Guild Wars 2

here is a build i testing right now

i hope more will test it out and comment

few fight i had with cleric amulet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itzTc7ByYfs&feature=youtu.be

My variant is more shatter-oriented. So I take seize the moment (good for stomp/rez). I also prefer blink to go back on point fast after I’ve been knocked of.
I give up the glamour trait for more boon share + additional protection. The protection on phantasm is quite good because despite not living long with my shatter style, the shield can proc 2 of them more or less in a row. So if I shatter the first one, I can still proc the 2nd one fast. This allows to keep my protection uptime when out of the staff (because you admit the shield chaos armor is hard to proc).

For the heal, I typically activate it, blurred frenzy and get healed back. Good way to survive even when you’re close to death.

I haven’t tried soldier, but because I shatter more often, I get a lot of heal, so cleric seemed like a good choice. I agree that burst conditions are the best things to kill me, so I would probably need more HP. Maybe cele is the way to go…

with stability i rarely get cc this why i didnt take blink and want more group support aoe

cleric is more good indeed with the 5.3k health aoe

resistance from glamour field is very useful as it give you and your party 3 sec without condition effectiveness.

but yes so far condition burst is this counter although 1v1 is doable 1v2 with one of them condi is hard (trap ranger or condi mesmer)

res with no problem
stomp with no problem (stability)
distortion with sword and block with shield

protection up time is longer due to 4 ethereal fields

Since it was the first time I played a really defensive build, I got surprised about how active this is! In a mesmer zerker, you do have an active fight for a few seconds, you rarely want to keep things longer. With this one, you can be under pressure from 2 or 3 for a VERY long time (I have managed to sustain a few times 3 people, but most of the time it goes bad) and with so few HP, the first mistake you do may be your doom.

Also, paying attention to not only your survival but also your allies around is really interesting.

Overall, I love the build. As you mentioned you do need a decent team for it to shine, if they just leave you alone, your support potential is wasted and sooner or later you will do the mistake which will kill you.

i upload video with it

with pugs group just dont play it. you will die alone with no support

with full team its good build

i have never played bunker so its kinda new to me and intersting

1v1 most of the enemy just leave me be
1v2 i can handle 1 min unless its zerk ranger and zerk melee as its hard , or 1 condi 1 zerk too much pressure
1v3 my longest was 1 min with engi rifle, dd ele, and warrior but average is 30 sec. but i think you shouldnt do that unless your team is coming to help you

can a mesmer really be bunker

do guard or dd/staff ele can do i better

are there significant support skills which mesmer can brings while other cant and more needed then the others?

my pov

1. dd ele can kite 1v2 with ease and 1v3
2. bunker guard can do 1v2 with ease
3. both cant handle condi long pressure
4. dd ele can do dmg while bunkering
5. dd ele cant contest the point like guard
6. guard can aoe cleanse and heal with boons like the dd
7. the ele and guard dont bring aoe support beside cleanse and heal
8. guard is great resser

so what the mesmer has
1. better hp than guard with cleric
2. well heal aoe 5.3k every 16 sec (alacrity) but shorter radios
3. good cleanse with shatter, heal skill, null field, and wells
4. boon share stability, protection, regen, swiftness, fury, might every 15 sec in average if trait (1 signet and 1 traited) or every 30 sec just with signet
5. resistance if traited
6. 2 time warp if needed of 12 sec while being with resistance
7. can contest the point most of the time (aoe necro and ranger are hard)
8. great resser and stomper with stability, feedback , quickness at need (shield, well, time warp)
9. good cc with shield and staff and f3
10. can handle 1v1 at ease, 1v2 hard, 1v3 harder
11. good dmg mitigation with protection and 3 clones (9%)

and with all of that still seems that guard and ele does it better or it just i am new to the bunkering idea with the mesmer
if IR and CP will be both in GM it would nerf the bunker much as you cant create enough clones to give you dmg reducation

