Guild Wars 2

From yesterdays raid experience were we tried the first boss I can say that both builds are viable (may be only for the first boss ‘cause I don’t know what follows…). I ran condi-support and together with my group we were responsible for the lighting-circle and than the blue guardian after he splits. Worked very well with well’s for healing in the circle, shield and chaos storm to get the break bar down and blink to get to the circle if it would be to far away. Condition damage felt a lot better regarding versatility and overall damage when youmove around and if something goes not like planned.

Overall mesmer is pretty versatile and offers a lot of things that previously where not important:

• boon removal for the blue guardian
• support through evade-well
• interrupts

So you have to see what roles are missing in your raid and you can build a bit around that.

Silverkey.2078:

I do continue main-ing my dear purple butterfly. What matters to me is finding a build I enjoy and which works well enough, and I have that. At my level, the “meta” does not matter that much. But I like watching tourneys and it saddens me to see so few mesmers

Practically this.

I will also stay with my chrono, but I’m still out there trying to find a build which I enjoy and works well in our guild team.

Hello fellow mesmer,

yesterday was the first Academic Gaming tourney after HoT went live and the matches our guild played felt really awkward and unfamiliar.

First match I ran Bunker Chrono and the match felt well-balanced even if we lost in the end. The second match I went Shatter Chrono ‘cause we lacked damage but I almost couldn’t bring on any damage to anyone of the enemy team and I couldn’t even do a full shatter combo. The enemy team was composed of two dragonhunter, one tempest, one shatter chronomancer and one scrapper.

Things I noticed during the match:

• a lot of blocks are underway now after HoT
• a lot of AoE makes it hard to fight on point
• CC everywhere, especially with dragonhunter and scrapper

So I think or feel like mesmer or even chronomancer are almost non-viable for an organized PvP group besides Bunker Chrono which played pretty well.

TL;DR What are you experiences after HoT in regards of mesmer/ chronomacner viability in organized PvP tournaments?

PS: maybe it’s not that mesmer/ chronomancer is not viable, but I’m as a player am not viable?

Cookiezz.5261:

These replies are super focussed on the meta, I also doubt condition mesmer will really ever be PvE meta, but I am curious how to properly play one in PvE (just for my own fun). Can we switch the topic over to that side of the fence? Just how to do it well instead of how viable it would be.

I’m currently running Sinister weapons + armor with Runes of Perplexity and rabid trinkets and so far PvE content and especially HoT maps are no problem at all. With Gravity Well and Well of Calamity (for events) and Well of Recall (for solo champions or Hero Points) I have no problem in clearing them.
Shield + scepter offers a lot of blocks and together with staff enough defense and mobility to survive.

So with the expertise from ascendend viper’s armor and weapons we get 443 Expertise which means 29,5% on condition duration.

Just an idea but what do you think about using Rune of the Scrapper (+175 Power, + 100 Toughness and “Incoming damage reduced by 7% when within 600 units of an enemy”) as a more direct damage reducing version instead of the Runes of Melandru?

It’s a tough choice because I have the legendary staff and full ascendend armor + trinkets. So getting sinister or viper armor is no problem, but I think a full viper-set will be.
Besides I also have runes of perplexity an the armor."

Hello fellow mesmer,

just a quick question regarding condition gear in PvE and PvP.
Which stat combination makes more sense or is more viable for a condi/hybrid shatter spec?

Thanks in advance and keep having fun at chronomancing. ^-^

1. Unlock the elite speck as fast as my connection allows it.
2. Equip a shield and feel the time flow through me.
3. Go to the new maps and get my masteries leveled or join PvP and chrono the hell outta my enemies.

So, pretty much the same stuff probably everybody will do. ^-^

Hello fellow rangers and future-druids ^-^,

during BWE3 druid made me wet my pants because I absolutly loooove healing and supporting my team, especially when raids will be a thing in the future.

I made up this build in regards of healing output and team support.

Armor
Cleric all the way for maximum healing output and more sustain. Note that the armor and trinkets in the build are the stuff my ranger currentyl has, so it all can be changed and nothing is set in stone.

Weapon choice
Well, staff is obvious due to the healing skills and as a range option. Second set is sword + warhorn for mobility and evades in melee fights, one leap and one blast finisher for water fields and team support via boons on warhorn #5.

Healing skill and utilities
Healing skill …. yeah, that one was pretty tough as I did the math for both HS and GoR. With the glyph trait GoR provides nice burst healing plus minor condition remove. Whereas HS provides more condition remove, longer healing due to regeneration and therefor more healing.

