Guild Wars 2

Is this guide at all relevant any more?

Hmm, so you’re suggesting that we now have a more viable option of combining the benefits from illusions with timely shatters?

I love the intent behind the changes to the skills system, and for a large part, we now have a lot more choice and viability.

However, the builds largely seem to come down to two choices still: Phantasm or Shatter.

When it comes to shatter builds, it seems as though you simply MUST have Deceptive Evasion.

Given all this choice, why does it seem to come down to DE or no shatter. Am I still stuck in the old build-system? I just don’t seem to be an effective shatterer without DE.

Your input as always, is much appreciated.

Thanks

MSFone.3026:

I respectfully disagree. To me a master of misdirection and manipulation does not blow a big trumpet at people (though perhaps that would be confounding to some, “Why is that moron blowing a horn at me?”); the war horn just does not seem mesmery at all to me. If we get a new weapon I think, as many have suggested, it should be a main hand pistol.

Yeah same here. Warhorn doesn’t scream mesmer IMO.

MH Pistol? not a bad idea. I think theres a ton of stuff we already have that could get fixed before we get new weapons though.

Yeah but I find equally frustrating when your skill pops and the CD begins even though you couldn’t use the skill because you were out of range. It’s like a double whammy; You’re out of range, you can’t use that skill and as a punishment, you won’t be able to use it for 30 seconds.

Ergolicious.1507:

“kitten” is simply an automatic editing from the forum when you post innapropriate words :p

Really? awesome! I had no kittening idea

And thank you for clearing up the acronyms.

Joe.4178:

That isn’t bad, some good key points there, but too bad anet doesn’t really care what we have to say. If so, then it’d take them another 2 years to fix something like ileap.

Thank you.

Persistent bugs that don’t get fixed for years are Very frustrating. It means that the developer either; Doesn’t care, or can’t fix it. Either way is bad really.

Feaduin.7603:

If you like the Chaos line, try BI + CI with Mantra of Distraction instead of PU for sPvP. Interrupt builds can be pretty hilarious, but yeah shatter is meta for team queue. However, the PU trait has its place in WvW roaming where you often need to evade 10+ angry people.

Can you just explain some forum-isms please:

BI?
CI?
Meta?

I see these repeated across threads but the meaning is not immediately apparent.

(and kitten? WTF? lol)

Edit: BI = Bountiful Interruption? CI= Chaotic Interruption?

I’d like conditions to be applied more actively, be more punishing and have a more active removal process.

For example.

Application:

In order to apply a bleed, you have to land a successful crit with a melee weapon which then applies the bleed. The bleed would be more punishing, so it would have a high duration ~20 seconds and include a movement debuff (-25% movement speed owing to bleeding all over tyria).

Additionally, the UI would reflect the DoT applied visually in a manner similar to receiving a Blind debuff currently)

Removal

Conidition removal would be a seperate skill in a manner like crafting. So you learn First Aid. This grants an ability ‘Clot’ (F5?) which has a 2 second cast time which has a 50% chance to halt the bleeding.

Alternative mechanics:

Different classes are more susceptible to different DoTs. Maybe Mesmer’s who are affected by Confusion experience a skill slow down effect similar to Chill owing to the fact that mesmerising takes mental effort, but a warrior would just receive the standard damage on skill use. Warriors are susceptible to vulnerability, rangers to poison, theifs to burning etc.

You could then have a mechanic which means that you can swap In-Combat between similar type weapons. Ie, 1h Sword A is runed to apply Poison, 1h Sword B is runed to apply burning. Player A realises she is up against a ranger, so she swaps to 1h Sword A before switching back to Sword B to take care of that thief that was stealthed.

Sure you could run around with your favourite weapon and still apply bleeds to everybody, but a true condition specced character will swap weapons to apply the most applicable DoTs.

This would just make the whole Condition mechanic more active in both application and removal.

(Disclaimer this was all just made up on the spot off the top of my head, no further thought went into this and would require an entire rework of combat mechanics that wont actually ever happen)

Suuns.9203:

Hello fellow Mesmers,
Nowadays there are too many builds and I don’t know which one is better.
I’m looking for good PVP and PVE Build.
I know some answers are: “Experiment and find the build that suits you” but can’t come up with good builds myself so I prefer to stick to the ones that are already tested and approved.
Also I’m not in close relationship with forums so I don’t know many short versions of words like Prismatic Understanding = PU etc. etc. So please tell full names

Thanks in Advance.