I did run a condi bunker over the BWE1 and I had no issues 1v1 or 1v2 but my defensive were active blinds on shatter evades and leaps with a Carrion amulet and scavenger rune. so I could create damage and hold the point while giving some support. but I will admit I was not supporting the group as much as your build. Though I don’t feel its truly necessary to go that far into support IMO.

with carrion which is my basic amulet now i can do 1v1 and some 1v2
i want to create a build which can replace the bunker guard mainly and maybe the ele with the op support abilities

with carrion i cant versus power well necro aoe or burning guard or trap ranger
with cleric or settler i can

I actually want at some point to go into a more numeric comparison of bunker guard vs bunker mesmer (because I feel we are more similar than guard in terms of functionality).

Self survivability

• passive defense: guards have more armor, we have more HP. More HP sustain burst better, more armor sustain long fights better (but not condis).
• Active blocks/invuln/combat mobility: we have invuln on sword, 2 block on shield and F4 but F4 uncaps. We also have phase retreat + I use blink. Unfortunately, in my experience, this mobility (phase retreat) puts me out of point, probably a more experienced player would not feel that. Guards have invuln on heal and more on demand aegis. We may win this part.
• self-heal: we have our heal + shatter. They have heal on boon giving, dodge roll, heal, virtue, weapon skill…. I think you get the idea: they win that part
• condition cleanse: we have shatters + heal + wells + possibly null field (I didn’t take it). They have shouts + focus if they use it We could technically win here, but ours are so more clunky (have to wait 3s for the wells). We win if we take null field.
• protection/regen uptime: we both have basically full uptime. Chaos armor is cooler.
• We have more stuns/daze, they have a very useful knock back if they use the shield or on revive and a line of warding. We may win the CC war, but their CC is a much better area denial.

Support

• AOE heal: essentially all our heals are AOE heals (aren’t shatter AOE? I feel I was healing allies with it…). Only a part of guard heals are AOE, but overall about the same AOE heal potential I think (needs some maths here)
• AOE condi cleanse: wells + heal + null field are AOE cleanse. Here again, we are better if we take null field.
• Boon support: we can provide essentially the same boons as guardians, but our way of doing that is more clunky. We first have to get them and then share them, with at most 2 sharing per 30s, including one not really under our control. Guards also provide might better. On the other hand, we are now much stronger at sharing quickness.
• Rez: we have more quickness uptime (on-demand with shatter) + the shield stuns + quickness. We revive 10% faster. Since I use blink instead of null field, I can also teleport to the downed easier. We have instant F3 and F4 to support our rezzing… Guardians have quickness, but only every 30s. Their revive bubble also knockdown which is amazing. They revive allies with defensive boons. I think we may win this battle.
• Damage: low for both.
• Debuff: we apply slow fairly “well”. They have no debuff.

• Positioning: we have 25% faster speed + I have blink in my build. If you look at WTS, Tage is always in a bad situation because of his speed. He cannot easily move around the map and is therefore much more “stuck” in mid. This is one advantage but an amazing one.

So overall, this is a close match! I really think we have a good potential. Their permanent heal and increased toughness makes them very hard to kill, we have better invuln uptime and in-fight mobility. They have better boon support and in particular offensive support (might fury) we make up for it partly with some slow+quickness. Our best advantage is out of fight mobility.

messiah.1908:

can a mesmer really be bunker

do guard or dd/staff ele can do i better

are there significant support skills which mesmer can brings while other cant and more needed then the others?

