Guild Wars 2

I ran up against a GS & Sword/Pistol Phantasm build that played much like this today. . . and had a decent fight. I ended up winning but it was more difficult than most builds. Mesmer vs Mesmer is really just a matter of knowing what the other is playing though. I realized after a minute of dueling that he was a phantasm focused build because he spent the entire time just trying to keep distance.

For reference, I am currently playing 0/10/0/30/30. . . Blade Training, Mender’s Purity, Warden’s Feedback, Restorative Illusions, Master of Misdirection, Illusionary Elasticity, and Illusionary Persona. I run 4 piece Knights, 2 piece Soldiers, with Divinity based Amulet and Rings, Valkyrie Backpiece and Earrings. I run Sword/Focus and Staff for weapons. The build plays in total adaption of how my opponent plays, putting them on the defensive after figuring out when to avoid their damage.

My build is not the best, nor will it be, but it has proven itself to be both versatile and powerful while allowing me to play defensively and stay alive. I played the build to beat the Phantasm based opponent by draining out their defensive options with a constant string of shatters (which gains me health to negate their phantasms damage) then eventually drop a Chaos storm on them and leap into them to hold them in it with a Mind Wrack. (and diversion to keep them from using any abilities I might have forgotten)

I didn’t though, it’s in the Mesmer forum from which the quote comes from, You are right however I did forget to repost it there, maybe you can do it for me, I’m gonna go play! = )

I play with the Inspiration Trait line almost always now (have been for about 4 months actually). The extra health is important, the heal does more, the damage from Phantasms is higher, and the trait choices allow you to do just about anything you need.

The more that we all play these builds the closer our builds are coming to look a lot alike, this is exactly the build I ran till I swapped to Mirror heal, (take off Restorative Mantras throw on Focus Cooldown Reduction and reflect) then you kill all rangers all the time. You have all the blocks you need for thieves, you have focus for pulling them out of their Refuge when they try to disengage, repositioner mid cast of Warden for around 1.5k damage on them (rarely will people get out before taking some damage from it) so on and so on.

This is one of the best flex builds available to a Mesmer, allowing you all you need to be useful and powerful in both PvE and PvP environments both. Depending on traits food and such you can flex to a bunkerish style of play or swap some gear/traits and go far more offensive, the build allows for swapping out Blink CD redux for Debilitating Dissipation for taking out camps in WvW (throw out a ton of clones then just dodge around making more).

Just by swapping traits you can run a full Support out of this build, so on and so forth. I sometimes take the 5 in Illusions and put it in Inspiration for Heal on Shatter to be mega annoying. Thanks to everyone who has been putting up these builds lately, there are 2 or 3 versions of trait point allocations with many different ways of playing it.

Also, with Focus and vitality food you can get a pretty high uptime on retaliation and couple it with Defender instead of Feedback for double Retal (if you get the Warden up and stand next to it while they are pegging you with melee auto attacks with a defender out you have 4 stacks of Retaliation hitting them every time they AoE melee you, eat that warriors!). Bang bang, great build thanks again Gaiawolf.

24 Mirrors? I had to kiss 150! SHE GOT OVER ON ME!? Meh, I enjoyed it anyhow.

Proximity Anguish doesn’t hit that hard, surely there has to be more, if not then it’s an amazing exploit that will most assuredly get fixed, ne’er fear. I could imagine a Proximity Anguish chain that might deal 15k in spurts of thousands of 5 to 15 damage a tick. . . that’d be something impressive. /opens combat log:
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
14 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
7 damage from Proximity Anguish
6 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
9 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
11 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
10 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
12 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
8 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
5 damage from Proximity Anguish
10 damage from Proximity Anguish
15 damage from Proximity Anguish. . .
and so on and so forth for 3 pages of log.

THAT’D be kind of annoying. To replicate such a bug would seem very difficult though. Impressive if such a thing could happen. I truly doubt it though.

At any rate, thanks for enlightening us and placing it here for all of us to read in addition to hopefully some Developers, hope it’s not a repeatable exploit.

