Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I was replying to another thread and then revisited one of the builds I made before but didn’t have much success with in WvW. However, since I’m not one of the best mesmers out there, I figure I share this build with you guys hoping that in the hands of a skilled player, they can wreck stuff and have fun with this build.

Link to build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAscWl0zKqHWThGb9IipH9mvBckKYaleob82FC-jUCBYLCiEEgkFBKBqIas1tht6KalXBRXDT5iIqWEAzYA-w

This build plays just like any power-based interrupt build out there but with a twist: the additional fail-safe feature: Retaliation in case you get hit.

So basically you do your best to avoid dmg while at the same time, the enemy also does his best to hit you. But when he does, he would wish that he didn’t. Ok, a bit dramatic, but you get the idea. So at the end of the day, enemies would think twice before they spam multi-hit bursts on you. I can see how it would work well against such attacks, as you block the first hit, the next coming hits would proc retaliation and punish the opponents.

Defining traits:
- Halting Strike and Bountiful Interruption for interrupts
- Prismatic Understanding: for stealth buff and more importantly to gain Aegis boon, which synergises with
- Retaliatory Shield: proc Retaliation when you block an attack

Slot skills:
- Ether Feast or Mirror
- Decoy, Veil, and Mass Invisibility for stealth
- Mimic (as suggested by Blimm) (edited)
- Signet of Midnight (SoM): for boon duration
- Alternatively, can swap out Veil for Null Field or Arcane Thievery to deal with conditions.

Gear:
Zerker weapons, Knight armor, and zerker trinkets

Mixed runes to get the best +boon duration possible —> maximise Retaliation uptime after a successful block.

On-crit sigils are good since your crit chance is quite high.

Regarding to armor, I think good players can get away with full zerker because this build provides a lot of active defences through:
- Interrupt (Sword #4, Staff #5, F3)
- AoE blind on SoM
- Block (Sword #4 and Aegis boon)
- Stealth and lots of defensive boons
- Blurred Frenzy (honorable mention )

(obvious?) Cons of the build:
well, not surprisingly: 1) poor condition removal & 2) out of combat speed

So that’s the build. Please discuss guys and if you like it, give it a go.
Cheers.

PS: If anyone can suggest a cool name for this build, it would be very appreciated. I feel the current name is a bit unimaginative.

Mimic. If you have the retaliation trait never go without mimic. Its OP!

Blimm.5028:

Mimic. If you have the retaliation trait never go without mimic. Its OP!

Tbh, i never used it before, didn’t know it is considered blocking. Edited OP to include it.
Thanks

Thing is as soon as you have absorbed the 1st projectile mimic will block melee attacks while reflecting projectiles.

@keenlam, I like the idea – it reminds me a bit of the Immortal Build which used (RIP) retaliation as it’s primary source of damage. The thing about retal builds is that IMO it’s hard not to spec for a bunker and these three things: High power, High armor, and High Vitality (PVT). I would say >= 3000 attack, >=2700 armor, >=20,000 health. Precision and crit dmg I don’t think are as important. Sure, you want to plan around the fact that you aren’t going to get hit by virtue of blocking, and that will proc retal often enough, but you have to plan for the fact that you’re going to get hit and that’s to your advantage.

The armor and vitality are way too low for my personal taste. Also I don’t see many retal sources. Chaos Storm is on a long cool down without Chaotic Dampening. With retaliatory shield, you get 6 seconds (w/your boon duration) on each block which is nice, but IMO you need more. So I would go Sw/F for the leap/light combo while still maintaining your interrupt source, and take 10 out of dueling to go 10 in Illusions and take Confusing Cry. You lose deceptive evasion, but I’m not sure you need it in this build. In fact, if you do go Confusing Cry + leap/light combo w/focus, you can get 40 seconds of retal right there very quickly, accounting for your boon duration. You wouldn’t even need retaliatory shield then. I would then switch that out for Protected Mantras (great synergy with the build), switch signet of midnight for the cleanse mantra and there you have decent condition management. You still have 90% boon duration and a stun breaker in decoy. Honestly though, you may not have much need for that – if they stun you they are usually coming in for burst, which is what you want :-)

Even though you’re down to 30/30% crit chance/dmg, halting strike is still going to hit decent.

http://tinyurl.com/q29ep3p

Only my 2 cents here – just some things to think about.

@skcamow: Thanks for the input. I knew somehow this would bring the nostalgia of Pyro’s fabled Immortal Build. Too bad, Anet killed it.

