There is no particular Meta build for a Mesmer in game atm. Every aspect of our classes game play depends on group composition and what the player best plays. That being said, the term “Meta” doesn’t exist for us right now.
So to answer your question, the closest thing to meta considering the game damage meta, would be a way to deal with conditions. As far as a build, just use what works best for you and your group.
If your using the Insperation line then VIII is pretty much mandatory. That would force you into using the focus also. As far as the 10 point trait goes its dealers choice. The GM traits are “meh”. 25 points is all you really need unless specifically building something to use on of the GM traits for.
However at this point you’re not a shatter build anymore. You have to ask yourself “what play style am I wanting?”. If you still want to go shatter, look at Osicat’s heavy build.
You may be whatever you like outside zerg, if you’re running with zerg, you’re either as tanky as you could be utility bot, either another point of rally. It is zerg that makes your server win at this state of wvw, not roamers.
So by your reasoning, then every class is simply a bot in a zerg, cause in a zerg every class is expected to do certain things. Necros are expected to do Conditions, Eles to drop fire/water fields, Warriors to Banner Supervisors/allies, Guardians to spam 1 buff with Staff 4, cut off escapes with staff #5…
Mesmers are simply more noticeable because the things they do have a much more noticeable effect because they are the only class that can do them. Our poison is that people reduce us to “just Veil/Portal bots” and tell us that if we want to do anything else we should re-roll. I resent that. We do more than that, and I want people to know that we are more than our unique skills.
Case in point. Zergs in WvW are about who has the best strat or mass #‘s. All classes adhere to whatever synergies best for the Zerg….bot as you say. Where Mesmers make a difference is how many viable builds we can offer to the whole.
Also to say that roamers don’t make a difference is not entirely true. Your right that pvp roaming doesn’t do much but a small group of roamers can cause a lot of damage behind enimy lines. Reinforcement disruption, supply kills and camp capping cou t for quite a bit of frustration when timed with a siege from your servers Zerg.
So, you don’t have to follow a Zerg around either. Get 5 to 9 people and go cause mayhem. This is a Mesmers wet dream. A small organized group and a Mesmer is a nasty machine to have on the loose.
Cheers.
1) How well can they tag things in a zerg? I ask this, becaus ei play on JQ, and I dont want to never get bags :p I understand the whole Veil/Portal thing. But we have quite a few mesmers, usually, and want to be able to get some damage/tags in!
1b) Which skills/builds do i go to do this?
2) Can they be tanky/in the front lines? if so how?
3) With no signet for movement speed, how do you keep up with a zerg?
1. You’ll never tag as much stuff as the other classes. 1b. You can get close with reflections, I-zerker, condition on death traits from clones.
2. We can be incredibly tanky but understand, our longevity comes from being hard to hit, not straight up soaking damage.
3. Swiftness runes, blink and focus. That’s all.
As far as the guys here that are saying all the Mesmer is, is a utility bot. Don’t mind the doomsayers. We have access to a huge amount of builds that are more than viable for every group out there. We have more retaliation uptime than any other class. We can get all buffs in game and share them with a group, huge spike damage builds, phantasm builds for good damage while staying back from the front lines, shatter builds (look through Osicat’s stuff) that can front line.
There’s plenty there if you can play it. If. This is a high skill profession. People forget that, lose a fight then say we suck. So like I said, don’t mind the doomsayers.
I’ve used a 10/15/20/25 build. Can’t recall who came up with it but it works quite well. As far as in tpvp though. I haven’t played in months. Lost interest after the condition meta hit the shelves.
So, let me know if I have this right – a good thing about running with 2x doom on, say, separate MH sets (w/permanent bonus sigils on the OH’s) is that you can just play and it will proc on whatever weapon set it’s valid on after it’s off CD, period. This because of the proc mechanic off your next attack after weapon swap. I point this out because it’s very unique compared to the on-crit or weapon swap sigils where you really have to keep track of them so as to not cancel them out.
TL;DR – You don’t really have to worry about the CD when running these sigils the way I’ve described. That right?
Yes. Although its still best to count out to the end of the icd to get the most use out of the 2 dooms sigils but you’re correct. Whenever the icd is up and you switch to weapons it will proc the sigil.