. . . hiding in their own clones!

Oh and ummm. . . using Mantras effectively! (kidding!, they just aren’t as strong as they need to be yet, they should all be AoE effects!)

However, for leveling I’ve yet to find a profession that felt nearly as powerful. For Dynamic Events and such before the berzerker became broken it was fine for me, afterward it was less so. Dungeons and everything else felt great to me. I started as a Mesmer though, not having played anything else but Guardian to lvl 30 until my Mesmer was capped.

Also, Mesmer is really bad at being seen as not Overpowered.

Hey everyone needs to know it, not just the people on the Mesmer forums Seriously though, I was tired of seeing all the QQ in the Mesmer forums and put it every profession forum for good measure, easier access for everyone.

The point is. . . people complain about Mesmer being difficult to find all the time, and yet it’s easier than anything else, and easier by far by using the game’s design to help you even further. Besides, who likes to see the nameplate of every ambient creature in the game?

. . . you walk through the door at work and try to ‘Blink’ past the time clock to get ahead of the line.

LoS required, tried to use it to past the line of coworkers at the bar the other day too. Even hit my hotkey. . . if the keyboard had been in my hand. = /

Delofakitten.4231:

So, if it’s an issue of finding the real one, everyone should learn to turn off everything but player nameplates, real mesmer always visible unless a clone is almost directly in the middle of your screen. Done.

There the secret is out!

Delofakitten.4231:

So, if it’s an issue of finding the real one, everyone should learn to turn off everything but player nameplates, real mesmer always visible unless a clone is almost directly in the middle of your screen. Done.

There the secret is out!

Delofakitten.4231:

So, if it’s an issue of finding the real one, everyone should learn to turn off everything but player nameplates, real mesmer always visible unless a clone is almost directly in the middle of your screen. Done.

There the secret is out!

Delofakitten.4231:

So, if it’s an issue of finding the real one, everyone should learn to turn off everything but player nameplates, real mesmer always visible unless a clone is almost directly in the middle of your screen. Done.

There the secret is out!

Delofakitten.4231:

So, if it’s an issue of finding the real one, everyone should learn to turn off everything but player nameplates, real mesmer always visible unless a clone is almost directly in the middle of your screen. Done.

There the secret is out!

Delofakitten.4231:

So, if it’s an issue of finding the real one, everyone should learn to turn off everything but player nameplates, real mesmer always visible unless a clone is almost directly in the middle of your screen. Done.

There the secret is out!

Delofakitten.4231:

So, if it’s an issue of finding the real one, everyone should learn to turn off everything but player nameplates, real mesmer always visible unless a clone is almost directly in the middle of your screen. Done.

There the secret is out!

jportell.2197:

What bug with shatters do you keep referring to?

I editted it out of my post mostly due to the fact that it’s been awhile since I’ve tested it, it might have been fixed by now and until I do test it I won’t put it back in my post.

If it has in fact been fixed then the devs are best served to work on the scaling of the shatters from traits, especially percentage based boosts.

Elementalist are going to be getting this type of line attack with the hope that it will improve Scepter usage. The fact that the beam targets one person and goes up until that person and not through makes the skill usage on this very high while very hard to use effectively. It might, in fact, add some damage to the profession overall but I’m willing to bet that unless it’s used amazingly it won’t affect it nearly as much as many people seem to believe it will.

The fear is simple, they are adding damage without mentioning where it’s going to come from, nothing is free being the main idea. Given the other issues people have with Mesmer it feels natural to come from the hardest hitting attacks we have, but does it have to hit the base of those attacks (shatters)? I think the question is, “How do they balance extra damage without negatively impacting the lesser used builds and weapons?”.

There is something to be said about builds in the top most tiers of tPvP, and since the entire SoTG was based about the sPvP aspects of the game that is where they will focus their thoughts. For tPvP play in the highest levels it’s true, you will almost never see a non Shatter centric build being played, it’ll have 30 points in Illusions and the rest where ever (but probably 20 Dom, 20 Duel).

