Hi all,
Seeing as my build is fortunately enough to be not dramatically affected by this latest patch, I just want to throw it out here so any mesmer veteran can have a look and help me develop on it. I’m having an easy time with this build in PvE but not sure how it would fare in WvW. And i do feel it might be sub-optimal in such PvP environment.
Playstyle: burst DPS, stealth heavy, don’t shatter illusions a lot but rather use them for utility. In fact, i don’t need to micro-manage my summons since whatever happens to them, i still benefit from it. This build encourages swapping weapon a lot, and keep moving in and out of combat (this literally confuses PvE mob, i really hope this tactic plays well against human players)
Slot skills: pretty standard, ether feast, decoy, null field, blink, and mass invi.
Weapon: Staff / Sword + Torch
I use Torch for skill #4, i pretty much run with 4 skills on this weapon set since iMage … well, we all know about it, but hopefully with this phantasm health buff, he might stick around longer and actually do something to help out.
Gear:
Armor: Full zerker, Centaur Runes (because i cant keep up with my friends nec and ranger without them)
Trinket: Zerker + a bit of Valkyrie for increased health (against conditions)
Still working hard towards getting ascended trinkets
Stats: I stack power, get enough precision to get 40-ish% crit chance so that my on-crit sigils shine. I have enough toughness from trait so no need to gear for it, also the idea is to not get hit in the first place. 16k health is my sweet spot, but conditions can still hurt bad so I use sigil of generosity on my torch in addition to null field to deal with conditions.
Traits: 20/20/30/0/0
Domination V, IX
Dueling IV, X
Chaos V, X, XII
As you can see, i trait for reduced CDs on all my weapons (Dueling IV is severely weakened by the Blurred Frenzy nerf though). Thus my build is skill-based which means you can rotate through the skills more frequently in combat, but at the cost of having less damage-oriented traits.
Dom V and Chaos V punish enemies for killing my clones. The clone health nerf is, ironically, in my favor. Alternatively, i can purposely replace the clones to get the effects. Also, i can still choose to shatter it, i just need to make sure it’s necessary to do so. My burst DPS usually comes from the combo: stealth/iLeap Swap to get close + Blurred Frenzy + Mind Wrack. On the staff, it’s Chaos Storm and Winds of Chaos to stack conditions, then iWarlock can hit hard.
As for PU, it gets a significant buff, so I am quite happy about that.
Here’s the link to my build (i dont think the calc has updated the changes from this latest patch):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNAsfWlwzKqHVTmGb9IipHBHyBckUUavWJF82FC-jgDBYLERjUggEFYkFQkIIEJAJPFRjtmpIasaHYqSRWZKpKXAeDSzuDJFA-e
Sidenote on underwater combat: I think we mesmers are still lethal underwater even with the Siren’s Call nerf. As with the Feigned Surge huge damage boost, i can think of the possible combo of Vortex + Feigned Surge, an Aoe burst for power-stacking build.
Please discuss my build.
(edited by keenlam.4753)