Guild Wars 2

If you hadn’t guessed by the title, this build was inspired by Ross Biddles’ Phatasm/CS-Interrupt build. I started out putting this into his thread as a variant, but the more I was explaining the different choices I made, the more I began to think it is different enough to warrant it’s own thread instead of spamming a wall of text into his. ;-)

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJARWl0npGtNqxMNMrNipxcqqIdANMQpLZ8FA-TZBEABS8EACZ/hqLDAwFA4hDBAA

“Necessity is the mother of all invention!”

This is how I ended up with this build. I liked the concept of Ross’ new build, but in practice it was just far too squishy for me. Call it a bad connection or old age, or maybe a little of both with a dash of “scrub” on top, but I get eaten alive in glassy builds. Thieves especially just eat my lunch and make me want to pull my hair out when playing glassy Mesmer builds.

So I fiddled around with his build to think of ways to boost my defenses, and it struck me that the Knights Amulet has the weakness of no Ferocity in combination with only medium Power, but that this can be largely alleviated with a 6/6/x/x/x build and (drumroll) Air Runes! I ended up changing Ross build quite a bit, but the basic concept of Phants supported with CS-Interrupts is similarly IMO. It also has surprisingly good damage for how tanky it is. It is IMHO also more team-friendly then Ross’ build.

Explanations:
- I chose to get HM for 3x on the Mantras, including very solid Condie removal (MP)
- I chose GS + Staff for the same reasons mentioned by someone in Ross’ thread, it makes for more AoE goodness and Staff provides a lot of defense. The iWarlock also hits really hard, and works more reliably thanks to the Stuns from CS.
- I chose boon stripping on Shatters, as well as DE to synergize with that
- I chose MoA over MI as despite all it’s negatives, as it tends to have a greater impact on team play when it does land

Although having only 6.5s of Swiftness available when healing is not exactly optimal, it is far better then none…and I really love that Air Runes proc on Thieves! I had one Thief attacking me when I was at below 50% health, and he was dead in under 5 seconds flat, and cursing me out because the iWarlock crit him for 5k, the iZerker for over 4k, and the Air Rune procced for almost 2.5k.

This has turned out to be my favorite build for unranked sPvP. It is really well rounded and a fun play-style. (Shatter, Phants, interrupts, boon stripping, good mobility, and very survivable) I am not reliant on my team to keep me alive, I can do good AE damage from range, as well as boon strip & peel for my team-mates.

A short anecdote from last night:
I had a Thief on my team berating me in chat prior to our match, telling me to re-roll as Mesmers were useless in unranked arena without a reliable team to keep them alive. He threatened to immediately go AFK if I wiped early on in the match. Well we won, I didn’t die at all, and I was top scorer to boot by a large margin. Only then did I give him my “somewhat less then kind” retort, the others laughed, and he did admit I played it well.

In Ross Biddle’s build thread, someone made a post about a variation of the original build. I added a comment on that build, but then deleted it since applied to the variation and not the original build. I didn’t want to derail the thread.

Ross quoted me on it before I removed it. But my comment applies to your build here.

I run a 2-6-6 lockdown build with CI and HM, I’d like to offer some suggestions. Again these are just my opinions based on my experiences on my build(HM Mantra based)

Mantra of Recovery in sPvP just doesn’t work out. And using it with Mender’s Purity as your condition remover, doesn’t help. I’ll try and explain why.

Power Return just doesn’t heal enough for a Mantra. Yes, I know if you do the math, its does more healing than Ether Feast. But see when you do the math, you’re assuming you are recharging your mantra as soon as its on cooldown. But in reality as with any of our Mantra’s, there’s always a delay on when the cooldown expires and when you can safely recharge it. So the longer the battle lasts, the more at risk you put yourself because you don’t have a healing spell/not charged.

Power Return is around ~50-60% heal of base Ether Feast. So you end up using all your charges at the same time just to get back to the one cast of Ether Feast. Yes, its half the CD of Ether Feast, but again. In a fight, its probably going to be 15-20 seconds (or more) before you find an opening to recharge it. So what do you gain by using MoR and all your charges just to equal out Ether Feast.

Now if you throw in Mender’s Purity. Now your using charges not necessarily for the heal, but to remove that nasty immobilize or fear. Ending up with less charges (less healing) for when you actually need to heal.

Ether Feast just a better heal skill. (IMHO, Power Return should do 70-80% of Ether Feast) Mantra charges should be “better” than to similiar skills, because of the charging mechanic.

Mantra of Resolve provides the same condition removal as a MoRecovery/Mender’s Purity and is a small AOE cleanse. And more importantly it’s less painful, being in a fight with an uncharged MoResolve than an uncharged MoRecovery. The downside is you would need to give up either blink or decoy to run it. (I’d keep blink.)

Now theoretically, one advantage you do have is more access to stuns(CS), so maybe your build provides for more opportunities for mantra recharging than my HM/CI build and its less of an issue. But I’m just throwing in my .02$,

Nice job, I’m glad its working for you.

Thanks for the feedback Slim, but my personal experience doesn’t really confirm your opinions about MoR in sPvP, and especially MoR + MP. First of all, as often is the case in comparisons like this, you are not mentioning the benefits of MoR being instant, uninterruptible, and usable in many situations where EF is not. In my opinion this is a huge huge boon.

Having such a powerful instant heal also cleanse 2 conditions per use, is borderline OPd if you ask me. Remember that currently one of the most deadly forms of CC in the game is a Condition, Immobilize, and being able to instantly clear that is usually worth FAR more then a heal…and I’d venture to guess that in 4 out of 5 cases when I use MoR to clear conditions, I’m also healing for usually the full amount.

Mantra of Resolve is a very nice group utility skill, no doubt, but I find it hard to put into a solid build. It’s also yet another button to push only to remove something like Immob, when in the vast majority of cases when I’m Immob, I also need a heal…probably badly. (Same goes if I’m condition dumped, so again it’s rarely a waste to heal/remove at the same time IMO.)

Getting the re-charge off is not all that hard, between teleports, stealth, and F4. Sure it is a risk, and it’s a lot more “all-or-none” then EF at that one moment, but you have a similar risk every time you try to EF, being prone to interrupts.

Thanks for the input though!