This is what the developers want to change, but to do so they would need to buff other areas. From what I could glean from the way the developers were responding in the interview, it would appear that they are fairly content with where Shatter based builds are right now, the real question would be how to bring the other builds up to that level.

They shifted their focus to Mantras and making those more playable, leaning towards the traits that affect them and perhaps the cast times of them too. This is not a bad idea by any means and something that could open more doors, making the 30 point traits stronger could also help direct players a bit more. There are many options, and much they could do to fix these issues.

Chaining stealth pretty much is only used when running from many players in WvW, it shouldn’t affect anything else really and even then I tend to only use my stealths when running from a zerg to drop target so I can make a clone with dodge and keep moving some more (hopefully they will waste an immobilize on a clone). Embolism brought up a good point though, if they make this change for Mesmer as well then they in will actually end up nerfing Veil and Mass Invis quite a bit.

A reduction to the cooldown would make it more fair without making the abilities too powerful. Though I really feel they should just make both of them instant cast as well. Yes an AoE stealth during a stun, but it still wouldn’t break the stun or knockdown so largely it wouldn’t matter, but the mindkittening power!

I do think priorities shift quite a bit as they are working on things. What seemed important one moment might mean nothing in the face of a glitch due to something else that was more important. Things like this get pushed back, then honestly forgotten, the only way to make sure the developers remember how important it is to the community is to speak up about it.

This is an issue that definitely could use some fixing, and soon because if they are making changes to weapon skills it is going to affect the balance, this would to and make different builds work differently. It’s such an important issue that by fixing it they might have to rethink other changes they are making as well.

This is quite literally 5 points away from the build I use, I don’t bother with 5 in Illusions anymore (GASP!). The points going into Inspiration for either X or XII, depending on whether I’m solo or with a friend or two. My heal accordingly swaps between Mirror and Mantra.

Seriously, if you are running around in WvW though, XII in Inspiration will change your world.

Thanks for putting up almost consolidated source of great amazing information, it was entertaining to read and the build itself is fun in all different forms.

Necro has very consistent mobility. As least it has some utilities that give swiftness without being a random proc.

My favorite Alt for my Mesmer. . . is a Mesmer, but I do like all the other professions over all, just none nearly as much as my Mesmer.

Null Field is a general tool for more situations with more power in most situations, Resolve is a highly situational tool that fulfills the role slightly better.

-.-

I can see we will have to agree to disagree on this. Well, enjoy your Mantras as they are strong enough for you. I still respect you as a player, and your opinion matters, it’s just not in line with what I believe myself and most of the community think about Mantras.

The point still remains that Null Field is far more versatile. The most important issues listed that you gave further show how niche the Mantras are, proving only further that they are better in a few situations. The issue is. . . they are only ever better in a very few situations, which in fact makes them much less powerful in most situations. That is the whole point of this thread I believe, that they have the potential for so much more, and are just lacking that little oomph.

A popular opinion would be to make the Mantras act more like signets which I actually do not like, but I could see Traits being a bit stronger. Things such as making them AoE effects (especially useful on Mantra of Pain), reducing their cast times, adding versatile secondary effects. . .

For instance, would Resolve be completely OP if it removed conditions from all nearby allies? Another trait might make it remove boons from nearby enemies (in effect making it a mobile off the GCD once charge Null Field). . . these are questions that raise interesting questions about the current design of skills.

EasymodeX.4062:

MOR is usable 3x as often as Null Field for condition removal.

The number of times you can use Resolve doesn’t outweigh the versatility of Null Field. Besides, Null Field removes around 5 Conditions, at most Resolve will get 8 in the same time frame, but remember you won’t have pulled any boons plucked off your enemy, nor any confusion/chaos armor from proccing the field, etc etc etc. Yes it’s usable about twice as often (20 sec CD 3 and 1/4th sec cast) as Null Field (45 sec CD, 1/4th sec cast), and does 1/4th of the effect.