my pov

1. dd ele can kite 1v2 with ease and 1v3
2. bunker guard can do 1v2 with ease
3. both cant handle condi long pressure
4. dd ele can do dmg while bunkering
5. dd ele cant contest the point like guard
6. guard can aoe cleanse and heal with boons like the dd
7. the ele and guard dont bring aoe support beside cleanse and heal
8. guard is great resser

so what the mesmer has
1. better hp than guard with cleric
2. well heal aoe 5.3k every 16 sec (alacrity) but shorter radios
3. good cleanse with shatter, heal skill, null field, and wells
4. boon share stability, protection, regen, swiftness, fury, might every 15 sec in average if trait (1 signet and 1 traited) or every 30 sec just with signet
5. resistance if traited
6. 2 time warp if needed of 12 sec while being with resistance
7. can contest the point most of the time (aoe necro and ranger are hard)
8. great resser and stomper with stability, feedback , quickness at need (shield, well, time warp)
9. good cc with shield and staff and f3
10. can handle 1v1 at ease, 1v2 hard, 1v3 harder
11. good dmg mitigation with protection and 3 clones (9%)

and with all of that still seems that guard and ele does it better or it just i am new to the bunkering idea with the mesmer
if IR and CP will be both in GM it would nerf the bunker much as you cant create enough clones to give you dmg reducation

You spent a lot of time in the other thread arguing that CP doesn’t help your illusions stay up much at all. A phant’s ability to survive shattering doesn’t protect it from cleaves any more for a bunker than it does for a power mes.

I did my first tests with CP and I switched immediately to seize the moment. Since you’re often fighting 1 v 2-3 phantasms just die immediately even if you invest a bit in their sustain (inspiration). Also, quickness on shatter is now my favorite way to rez/stomp. I use iReversion for illusion uptime.

Agreed with Silverkey. I tried out both Chronophantasm and StM, and StM just supports the bunker style way better. BD+StM makes Distortion stomps and rezzes so good.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

messiah.1908:

can a mesmer really be bunker

do guard or dd/staff ele can do i better

are there significant support skills which mesmer can brings while other cant and more needed then the others?

my pov

1. dd ele can kite 1v2 with ease and 1v3
2. bunker guard can do 1v2 with ease
3. both cant handle condi long pressure
4. dd ele can do dmg while bunkering
5. dd ele cant contest the point like guard
6. guard can aoe cleanse and heal with boons like the dd
7. the ele and guard dont bring aoe support beside cleanse and heal
8. guard is great resser

so what the mesmer has
1. better hp than guard with cleric
2. well heal aoe 5.3k every 16 sec (alacrity) but shorter radios
3. good cleanse with shatter, heal skill, null field, and wells
4. boon share stability, protection, regen, swiftness, fury, might every 15 sec in average if trait (1 signet and 1 traited) or every 30 sec just with signet
5. resistance if traited
6. 2 time warp if needed of 12 sec while being with resistance
7. can contest the point most of the time (aoe necro and ranger are hard)
8. great resser and stomper with stability, feedback , quickness at need (shield, well, time warp)
9. good cc with shield and staff and f3
10. can handle 1v1 at ease, 1v2 hard, 1v3 harder
11. good dmg mitigation with protection and 3 clones (9%)

and with all of that still seems that guard and ele does it better or it just i am new to the bunkering idea with the mesmer
if IR and CP will be both in GM it would nerf the bunker much as you cant create enough clones to give you dmg reducation

You spent a lot of time in the other thread arguing that CP doesn’t help your illusions stay up much at all. A phant’s ability to survive shattering doesn’t protect it from cleaves any more for a bunker than it does for a power mes.

indeed this is why it shouldnt be touched or moved. i suggested you can add time to the daze of the phantasm but if you combined them to GM this build will be harder to play with

tobascodagama.2961:

Agreed with Silverkey. I tried out both Chronophantasm and StM, and StM just supports the bunker style way better. BD+StM makes Distortion stomps and rezzes so good.

agree but i took it for the 9% dmg reduction on top the protection. thus i try to create phantasms and shatter if i see them going to be killed . also to create them far from me

messiah.1908:

indeed this is why it shouldnt be touched or moved. i suggested you can add time to the daze of the phantasm but if you combined them to GM this build will be harder to play with

If it barely helps, as you argued, then it really won’t be harder without it, because it was barely doing anything for you in the first place.