Anyway, my build is definitely not designed to be a bunker build (quite glassy and stealth heavy) and its main dmg is definitely not from retaliation. However, this is where the problem lies i think, its not obvious whether big spike dmg will come from shatters or phantasm. So I have adjusted a bit to make it play more like a phantasm build.

Admittedly, my original idea was to make OH sword work in a build that makes full use of its 2 skills and i think this build accomplished that, at least on paper :|

Phantasm variation: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAscWl0zKqHWThGb9IhpH923AnkCTr6SK0NvB-jUCBYLCiEEgkFBKBqIas1tht6KalXBRXDT5iIqWEAzYA-w

The change is to move 10pts from dueling to domination, dropping DE but getting Empowered Illusions. This way, iSwordman can crit for ~4k.

Gearing is flexible, one can easily adjust to get a personal balance between DPS stats and defensive stats so what i posted is merely an example.

Also, I think scepter could work in this build too, you get 1 more block on a relatively low CD. Depends on playstyle, melee or ranged.

keenlam.4753:

@skcamow: Thanks for the input. I knew somehow this would bring the nostalgia of Pyro’s fabled Immortal Build. Too bad, Anet killed it.

Anyway, my build is definitely not designed to be a bunker build (quite glassy and stealth heavy) and its main dmg is definitely not from retaliation. However, this is where the problem lies i think, its not obvious whether big spike dmg will come from shatters or phantasm. So I have adjusted a bit to make it play more like a phantasm build.

Admittedly, my original idea was to make OH sword work in a build that makes full use of the 2 skills and i think this build accomplished that, at least on paper :|

Phantasm variation: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAscWl0zKqHWThGb9IhpH923AnkCTr6SK0NvB-jUCBYLCiEEgkFBKBqIas1tht6KalXBRXDT5iIqWEAzYA-w

The change is to move 10pts from dueling to domination, dropping DE but getting Empowered Illusions. This way, iSwordman can crit for ~4k.

Gearing is flexible, one can easily adjust to get a personal balance between DPS stats and defensive stats so what i posted is merely an example.

Also, I think scepter could work in this build too, you get 1 more block on a relatively low CD. Depends on playstyle, melee or ranged.

Yeah I didn’t mean to steer the direction completely away from what you intended. Just when you say, “retaliation” I don’t think glass for sure. Maybe it can be done? I don’t know – your retaliation source is still very minimal with the build. Maybe I should ask a different question. What do you want the build to do or provide? If not bunker – solo-roamer, DPS, or group utility? Where do you see the damage coming from primarily?

Given its a powercrit interrupt build, i say it’s DPS with CC built in. Now, about the retaliation part, i know it’s confusing but let me clarify: Retaliation in this build is more about defense, not offense. It’s not like “Please hit me, i hit back with Retal.”

It’s more like when you engage in group fight, enemies realize you glasscannon since your phantasm hitting like a truck thus will focus fire on you, worst case scenario you blow all your defensive utilities and go down but retal might just bring enemies down with you or make it easier for your group to finish them off. In general, retaliation is there to discourage people attacking you, so they can’t keep the pressure on you.

About solo-roaming, not sure how good this build could be since I never had good success with it.

Your idea of relation being a deterring factor isn’t a bad idea. However, I think Skcaw is right that you don’t have enough ways to get it on you for extended periods of time that it would be work anything. On top of that even if you did have it on long 15k health isn’t going to take much to get down even with 1500 toughness. Through that into a small group fight and your retal might hit everyone twice or thrice for about 360 damage each hit (without Might stacks) if you actually have it on and it doesn’t get ripped. Your retal actually would do better against a single opponent since you all the damage to you is from one source so it takes more hits from him to kill you. But again with only 15k health that wont be many anyway.

I now run a PU Condition build that is simply amazing. The thing I see in your build is that you use veil but don’t have glam cool down so it is crazy long CD and you don’t take torch which is simply amazing with PU. You do have a lot of boon duration to hold onto the boons you get but people rip boons from you so ability to stack more on you is far more beneficial than longer lasting ones.

You have a good idea of what you want from the build and if it is fun for ya fine but I don’t see it working very well.

Hi guys, thank all for your feedback.
I have decided to gear up to give this build another go. Time to dust it off.
I am taking your ideas on board regarding to gearing towards a tank build with decent dmg to make more use of retaliation. Also, the build will be more group-oriented, more support and CC.

There are two versions:

1) Signet variation:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArcWl0zKqHQThGb9IhpH923AnkCT76SK0NvB-jUCBYMCiEEgkIBK5rIas1tht6KalXBRZDT9iIqWEAzYA-w

- This variation is more about boon support with Signet of Inspiration. You only have 2 stealth skills but you can group up with Thief or other Mesmer if you want to more stealth options.

