Guild Wars 2

Hello my dears.
Many mesmers seem to have rerolled to something else due to no longer being viable in tpvp. So I made up my mind about possible ways to revive mesmer as (maybe top notch) viable choice.

Here a list, explanations will follow.

Support shatter (tPvP viable)
PU retaliation/condition
Interrupter

Now, let us begin with support shatter.

PU retaliation
Prismatic understanding.

Interrupter

I hope you enjoy these builds, especially support shatter might inspire some resistance against the necro-fotm

Some interesting builds.Though not to sure on the support Shatter build in my opinion i would change:

- Mental Torment to Rending Shatter
- Compounding Clarity to Wardens Feedback
- Greatsword to Sword+Focus

Shame no Illusions trait the added time on Shatters i am not sure about. I wonder how a ?/?/?30/30 build would do. Problems being losing DE (such a good trait) Sharper Images is pretty solid as well

Though not quite sure how it would work out. Might for you and Vul for them would be pretty decent. Currently I am liking the Might on Interrupt, Might on weapon swap, Might on Shatter and possibly Might on Heal (Rune) of Osicat Shatter build, though the Might on Heal is something i am thinking of adding

A few questions for your zerker support shatter:
How do you get around the map? You don’t have any swiftness/blink/portal. I figured with a support build, why not use centaur runes to give AOE swiftness and vigor and maybe glamour cd for more portal instead.

With no weapon skill CD/celerity, most of your clones are coming from DE? That doesn’t seem like much. How often do you shatter with a full set of 3 illusions. I ask because of your damage trait set up. MW without IP and only 1 or 2 clones doesn’t seem worth the damage.

You have phantasmal fury and 15% more dmg (inspiration) but you chose 20% more MW. Would you be better off with more phantasm dmg? Summon double phantasms for a quick spike. Leave the shatters for defense. Maybe even trait your signet for a 72 sec cd?

What are your teammates running?

@Armageddon: Rending shatter cant stack enough vulnerability in my opinion, worth a try tho. Mental torment allows me to do some more or less decent burst if needed.
Sword focus seems useless to me because due to the lack of illusionary persona you don´t need your enemy in melee range. Focus 4 1s CD on pull makes it very weak.

For x/x/x/30/30 variant see my condition version. With 30 on Illusions and no mental torment I havent tried power shatter yet.
Might and vuln stacking thru shatters doesn´t really work out atm. The meta is based around conditions ad vulnerability doesn´t work for that. Also you take too much time stacking.

@DuckDuckBoom: Centaur runes seem pretty sweet actually. I didn´t think of centaurs yet, and schoolars are good for the burst component. For pure support it would be good. Actually I´m making a heavy support version right now. All I´l say is mantras.
For mobility, I´m swapping utilities a lot, trying to find the best combination. Usually I have one mobility skill minimum in there.
Traiting phantasmal damage in a build based around shattering all the time doesn´t sound appealing, but it too is worth a try.
The builds are far from complete, but I felt the community is in dire need of something round the lines of support shatter. It´s the best counter to necro fotm I know. I´l keep u guys tuned. And I´l edit a lot.
What I think is awesome about my support shatter is, thakittens support is bound to offensive play, without the need of aditional actions. Ele switches to water to cleanse, no dmg there. Pressure goes down -> enemies can spam conditions easier.
You see you have too many conditions -> go mad and jump into your opponents doing your burst -> whoops! No more conds on your team ;D And when you burst the enemy is forced to dodge/counter that -> less incoming damage.

Saving the shatters for support only seems reasonable, but due to permanent vigor you aught to keep mindwreck minimum, maybe cry of frustration too, on CD at all times. By dodge spawning clones you can afford it and keep vigor up for all your team.

I´l be adding variants for such things.
Thanks for your feedback <3

Blimm.5028:

@Armageddon: Rending shatter cant stack enough vulnerability in my opinion, worth a try tho. Mental torment allows me to do some more or less decent burst if needed.
Sword focus seems useless to me because due to the lack of illusionary persona you don´t need your enemy in melee range. Focus 4 1s CD on pull makes it very weak.

For x/x/x/30/30 variant see my condition version. With 30 on Illusions and no mental torment I havent tried power shatter yet.
Might and vuln stacking thru shatters doesn´t really work out atm. The meta is based around conditions ad vulnerability doesn´t work for that. Also you take too much time stacking.