You can’t have it both ways. Either Chronophantasma does provide a significant benefit, or it doesn’t.
If it does, then it might be too powerful offensively combined with IR (as many have argued). If it doesn’t, then its loss won’t really impact the bunker build.
The weaknesses of chronophantasma don’t really change between the two builds, phantasms die just as fast for a bunker as for a zerker or condi-shatter.

Meanwhile, others have already espoused the virtues of Sieze the Moment for stomping and rezzing, which is certainly a benefit for any support build, including bunker.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

messiah.1908:

indeed this is why it shouldnt be touched or moved. i suggested you can add time to the daze of the phantasm but if you combined them to GM this build will be harder to play with

If it barely helps, as you argued, then it really won’t be harder without it, because it was barely doing anything for you in the first place.

You can’t have it both ways. Either Chronophantasma does provide a significant benefit, or it doesn’t.
If it does, then it might be too powerful offensively combined with IR (as many have argued). If it doesn’t, then its loss won’t really impact the bunker build.
The weaknesses of chronophantasma don’t really change between the two builds, phantasms die just as fast for a bunker as for a zerker or condi-shatter.

Meanwhile, others have already espoused the virtues of Sieze the Moment for stomping and rezzing, which is certainly a benefit for any support build, including bunker.

sry to say all the ppl who claimed it op seem to me they just theory it and didnt had a single team fight
without DE you clone making comes for IR but NEED shatter – for power build they loose dmg as they need to create one with one of their shatter. for bunker build is give 3% dmg reduction as long as it lives. thus as you hardly do dmg ppl will ignore it if you place it right.
with CP on theory you can do burst dmg with phantasm but regular shutter does it better with 1 combo. and taking chorno instead of dom will give you less dmg or instead of dueling less fury so one more phantasm attack which is daze for 1 sec doesnt sound op

also the creation of IR is after the shatter combo MW thus the opening is the same. the problem is after the combo done what is happening. you got 1 clone and 1 phantasm
with DE you dodge to create 1 clone so the problem is with phantasm which can attack you . so as the dmg is bit lower (no dom or duel) give it another 1 sec of daze

bunker needs them to survive longer with 6% dmg reduction or 9% if you put them right far from you.

and if it barely helps as you though i mention why you want it to change for the change cause ppl qq about it .

remember the majority qq about mtd and see where it is today. the majority are ppl who dont want to learn and play PU as it safer and easier

see all the tricks ppl did with F5 and so many qq but almost 90% of them are useless mid fight (4 blinks, 4 portal, 4 feedback etc. leaves you with nothing to fight with)

in 3 days you just cant see if it op or not

It is OP because
1) you can run with DE also, as well as persistence of memory.
2) Even without: generate 2 phantasms and 1 clone, and you can shatter twice in a row, then mirror image and you have a 3rd shatter. All of this happened in 4s. Since you have F5, you can do that during the rift and still have all your skills available at the end.

If you don’t want to use F5 but have persistence of memory, all your phantasms are already ready to use anyway, just need a signet to reset your 4 shatters.

CP + iRev is not OP for a phantasm build, it is OP for permanent shattering.

Silverkey.2078:

It is OP because
1) you can run with DE also, as well as persistence of memory.
2) Even without: generate 2 phantasms and 1 clone, and you can shatter twice in a row, then mirror image and you have a 3rd shatter. All of this happened in 4s. Since you have F5, you can do that during the rift and still have all your skills available at the end.

If you don’t want to use F5 but have persistence of memory, all your phantasms are already ready to use anyway, just need a signet to reset your 4 shatters.