I know what you mean! Kitten, IP, MtD.. I have to go to GW2skills.net then trawl through the trait selections looking at the trait tooltips to understand what on earth people are talking about!

(still not entire sure about this whole Kitten thing either)

Not mesmer specific but I would like Build Profiles.

IE: the ability to store trait and gear selections in 3 (more slots purchaseable through Gems) profile slots (with custom descriptors/names) in the Hero tab.

That way, I can press H, then click “Doni’s super uber WvW build” when going from PvE to WvW content.

(Basically the same as the way RIFT handles multiple build profiles)

I would love for my mesmer’s movement animation to continue after Blinking, instead of becoming a skateboarding frozen animation until I jump!

I was going by the cooldown tooltips In Game, however I have just found this in Chaos Archangel’s POST:

“- Illusionists’ Celerity (Illusions 25) works along with “weapon cooldown” traits even if the timer does not show it.”

So I still haven’t settled on a post-Sep14-feature-Pack build and as such have been playing around a lot with the traits.

Hopefully you guys will be able to put me right on this pretty quickly but:

I have noticed that Illusionist’s Celerity no longer stacks with Chaotic Dampening as is suggested in the GW2 Wiki reduced recharge table.

I checked through the Release Notes but couldn’t find a mention.

Is this something that has changed a while ago and the wiki is outdated? or is this a bug?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Will be updating the guide this weekend…ish.

Awesome! Was kinda hoping you would:D Thanks Chaos Archangel!

I’m still running Osicats napalm cat build (although I want to change it up so that I can have IE), so I have 3 mantra charges plus menders purity.

Yes, they turned a semi useful skill into a compete waste of a skill slot

Fay.2357:

So, here we go:

1. Clones no longer have offhand weapons

Is it just missing art, or do we know if they’re not ‘using’ those weapons? how could we test?

Swish.2463:

I spose we should sit down and check all Mesmer traits and durations on conditions once again.. someone check the staff clone bleed and the Dd durations etc..

Seems like we don’t get paid for that! I mean, I know that the live environment is a different beast to their test environment, but these are pretty highly reproduceable bugs that should have been picked up… at least some of them.

Do they run test servers for players to test on?

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Fay.2357:

Now, however, iLeap isn’t a normal leap. It’s near impossible to control where the clone ends up, so you can’t guarantee that it actually lands on the curtain for a leap combo. Basically, in normal play you’ll get maybe 1/10 leaps to actually work on curtain, and that’s a big problem.

I was not having these problems when trying it out…

Anyhow, I just don’t think it’s worth it. The runes are interesting… for my ele. Mesmers just don’t have the traits to support an aura build.

Speaking of which @ Doni, the runes only do swiftness on aura. It’s an ele trait that does swiftness and fury. I don’t think that chaos armor is even classified as an aura so the 33% duration is crap anyways.

Ah right, I couldn’t check at the time because I was on my phone at work No, as far as I know, chaos armour is not considered an aura, just the new Light field finisher.

Patch Notes:

Superior Rune of Radiance:
+25 Vitality
When you receive an aura, you gain 5 seconds of swiftness.
+50 Vitality
When you use a heal skill, you gain 4 seconds of light aura.
+100 Vitality
The duration of auras you apply are increased by 33%.

So, If you use the mantra heal you can get on demand swiftness, however this isn’t much different from what you can get from Centaur runes. might be nice in a Vitality/Toughness build I guess. At the end of the day, the more options we have, the better IMO.

Especially if you couple this with the new runes that grant boons (I think it’s swiftness and fury? Can’t check at moment) when affected by an aura!

I haven’t tested yet, but these were my first thoughts when I read the release notes.

This could be put to very good use in an anti zerg wvw build!

It depends largely on your build.

If you have a condition based build that includes proc on clone death, then you will not manually shatter them, but instead you will produce as many clones as possible without shattering.

If you spec into a build that relies on phantasms, then you’ll likely be running Power/precision gear and so the conditions will be largely negligible, however you may still wish to shatter them for effects such as Daze or Distortion (F3/F4)

So in answer, it all depends on your build and the situation.

Yeah I will only take a phantasmal power build into dungeons I think.