Scepter isnt that great, Nice clone creation but takes to long. Confusing Images sucks, well confusion in general sucks in my opinion, the Torment is nice IF you land it but that isnt always going to happen.

I wouldnt really call it that much of a condition build without Sharper Images, No condition on death either (does that count for shattering as well?) change the confusion trait, the scepter trait and it could become a decent support build though. I think in fights stacking Might on yourself (and allies with heal rune) and Vul on targets could work quite well.

Shame the Osicat build cant be tweaked to include it, DE and BI are just to important and IP offers to much without having a clone active, using Distortion has saved me so many times.

Scepter is very powerful in the right hands. With some training you can land torment very reliably. Confusion is underrated. If a burst ele for instance has more then 10 stacks of it he will oneshot himself due to his burst requiring him to use 5-10 skills in less then half a second.
I see you are a fan of might-stacking, but in tPvP others are just way better at it. If your team is anywhere near decent you wont be able to stack high enough to make it profitable. You cant maintain high mightstacks on mesmer anyway. The duration is too short. Vulnerability is the same. Others do the 25 stacks mark very fast and diversion shatter on mesmer does it well too. But traiting for one additional vuln stack per clone doesn´t make sense.
All of this is my personal opinion.
Confusing images can if done right stack 5 stacks of confusion on a hole team.

And we all know IP is powerful. But dodging once will give you a clone to shred. And shattered conditions doesn’t synergise with IP anyway.

Yeah i used to have Scepter, great at clone creation even if it was VERY slow, Torment i could get off quite easily its just wasted thanks to the fact that Confusing Images sucks, to easy to spot and to easy to dodge.

reason i dont do TPvP, its broken. Same with SPvP i do most of my PvP in WvW. I might dip into it every now and then but 99% of my kills will be from WvW.

In my opinion The Scepter is stuck between Power and Condition builds, they buff it for power and condition users arent happy, buff it for conditions and power users arent happy as the other will always come off worse.

If they made it a PROPER Condition weapon (a bleed or something on auto) turned the auto so its quicker, made #2 a Aura and replaced #3 with something better then it would be great, til then its average. It can be great in the right spec (disagree with your “right hands”) but its subpar in anything else.

Well, that explains some things. Many things good in wvw are not viable in tPvP. For instance in wvw you are ither outnumbering or outnumbered all the time. In tPvP that is not so. You don´t need such heavy cleansing in WvW ither.

Yeah i have pretty much given up on S/TPvP until the Condition heavy Meta is fixed.

Well, I try to counter that meta :P

Im glad you also like retaliatory shield with PU and block skills.
I run that build (trait wise its the same, but i use master of manipulation instead of mirror of anguish) especially in wvw but its also funny in spvp/tpvp.
Master of manipulation works for blink, instead of SoM, and arcane thievery/mimic based on the fight.
You have so many ways to disengage that you have to play really bad to die.
For pvp, obviously stealth is annoying and you need to kill things as soon as possible, with all the damage sources is not hard and the enemy needs to have very massive condition removals.

the problem is u have to use portal and rezz or portal/rezz to contribute to good teamplay therefore i am not sure if these builds are viable

Hey Sensotix
Warriors, Thiefs, Elementalists, Necromancers. None of which have portal or IOL. The Mesmer can DPS just as well as an elementalist (a little less damage, but more consistant). With for example my hybrid support shatter build you contribute by neutralizing a complete game mechanic nearly completely. Also, who says you cant take portal and IOL with you there?
If mesmer has access to all three utility slots he can definately compete in most roles other professions offer him.
These builds are not made to make an old meta viable but to create a new one. What you want more? One instant rezz and be gangbanged by double necro conditioning or superheavy aoe cleanse making the enemy necromancers basically useless? And by that preventing your team from dying?
Portal and IOL are very fancy to have, but mesmer has other tools which are valuable too.
If you need them, try traiting for one of my shatter builds and take them with you. No problem. If you want to be efficient at what YOU do, take utilities which compliment your playstyle.
The fact that mesmer could be competitive in combat situations with only one utility skill for private use always seemed OP to me.

Edit: I lack the team to test this in high end tPvP, but since mesmer is anyway nolonger taken in high end tournament play not taking portal and iol doesn´t really make a difference to team performance if you are able to replace one player of the current meta setup.
I´ve spoken with Azani from MiM and he has tested my hybrid support shatter with his team. He said it were incredible, but the lack of stunbreakers were a problem. Now you can replace any utility skill you wish with additional stunbreakers.