CP + iRev is not OP for a phantasm build, it is OP for permanent shattering.

i got it but with 2 shatter mesmer can take any zerk down 100-0 unless its evade, blind, dodge, block. so if the mesmer miss the 2 shatter and he used his 3rd (distortion he wont use unless use f5) he will be out of the game for 15 sec or just using weapon skills

i get its strong combo. but i didnt see any power mesmer running MI

Ok, digging this thread a bit.
I have played a bit bunker guardian recently, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I cannot conclusively say that it was better than my chronomancer bunker, but definitely easier.

I also start to wonder if wells are really the way to go… I mostly like well of eternity for the massive heal to allies while still being strong for yourself, and well of action for many reasons including stomping/rezzing. Also, with wells cleaning 2 condis, well of eternity cleaned 4 condis AOE every 20s (less with alacrity) and well of action 2 more every 30s. This was enough for me to consider having no dedicated condi cleanse utility. Now that this has been removed, I have only 2 AOE condi cleanse (on healing) which is far from enough.
I now wonder if we should not get back to mantras. The mantra heal provides AOE heal during preparing + AOE heal with Healing Prism although with high ICD. It also adds AOE cleanse at each use. But this would bring us back into the usual dueling-chaos-insp, and leave no place for chronomancer. So I am a bit lost right now.

I also want to complain about a few things:

• no form of condi cleanse in the wells is sad. I understand they don’t want to overlap with null field, but this really hurts the wells use.
• In general, mesmer has really trouble with its utilities. We have many useful utilities but because we have very little condition cleanse from traits, we are forced to invest into 1 dedicated skill. And we also almost always need to invest in a dedicated stun break (blink). At best, we have one free slot. Most mesmers running portal simply do not bring any condi cleanse. That is really hurting. Compare that to the guardian who brings 4 very useful shouts and gets a stun break and massive amounts of condi cleanse for free.
• “Restorative Illusions” just doesn’t fit the “inspiration” line because it is selfish. I don’t think it would be OP if it was instead an AOE heal and cleanse.

for condi cleanse you got inspiration line – 2 with heal skill, 1 with every shatter , and null fielld

at the beta i was playing with 2 wells (1 heal) and null field . so i got 6 condi cleanse and null field. trap ranger on the point couldnt get me.

compare it to staff ele and bunker guard. guard got shouts which cleanse 2 condi and F2 so the total of cleanse is the same. ele got better utilities and skills to cleanse

the trick is to use F5 to get doable cleanse abilities now

for bunker mesmer chaos and inspiration lines is must so only chorno line can be good with slow, alacrity and shield is the better choise here

GREAT job here friend! Always love your videos and build concepts even when we disagree on stuff. This looks like a lot of fun.

I love the use of both wells AND glamours! Some strengths/highlights that I would see in theory:

• Team Condi clearing/resistance and amazing rezzing capabilities.
• Boon sharing, including that of quickness.
• On-Demand self-sustain via shatters in case of emergencies like needing to make a stomp or getting out of stick situations.

I always feel highly handicapped without a stunbreaker. If I were playing this, I might drop the boon sharing capabilities of S. Inspiration for Blink.

edited to add: my roommate wants to know where you got the song from in your video! Also, I was proud of you during that 2v1 at the 2:50 mark!!

MailMail.6534:

edited to add: my roommate wants to know where you got the song from in your video! Also, I was proud of you during that 2v1 at the 2:50 mark!!

thanks

the song is The Gael
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_R7bJahcwc

but it got bit nerfed with IR and AWTEW so less condi cleanse , less dmg reduction with hard to keep 3 illusion up,

i love the signet idea and it was hard to pass blink. but it was my first attempt as bunker who needs to stay on points no matter what so i tried it.
i play with it with my condi shatter build and when my dd ele gives me 10-12 might and i share them back to 3 allies its in most cases win as our dmg is 25 might stacks , protection, fury, regen, quickness ….for 5-10 sec
i will test it inthe second beta and see…

messiah.1908:

for bunker mesmer chaos and inspiration lines is must so only chorno line can be good with slow, alacrity and shield is the better choise here

I am really debated on this point. Right now I have been running duel/chaos/insp and having a ton of fun bunkering mid or holding far with 2 enemies, giving numerical advantage to my team.

