Guild Wars 2

Was watching Helseth play yesterday on his stream and I have to say I agree with what he said. Beyond portalling supply for solo que there isn’t much we can bring to the table that another class can do better. Sure in a team que with comms, mesmer portal becomes invaluable as you might have seen already. However solo que, meh.

Waiting for specialisations and possible changes to the map to really dictate how mesmer will fit in.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Lawl … 2 necros, 2 mesmers and a ranger and you couldn’t beat the turret engineers? kitten someone is bad. And I was complaining that turret engi is hard for a teef. Look at you XD

Also you do realize that matchmaking doesn’t give a rat’s kitten about builds right?

Not the point….
The point here is that the team was a full premade. I don’t care how good you are, a full premade has much better team awareness and rotations than your average solo/duo quer’s. So tell me, why are we put against a full premade as a duo regardless of builds (even though they are broken, whether you fail to see it or not)?
And yes, I do realise that match making doesn’t care about builds and I don’t expect it to, just fix the state of the turret engi build….

Exactly the point I’m trying to make harra. Solo/duo que should not be faced with full premades, especially a full team of turret engi’s because the build is broken and it is extremely hard/near impossible to counter if yuor running in solo/duo ques. Two things to fix here…..

Match Making is awful, seriously anet its rubbish.
Last 5+ games have been plagued by 4/5 premades full of turret engi’s.
It has to stop, it’s getting out of hand. Solo que should not have to deal with premades and stupidly cheese builds like the turret engi.
Please read this and understand, it needs fixing and soon.

Just a taste of what pvp has become, at least the first team there admitted that they were running cheese builds and knew they were unfair fights,
http://imgur.com/6kQzN2X

Fay.2735:

Myself and Pyro have begun the process of updating the Mesmer Guides website so it will not be functional for the time being. This means that if you visit it right now it will likely look wonky and completely unfinished, this is because I’ve only just begun working on shaping it for our purpose.

I have setup a Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ account for it and I will be posting occasional updates on the website building progress on there. After the website has been completed we will be linking the latest guides, builds, and mesmer news that we post on our website on those social media platforms so that you can more easily keep on top of the latest goodies if you follow us:

https://twitter.com/MesmerGuides
https://www.facebook.com/mesmerguides
https://plus.google.com/u/0/113691229749582101367

This website will be a combined community effort and so I will be approaching various knowledgeable Mesmers to offer them an account that lets them easily create content and/or help moderate the website (If you are interested in being a content creator for the website please don’t hesitate to PM me).

The purpose and goal of the website is to provide an easy platform for experienced mesmers and theorycrafters to publish their builds, videos, and general mesmer information in a shared space. This will make it easier for everyone in the mesmer community to find quality information about our profession and keep track of the latest and greatest developments.

We felt this was especially important because, although the official forums make a good place for mesmer discussion, it is not designed to be a place that allows us to gather and organize information. Although the Wikipedia accomplishes this to an extend, it does not have the added and valuable experience that the mesmers in our community can offer through explanation and videos.

I will still work on this build list of course but I can’t guarantee it will be as up-to-date as this website will be as it will be just me updating it and I’m terrible for getting distracted with shinies.

Really looking forward to seeing the site up and running Keep up the good work!

Coedeax.2567:

Le sigh…

Is it sad that I got a good laugh after reading the PB thread?

Nope, join the club xD

The Primary.6371:

Hmm boring if unedited…but at current a showcase of the best situations for said main party.

Pretty much same as the others in the end that are posted on youtube.

It was his 4th ever vid, cut him some slack. Sure improvements could be made to the editing as nothing is ever perfect, but he did a good job and the gameplay was solid for what he was trying to showcase. If your not going to offer constructive criticism leave your negativity to yourself.

I’d be honoured for a spot for a spot in the mantra catagory :P.
Also gonna suggest skcamow for general mesmer stuff and theorycrafting (should make this a catagory to).