As for the utilities I choose the two glyphs with the lowest recharge which offer additional healing with VE. Signet of Stone was obvious for more toughness and six seconds of damage immunity. The elite is GoU for additional healing and for team support during CA form.

Traits
Urgh, traits was also a kittene, because I first thought about going Druid/Nature Magic/Wilderness Survival but in WS I couldn’t find any traits which provide healing and/or support for the group. So now it is Druid/Nature Magic/Skirmishing.

Druid is obvious ’cause I want to heal and druid provides the healing I want. Cultivated Synergy for additional healing as well as Verdant Etching for the same reason and condition removal. Lingering Light adds a bit mor healing when it shall come to clustered melee fights, but also Grace of the Land is a viable option if we face condition dealing enemies.

Nature Magic mainly becasue of the minor trait Lingering Magic which increases the duration of the boons given by the pet and the druid. Windborn Notes for addional regeneration, faster recharge for warhorn skills and therefor more regeneration and boon support. Invigorating Bond adds some healingfor melee classes when you stand at range.

Skirmishing was choosen because of two reasons: first was Trapper’s Expertise for reduced recharge on HS and longer regeneration provided by HS. Second thing is Spotter, which supports your team with additional precision when you stand in their range.

Rune and Sigils
Rune of the Monk was my first thought for a healing build with 10% more outgoing healing. Sigil of Water is on both weapon sets for additional healing independent from skill CD and other stuff. also Sigil of Water heals far more than Sigil of Renewal on weapon swap. Sigil of Life for more healing power, resulting in more healing for your group (… if there will be enough trash mobs in raids to get stacks). For the second sigil on staff I choose Sigil of Purity mainly beacuse I couldn’t find any interesting sigil which adds healing, sustain or boons.

TL;DR
Like the title says, it’s a build which provides a lot of healing with boon support – theoretical.

What I want to know is:

• Other ideas regarding trait settings, runes and sigils.
• Pets that support the build (e.g. Fern Hound for more regeneration).
• For the future and when we know how all skills scale with healing power: is is wise to go full healing power or will a mix of cleric and berserker be more “viable”?

Thank you all for reading and I reylla appreciate any suggestions, tips, tricks and other information and feedback.

Greetings
Jybril Tinúviël

Dear me:

- get used to the f****** GS or you’ll never do a decent shatter combo.
- stop fighting to long in 1vs2 or 1vs3
- don’t run around like a startled chicken when you get focussed
- and finally find a build that suits your play style AND helps your team

Hello fellow mesmer,

we recently started doing pvp as a team again (started over a year but lost a few members due to guild change).
I played mesmer since the beginning of GW2 and after doing pve content like personal story and dungeons I discovered pvp and am still doing pvp since almost three years.

During the few tournaments we took part in I played shatter mesmer and nothing else. Nowadays when I play alone or with a few members I play support-boonshare mesmer with marauder or cleric. Last test game versus an much experienced guild lead to a discusion about our mistakes and what could be improved so they pointed out thet a support-oriented build on a “only damage” class like mesmer doesn’t make sense and that I would be more usefull if I play shatter.

There are two problems with that: first I don’t like GS. It feels clunky and just doesn’t fit my play style. Second is I’m sick of playing shatter since I played shatter 99% of the time I did pvp.

So tl;dr: is there ANY viable build besides shatter mesmer for pvp?

You messed up some words I think.

On your picture you have two illusions up. One clone and one phantams.
While clones look exactly like you so they wear the same armor and weapons, phantasms appear purple-ish and transparent and wield their phantsams-specific weapon.

So you actually have some differentiation.

While you’re right that it can be pretty messy during a WB fight, you can differentiate the both by their brightness. Phantasms are a bright-purple blob, clones are usually darker.

To me, Dare-Devil thief elite specialization looks like lockdown-melee build for thiefs. Don’t know what to think of the physical utilities, all we can do is wait and see how it works and IF Anet will do anything, if it’s “OP” and “to hard to counter” like our lockdown builds.

Like Amadeus said place them on players who are (almost) unable to move, e.g. downed enemies or team mates.
Well of Action is pretty good for rezzing while Well of Calamity is awesome on downed players more so if someone wants to rezz him. Gravity Well is also an option for rezzing/stomping but can be mitigated by Stability.
Well of Precognition and Recall could be somewhat usefull if you play some kind of support-chronomancer where damage is not your first task.

Generally try to place them direct on the point so your enemy has either a) stay on point to hold it and get the effect of the well or b) leave the point and leave the point for you to (de)cap.