However, I have been thinking what I will be dropping once Chrono is live.
As Messiah wrote, the obvious choice would be chaos/inspi/chrono
But the more I play my bunker memser and more I value the blind on shatter. I think I will try duel/inspi/chrono: between blocks and blinds I think I will be very hard to bring down. Ofc, I wont boonsharing as much but I need to see how it plays out before making judgements.

One more think to munch on.
Have you thought that maybe, the best bunker mesmer will not be a chrono, but we already have it right here right now?

trooper.2650:

One more think to munch on.
Have you thought that maybe, the best bunker mesmer will not be a chrono, but we already have it right here right now?

I think dueling-chaos-inspiration is currently our best bunker. I am currently trying a version of that which I think has potential and I will soon post it in the forum. It is an interrupt-bunker.
If the condi cleanse remained on wells, I think the chrono bunker would have been as good or even better. Ideally, I would say complementary. But without it, I am leaning towards the core mesmer bunker being best.

This is me
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8dlsnhC0YZawDNQtGL4G0ZJexKMzQIGZZAW9vA-T5AIwAAeIAm3fgYZAA

Sometime I slot in null field

What is your build?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-RFRZ;1ZUF61I7-WV71;9;4TUV;0236156147;4UBo620;0Uwl6Uwl63y

It has great sustain. It does not do as much support as a guardian but thanks to interrupt, blinding and a bit of boon stripping from sword AA, it does also debuff the enemy efficiently, doing a great job in a team fight.

this is the build i testing atm
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7flsnhC0YZawUNQtGLvG05NCSPMXxMqJaAy5RA-TJRHwAQLDoa/hAXEAAPBAA

i find condition dmg with bunker is better than power as the pressure goes higher the longer the fight is . and with power even though its 1900 still dont do much dmg

the scepter increase attack speed is nice
although i cant pressure with 15 confusion and 10 torment. i can do 5 torment and 6 confusion which is enough to pressure zerk burst build

the condi cleanse with shatter, null field, torch and heal skill every 12 sec are very nice and the amount of protection from chaos armor is good

although i dont have blind i got stability and protection.

regarding interrupt – its not my job to do that i think rather support with cleanse and with boons (i try to be guard)

@tropper – with 2.4k armor is enough to be bunker 1v2 on a point. and temporal enchanter just with time warp and medic feedback. i think null field is a must

I just tried a condi version of the build I had above (just replacing sword with scepter and cleric with settler) and it works indeed better. The damage from sc. 3 is very correct and having range means more hits. Also, I generate a bit more clones which is normally a weak point of the build. Since I already use pistol and duelist’s discipline, I assume whenever they fix the bleeding, it will be even better. I don’t see myself using the torch, because the stealth is not nearly as valuable as interrupts.

@Messiah: Wouldn’t shattered strength help in your build by providing a bit more might to share?

@ silverkey
Your idea is interesting, but I fail to understand how pistol can be a bunker weapon. Ok the stun and the daze… but I hardly believe how it can help you when bunkering for example mid, and 3 enemies are focus firing you. In those situation the duelist will not last 3 sec. because a) aoe will kill it very fast b) I woul shatter it because either I need a condi cleanse or a blind to save my kitten , which is more important than some dps

@messiah
I agree on what you say about condi vs power. This is the reason why I replaced soldier with cele. I think I am doing a great job with it. Not looking back. I think my build is one of the (very) rare occasions where cele can work on a mesmer.
Regarding utilities, lately I always try to have null. Then, I switch between feedback, signet of inspiration, blink and signet of illusions. TW always on
I would like to spend few words on SoIllusions. As bunker I find it extremely usefull and it greately helps my survivability: being able to use 4 or even 5 shatters (wrack can be used 2 or even three times with a proper rotation) and recharge them, means you can clear many conditions and blind pesky thieves/wars/guards so often to hold for very long. I’d advise you to give it a try