I am thinking about swapping out 2illusions into 2 chaos so that I can have 0/4/6/0/4 then I can have more versatilility with the Choas line swapping manipulations with condition on clone death and PU.

I have edited the first post because I put 4/4/0/0/6 when I meant 0/4/4/0/6

Hey all,

I spoke at length about a build for my mesmer in This Thread.

As a result of TooBz post, I took a look at the 0/4/4/0/6 Shatter build owing to its versatility and applicability to both PvE and WvW.

With the impending changes to IE, I was looking for mesmer input on running a 0/4/4/0/6 build instead. This I see as a hybrid shatter/condition build that would use both Chaos X and Illusions VII (Major traits swapped situationally).

I was wondering if this is viable as a shatter/condition build? Illusions VII works for both GS and Staff, so weapon swapping could be done on the fly to suit situations.

Whats your thoughts please?

Fay.2357:

Doni.6095:

Do you mean to swap Phantasmal Fury with Far-Reaching Manipulation? I was led to believe that Phantasmal Fury was paramount for Phantasm damage? Also, I was under the impression that Phantasms inherited your crit chance, were affected by Boons, AoEs and Conditions. I haven’t found out exactly which of your stats they inherit though, is Power one of them then?

Phantasms inherit all the mesmer’s BASE stats, with the exception of vitality. This means that crit chance is not inherited…but precision is. Things that boost crit chance (such as fury on the mesmer) do not transfer to phantasms, but things that boost precision do. Additionally, this also means that things boosting base stats on phantasms (such as might) do nothing, but those same things on the mesmer will transfer to the phantasm.

Doni.6095:

With regards Blink, I nearly always have that trait equipped because it is just so useful. However you mention that: “Extended blink opens up so many special juke locations.”
Can you expand on this please? I was always frustrated that blink seems unable to send you to any place that doesn’t have both direct LoS from you current position and is free from vertical obstructions or drops. Is there a way to use it more advantageously?

I highly recommend you watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ozCg25--E&list=UUYUY9_i44IDNOs_Ja815mlA

A quick summary though is that blink skills do a search for a walking path from your position to the target position. If one exists within a certain range, even if it’s roundabout, you’ll be able to blink there.

Gotchya. Thank you for your explanation Fay!

Absconditus.6804:

Doni.6095:

… that other one I can’t find that inflicts several conditions when using an elite.

You mean the Superior Rune of the Krait?

That’s the one, thank you Absconditus!

Pwent.2639:

@Doni your build Looks fun it will take practice landing pull into warden then confuse ray, though why emerald jewel. Other than that try runes of the sunless for lols with mass invis and chaotic interruption. Get rid of sigil of agony it is a waste in wvw, instead throw on sigil of doom and condi duration food.

In condi mesmer builds sigils of doom is king.

With your low power the 25% damage to phantasms isnt that great, i dont go anywhere in wvw without extended blink maybe use that 1 point for that. Extended blink opens up so many special juke locations.

I think I was just looking for a jewel that would affect precision and toughness.

Actually, you’re right, that could be fun, could either use sunless, nightmare, torment, perplexity, or that other one I can’t find that inflicts several conditions when using an elite.

Do you mean to swap Phantasmal Fury with Far-Reaching Manipulation? I was led to believe that Phantasmal Fury was paramount for Phantasm damage? Also, I was under the impression that Phantasms inherited your crit chance, were affected by Boons, AoEs and Conditions. I haven’t found out exactly which of your stats they inherit though, is Power one of them then?

With regards Blink, I nearly always have that trait equipped because it is just so useful. However you mention that: “Extended blink opens up so many special juke locations.”
Can you expand on this please? I was always frustrated that blink seems unable to send you to any place that doesn’t have both direct LoS from you current position and is free from vertical obstructions or drops. Is there a way to use it more advantageously?

mikeew.8607:

1. Get Zerker gear
2. Get Runes of the Traveler (Superior if can afford would be preferred)
3. GS/Sword pistol for wvw
4. GS/Sword focus for pve can keep pistol if want to
5. Builds
a. PVE http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQRAsd8cnsISRaWjGmqB1aGR1QQZ30kOQiIlsTJA-TBSBABUcAECc/BKV/xMlgXp8DPNMLcgAA4AGQGg8JA-e
b. WVW http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsaRnsISjaWmGmqB3aGp0YM9PxcDJDIhS+S5A-TBSBABUcKECc/BKV/xMlgXp8DPNMLckAA4BGQGg8JA-e
Now with the PVE build you can stick with great sword and that is fine just take out signet mastery and sub it for GS training and use same heal or the default heal for mesmer.