2. By common sense, the attack should be connected to apply to proc. Not sure if you fail to hit, the proc remains or cancels though.
Can someone clarify?
Any use of your weapon whether directed at nothing, a bug or a player will use the charge. Now this isn’t all bad since you can preload it by getting in combat and swapping weapons, then running clear of whatever it was you used for combat. Now you have poison on your first attack.
I use my stacking sigil of x stack it up to 20+, then swap in my other offhand weapon with sigil of force. It’s really the only way to effectively use to icd sigils w/o them running into eachother and messing with icd’s.
I really like the poison in the mix. It’s another condition for someone to have to remove and in doing so, at a reduced healing amount. I have it on both weapon sets. You’ll have to do a 10 count in your head to make sure you reach the icd of the sigil. With a little condition duration you can have a full up time on it. Bleeds are easy to stack up with clones and if you’re using staff, burn is crazy good. Sigil of doom really shines while using staff. Get in close for bounce backs, hit em with chaos field and swap for poison over it all. Player panics with all the conditions, heals at a reduced amount. Considering you know they’ll heal though punch f3.
IMO, Sigil of Doom blows Geomancy away.
Difference in experiences. Mine live longer than you’ve had the experience probably due to where you’re targeting people from. Front line targeting will get phantasms killed due to what you said: cleaves and aoe. Target ranged in the back and you’re phantasms will reek havok.
Try it out, you’ll be surprised how much longer uptime your phantasms will have. Tab targeting is a bad way to run phantasm builds. You need to know where they’ll be going if there is any hope of keeping them alive.
Just out of curiosity, what build are they asking your Mesmers to run?
Phantasms are generally quite poor in WvW zerging. The best you’ll be able to do is dropping a berserker off a greatsword which will just cleave through a ton of guys as long as it isn’t gibbed mid-way through animation.
Not sure where you gathered this assessment of phantasms but in my experience phantasms are quite useful in zergs. Zerker phantasm cripples for 4 seconds, bleeds on crit (when traited) and you can spec for cripple on clone death. That’s just one phantasm. Focus phantasm, depending on traits and combo fields can aoe confusion, cleans and reflect ranged attacks. That’s not even mentioning that if people are crippled near it, that phantasm is the hardest hitting one out there.
I can keep going with this rebuttal but IMO, you are wrong. Phantasm specs are extremely useful in WvW zergs.
Berserker, Rabid, Solder and Knights should cover all your bases until you get used to the play style and decide to try niche builds requiring other set pieces.
With the prismatic build I’ve found all boon duration runes amazing. Sup water, major water and monk. Use the extra 10% boon duration from 2 major water runes instead of Hoelbrak. The overall boon duration is better than 10% might duration you’ll have. With the extra length on the stealth, protection, regen etc.. it lets me dump torch for sword/pistol or focus.
I’ve had lots of fun and a lot of success using this build 20(III,IO)20(II, IV)30(II, IV, XII)
Warrior. Hands down, warrior. Sounds off but most folks think of them as an easy kill. That let’s me melt face and provide massive distraction. By the time groups realize they should have targeted me to begin with its over. 2v5< made easy. My warrior buddy rolls in as tank setup and entangles people. GS and S/P. Warrior provides swiftness air runes fills in the blanks. Seems to work best in a shatter or phantasm build. I tried a lol you can’t kill us build in a solder gear 20/20/30 prismatic boon sharing build. Funny as hell by good for nothing really.
I’m starting to ramble in any case.
With so many builds that work well in so many situations I think people who use the “Meta” term for standard build are incorrect. The only time we were close to a Meta build was during the confusion bomber times in ZvZ. A few Mesmers could wreck another Zerg. Fractals, dungeons and pve is really situational. Depends on group composition and dungeon directions.
So Meta Mesmer, IMO, does not exist.
The GS AA pulses 3 times. So if you’re moving and mobs are moving you COULD hit up to 3 mobs. Not reliable in anyway. Stick with GS phantasm and focus phantasm for all aoe. If your quick try Ileap into the mess and blur.
As stated above. We don’t do any one thing really well for a Zerg. So a meta build for us Mesmers? Nada. All I do is run whatever build I like and either share boons or do the 20 point dive into Inspiration for wardens feedback(Zerg protection), Phantasmal healing and Vengeful images. Add some utility for the group, TW, Null and Veil.
