaming as well… Including with GS and sw/P to compare those options.

Edit: this is comparing damage to a phantasm /mantra berserker build so being a bit lower is expected really.

keenlam.4753:

Hi guys,

With the latest change of Harmonious Mantra being in Dueling traitline, recently I have been experimenting a WvW specialist build (0/6/6/2/0) that makes use of MoP 3 charges to achieve a nasty burst dmg in less in than 4s, rivalling the best burst of dps ranger (rapid fire + fury + quickness).

I list the build here: Marksman of Pain

Its role as a long-range assault, sniper so to speak, making use of PU and stealth mechanic to disengage when things go bad. With PU and stealth giving you a solid defense, you can go all out dps with zerker gear, you can grab traveller rune to have speed and give you positional advantage.

Now the burst dmg from MoP is probably not our best in terms of dmg (that would be IP 4-clone Mind Wrack in my reckoning), but it requires less setup and less reliant on AI.

So what do u guys think? I’m interested to hear opinions from mesmer pros here whether or not this build can be decent as dueling 1v1 build as well, as for group fight, I have had very good experience with it so i think its solid.

Please discuss.

Edited: The build came out of the discussion about the use of Mantra of Pain in a PU power build before and I have updated the link with the refined version of the build.

Assassin gear works better than Zerker for this build since you really want MoP to crit.
My food and gear choice is based on what I have available and for my optimized survivability. I’m sure you guys can trade the toughness/vit for more dmg.

I was trying a variant of this build yesterday before coming on this forum this morning. I was running with 2/4/6/0/2 s/p and s/t. Close combats stun/stealth game. Didn’t really get the time to test it out in PvP or WvW.

On both sword I have might on swooping to help with personal damage, stun duration on p, can’t remember rut now what I had fit t. While the build do do an OK damage, the fact that I don’t get hit or hardly get hit only by aoe damage at all makes it very good.

With my build I try not to take mantras. I found I don’t really like that have play.

I will give your build a go later today and compare the damage out out with mine.

Shameless self-bump, I know. Just kinda feel obliged to do it

I have had really good feedback about this build over a couple of last weeks. With the help of my good friend Warlord of Chaos, the build has gone through certain adjustments and optimizations, I post his version of the build here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsfRl0npMtFrxENcrNyqxY6ZOZFSVQpzI7AA-TVDBABmqChg7PAxhAINlg3oDAgTAgXKRwR1lsUeli2AGeAAbcEA0RNgAAIAczbuzhuzbWKAmEGB-w and in the OP as well.

Now, based on my experience and possibly my skill level too, this build is not good for dueling. My reasons for it include:
- its lack of CC to pin down opponents at range, on greatsword u only have cripple, against classes with amazing gap closers (thief, warrior, guardian) u will be forced to swap into sword/torch eventually and thus you end up playing the build just like a shatter build (without the traiting to buff your shatter).
- its lack of boonstripping, this really hurts the damage output against classes with plenty access to defensive boons.

Having said all that, the build is not designed for dueling, so I’m okay with those weaknesses. The build designed to “gank” unwary foes (especially the squishy ones) from range and it excels at just that. The bigger your group/zerg is, the better this build shines; this comes from the fact that you burst from range and have plenty access to stealth which in turns makes you a super-sneaky sniper

So just a quick summary about whats this build is good and bad at_
Pros:
- Insane burst damage from RANGE
- Nice balance between offense/defense due to trait and gear choices
- Easy to engage/disengage enemies at will
- Decent condition removal (not that you plan to get hit by conditions though)
Cons:
- Lack of CCs (not a big issue in small group fight, and definitely a non-existent issue in zerg)
- Lack of boonstripping (this can be solved by having a shatter mes, a mes running null field, or thief in your gank party)
- Lack of reliable AoE dmg (not optimal to solo camps)
- Not weakness, but this build definitely requires good positioning and awareness of enemies and the surroundings, need to choose your target wisely.

Normal burst skill rotation (including GS autoattacks in-between): iZerker —> Mirror Blade --> Mind Wrack (2 illusions) —> Power Spike x3

So again, any feedback from someone else who has good fun and success with this build is more than welcome.