For WVW you can sub out pistol for torch for a bit more stealth and burning but I find the pistol to be much more effective with the phant dealing worlds more dps and magic bullet is amazing.
So there you go this is a very quick ex. of what I run situationally of course. It works however in both WVW PVE and EOTM for PVP I run a shatter variation with gs sword/pistol. but that is outside of what you were requesting hope this helps.

Also much of this is up to you can swap out certain utilities as you’d like for open world pve I run mostly maxed out mantras for the 16% dmg increase 100% of the time. In dungeons I switch that out run usually 2-3 mantra with Feedback or cleansing field depending on situation. For WvW I run that setup typically blink decoy and third can switch around from mantra that cleanses condi’s to condition cleansing field to portal or any others that may work its really up to your gameplay type.

So hope this helps at least a bit..

actually it does help, thank you very much thank you for taking the time to link the builds and detail your thoughts behind them.

Much of the help that has been given in this thread really has helped me, thank you all!!

Fay.2357:

Well, let’s start with dungeons, because they’re the most cut and dry of any game type.

In dungeons, you want full berserker’s gear (assassin’s is actually technically better). You’ll be running a phantasm build generally with mantras for extra personal damage. For more specifics on that, take a look at the stickied dungeon guide.

So now you’ve got a set of glassy power gear. This’ll work just fine for open world PvE as well, same builds will work just fine too. Open world PvE is…yeah. It’s pretty dull/easy. The only thing is that the optimal damage runes in dungeons will be something like scholar/strength, but for open world PvE you’ll really want centaur for that permanent swiftness.

For WvW, you can roam in glassy gear. You can do this as a shatter build, interrupt build, or phantasm build. The issues here are that you’re going to have a lot of trouble dealing with many standard roaming builds if you’re solo. If you roam with a buddy or two, this becomes much less of an issue.

Now for WvW group play…this is tougher. I’ll only address builds you can run post-patch, since pre-patch there’s really nothing good. You’ve got limited options for what you can do with glassy gear. You’re very much backline, because any frontline build needs more defense than that. However, you can focus on something like support through mantras+aoe damage with mantra of pain, or you could go even more offensive with triumphant distortion allowing your iZerker to get a spin off and such. You can really play around with your build a bit there, but the important thing is that you’re absolutely a backliner if you’re in glassy gear like that.

Actually Fay, this really helps a lot. This is a very good breakdown of the different aspects of each facet of PvE and WvW. Thank you.

I will be able to take what you’ve put here to help me decide how/where to go with my build and gear. This comment should definitely be in the stickies IMO. It’s not as though I didn’t know what the different aspects of these games elements were, it’s more that I had never considered how each aspect impacts on a characters setup.

Fay.2357:

Doni.6095:

Esplen.3940:

You can check out a PvE/WvW boon share interrupt build. It won’t be particularly viable versus bosses (either in dungeon or open world) but it’s a support build, so you’re able to assist your allies in nearly every scenario.

Additionally, since PvP has it’s own traits/gear/runes/sigils, you can set a build and just swap to it on the fly. The only thing to note is that you have to equip the appropriate weapons.

I have no idea where the boon-share interrupt build is, but it’s basically S/F + Staff. You can swap Focus for Torch to get a blast, but you lose out on some lots of Retaliation.

Hmm, that’s true. I have run a boonshare build from Chaos’ post.. Chaos Maestro thread. Will have another look and see how well it can be personalised.

That sort of build can work excellently in PvP and WvW group fights, but you’ll have a bad time in WvW roaming (boon share requires people to share it with of course). Note that in WvW group fights you might miss out on some tagging that you could otherwise get with a more offensive build.

Don’t try to run it in PvE though. Mesmers can’t produce the truly important PvE boons (might+fury), so it’s better to focus on damage and other utility.

Any suggestion on a build that I can run Fay? One whose core concept remains the same but I can tweak for WvW vs PvE vs Dungeons etc?

Esplen.3940:

You can check out a PvE/WvW boon share interrupt build. It won’t be particularly viable versus bosses (either in dungeon or open world) but it’s a support build, so you’re able to assist your allies in nearly every scenario.