Just stay alive to drop your utilities. That’s all a Mesmer can do now days. Even advanced scouting is better done by a solder geared stealth thief. Enjoy the subpar Zerg experience at least you can kill most classes 1v1 right?
I haven’t used an interrupt build enough to have a good idea of what direction to go with some of the traits or which traits work better than others. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQNAW7dlwzipXVTgGa9IhpH923CH1DwjduTqgpB-jEzAYLBZCCMJKQJvioxW5CSpLaV3wqdwUlLqW5CYvB8GMa1iAYWA-w
This is the first I want to try. I’m using might duration runes and boon duration food to keep my power up. Weapons are staff and scept/focus. All of them cause interrupts and stuns. Scepter is there for more clone production for Diversion use.
I have Halting strike, Bountiful Interruption and Chaotic Interruption. Then I’m using Imbued Diversion to boost my F3 interrupts.
So my question is, is Chaotic Interruption better to be using with a power build or would Confounding Suggestion be a better choice. Say something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQJAWRlwzipXVTgGa9IhpH923Cn0DTz6TXqAuB-jEzAYLhICCCJKQJvioxW5CSpLaV3wqdwUlLqW5CYvB8GMa1iAYWA-w
This build swaps out Imbued Diversion for Confounding Suggestion. Trades weapons also. Swapped GS in for the scept/focus since my clone production is low and wouldn’t make good use of F3 as often.
This will be used for large organized guild roams in WvW.
So before I buy Sigils and Runes, feedback would be appreciated.
Fighting a decent necro and winning will depend on your build. I’ve had zero luck as a condition build fighting them. Close but no joy. Best I’ve done is with a PU phantasm build. Reset combat distance every time you stealth. My favorite weapon setup for it is sw/pistol and GS. Spread your phantasms out and only use Blurred Frenzy when you have a defensive ability ready. I open with zerker (for cripple) then dualist, I-Mage then run away. Wait till he starts coming after you or kills a phantasm. Decoy then BF, Magic Bullet and reset distance. Things rarely go as planned but remember your priority of range=survival.
I’m sorry to say that even in pve, if you’re not moving about, you’re goin to die. It’s a part of the game. The closest you’ll get in pve to not moving as much, is a phantasm build. You could try using this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8NIJMfo3nZE9lTqgqLpA38G
I think Skoetios came up with it. Good mix of damage and group support. Try it out for a bit and see if it works for how ya want to play.
I can’t believe I’m saying this but if some one is saying to me “Mesmers are weak” my first thought is LTP. Mesmer, although not in the top of spvp/tpvp, are far from weak. There are things I can do w/o having a second though on my Mesmer that I would avoid on most of my other toons. You have to remember that the Mesmers damage come from the accumulation of a series of attacks not one ability like other professions.
Take a shatter burst using sw/sw and staff or sw/pistol and GS. Whatever combination of weapons used anyway. Summon 2 phantasms one clone and wait for the attack series from phantasms, I-leap, blurred frenzy, f1. Loads of damage from lots of sources. So that’s 3500 to 5k from blurred frenzy, 4k to 6k from f1 and the damage from phantasms before that 4k from I-swordsman, 4k from I-dualist plus bleeds. I’ve seen the accumulative damage from 5 seconds of an attack series add up to over 18k. So, Mesmers weak!!! Lol. Don’t ever watch the combat log and depend on that as a comparison tool. If you want to see what you’re doing for damage. Fraps it and review it later.
1. Critical Infusion. It’s the basis of Mesmer play. We’re hard to hit.
2. Deceptive Evasion. Meat shields, bombs, condition bombs, utility solders. This is the most diverse trait I think we have due to the amount of uses it develops.
3. Prismatic Understanding. As much as I love the new trait I don’t need it for the bulk of my builds. That’s the only reason it’s not higher in my list.
4. Imbued Diversion. Hits 5 people. Amazing.
5. Halting Strike. Although I haven’t played with it enough, its now much more juicy.
I have way more to go but 5 should due.
Run GS. If you have reliable swiftness from the Zerg then you can play around with your off set but I’ve found that focus is just to much of a utility to not have in a Zerg. If traited for reflect its awesome.