Tao.1234:

Zynt.5769:

I honestly don’t know what to suggest. I mean, Mesmer (and Thief for that matter), do need some form of survivability, in this case it being stealth, otherwise they’d just get destroyed and be farmed for points. Hopefully Anet can figure out some way to balance it out a bit.

They already did.
Mesmer since Balance patch is no longer Stealth dependent to survive.

Right, we now have Blind on every shatter skill which synergises well with IP being baseline. Also we have Daze and Stun on demand and if we take Power Block, Weakness is also applied at an Interrupt. We have Distortion and teleports – but guess what: everybody is complaining about one or more of our defence mechanism.

We can burst and die instantly after that, but I think thats not exactly brilliant.

We don’t have to take all These skills, but usually it’s easier to survive the increased damage of everyone if we can evade and mitigate it. I for myself run interupts and two stealth skills (torch and decoy) and so far I did pretty well against other classes. Problem for me are conditions, but I’m working on that.

But as mentiont before give CS an ICD of 10s, let BD be evadable and blockable and tone down the stealth Duration given by PU – thats plenty to make it easier for other classes to foresee the burst and kill the mesmer.

Xyonon.3987:

Careful, Rune of the Mesmer is bugged, making your dazes last like 0.5 sec! (most likely the 6th rune bonus reduces dazes by 33% isntead of increases).

Last time I tested this was yesterday.

Urgh, Looks like I will start from the beginning and give it another try.

Naaa, I main mesmer since the beginning and also play PvP since than. Most of the time I play shatter or lockdown depending on my mood.
But after the patch, everything seems viable because we’re no longer bound to the Attribute boni the traits offer. And I have decided, but I like to play around with ideas and get as much out of the build as possible.

Experimenting with the new Inspiration trait line lead me to this build I recently try in tPvP.

It offers good team support against condition heavy teams through Resistance and interrupts. It also has a high burst potential with the stacking potential of Harmonious Mantras and Fencer’s Finesse. We have good condition removal thanks to the combination of three times charged mantras and the minor trait Mender’s Purity.

The weapon choice it pretty obvious ‘cause we want to deal a lot of damage. So we’re going for the GS with Sigil of Air and Sigil of Fire for even more damage when we crit. Second weapon set it sword and pistol; sword for high stack of Fencer’s Finesse and damage avoidance through Blurred Frenzy. Pistol offers a hard hitting phantasm and also an interrupt which synergises well with Duelist Discipline. Sigils are Energy for more dodges and Paralyzation for longer daze duration.
To maximize the potential of lockdowns I also took Rune of the Mesmer and all interrupt relevant traits in the domination trait line: Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption and Power Block.

For utilities I choose Feedback and Null Field to profit as often as possible from Temporal Enchanter. Third utility is Mantra of Distraction, obvious choice for a lockdown build and another reason we choose Harmonious Mantras. Elite utility is Time Warp since it’s also a glamour and benefits from the Temporal Enchanter trait. Additionally it’s one of the few skills that offers Slow which is a pretty strong condition – perfect for a crowd controlling build.

So far I can say the build offers good damage and support but I think the timing of when you have to cast the glamour is very important, so in a “pug” tPvP team it’s pretty hard to time without some sort of communication. Also the build lacks sustain since we have no source of stealth and no teleport like Blink or Phase Retreat.
I’m currently thinking of a Glamrock build with Chaos and on condition damage. Furthermore I think a tanky Glamrock build will also be possible.

I would appreciate your feedback what do you think about the build as it is and give tips and ideas what could be done better. Also I’d like to discuss the viability of this build in “real” tPvP and in official tournaments.

Thank you for your feedback (… pun intended ^-^) and I have to thank Chaos Archangel for the name and the idea for this build.

Hello guys, I’m new to warrior but practicing meta shoutbow warrior for a while now (5 weeks or so). I really like the synergy but than I’m just a fan of the combo of mace and shield. ^-^

So….topic title says all: I’m looking for a VIABLE mace/shield + X build for team PvP. I searched the forums and metabattle.com but all I could find was a banner bunker build which I find meh >.<

If there is none, than I’ll stay meta till we find something new and better/viable.

Thanks in advance for your input and I really appreciate contructive help. o/

I think you got it wrong. One new GM trait will be Master of Fragmentation which somehow improves all four shatter skills.
And as an example WM is shown here and it seems we get confusion and might added to MW with this GM trait so you now deal dmg with MW AND confusion and you get one stack might.