Okay. . . so I spent the entire past 2 days maxing my Artificing so I could make a Scepter that I would use for WvW. I will say this much, I really didn’t think I was going to like it. . . but I do, I’ve said it before and I will say it again I don’t think it’s a great weapon. In many ways, I actually still hate it, but it is quite effective at what it does in my build. In fact, coupled with a Pistol it can make for some fun plays and an interesting chain burst that people tend to just fall into it, and failing that just swap weapons and throw them around with my focus (which I never run without).

Scepter now has a place in my heart, it’s much better than I gave it credit. That said I’m still pretty certain that I like Staff a touch better for solo roaming. . . if someone gives me issues with my build I can just run away with a combination of good timing and proper playing.

There are still issues with Scepter like the fact that it’s not a very flexible weapon with no finishers or fields to make use of, skills that do not benefit team play as much, and just an overall lack of coherency to the feel of the #1 attack. I don’t let the clones come out unless they have managed to kill everything of higher value and I’m trying to save endurance for a dodge on an attack. That isn’t terribly often to be honest.

Here’s the benefits. . . it gives me 3 options of offhands that give me various different things that I REALLY wanted to use for a long time now. First I wanted to be able to use my pistol again, I can because I have a scepter in main hand now (other set has a sword/focus). Scepter also allows me to swap over to a sword off hand which I’ve missed for some time as well and it’s really nifty to walk into all those AoEs with blocks just to proc their abilities. Lastly it let me try out Torch, which of all the options available definitely felt the most lackluster for my current build, but would have to be amazing with 30 points in Chaos or some points in Domination, which I will try at a later date.

Thanks for this thread. . . after almost a half a year of hating the scepter I can now say I actually like it and hate it in equal portions now!

Wow this sounds familiar, someone was telling me something like this at one point. . . Was it an Asura wielding a Sword/Focus and Staff combination? I think I might have seen this guy before. . .

I am really curious, hope original poster responds.

Now only if this really were invulnerability. It’s close, but blocks are channeled and mean you can’t do other effects while it’s going. So it’s close, but not quite invulnerability.

There lavra, you can feel better now. = )

Mantras are too limited in versatility to provide what other utilities can without traits and thus less so with traits even given their unrestricted timing usages once charged. Coupled with the difficulty in charging them from time to time and we have a situation with Mantras.

An example, the comparison between Null Field and Resolve.

Null Field

• Removes Conditions (allies)
• Removes Boons (foes)
• Combo Field

Resolve

• Removes Conditions (self)
• Multiple usages
• Low cool down

The cool down of Null Field while longer is also connected to a powerful effect that takes place over several seconds in which can be used for a variety of different other effects because it’s a combo field. Resolve can’t boast that, has only one application and doesn’t even affect everyone around you or your enemy at all. In summary, untraited Null Field is hands down stronger than untraited Mantra of Resolve, partly because it’s usable when you generally need it while providing more opportunities in which to use it as well while being usable most of the times you need to use it. Mantra of Resolve while usable more often has less opportunities in which to use it.

The period is a statement of how everything in his post has come to an end and therefore must be true. This is both obvious, and not so obvious, depending of course on how you like to look at it. That being said, he could just have bad grammar. So do I, however, and will make no attempt to act haughty in any way. Good post, shows how strong Mesmer is from a newer players’ eyes.

This is because it’s hard for a new player to handle a Mesmer, I think the only answer must be that Mesmer is completely overpowered in PvP. Personally I would tend to disagree, the truth is in the eye of the beholder however and therefore completely relative.

because if it were considered a Glamour it’d be touched by 2 Cooldown reduction traits and made MUCH much stronger than it currently is, which it’s pretty strong as it is. Admittedly it seems like a Glamour to me as well in both effect and style.

I’m amazed at these threads. . . I really am. Turn off all the names of NPCs and enemies, leave only player names, real Mesmer has a name over his head (when not directly in the center of your screen, or already targeting a clone) and guess what, the clones don’t have that name.

The real one has a name!

Funky. . . if you act like a clone it only works against people who don’t do what I’ve shown. No I more often lose players when they stealth and have problems with my tab targeting than I do with noticing which one is the real one and I’m pretty sure that’s probably true of most players.