I’m actually in the same boat as you man. One of a few mesmers in the guild. So I bring as much to group buffing as I can when rolling with the guild group. I’ve gone 20/20/30/0/0 using boon duration everything. GS and Scepter/focus for interupts, stack up the might, aegis, protection, vigor, regen then pass on the goods using Sig of Insperation. Rabid geared everything. 2 sig of battle and one sig corruption. It’s just to bad Sig of Insperation only shares with 5 poeple. Laaaaame!!
If you just want bags and some group aid go lightly into a confusion build while using GS sword/focus. It’s pretty close to the amount of bags you’ll see on a necro.
I was working on this issue last night in mist with a buddy on his necro. End result is Arcane Thievery, and Sup Sig of Purity on the Sword. I tried using torch so Cleansing Conflagrasion would help but my overall dps dropped to much.
Pick you fights wisely man. Don’t go open field with this build. Summon zerker, mirror blade swap to sw/p and summon dualist. Then stealth and hide. Make your phantasms work for you. Wait 5 and come out swinging. Summon up again, stealth and hide.
20/20/30 can be a strong power or condition build, not only support.
If you trait for that boons duration you cant expect outstanding damage.
Power interior build works pretty well. What makes me keep playing with the 20/20/30/0/0 is how many build variations there are by only swapping gear and traits.
So far I have 4 distinctly separate builds. The build expanding patch was just that. It messed some stuff up but threw in lots of options for other directions to go. Some work some don’t but they’re there all the same.
Max protection is something like 51 seconds, I can’t recal max regen and max aegis is just ridiculous. Superior water, major water, superior monk, Omnomberry cream and 30points in Chaos. All I run is veil, mass invis and cd reduction on torch. 30 seconds is easy. Toss in Signet of Insperation for more goodness.
I hear where you’re coming from but take pride in the fact that the Mesmer, even after all the nerfs is still king of the 1v1 dual.
As far as the “free kill” please don’t take this the wrong way but if you’re dying that much, you may be doing something wrong. If I. WvW, perhaps over extending yourself or blowin cd’s to early. In Tpvp, not sure. Talk to Pyro about those areas. I don’t do much arena. Also, try getting in coms for your perspective server to let you know when they’re bailing. Me personally, I joined a guild that does build breaker weeks. The professions of a guild go to Mist and play to break/ decide good builds.
Mesmer is a strong as ever my friend. It sounds like you just haven’t found “your” build.
Cd’s are easy to manage with stealth. It lets you confuse your target/targets and reset your position. Septor is meh for the power build, I use it for blocks and applying #3 from stealth. Torment hits for wayyyy more if you swap this to a condition build using doom as your offhand sigils and changing sw/sw to staff.
It’s not a wham bam build. It takes some hard work to make work how you want but the end result, knowing you beat someone and they still don’t know what the hell happened=Priceless.
I actually prefer this trait setup as a condition build more BUT it shines in a 1v1 best.; http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWlwzipXUzmGb9IipH9WwBckUoavWJF42FC-j0CBINCi0CIUgAUHRMHqIaslgBpKaasaIYqUER1eDYuDER1SBAxaA-w
I use a build quite close to this. It ends up looking more like what pyro is taking about. It’s lots of fun and extremely frustrating to deal with if your on the receiving end.
Let your phantasms do most of your fighting. Use stealth to help out your cd’s. You have 2 blocks, both which will hurt bad. Dump sword clones out while stealthed to confuse the hell out of your opponents. When stealth ends run at your opponent just like the clones. Oh, laugh while doing it. Laugh maniacally.
There is nothing so broken about the Mesmer that I can say makes me not like the class. Can improvements be made? Sure. Jump on other classes and tell me you don’t miss this class though. In the end, no matter what changes are made, Mesmer is just awesome.
So if you please, don’t make complaint lists. Make helpful suggestions. After all, who likes helping a complainer over someone who has the solution to a problem already.
We can have Chaos Armor procced more often than not with a traited staff and atleast 1 glamour (Null Field or Feedback). We relied MORE on combos to get Chaos Armor in the first place, but this was largely ignored due to how great Staff 4 (which wasn’t great. The instant Protection was great) was. Which means that opponents have to gamble a lot more when hitting us. Not only because of the protection, but the cripple/blind they constantly risk applying on themselves since we so frequently have the armor on. In the past, enemies could just attack us with abandon without having to care at all of the repercussions. Now, especially for a condition build, it’s a lot more dangerous.