For torch, I don’t know man… I think it isn’t a very good bunker weapon but maybe you can make it work.

trooper.2650:

@ silverkey
Your idea is interesting, but I fail to understand how pistol can be a bunker weapon. Ok the stun and the daze… but I hardly believe how it can help you when bunkering for example mid, and 3 enemies are focus firing you. In those situation the duelist will not last 3 sec. because a) aoe will kill it very fast b) I woul shatter it because either I need a condi cleanse or a blind to save my kitten , which is more important than some dps

Well the idea is very simple. I don’t think we have a good bunker off-hand weapon. Shield is probably the closest to that… But I chose to invest in interrupt build. Here is the reasoning for the build:

• Inspiration is a no-brainer for support, and it works best with mantras (Mender’s Purity procs best with mantra heal, Restorative Mantras is our best AOE heal).
• Mantras imply dueling. This adds blind on shatter which is also useful.
• I also want some boon support. This implies the signet but also a boon generation which comes from Chaos GM. I can choose shatter or interrupt. Interrupt gives more might, shatter gives stability. But stability is short lived, so hard to share anyway. Mantras does a better job at that. Also, since I took harmonious mantras, I don’t have much shatter material. So interrupt it is.
• Interrupt is a good idea anyway because we have mantras. So I give up the mantra of pain for the short CD heal and get mantra of distraction. Also, I can now use duelist’s discipline for a very good cooldown reduction on pistol, allowing more interrupts and also the shortest possible phantasm cooldown to still maintain some phantasm uptime (regen + protection) and shatter material.

On top of that, the interrupts from both pistol and mantra are multiple target which really is a big help in a team fight.

We don’t have the same team support or survivability as a guardian; but we have much more debuff (blind/interrupts+all the goodies from the interrupt trait). If we only go for support, a guardian will always replace us better. We have to play our own strength.

If you truly want to bunker and hold a point, I think Shield and Focus are the best offhand choices. Why? Because they provide area-based attacks, interrupts, and projectile destruction. Shield 5 is a little easier to get interrupts from, but Focus 4 can pull people off-point and Warden is arguably a better Phantasm, both all-around and also specifically as bunker support. (It’d be a closer fight if iAvenger didn’t have that awful bouncing attack.)

If it wasn’t for duelist’s discipline, I would also play focus. I play guardian with shield (and not focus) precisely because I love the knock back which is so useful for this one tick to capture/uncap point.

But as I said, interrupts are key to my build and pistol is just so much better at those. Also in my experience, without the inspiration traits, the warden dies too early. Duelist on a much smaller CD is a better choice to maintain the regen/protection.

As Tobasco wrote focus is a far better weapon than pistol. At least for bunkers (but I also use it when doing lockdown power based)
Also, as it is now, warden grants more stacks of bleeds if you take phant fury than pistol does with pistol trait.

Furthermore, 5 sec of stability isn’t to be overlooked and defenitely much better than 2 sec provided by the mantra which, to be honest would need a little love

I definitely agree with the stability and the lack of love for mantras. 2s is barely the length of a stomp, and can be too short for a rez. But AOE stab is very useful as you can make sure the whole team can rez or support while someone else stomps. Also it is 5 stack so you’re basically sure it won’t be broken.
For chronomancer, I used bountiful disillusionment, and I really like it. I just like the additional might on interrupt. It is fairly easy to get 10-15 mights in a team fight on all interrupts while you get at most 4 from BD.