Clones generating confusion could very well be in the mix. . . of a great Grandmaster Trait in Dueling to replace Mantra buff when they move that into a lower tier!

. . .

. . .

. . .

Well it sounded good to me!

Edit: Actually putting such a trait in the Inspiration line based off of Phantasms actually sounds nice, Phantasms have 50% chance to apply Confusion on hits. (duration >= 5 seconds if affected by condition duration, 7 seconds if not)

Oh Ele’s had an unannounced change as well? Interesting. At any rate though, having played with the new Trident’s functionality a fair amount tonight I think it’s honestly MORE powerful than it was, being able to apply a bleed directly and from clones is great and when they kill my clones I can just make phantasms to apply confusion and discourage them from attacking while I make more clones or blind them. Honestly this might very well be a buff to Trident over all, I hated enemies getting away because they simply swam away ignoring confusion and forcing me to utilize spear to catch up and detain them hoping to get that last auto on them to down them.

Confusion has potential to do more damage, but Bleed is MUCH more consistent, makes solo’ing underwater champs easier too.

I’m not convinced that the change to trident was a nerf, but it IS different. It’s a little more viable for variety of builds underwater now actually, and less reliant on clone spam for damage. That said, it’s always a search to see what they didn’t tell us in the patch notes. . . a search that I’m still not completely done looking through though I can’t remember every last detail of every skill and trait.

I’ll take the good news as good news and the fact that there was a lack of bad news as good news as well. This is a very lucky day for us, we should make sure to treasure it, because it might not ever happen again. /CHEER

Dastion asked the right question, if we don’t have a stealth nerf this patch I’ll be dancing in the streets. Literally, and it’s fairly cold outside.

I gathered pretty early on that he didn’t feel that it needed a nerf but rather the way shatters are built need a slight rework, which I agree with and have made several posts to that affect myself. The fact that they are so much less good without IP and often other traits as well makes their usefulness much reduced. That said, how could you bring them up any without making other builds too much stronger? Do they need to? Would it really change anything at all?

These are all questions we should be asking ourselves, and the more I think on it the more I feel like I know where they are going with many of the changes past. The fixes they need to do to non working traits and illusion AI and other things definitely should come before any negative or potentially negative effects.

Well here’s to hoping tomorrow brings good things!

Favorite Skill: Temporal Curtain / Into the Void

Curtain gives you so many options for control, combo, or just mobility that it’s hard to gauge it’s power. Into the Void gives you even more control and just ices the power of the core ability.

Most Hated Skill: Mimic

This ability has such niche uses, it’s so rarely useful that it will be on almost no ones bar, and even when it is it’s uses are so limited as to be both very hard to use well, and very difficult to be used when you need it most. It would almost be a high skill cap skill IF it wasn’t so limited in timing to get best benefit out of it.

AoE is the Devil!, SAVE US JEEBUS!

I would look in the Mesmer forums. . . there are several great threads about Immortal Mesmer builds and Bunkering etc. Good luck.

Edit: Apologies, there might have been a bit of sarcasm in this post, I’m generally not one to inject that into my posts however it was funny to see this thread when the threads all over the first page are about bunker builds.

At a glance I would assume he goes the extra 10 points really because he wants the extra 5 for Shattered Strength since his damage output is a little low with this build and the stacks of Might would yield both harder hitting Retaliation and Confusion. That said, the extra 5 points after that seems about the same as say 5 in Inspiration for extra Phantasm damage (though he’s not using the highest damage phantasms anyhow with one being on a condition of them staying in the spot and getting hit by Warden and Warlocks damage being less strong from not critting). I would say it’s probably to taste in his case, but given that he’s more than tanky enough it would seem likely that the extra burst he gets from those last 10 points in Illusions is exactly what he needs to round the build out. It gives him much harder hitting Mind Wracks than would be possible without it, and more utility than the other two trees would give as well. That said, it’s all with his full P/T/V gear, if some of that were crit or some other stat he might very well be able to lose the burst there given it’s gained somewhere else.