If ya don’t mind that is, skcamow

What I really liked about your video was that you cut to the point, straight into what you wanted to show the viewer. However you did provide lengthier fights in order to show how you effectively burst more than once in a fight which was nice. Great vid, keep up the good work!

P.S. What did that eagle raptor ever do to you? :P

Fay.2735:

;_; </3 You broke my heart Chaos, mantra discrimination!

I second this Chaos! :P

Whether or not you drop the focus depends on your build alone and not so much the traveler runes. If your using them for speed in wvw then it doesn’t really matter you can still use the focus effectively because it isn’t just a speed tool.

Okay from what I can gather your trying to maximise retal to get tags as a commander?
Firstly, I understand the getting tags part but to do that you need a constant stream of retal. Realistically you’ve got 1 from a block, two that are random (chaos storm and BI) and lastly f2 shatter. Looking at that, that’s not a whole lot. I would recommend exploring feedback and reflects.

Secondly if you are gonna keep trying with this, there is no point trying to maximise retal and go for damage. Retal used to back in the day do a lot of damage, however not any more and I would suggest dropping your zerker trinkets in favour for soliders or even sentinels. This still gives you a little power for your attacks in the zerg however allows you to live for longer which means in this build=more tags.

Just some food for thought….Oh and yeah I wouldn’t recommend retalitory demise it’s a fairly useless trait even in a build like this.

Aoe cc does sound nice….

But to answer your question, no. Stealth was never really intended for mesmers to have an overabundance of (even though some would argue we already do). Personally I don’t really see the point, there are far better alternatives to a stealth based specialisation.

Ross Biddle.2367:

No matter what these NPC’s are continually walking. A steady application of torment will be a bad day for them getting through. Even the most hardy condi clear escort would have a hard time keeping up with a condi support Maim Shatter mes with a staff, sword/X (focus probably).

Chill and cripple would be good as well to delay the mobs. A heavy cc build with as much cleave/aoe abilities as you could jam into one build.

On another note some of the revenant’s abilities in this vid look pretty effective. The mesmer was locked down/immob’ed for a good while, stab mantra might be handy for tight spots like those.

Hmmm, I dont think there is a max boon time however the max stack is 25. I don’t think in a competitive environment like pvp or wvw or even a dungeon there is a need for a cap on time. Just can’t stack it that high in a situation like that.

But I am curious how did you get that long of a fury?

skcamow.3527:

WitchKing.5317:

a 90s cd for a master trait is hard to like…

Used to be 90s, but was reduced to 60s in the 12/10/2013 patch.

Oh I didn’t know that. Well I mustn’t have been looking to hard at the trait description :P. 60s isn’t to bad, but I would still like to see further improvements to the trait.

Yeah that’s what I was thinking too, I mean for where it is and what its competing against it does need changing whether it be location in the trait line or a buff. It’s a great trait and I have taken to using it a lot recently, but a 90s cd for a master trait is hard to like…

Just out of curiosity, what is everyone’s opinion on this trait?
Personally I feel it does need a little love especially since it is uncontrollable and on a relatively high cd.
Thoughts?

If boon sharing isn’t the road your gonna take then a change in runes might be a good thing. Take a look at water or even monk for a bit more self-support and boon duration increase.

Wow yeah there is a lot of diversity in music taste!
Personally I’m an alternative rock fan. Linkin Park, Thirty Seconds to Mars, that kind of thing…

Well looking at this I do see why you would want to change the randomness of our skill set. Not only does it allow more precision and eliminates some of the guesswork involved, it makes some skills more easier to fit into a rotation knowing that when you cast you are definitely going to achieve the desired outcome. Plenty of people I have seen agree with this and that the class does need a change to account for this…

However personally I like the randomness. Yes it does make skills feel a bit like “you get what you get”. But it makes it unpredictable. Chaos Storm for instance, the daze could strike on any of the pulses however is not necessarily going to interrupt. Walking into a field like that where you don’t know whats going to come out of it is half the fun for me.