Now we have more protection uptime than we did before, and enemies risk more than a petty cripple when attacking us. The problem is how frickin’ unreliable it is.. thus the suggestion to remove regeneration. [/b]
This is what I was going to say. Not as well, but same altogether. I’m taking noticeably less damage from groups. Using blast from torch into ethereals to give more people chaos armor puts blind out all over the place. I can deal with the change. I feel its more of a buff personally.
The build still could use some playing with. It’d be nice to raise the healing to be around 250 per tick. I’ll do some math later and figure out how much healing I need to get there, then try it out again.
Thanks for the ideas so far.
I did invest 5pts in the dueling tree for “Critical Infusion; Gain 5 seconds of vigor on delivering a critical hit. This effect can only trigger once every 5 seconds.”
To the OP, a suggestion would be to try Apothecary gear (or a mix) to get some more healing power into the build, if good phantasmal regeneration is desired. The condition damage focus and toughness is still there, and precision is traded for healing power which in this build shouldn’t be a big deal (no dueling tree for sharper images or vigor proc off crit).
I tried this in some of the Apoth gear I have. Heals were good but the vigor was wanted more by almost everyone. Myself included. Just hard to give up that vigor, ya know?
/face palm…. I forgot about the major rune….. Wow. Ty sir.
The phantasm regen is for the phantasm build the guild is currently using. I’m trying out this build to see if we want to run this instead of the current build. Having the phantasms with regen let’s me place them around the battle field keeping regen up longer over a larger area. Your right though this particular build only ticks for 175. It’s something I’m going to try and change out during our next build workshop.
I still can’t believe I brain farted the major rune. It’s been a long week with to little sleep.
Cheers man.
A few things:
YOu have 65% boon duration +40% might duration. This isn’t ideal. Try for 80% all boons and 20% more might or even 90% all boons.
I would think that chaos armor/PU would give enough regeneration that phantasm regen isn’t necessary. Leave your clones out rather than phantasms as you are speced more in conditions. Then maybe move 15 to dueling for bleeds/more clones?
I honestly think the scepter is now fine as a 2nd condition weapon. I also think it works as a secondary melee power weapon swap though.
All I can ever find for more boon duration is superior sigil of water. Sigil of the Monk, apparently doesn’t exist on my server. Not sure where else I’d find more boon duration. Although im probably just looking right past it. That’s the only reason I went with might duration.
I’ll try out swapping out my phantasm regen for clone production but having the regen there from phantasm is a requirement for Mesmer builds in my guild. Part of the group synergy.
I think a sigil 25 stack to increase phantasm damage would be a little over the top. Anet has already taken steps to knock down the damage from phantasm builds. If anything, I’d say perhaps change Signet of Illusions to be worth using more. Something like " increase phantasm hp and on activation, phantasm damage is increased by 200 for 10 seconds". Even that though, people would freak out and call for a nerf.
I can’t recall seeing a Prismatic Understanding support build posted. So I did some toying around over the last week and came up with this. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7flwzCoHVTsGbNJhpH923A/8hoTShrfdZBA-jkCBINCy0CQkIBOHqIas1tRr6KIlXhVzATliIq2hoIa1iAYWD-w
I tested it as a support build and dps condition build only. With some trait swaps, gear swap and weapon changes it can be a nasty roaming build as well. The amount of variations I see for the way trait distribution is opens up at least 3 to 4 types of playing.
The build linked, I used with rabid gear, weapons and accessories. Runes and food to maximize boons that I share every 36 seconds. Use torch to detonate Chaos Armor for allies ( I’m loving the chance on blind change). In a group situation it’s a noticeable damage reduction from enimies.
Phantasms provide regen, not much but its still there in a pinch. Ranged phantasms to keep them alive longer and traited for phantasm HP.
Now I know I’ll catch some flak for using the sceptor but it works better for this build than sword. Block and ranged are why I use I here in particular.
Again, this is a support build and as such, dps is low. Signed toons and criticism welcome. Cheers!