So nothing wrong here. ^-^

It seems they generally moved a few trait from one line to another;
Domination is still for interrupting, vulnerability stacking and direct dmg;
Dueling still is for sword and pistol, also we get a few things for evasion (DE is grandmaster trait now.) Also get a new “on crit” trait which will put us back on the confusion train it seems;
Chaos is about boons and boon duration, added a damage reflection for manipulation skills. Anything else seems to be how and where it was;
Inspiration buffes phantasms and glamour spells. Illusionary Inspiration seems nice;
Finally Illusions still is about shatter and they added a “torment on confusion”- trait, I think they want to push mesmer a bit more in direction of confusion again.

Overall the changes all seem nice and we’ll see how it goes.

I suppose we’ll see a lot of condi mesmers after the patch with scepter and Maim. As much as I like the scepter changes, I think it’s to much plus the auto attack from the clones will be a torment overload.

Also I like the sound of an additional AoE and the AoE Stun – more lockdown possibilities.

I like the sound of AoE stun and staff clones finally benefit from IE. But like some already pointed out condi mes and especially PU mes will be so strong that they’ll nerf something about it.

We’ll see what happens when the patch is life.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Err, ranger axe condi/hybrid builds are going to go from hardcore to OMFG.

At least you see the axes thrown at you. LB from whatever point you don’t see the ranger immediately and PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW dead. (>@_@)>

A complete list of the upcoming changes can be found here.

I’m a bit terrified about the whole “lets-make-turrets-stronger” changes. The missles from the rocket turret will track you down – hurray for almost unavoidable damage (’cause only aegis or dodges will help…).

The changes on ranger look interesting but I’m 100% positive that almost all rangers will run with a LB. Also rapid fire with only 2,5s casting time sounds …. painful.

But we’ll see if the changes will be as meta-changing as they sound.

xantosnightwish.5438:

Yunalesca.9850:

I’d like to know if you already send emails to the EU participants as well. I can only speak for our team TDG that we haven’t got an email yet so I’m curious about if we also get our time schedule.

We’re actually not running the EU side of things so Im not 100% sure on when those emails will be sent out. Ill ask around for ya though!

We now got our time schedule for the tournament don’t know it was because of you but thanks nonetheless.

I’d like to know if you already send emails to the EU participants as well. I can only speak for our team TDG that we haven’t got an email yet so I’m curious about if we also get our time schedule.

I have to say ‘thank you’ for your great build. I changed some tiny bits but now I feel satisfied with my ele. Only obstacle I have to overcome is the experience how to play him, but I hope I’m ready whenever Anet is going to totaly destroy the mesmer for me in pvp. >.>"

The “problem” about MtD is the low amount of torment stacks and the duration you get from one shatter (F1 – F3). You get a maximum of 3 stacks for 4sec which is not enough condi pressure to say it’s worth investing points in this GM trait. Sure you inflict other conditions but it’s not worth.

You can build a solid support shatter build with staff/scepter+torch for team fights in pvp where you can put a lot of confusion stacks on one target and the torment is, like you said an additional condition to cleanse. But except for teamfights, and there are better options then a condi-shatter build, the trait is not optimal designed.

Pyro suggested in one thread to buff the trait to 3 or 4 stacks of torment per illusion which would add enough condition pressure on your target to make this trait worth investing points. But otherwise I’d recommend IP over MtD.

With IP you count as an additional illusion but only regarding all traits and effects which occur with shatters (F1-F4). You don’t get the 3% bonuses of traits like “deal 3% additional damage for each active illusion you have”. Which means instead of a three shatter mind wrack you now have a four shatter mind wrack.

“If” the wiki is right, the general damage of mind wrack with IP is higher than without. With zero illusions and IP mind wrack would deal the same amount as one illusion which is 135 damage. With one active illusion so with IP now two the damage would be 270 (~135 per illusion), whereas a two illusion mind wrack without IP would only deal 206 (~103 per illusion). The complete damage list can be seen here.
So you see the damage per illusion is lower the more illusions you have.

Mind wrack is a weapon attack, but the tooltip only shows the damage for a weapon strength of 604. If only the tooltip is wrong, you should shatter with a two-handed weapon which has a mean strength of 1047,5 (calculated for exotic weapon). If you shatter with a one-handed weapon, your shatter damage will drop to a mean of 952,5. That would be a loss of ~9%. So the highest possible weapon strength value would be 1150 (mean 1100) with an ascended two-handed weapon.

Also regarding the skill coefficient of mind wrack the coefficient doesn’t change for 3 and 4 illusions. Regarding what Azo calculated you should always trait IP if you go for a shatter build, because the damage per illusion doesn’t drop from 3 to 4 illusions.

So to get the maximum out of mind wrack you should trait IP and always shatter when you’re near the enemy to get the “bonus damage” for the fourth illusion.