But hey just my two cents, and I don’t know if anything has changed in a while since I haven’t played much at all in the last few months. (And sorry for the bump everyone :P)

Just want to touch on the iDisenchanter. If your build is focused on shattering for condi’s then using a phantasm condi clear is risky. It is a fine art balancing when you want the clear, when you want the phantasm and when you shatter. It does however work nicely with IE. Just something to be aware of in a build like this.

skcamow.3527:

WitchKing.5317:

Well there you go you learn something new everyday, I had no idea a condition interrupt even existed (well that’s a lie, I just didn’t know the trait set-up).
You have sparked my interest chaos, time for me to learn the ways of a condition interrupt mesmer!
Great guide!

I ran one for quite awhile and I know Stickerhappy currently runs one that’s good in my opinion. Both aren’t 0/4/6/0/4 though.

What do you guys run?

Well there you go you learn something new everyday, I had no idea a condition interrupt even existed (well that’s a lie, I just didn’t know the trait set-up).
You have sparked my interest chaos, time for me to learn the ways of a condition interrupt mesmer!
Great guide!

Had a blast at this bday bash, plenty of intense duels and Aeo even blessed us with his presence at one stage :P. Can’t wait for the next one!

For spvp/tpvp there is a mantra section in the stickied build thread. Most of it should still be up to date hopefully.

The only thing I have to say is that next time don’t make the achievements per round.
Having them so means that you could miss out on the entire title and achievements because might not be able to play for one of those weeks. Its unfair, I cannot get the overall achievement despite being a regular wvw contributor because one of those weeks I am unavailable to play for the entire match-up. After that one week period I would be more than happy to grind however many hours it took to get the achievement back, but I can’t.

Please take this into consideration for future match-ups.

Well, after I go finish banging my head against the wall, I would appreciate a dev response to this because I would like a fix before the next feature pack.

Couple of things I would like to point out.
Firstly from the looks of mantra of distraction and CI you are obviously looking to get some interrupt game play into your build. With that in mind it might be worth switching pistol to focus, because it allows a much better pull on multiple enemies (not limited to 2 possible interrupts like pistol is). Plus with the warden fix that gives you a nice reflect when considering after the patch spvp is now full of power longbow rangers.
You could still do this and keep IE because winds of chaos with IE is great. But moving those 4 points to Inspiration then opens up some nice alternatives like a boost to scepter condi or a reflection for your focus skills or even in the adept slot a condi remove on heal (good with mantra heal).

But if you keep the points in illusions take Masterful Misdirection instead of the confusion trait which isn’t really worth taking these days.

You could even take it a step further and include key binds for weapon skills, which I know can be different depending on builds (mesmer shatter for instance). I’m not sure if that’s even possible/implementable but I thought may as well throw it out there.

TheLargeUnit.2793:

It’s not supposed to be a buff. PU is incredibly strong at the moment and takes arguably zero skill to make it effective. Adding kittenty boons to the pool helps to reduce the amount the current 3 boons and will hopefully eliminate PU from the roaming scene.

IMO they should add retaliation as well to further limit the amount of defensive boons.

This won’t eliminate pu from the roaming scene at all, because when you look at it pu is still a powerful trait just watered down (and for a good reason). This patch doesn’t stop it from being effective, just different. However the boons that you do get now are a bit odd for a defensive trait, yet again that’s the reason anet did it. To make sure you aren’t getting the defensive boons as much, they added some useless ones in to minimize the amount of times the defensives boons proc, but when they don’t proc (and you get one of the other two boons) the boons you get should be useless otherwise they may as well buff it.

Hmm I kinda like the idea of weakness, doesn’t have to be anything over the top on the phantasm as torch 4 is already a fairly powerful tool (and weakness can be to) to have on a weapon skill. But since our current access to weakness is up to chance Debilitating Dissipation and Chaos Storm it would be nice to have weakness available to us without the guess work.