@Westibone: That is pretty much exactly how I use Warden, which by the way I’ve never seen the Warden’s summon get blocked (block doesn’t give invulnerability or blind which are the only ways to stop a phantasm summon). That said, try it on a blocking NPC at some point, it lands, successfully, without fail. Sword/Focus gives you so many defensive and combo options it’s hard to see playing any other way for me now.

Many people miss the fact that he’s an AoE cleanse on a 25 sec CD with Curtain, just drop a curtain on him and go stand on him for a sec to remove some conditions, that’s really not too hard and since he discourages people attacking you while he’s whirling it’s pretty useful too.

I think Winds was specifically naming GTAoE abilities that a Mesmer have to illustrate the concept of what those abilities do, as in create a circle of damage on the ground, merely to represent what other professions have in regards to those. The damage on Chaos Storm and Mind Stab is fairly laughable, they are used for their secondary effects, I would assume Winds is aware of that of course.

No it would be folly to remove AoE from the few AoE abilities a Mesmer currently has without compensation, though what they have planned is anyone’s guess because they bounce around ideas so much and end up following some that seem less well thought out. That said, it’s a learning process and they do appear to be getting better, and faster than most MMO companies I’ve seen, albeit perhaps not as fast as we would prefer.

Because they forgot to take out the Confusion underwater bit, and it is EXTREMELY strong underwater as it it. In fact, the Trident doesn’t apply confusion from your attack just the clones, and that is because they are using an older version of the trident attack ability, they didn’t balance the weapon around not applying confusion at all. . . hence it’s power based damage is so low.

Many of the issues with Mesmer are simply because they were a late developed profession according to various sources, along with Engineer and Thief they were developed later and hence had less testing time. Balancing them was harder because they wanted to get the product out there for us to play, I’m happy to play the game, but disappointed that my profession is still being tuned. To be honest it’s in a late beta phase of development for a profession in my opinion, and I’m okay with that, I just hope they tune it in one of the 15 directions that would be good in my opinion.

That said, a reduction on the power based damage of scepter and giving it back confusion on Auto would probably be fine as well. . . reduce it’s scaling with power to 0 for all it matters, clones from it applying confusion would be quite good too actually. I doubt any of this would happen, but I’d love to be wrong.

I always thought that Scepter 3 should have been an AoE application of Confusion by itself, at 3 sec cast AoE around target of 450ish range would have been a decent AoE radius application of Confusion, and 3 seconds is a long cast anyhow.

I’m actually fine with Mesmer not being the only profession to have the curse of Portal, but I do wish they would just change the functionality such that instead of anyone walking up and using it, instead when the Mesmer used it all his party members within 600 range was pulled through. Party members makes it a small enough group and forces it to be used with only 5 people, but as many times as you like in that time frame, the fact that the Mesmer is the one controlling the portal makes it a lot less powerful, then they could really put the CD at 30 seconds for all it would matter and it’d be just fine really.

It might be a good addition to weaker traits in our trait lines to spice them up a bit, with flavor based on which line it is in. . . but the main issue is that it because it just adds X damage or X condition(s) it ends up just adding power to an already powerful profession. That is a problem in both PvP and WvW, in order to give an added bonus to phantasms they would need to tone something else down, since they are looking to tone down some burst this would feel like a fine addition to be honest, provided they toned down Mind Wrack damage perhaps or Phantasms actual damage abilities.

It wouldn’t be a simple addition of just an ability, but then again, it’s quite possibly something that Arenanet would do.

Grimms, that finish at the end of 1/14/13 Video. . . LOL I did that the other day, but by accident. I hit my Phase Retreat to get out of an AoE while mid finisher and realized that my finisher was still going, I looked down, saw Blink and was like, sure why not?! WHAM! Oh the poor guy on the ground had to have been so mad.

Glad you run a non glass cannon build too, I’d been running something with slightly more Crit damage and less toughness for awhile to good effect. The toughness though looks to be pretty good, might have to swap out some pieces for Knights pieces.