Your build looks like the one I used to ran except for a few points:

- Halting Stike instead of Mental Torment ~ you can interrupt quite often with chaosstorm and illusionary wave and Halting Strike can crit up to 2k; so it’s perfect for thiefs or tankier classes
- Sigil of Energy and Sigil of Strength on both weapons ~ you crit a lot and that way you make sure that you always have 3-5 stacks of might and gain profit of the +7% damage of the rune set
- depending on the team compilation I often switched Nullfield for Decoy, that way you can produce an additional clone and get away easier

But otherwise I don’t see anything “useless” for a shatter build.

Regarding the reflexes of Helseth: it depends a lot on the pc you use and your internet connection. I for myself have a pretty crappy connection so I have milisecond lags – but that’s sometimes enough.

So, another mesmer is joining the tPvP branch – so I welcome you in here. Let’s say, we are not a lot of mesmers, at least that’s my experience when I join tPvP.

So regarding the thiefs, they are our Achilles’ heel. Like you said bad ones can be killed but good ones dodge, stealth and port every attempt to deal damage to them. And now with the “new” condition thiefs, they’re almost not killable. Try to remember the following: always try to engage the thief first, not vice versa. Also if you see you have no chance, at least try to get away. In team fights you should focus the thief and kill him asap, otherwise he’ll kill you.

Another point which refers to fights versus every class is you HAVE TO MOVE. Don’t stay still. You have to do a lot of repositioning. Use the terrain to your advantage, get out of sight for a few secs to get a skill ready or to heal. You can even run away from the point, ‘cause in a 1v1, your opponent will stay on the point to cap and won’t chase you. Return invisible or from another side and make a new attempt.
That brings us to your third point: on point fighting. It’s not possible for a Mesmer to stay on a point, hold it long enough and don’t get killed. Like you said if you do, you die.
And if you can’t kill one alone, ask your team for help – it’s called tPvP for a reason. You rarely have a chance for a 1v1. Even if it started like one, after a short time you or your opponent will have support.

For what I experienced the role of a Mesmer is a supporter. You deal damage, interrupt stomps or heals, you have a ton of useful conditions (e.g. cripple, vulnerability, poison) and you also have useful boons for your team. A well placed chaosstorm during a mid fight works wonders. And don’t underestimate the portal. It can bring support from one point to another and you can use it for your retreat if you’re almost going down. And you can play wonderful mind games since your opponent has to stay on the point where you placed the portal and so he can’t support his team on another point. If he doesn’t stay, you can use it and decap the point.

Your movement depends on the situation. I roam always between our capped points to support 1v1 or 1vX. If you’re about to lose the point, escape and go elsewhere. If you see all enemy units are occupied, you can at least decap their point and sometimes even cap it. You need to watch your teammates healthbars and the map to see where your needed or were is a free cap. And you should get a “feeling” for what your opponents team will do next. If they lost a mid fight, there’s a high chance that they’ll try one of the outer points (mostly your close point) and you can leave mid to the bunker.
I’d like you to post a link to your build so maybe there’s something that can be modified for higher damage output. Last week I saw a lot of mesmers who had a good scaffold for a build but chose suboptimal runes and sigils for it.

Otherwise you have to practice and fight a lot of battles to gain a feeling for what you have to do. There are the basics but you have to experience various situations to become good.

Hope you get something out of my screed and never give up. Just because you die doesn’t mean you’re bad or something.

For my beloved main mesmer Yuna staff is the weapon you see me most with. Not only because I crafted myself a beautiful Bifrost I also like the mechanic of the staff. Even shatter build I can’t live without staff…..

And I think for PvP you can also say that I use mostly staff – love chaosstorm
interrupts and Phase Retreat/Blink stomps.

Thank you all for your answers.

@ Benjamin:
I’m not new to mesmer as I play mesmer since gw2 start and it’s the only class that I can play properly in tpvp ( at least I think so…). Like I said I tried a bunch of sets; first GS +Sw/F because I read a guide about how-to-shatter-properly. After that, I used GS + Sw/T for the extra survivability. Third I tried GS + Staff at the recommendation of a fellow mesmer. But then I thought that I’d probably deal more damage if I change Staff for Sw/x – and here x was the focus. And now, we got wrecked by 55HP Monks during the last ESL Weekly Cup (no offense taken, they are way much better) and Misha played with Staff + Sw/P. So I thought I give it a try since the extra stun on pistol is more useful in teamfights. I don’t have to bring up chaosstorm for the boons in a teamfight and like Curunen said Staff is better for kiting – and all I do is running around, kite and kill.