Additionally, since PvP has it’s own traits/gear/runes/sigils, you can set a build and just swap to it on the fly. The only thing to note is that you have to equip the appropriate weapons.

I have no idea where the boon-share interrupt build is, but it’s basically S/F + Staff. You can swap Focus for Torch to get a blast, but you lose out on some lots of Retaliation.

Hmm, that’s true. I have run a boonshare build from Chaos’ post.. Chaos Maestro thread. Will have another look and see how well it can be personalised.

Thank you for everyone’s input. Feels a little deflating when you like to do all types of game content. I’ll have to keep searching the stickies and trying some builds until I find what I like.

For now i’m on Osicat’s Napalm Cat because its uber fun, but ofc isn’t very applicable to PvE and certainly not dungeoneering.

xx

Fay.2357:

Doni.6095:

If I can get a build that enables me to do WvW, open world PvE and bosses as well as dungeons then I’d be a very happy bunny

Here’s the deal. You can use 1 set of gear for roaming WvW, open world PvE and bosses, and dungeons. You can not use 1 set of traits. You’ll need to retrait and change weapons as different encounters come up. Since you don’t have to visit a retrainer and it’s free to do now, there’s absolutely no excuse to do so. Trying to make a build that works in all of those game types will simply result in a build that’s bad at all of them.

But… I wanna have my cake AND eat it

I guess you’re right, it’s just a little frustrating. I’ll have to keep searching until I find a build that I can use the same gear for that I find fun to play, then swap out some traits when changing content.

Esplen.3940:

Also, as a Mesmer, to be at your peak performance, you need to be able to [re]trait on the fly. .

If I can get a build that enables me to do WvW, open world PvE and bosses as well as dungeons then I’d be a very happy bunny

I’m more than happy to swap between GS/Staff situationally whilst swapping a couple of major traits, but would like to not have to change play style. This is where I’m struggling. I enjoy CC and love the staff. I also really seem to like Sceptre/Torch but I also have fun with a Focus. I’d prefer to just have the one set of armour too but use different foods as appropriate.

I’m struggling to find a build that suits these preferences. They all seem far too specific and require a complete retrait and set of armour/weapons to be able to swap between WvW/PvE/Dungeons.

sPVP is different because you can effectively save your specific pvp battleground setup.

I guess my problems would be solved if Anet put in a build profile system like Rift : 3 or 4 saved traits and gear setups that you can switch between ‘on the fly’ but out of combat ofc.

What do I need to make it more PvE open world viable? is it more direct damage?

Hello Mesmers,

Long time player, first time poster here.

I have been studying the forums, builds and stickies for a while looking for the ‘perfect’ build for me.

For a long time I was a phantasm support mesmer but eventually this got a bit boring. Not too long ago, I did some searching and ended up settling on Osicat’s Napalm Shatter Build. I found this a lot of fun, but the low mobility was hurting in WvW. Then I was hit with the PU and other changes coming on 9th Sep 14.

So I began looking for something else that would suit me.

I would like a build that I can use for Both PvE and WvW (with changing major traits to suit situation, but without having to change point distribution). I played GW1 and loved the mesmer which was innately Condition and CC through chaos storms and DoTs, so I have been looking at a Condition and CC Build for both PvE and WvW. And I always love CC because it annoys the crap outta your opponent

Please could you comment on My Build bearing the above in mind?

With the above build, I tried to create a PvX versatile build with:

*Damage from strong Phantasms (Fury+Bleed on Crit and 15% phantasm damage) *Stacking condition damage applied via interrupts (hence the many dazes/stuns/interrupts in the build).
*Crowd Control.

Traiting the Focus enables me to gain reflection through Temporal Curtain which synergises well with Chill and phase retreat to stay out of melee range. This also adds another interrupt if I use Into the Void, adding more conditions and CC.

As always, you have to sacrifice some trait selections – there’s always a choice to be made. This means I did not put 3 points into Domination to gain the minor traits and extra 15% illusion damage from Empowered Illusions. These would go nicely with my interrupts and phantasms but I didn’t find the Vulnerability attractive enough if I can’t do enough damage in the first place.

I haven’t been able to fully test this yet, but as always, would appreciate your input. Especially if you have a better grasp of the up-coming changes than I do.

Thanks all