2) Glamour variation:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArcWl0zKqHWTqGbNJhpH923A/UBmTqgpLpQ38G-jUCBYMCiEEgkIBK5rIas1tht6KalXBRZDT9iIqWEAzYA-w

- This variation is more about utility supports with Veil, Null Field, Feedback are all glamours. Better condition removal with traited Null Field.

Common changes:
- more tanky gear set up: Knight weapons, Celestial armor, and Soldier trinkets.
- use MH scepter to stay ranged, extra block, and make use of that little condition dmg.

Edited: If you want to use this build for solo-roaming, simply use focus instead of sword, and swap Blade Training trait out for something else. Some good options are:
– Deceptive Evasion
– Phantasmal Fury
– Desperate Decoy
– Blurred Inscriptions (if you run the Signet version)

Still deciding to swap Blade Training for Deceptive Evasion in group setting, since now only use OH sword. Traited OH sword #4 and Scepter #2 both have 12 seconds CD which mean they can be chained more effectively. Not sure that would worth giving up Deceptive Evasion.

What are your thoughts on this?

Edited: eagerly waiting for Chaos to post here

On the Glamour one I think you should reconsider the amount of boon duration you have. 90% boon duration is of course good but since you don’t take the signet to share your boons it is rather selfish. I think more damage from you would help out the group on the whole.

On the signet version without a third form of invis I don’t think you are going to be able to achieve full uptime of protection. In the White Witch build in my signet I have to have at least three forms of invis to keep pro up 100% and even then thanks to the randomness of it that doesn’t always work.

@keenlam, that looks like a good support build, much along the lines of jportell’s protection master, with some differences. One thing I’m not sure about, especially with a support build, is going without chaotic dampening. It reduces the amount of boons you can acquire by quite a bit. Of course you trade that off with BI – I would play with both and see how you fare. Honestly I’m not sure about the signets. SoM seems a bit wasted in this build. Understanding the 10% boon duration, but seems like you could fill in other more useful utilities (thinking condi-mgmt) like the iDisenchanter, arcane thievery or blimm’s suggestion on mimic.

The glamour build is serviceable, how could it not be with those glamours on low CD. Would be nice to get feedback in there :-) You could go with medic’s feedback for that though if you wanted to sacrifice the glamour CD’s. One other thought, if you’re running complete glamour there, you could trait the torch instead of the sword for the extra stealth and most of all, our one and only BLAST FINISHER. AoE Chaos Armor or, wait for it … one of your build’s focuses – area retaliation (on any light field – glorious if you run with a guardian).

Also, for some inspiration, check out the latest video from stunningstyles – bunker guardian cleaning house. The retaliation damage is the most prevailing thing I noticed – besides the fact that he’s just a really good player:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Top-50-SOAC-Stunningstyles-Tpvp-Build-Video

Guys, as much as I appreciate your input, i think we’re going off track here since you keep mentioning about protection uptime.

@ its core, this is an interrupt build that also makes use of retaliation to reward counterplay, so you can easily get 100% retal uptime with the 2 blocks on scepter and sword, not to mention aegis and mimic utility if used.

It just happens that it synergizes well with boon/utility support in group settings, but make no mistake, this build is not to make you a walking buff station. Its not a full support build so no contest to Hexxen’s White Which or jportell’s Protection Master. These builds already excel at what they set out to do.

Regarding to utilities, these are just default setups, i switch utilities a lot as i read the combat circumstances and one should too. Be flexible.
In fact, with the signet version, i would even replace Decoy with Signet of Domination, sacrificing stealth for more interrupt. Similarly, with the glamour, replace Decoy with Feedback.

@skcamow: I’ve been running staff build without Chaotic Dampening and I can live without it. I think it boils down to personal preference but like you said, the options are there, you can easily switch between the traits without go to town and pay like 4 silver to retrait.
As you pointed out, Guardian and Thief are your best friends, Dark Field and Light Field, perfect combination.

Btw, thanks for the vid. Its really enjoyable.

cool, looking forward to hearing how it goes.

keenlam.4753:

Blimm.5028:

Mimic. If you have the retaliation trait never go without mimic. Its OP!

Tbh, i never used it before, didn’t know it is considered blocking. Edited OP to include it.
Thanks

no xD.
im pretty sure that was a joke :D.

…wasnt it? I thought mimic blocking everything was just a rumor….