And, like you said, staff offers much mobility that’s hard to drop (not to mention I like the staff much more than the GS…).

So, I’ll try more out this evening and see where I get.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say that this is regarding tPvP. ^.^"

Thank you mango – I have to say Staff and Sword/x is really nice. And my damage doesn’t drop as much as I thought before. Magic bullet is also nice for Halting Strike crits.

Mhmm, I though about Blade Training as well but I’m kinda used to the max range blink and it makes porting on ledges and higher terrain much easier. But I’ll give it a try in the next few tournaments.

I’m playing a shatter build since don’t-know-how-long and tried a bunch of weapon combinations that all have its pros and cons. The build I’m running is this build but still couldn’t figure out which weapon set gets the maximum out of it. So I’m trying to summarize the whole sets so you can eventually give some advice which one matches the build the best:

Greatsword/ Staff
+ both ranged weapons so I don’t have to get to close to the enemy
+ GS5 and Staff5 are useful to interrupt
+ both weapons have bouncing attacks, so they benefit from IE
+ both phantasms are good damage dealers
+ high boon output

Greatsword/ Sword+Focus
+ high damage output
+ burst combo
+ interrupts (GS5, F4)

- focus phantasm sometimes unreliable
- lower mobility

Greatsword/ Sword+Torch
+ high damage output
+ burst combo
+ bouncing attacks
+ stealth

- lower mobility

Greatsword/ Sword+Pistol
+ high damage output
+ burst combo
+ bouncing attacks
+ both phantasms will follow the enemy

- lower mobility

Greatsword/ Sword+Sword
+ highest damage output
+ burst
+ block resp. stun/interrupt

- lower mobility

Staff/ Sword+Pistol
+ nice damage output
+ both phantasms are reliable and follow the enemy
+ stuns resp. interrupts
+ high boon output
+ fast clone production

- lower damage output since no GS

I’m currently running GS with Sword and Focus and so far I really like it because of the mass pull with focus. And I have a reliable source of speed to roam faster between points. But I think the Staff/ Sword+Pistol combo offers probably more survivability due to protection, chaos armor and the pistol5 stun.

So thanks in advance and maybe you have some other set suggestions I didn’t thought of.

I’m trying ele at the moment so I can’t say anything about that but I can give my five cents about the mesmer pov.

With any condition-based build with or without PU you have a good chance in winning the duel. Even Phantasm builds work well, only that the thief will kill your phantasms with a few SB shots. Interrupt builds could work fine IF you could actually interrupt a thief, means you stunned him long enough and his skills would have a longer CD. But since a lot of the thiefs skills are stunbreakers or ports and his skills are based on initiative and have little to no CD – it depends on your build.

As a shatter mesmer for tPvP you (at least I…) have almost no chance in a duel. Due to his high mobility and portskills it’s hard to land a nice shatter and when you try to disengage he’ll be immediately on you and kill you. But tPvP is a lot about team fights so don’t get to mad with yourself if someone whispers you with “L2P mesmer noob” when you loose a duel versus a thief. They probably expect you to be awesome and godlike and one-shot everything.

Thanks for your tips.
So I guess I did right and were just unlucky with my choice of teammates

Thank you for your answer.

I already took a look in Supcutie’s guide times ago when I swapped from Condi PU to shatter and it helped me a lot.

Your other point describes exactly what I’m doing, also if I concentrate on a thief its a good chance that I’m going down first (But that’s another topic….). Another point that annoys me pretty hard is that in 80% of the scenarios I set a portal it runs out 0,5s before I wanna use it (e.g. I placed on at close and there is an inc of two vs one so I wanted to help…).

Good evening fellow mesmers,

since everyone but me seems to know how to play a mesmer in tPvP I’m looking for your advice.

I’m currently running this build. I always rotate between capped points or help in groupfights. But apparently that’s not what a Mesmer should do and after almost 2500 games with my mesmer I’m still a noob.

So I’d like to know WHAT a Mesmer should do in tPvP. And maybe I’m running the wrong build for this meta and that’s the reason why.

Thanks in advance.

For situations like that in PvP I have to say a Condi-Shatter-Build works really well. I can either I kill them (even if it takes a lot of time) or I hold them at the point as long as I get support from my team. With a tanky condi build you’re both pretty equal, only that the engi has more knockbacks.

And it depends on the situation: if you have the point and get attacked, you should try to hold the point at least neutral. If they have the point, you can use the terrain much more for your advantage.

If they get help from their team, just run away.

From my point of view, the “problem” is to get five people together at the same time.