I think these are just 2 decent alternatives. For core mesmer, I prefer this build, but it is also because I have always loved the lockdown style. And I really like that this build does not really compromise anything, it is full boonshare, full mantra support and full interrupt abilities (outside of damage). With all of this, I actually look forward to play Courtyard which I usually don’t (except on my guardian).

focus – i dont take it cause if i did i would have take wardens feedback. but restorative illusion is much better thus making the focus only the pull which can mainly interrupt
but try to do that on warrior, ele, guard and thief. very hard with stability and dodges
torch – give blind, cure 2 conditions, bit burning and blast finisher i like to use to create chaos armor so more protection on me . i hardly use it for stealth unless i try to sneak on point and sneak out off point.
signet of illusions – indeed very good one but put you on more solo bunker rather support with null field. it can give you distortion twice but got 1.25 activation so easy to interrupt. with null field again i get more chaos armor and it cleanse 5 conditions and rip 5 boons aoe.
shattered strength – i dont use my build for shatter unless i see my clones gonna be killed or i need health or condi cleanse. i usually have 5 might stacks (more if i take rune of battle) . also sometimes i take illusionary defense so with 2 clones up in average i have 6% more dmg reduction so 39% with protection

i have to say i tried 1v3 on mid and its very hard to hold it compare to other class and builds (tried it against thief, ele/mesmer, warrior). necro with ds sometime can hold better but got less group support. guardian also can most of time hold it better just depends on the situation.
but regarding res, stomp, group support and boons share the mesmer is the winner i think (for now b4 HOT)
stability up time on demand, condi cleanse, chaos armor aoe, heal with shatter, interrupt with f3 and chaos storm, resistance with glamour , 45% res faster (i think it works with scepter), time warp
i dont think guard can support better

regarding interrupt – for me its hard to focus on myself, my group condi and health, and also interrupt. as a mesmer i tend to draw all the fire at the start which is good as i am not dmg while my team can do all the dmg and i try to stay alive

i would take shield over torch but than i wont use condi dmg amulet and drop the illusion line so i take sword/shield and instead of blink 1 well and healing well (hope they wont touch the healing value)

Focus trait is too situational and not worth unless you do pve. Just ignore it and take heal on shatter, which is a must.
I understand focus isn’t for everyone but if you can get to like it, then it’s one of the best offhand we have and the best for a bunker.

Sol of illusions has a long cast but I shouldn’t be telling you this… you have stab on shatter. What else can you ask?

But we play bunker slightly different and I won’t try to convince you.:)

trooper.2650:

Focus trait is too situational and not worth unless you do pve. Just ignore it and take heal on shatter, which is a must.

Heal on shatter strong, not a must though. Maybe for soloq, but in a team, (like mine for example) understanding what warden’s feedback provides makes it an excellent source of utility and very much not situational. I personally use it instead of heal on shatter. The damage that can be reflected is significant, not to mention extra natural defense. Then of course you have recharges on top of that.

One could make the argument that the warden untraited destroys projectiles so you at least get that if you choose to take focus and heal on shatter.

I think restorative illusion would be much more useful if it was not a selfish trait. I still like it, a heal with instant cast is extremely useful (while rezzing for example). Also our best way to remove poison before a heal.

All valid arguments. As always there is not one right answer and it probably boils down to personal play style, taste and situations.

However, what I noticed is that the traited curtain rarely helps when I really need it (pvp), making it a clunky mechanic for reflecting. It does work, but you need to pay attention to terrain and so on. Moreover, 90% of times I don’t leave the curtain and use the pull asap (check stab first )
The heal (and condi removal) on shatter is there, always, reliable and handy. It may be selfish, but I do the bunkering and boonsharing already so… that’s fine by me. But it is true… I solo queue and the healing suits me better.

And for the warden I do not care whether it destroys or reflects projectile as long as I get shelter which is the case indeed (I am really debated whether I will be using shield, focus or both, once HoT is out. Is anyone going to try it or is Staff too good to drop?)

I love staff because it makes the chaos armor easier. But I tend not to like it as much because except on large points (foefire mid) I get out of point with phase retreat too often, although I start to improve on that. It also gives boon, usually too short duration to share but it adds a bit if you have them from other sources. I don’t think it is irreplaceable, it is just good.