Ok, works over. Second half of the ability review.
GS 4/5 I would give it 5/5 but Mind Stab is a joke of an excuse for anything resembling AOE. The GS design is perfect for what it’s intended to be. Full offensive weapon.
Staff 5/5 (bummer on the cd on Chaos Armor though)
Main hand Sword 5/5 (again, bummer cd on I-leap but it flows hella smooth in combat now)
Scepter……..3/5 Anet is slowly making it better but main attack needs much love
Focus 5/5 even with the 1sec cd on Into the Void its a great off hand.
Off Hand Sword 5/5 my favorite Phantasm even though I rarely find the occasion to use it. Block hits like a GD truck in a zerker build.
Pistol 5/5 nothing wrong here at all (I’d give my right nut for a main hand pistol though)
Torch 3/5 Image is pretty lame. Huge cd with minimal benefit. Saving grace on this weapon is torch 4.
Disorderly Conduct: A Guide to all things Mesmer.
Mesmer Guide to Illusions and Mind Games.
The Mesmers Art of War.
Mesmer Guide to Devious Deeds.
The Mesmer College of Trickery, Deception and Illusion.
I’m runnin low on title ideas…
My vote on utilities is this. Mimic 1/5, Phantasmal Disenchanter 2/5, Null Field 5/5, feedback 5/5, Portal, 4/5, Veil 4/5, Illusion of Life 2/5, Decoy 5/5, Phantasmal Defender 3/5, Arcane Theivery 5/5.
All Matras get a nasty 1/5 due to how badly they’re implemented and how terribly the bonuses are placed in the trait lines.
I’ll give all the signets a 4/5 except Signet of Illusions 2/5. Why would a HP bonus to illusions be attached to a recharge on shatter. Polar opposite dirrections of use IMO.
I’ll hit up weapon abilities later. On a side note though, I noticed the change to Chaos armor tossed in Blind at a 33% chance on proc with a 1sec icd from a single target. Multiple targets though…. I tossed on my PU build and used staff with torch combo to detonate Chaos armor on mass groups of my server in WvW with some pretty cool results in damage mitigation. Needs more testing but it looks like a very solid defense boon sharing build now.
The burst from zerker into a mirror image shatter is death to most everything. It has its place but mostly as a Zerg in WvW sniper. It’s the only ranged weapon we have to effectively take out seige. Also when paired with rabid gear and sigil of doom is a nasty little fella for bleed damage and the poison.
I feel most folks don’t like it due to the max range=max damage issue. It’s hard to control max range effectively while using the GS. Even in dungeons it’s hard. I like it but not for most of my builds.
I haven’t used staff in months. We’re as viable as ever. It sucks but its not the end of the class. Try using PU and stacking up protection boons. Tell me if its more of less tanky than staff bunker. I thought it felt about even, just a different play style.
With the shear amount of builds that are out there for us, perhaps just a link to Fay’s build list in the sticky would be ideal. Each build up there has its own description for proper use already. Making sections for builds would takes days in and of itself. If you still wanted to cover builds then may I suggest covering the basic build types only: shatter, phantasm, bunker, mantra, heals, support and perhaps a hybrid of your choice.
A guide is more for ability use, tactics, synergy with groups, combo’s, trait explenations etc…
Doodling with the new prismatic skills as I saw a few others had also. This, due to the buffs, is actually very tanky. Played as full condition (Rabid gear/accessories) with loads of stealth. Load the player up then decoy for the 3rd illusion. Walk up next to em when torch is goin to go poof. Weapon swap, block, illusions out, temp curtain, phase retreat while on it for light combo/stealth. Weapon swap on them while in stealth for more poison. Only use scepter 3 if you’re in stealth. Dodge roll while in stealth for some confusion antics. Keep illusions up at all times. Only shatter for burst or interrupts.
It’s the only burst condition build I’ve seen since confusion took a dirt nap and it works very well. It is, however, ONLY a WvW build as the stealth isn’t good for other pvp and terrible for dungeons.
I’ve played pretty much every build I’ve seen people post. I suck at some and I’m pretty decent at some. I don’t ever go back to a spec cause its better. I’ll generally just work some other traits into something else and keep trying new stuff. ADHD sucks like that for me.
at least you can kill most classes 1v1 right?