Today at the evening (in our time zone) was the ESL Weekly Cup we always try to participate since we learn something even if we loose. At the beginning of the week, I asked our main pvp players who’d be interested and how his or her schedule was. Unfortunatly we ended up being three and couldn’t take part with our guild.

Therefor I find the idea of 3vs3 tPvP arenas very appealing, since three is a nice amount of people you almost get together at any time. In the regular tPvP I don’t care about prizes, I want to play better, faster and work with my team so play more effective.

Unfortunatly the amount of challenging matches is pretty low. Normal tPvP is pretty slow if you compare it to some games at the ESL cups. We’re by far not even close to that kind of game play but we don’t improve much, when our enemy team is “standart”.

That being said I think a kind of team ladder system would be nice. Every team can register and put their name on it and other teams can request a match against them. The matches would be best of three with FoN, LoF and BoK so we don’t have to deal with skyhammer or chasing buffs. Wins make you go up and looses make you go down in the ranking. But that way, little and “unexperienced” teams could challenge better teams and learn from them. They even can communicate over the map-chat. So yep, I would like that.

Playing a 4/4/0/0/6 Condi-Shatter with Runes of the Nightmare and Sigil of Doom and Energy on both Scepter/Torch and Staff in PvP. The combination of confusion, torment and retaliation is great. I will run it till I’m tired of people killing themselfes. ^-^

Seems like the Phantasmal Disenchanter is bugged too. The tooltip says it clears 2 conditions and 2 boons while having 5 bounces.

With or without IE it bounced only 4 times and it didn’t matter whether it was clones and one enemy or more enemies. Phantasmal Mage and IE is still working though.

Xaylin.1860:

That is quite some selective reading you have done there.

Well, I main only mesmer and play mainly pvp so there aren’t that much interesting threads out here but everything with interrupt and possible new play stiles catches my interest. ^^

Regarding the interrupt in general, we get more benefits from traits regarding interrupts e.g. Bountiful Interruption, Chaotic Interruption, Illusion of Vulnerability and damage from Halting Strike. How long the CD of the skill after the interrupt is, is not the main reason we’re using interrupts.
So I guess you’re right when you say that 5s more CD make a significant difference.

Another personal question a bit off topic since here are so many lockdown-experienced players here : I like the idea of Imbued Diversion a lot but does it only sound nice? I played a 30/10/0/0/30 build with CS, ID and Staff and had a lot of fun dazing and stunning three enemies at one point and my team mates finished them off. But is it viable or only fun for me?

Thanks in advance and I guess we have to wait and see till the patch is up.

In one of the SpvP threads: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Kill-3-Birds-With-1-Stone-Power-Block/first#post3850892 someone suggested to put Power Lock in the inspiration tree.

Your opinions on that?

I think it would be a terrible idea because we also have SC Confunding Suggestions.

If we had access to both CS and PL we could spec for 6/x/x/6/x so we’d have 25% longer dazes, 50% chance to turn a daze into a stun AND put the CD of an interrupted skill on 10sec. I think that would be too much even if PL is not that powerful if used alone.

And what I’m wondering about is that this trait has no internal CD which means if I cast a chaos storm in a bunch of enemies that are fighting on a point I will approximately interrupt everyone one or two times. So in the best case I put two skills of each on 10sec CD which is extremely strong – so maybe Anet will give it an internal CD of 5sec or 10sec so it’s not that OP.

But I’ll definitely try some build ideas with PL.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Change the proposed Power Block to do the following:

Power Block: Interrupting an opponent’s skill places their signets on an X second cooldown. Y second ICD.

Like some other people said, that would be to specialized if you put their signets on CD. And it would be to easy to counter: don’t use any signets (I know, warrior and thief need their signets but it would be still an option…)

Simonoly.4352:

There’s a thread in the Mesmer forum discussing this. It would probably be better to have this as an entirely different interrupt trait rather than replacing Power Block. The new Grandmaster interrupt trait for the inspiration tree is going to be pretty useless so maybe that would be a good location for some signet-hate on interrupt instead. Would also mean that interrupt Mesmers would need to sacrifice other important Mesmer traits if they really wanted signet-hate and a bunch of the other interrupt traits.

That makes no sense. O.o Why should they place an interrupt-relevant trait in the inspiration tree, which is about healing and phantasms, whereas the domination tree has a lot of interrupt traits plus all minor traits affect interrupts and dazes?
If they’d made a trait with “Healing on interrupt” or “Remove two conditions on interrupting an enemy” that would have made sense to put it in inspiration but the actual “Power Lock” trait is better preserved in domination.