Kinda looking forward to triumphant distortion, not sure why or how I’m gonna make it work but I am looking forward to messing around with it for wvw large scale fights.

If that’s the case, looks good. Dire+stealth will make you extremely tough to beat even on your own. If you have problems initially though switch scepter focus to staff or play around with the combination itself. With the up-coming changes it will be less effective however, but the torment on AA and with a hopeful warden fix sounds good.
With that set-up however you do have plenty of stealth, and changing decoy to blink should be okay if you find you need more combat repositioning tools when fighting larger groups.
(if you want more condition pressure, invest in some rabid gear or trinkets which will work wonders with your duelist and warden).

Vera.4185:

I’ve recently started playing WvW a little more. I’ve gone through so many builds and feel completely underwhelmed by most of them. This is the one I’ve been most excited about lately. Do you think this will still be viable after the upcoming changes to PU/clone death/etc? Thoughts? Strengths/weaknesses?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhUQRArd8fnsISraWsGOqB3aGZ2YMdHDvxJnpmSGQyA-TlyCABAcEAO+BAs3+DAqfIMlgGY+pJlfeq+jEHEAKOBAAA-w

Scepter/Focus
Sword/Torch

Decoy/Veil/Blink or Decoy/Veil/Feedback – MI for Elite

0
4 (V)(X)
6 (V)(VII)(XII)
4 (II)(IX)
0

I’m really struggling on what Adept and Master traits to use for Chaos…
Feedback welcome!

Wvw being solo, havoc or zerging?

Esplen.3940:

And as for the Torch #5, ahh. Well, for a Master it’s kind of underwhelming for a trait, anyways. Nice for the cd reduction on stealth, but not really worth it, imo.

If the phantasm got a much needed re-vamp, this trait would be much more worth the master slot it has.

mugen.4763:

I wouldn’t waste 1 whole utility spot for just swiftness. Would make more sense to just add it to Signet of Inspiration as mentioned since 2 years ago.

Or even midnight would work. A passive speed boost to a signet would be better than a mantra, because quite frankly no one is gonna give up something like portal/blink/decoy for a swiftness mantra nor would it be very practical.

Edit: That being said I do like the name.

Wasting a null field just because its off cool down. I’ve seen this done so much along with chaos storm it’s ridiculous.

Okay I’m not sure how to answer this, but I’ll do my best.
Since I can’t remember the last time I ran a dungeon I’ll be speaking strictly in terms of general building.

Firstly boon duration is an interesting aspect of a build. It can be used to sustain you,
or support others. Supporting others in your team/party requires boon spread and duration. I would suggest 2 methods, (staff clone – DE) or Signet of inspiration. Of course you need to consider AOE damage in the game and adjusting accordingly. PU as we know has decent ability in sustaining good boons for support (aegis+prot), however its use in dungeons is questionable. The first build in this thread is focused on condi spread + boon spread which actually has some decent might stacking abilities that I’ve noticed lately (it’s something I’m looking into)
You might also want to look into condi duration like the second build in this thread and explore its uses for your blinds and other things.

Your builds effectiveness in dungeons is something I’ll leave up to someone else though.

Its nice to see the others using boon duration.

Mmm this is an interesting one.
Sure for the sake that the AA as it is is complete rubbish and needs reworking this patch is great.
But the rework that it was, meh. It was lazy and not thought through. What it needs is not some condition that you sit there spamming or what not, the AA needs something else entirely. Pyro’s idea was interesting and unique, and that’s what mesmer needs right now. Not necessarily that concept, but something that adds spark and creativity to a bland skill (doesn’t mean that it will be op, but exciting and strategically valuable).

So its a no from me here.

Okay, from taking a look at your build I noticed a few things.
First shattered conditions, interesting choice. Looking at your amy and runes they show no specific focus on a certain playstyle or role. It seems your trying to do to many things at once, balthazar runes and cele amy show me that. The trait itself then goes into removing conditions and supportish role along with others in the same line.
It doesn’t quite make sense. Shattered concentration is like maim the disillusioned, trying to fit a damage playstyle into a condition trait (or in this case a support role). It doesn’t work imo and isn’t worth the gm spot it has. In other words, can’t fit a square peg into a round hole.

Secondly like I said above, you need to focus on a role you want to play. That’s up to you, ditch the cele amy and change the traits around because that set up is all over the place. A suggestion if shatter is an appealing playstyle, take 2 out of inspiration and put it in illusions for ip. Then change cry of frust. to either compounding power or precise wrack and you have a somewhat defensive shatter build (remove cel amy for berserker and runes to whatever really maybe divinity)

So your rework of Disruptors sustainment. I’m all for a rework of this trait, cause it sucks.
But I’m not sure of how the second option would work with the mantra heal because if the mantra is already charged when you interrupt what happens? Does it become immediately rechargeable after you use all the charges?
And the implications it then has on the signet heal, would that then become to overpowered?

I had so much fun watching you and warlord duel, probably laughed more than I should have :P

:( Your Sunday is my Monday. But I’ll help pitch in for an eu server, just give me a bell.

Anet, I’m done with being angry and frustrated and seeing all these people who value your game being ignored.

So if you read any of these comments, read this one.
Stop looking at the game from a devs perspective and start seeing it from ours, then you will understand where all this is coming from. It is impossible to realise from where you are sitting what state your game is in, because that’s where we come in. We have been polite, we have been mad, but all we want is to better your game and our experience in it.

So all I’m saying is if you want this game to live out the potential you, me and everyone in this pvp community knows it has, you need to start taking the players seriously when this many of them tell you something is wrong. It won’t be easy to admit that this map wasn’t the best idea but that’s the first step to making your playerbase happy, and ultimately your game all the more better.

Firstly, this should be in the mesmer forums. You will get a lot more constructive criticism there on this topic.

On pu, you should be able to slice through a mantra mes. Mainly because a mantra mes gives off obvious signs of how it is fairing in a battle, just look at the mantra charges and interrupt them as they try to charge them. However a really good mantra mes who knows what they are doing are tough to take down, especially if they are running a condi/defense build because they can cover their charging with various skills.

Overall you need to know what kind of mantra mes they are, damage/condi/tank and then fight based on that. On pu focus on using all your condi bursting techniques on a tank, however keep it steady for a damage/condi is what I find works best (coming from a condi/tank mantra mes perspective)

+1 for a bank and tp in HOTM, don’t know why it wasn’t implemented in the first place…

Mantra’s are more like the icing to the cake, a little something on the side for its users. It’s not practical in any aspect of the game to go full mantra. It doesn’t work as I’m sure some people would like it to.

On top of that mantra’s themselves are not everyone’s cup of tea for obvious reasons. There are definitely builds out there that incorporate one or two, but don’t use them to build around. So it’s not a lack of mantra’s in builds, it’s the fact you won’t find an optimal all mantra build and that not everyone likes mantra’s due to there cast times and being vulnerable and what not.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Builds-Guides/first
The support section has most of your bunker build, but some of the other categories have some good survivability as well. As for being up to date, all builds there are up to date unless they have an asterisk next to them. And the build threads themselves will tell you usually the last patch they were updated on.
Try a few of these:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/SUPPORT-Mesmer-Spotlight/first#post2898258
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Chaos-Maestro-Support-Builds/page/4#post3735013 (has an spvp equivalent somewhere)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Bountiful-Interruption-TPvP/first
And try the build in my sig if condi/survivability is something he wants a shot at.

Hey if anet don’t like to be wrong, look at this solution. Everyone wins.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Please-let-us-set-approved-maps-for-arenas/first#post4252976