Another reason they placed it there is the fact that another GM trait “Confunding Suggestions” is also placed in the domination tree. With that interrupt mesmers have to choose between PL and CS. Imagine how powerful interrupts would be if you could spec for 6/0/0/6/0 so they have 25% longer dazes, 50% chance to turn a daze into a stun AND put the CD of an interrupted skill on 10sec. That would be too much so placing two powerful interrupt traits in the same GM tree is the best choice they could have made.

Next thing is Anet already said that this trait will only affect interrupts of skills with recharge, so most signets are used for their passive effect so the suggestions of the OP would be useless.
That means, thiefs wont be affected by this trait because all their skills use initiative as a kind of CD but the actual skills don’t have any CD. I assume they loose the initiative but the skill will have no CD, maybe they loose twice the amount of initiative but that would be to much I think. And auto-attack is spammable too ( Don’t know how much it will affect the guardian hammer chain where you stand there at the last part to make the symbol….).

What I’m wondering about is that this trait has no internal CD which means if I cast a chaos storm in a bunch of enemies that fight on a point I will approximately interrupt everyone one or two times. So in the best case I put two skills of each on 10sec CD which is extremely strong – so maybe Anet will give it an internal CD of 5sec or 10sec so it’s not that OP.

I’m kinda sad but the decision is not in my hands. Just hope you leave perplexity in Pve or my mesmer would be without runes T_T

Guess I have to kill my opponents by myself and don’t let them kill themself – but that’s okay as long as you don’t nerf or whatever comes in your mind the interruption off mesmer.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Yunalesca.9850:

they can always stop shooting.

> Stop shooting

Love how people say this in seriousness as if it isn’t an issue.

“Yeah bro, just stop using any abilities and run away for 15 seconds man, you’ll be OK for sure, EZmode.”

Ridiculous.

That’s in no way ridiculous.

It’s all about control. If I get stunned, my opponent controls the fight, has the advantage and therefor controls my actions.
Option 1: take what he dishes.
Option 2: Use a stunbreaker and get away.

And my opponent also should know that I have only those two options and he will react to them.

If my opponent applies confusion, I also have to act:
Option 1: stop attacking. Sure, I wont kill my opponent within the next seconds, but I wont loose that much life and after the confusion expired, I can attack again.
Option 2: use cleanse. I get rid of the confusion (maybe, depends on the class and cleanse you play and use…)
Option 3: attack and ignore the confusion. Here are two new options possible: I kill my opponent fast enough and finish him. OR I kill myself because I didn’t watch the damage the confusion was dealing.

Confusion, Torment and Retaliation give you as its user a lot of control over the fight and your opponent.

And why the hell shouldn’t I use the “ignorance” or “blindness” of my opponent if he attacks with 10 stacks confusion while I have retaliation?
That would be equaly stupid to a hambow-warrior who would stop chain-ccing you. Or if you fight 1vs1 in a tournament and you’re about to win but than you opponent gets support from two team members and they kill you in a 3vs1. They control the fight, finish you and you should either run or die – and don’t expect any mercy.

If anyone has control over his or her opponent, he or she will use it to win.

Seems to me like everybody just heard “Perplexity” and “Confusion” and now you’re running around like crazy chicken and start to complain.

New Version: Superior Rune of Perplexity
(1) +25 Condition Damage
(2) 10% Confusion Duration
(3) +50 Condition Damage
(4) 25% chance when struck to inflict 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds. 25s ICD
(5) +100 Condition Damage
(6) +20% confusion duration; when you interrupt a foe, cause 5 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds. 15s ICD.

Did anyone of you noticed the change in the 4th tier bonus?
Before it was a 20% chance to inflict confusion on your target when YOU HIT it. Now it’s a 25% chance to inflict confusion when YOU ARE HIT and that only every 25sec. That’s a big difference believe it or not. Since nobody wants to get hit by anyone and obviously not by a warrior, thief or a burst-ele, it will rarely trigger.
Classes and builds with range weapons will mostly suffer from it, since you can’t kite them except with running out of range or hide behind an object, but there again, they can always stop shooting.

And please don’t remove the “on interrupt” of the 6th tier bonus since you’ll give all interrupt mesmers a bit more diversity with the new GM traits and make interrupt builds more viable.

Confusion was nerfed before (down to 50% damage in pvp) and now you all start complaining again? Watch your condition and boon bar if you have problems with confusion and learn how to counter it. Confusion is no problem if you know how to deal with it (e.g. stop spamming skills like crazy…).

Thanks for listening.
A fellow confusion and interrupt loving mesmer