Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. I’ve spent the last couple of months playing a lot of large-scale WvW and GvG. It’s no secret that a lot of folks are frustrated right now and there’s a sense of pessimism through the community. In light of this, I just wanted to keep things positive and share some awesome things you can do with Mimic.

This is a frontline boonshare build, so if that’s not your thing I understand and you can read something else. But if you’re curious and want to dominate your enemies into submission learn more about the build I recommend paying a visit to the wiki and brushing up on skill mechanics and cooldowns.

Recommended Reading on the Wiki

Mimic
Signet of Inspiration
Illusionary Inspiration
Continuum Split

Just as a background for folks that might not be as familiar with the WvW scene, the majority of Mesmer builds you see out there tend to focus either on solo/small-scale roaming or large-scale utility for the zerg, e.g., “veil-bots”. Back when the specialization rework was released the summer before HoT, the introduction of Illusionary Inspiration opened the door for a viable third option, the frontline boonshare Mesmer. With HoT bringing the Chronomancer elite spec and the shield offhand, everything was in place for guilds to begin theorycrafting and implementing boonshare into their team compositions.

So here’s the build that we’ll be working with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWl0nhq0YBawPNQtGLEHV9l+pl6ZFcBfmZAkALEA-T1xHQBwT9HwpPAgK/W3+DPUJY+eCAA4UAIKgMD-w

Chaos/Inspiration/Chrono is a fairly popular and forgiving trait setup. It doesn’t require the timings and group training that Domination/Inspiration/Chrono uses, and has a lower barrier to entry with respect to beginners and gearing.

Now, if you’ve been keeping up the patches, you know that Signet of Inspiration received a major overhaul fall 2016. They essentially changed certain boons from stacking in intensity to stacking in duration, effectively eliminating prebuffing and nerfing might/stability stacking. However, that same change buffed resistance and quickness application by letting the signet use the Mesmer’s boon duration. That’s huge.

The biggest shortcoming for Chaos boonshare has always been not doing enough. Your Signets have 30s cooldowns which means you’re designed to win the endurance race, not the fight that’s over in 20s after the first push. The addition of Mimic takes care of this weakness. It gives you the “burst sustain” your team needs to survive. When you factor in signet changes, one properly trained Mesmer now has the carry potential to win entire fights for his team. Let’s see how it’s done.

Video Tutorials and Gameplay

Skill Breakdown
Fast Version
Gameplay on NA
Gameplay on EU

So what’s going on here? I’m pumping out six casts of Signet of Inspiration to buff my team. In order to pull this off, you’ll want to start in sword then swap to staff for sigil proc. Activate continuum split during the after-cast of Warlock to get Illusionary Inspiration and the illusion for CS duration. Time Warp, signet, then Mimic. Your skills will reset after CS ends and you’ll still have Echo on your buff bar. Use your shatter skills during CS for Inspiring Distortion and boon generation. When you revert back, you should be able to finish your rotation without getting interrupted. Weapon swap for another sigil proc before casting the last two signets.

Illusion generation is paramount to having enough time to get through your rotation. Quickness helps a great deal, so make sure you’re shattering or opening with Tides of Time. In the middle of a zerg fight, it can be too risky to cast everything without getting cut off early. You can mitigate this with Distortion for the rift, leaving either signet or Mimic out of the rotation, using Phase Retreat for an extra illusion, or by simply not having terrible positioning.

Let me know what you guys think. Feedback appreciated!

The June 23 patch has had a profound impact on Mesmer. Changes in traits, abilities, and gameplay mechanics have strengthened our ability to deal direct damage. I’m happy to say that some of these changes have also made healing skills that were previously ignored more competitive. If you’re familiar with the changes feel free to skip down to the numbers. If not, let’s take a look!

Mirror: Mirror was a sort of niche heal skill that didn’t see a whole lot of use outside of duels against Rangers and against specific bosses, e.g., Stargazer, Raving Asura. It heals the player for 3915, requires 1.25s to cast, and reflects projectiles during the cast. Post-patch Mirror is now considered a Manipulation skill, and can be traited to have its CD reduced from the default 15s to a strong 12s.

Ether Feast: Arguably the most common heal skill used in PvP and WvW, Ether Feast heals the player for 5560. It has a one second cast time and 20s CD like before, and you gain an additional 640 health per illusion. For those of you putting together a full nomad’s snowfall rune build to troll people at east keep, Ether Feast scales the best with healing power out of every option out there.

Signet of the Ether: This skill was the de facto choice for PvE builds because of how it reset phantasm CDs. You get the same 5560 base healing as Ether Feast but the CD is a much longer 35s. With Blurred Inscriptions, this CD gets reduced down to 28s. The passive healing on this signet scales linearly with the number of illusions you have active, and so it saw some use in phantasm and condition builds in WvW.

Mantra of Recovery: Before the patch, our mantra heal was primarily used either in conjunction with Menders Purity for condition cleanse for roaming/dueling builds, mantra-oriented support builds for WvW zerging, or with Empowering Mantras for the extra burst damage with elementalist conjures and reflects. Post-patch, this heal has been buffed immensely by the revamped Harmonious Mantras, which gives a temporary stackable 4% (8% if you trait into Inspiration) damage buff upon mantra use, and the new mantra skill recharge mechanic that starts the CD after you charge the skill- not when you use it. Base heals for Power Return are 2620 with a 1s CD between applications. Charging the skill takes 2.75s and sits on a 10s CD. You can trait into this heal through Dueling and Inspiration provide three uses of Power Return (Harmonious Mantras) or provide AoE healing (Restorative Mantras).

Note on the Illusions trait line: Menders Purity has been turned into a minor trait and synergizes extremely well with short cool-down heals like MoR and Mirror. There is currently a bug associated with it not proccing off the last application of Power Return but should hopefully be fixed soon. Restorative Illusions is back and has had its bug with Illusionary Persona that provided extra healing fixed. It’s still worth some consideration due to its condition cleanse. Healing Prism is a new minor trait that heals your allies when you yourself heal. It also adds 100 healing power for every illusion you have active.

Whew! Let’s move on to the numbers. All calculations have been done with 0 base healing power. For brevity I’ve used “hps” to represent the amount of healing per second your heal skills if used continuously. “Burst healing” refers to how much raw health you regain when you commit to a heal.

Using Time Warp while Temporal Enchanter is equipped will grant resistance and superspeed to ten allies, despite the trait description listing five targets.

Mirror:
241 hps untraited
295 hps traited
3915 burst healing (1.25s)

Mirror w/ Healing Prism:
241 – 252 hps untraited
295 – 309 hps traited
3915 – 4095 burst healing (1.25s)

Ether Feast:
265 hps w/ 0 illusions
295 hps w/ 1 illusion
326 hps w/ 2 illusions
356 hps w/ 3 illusions
5560 – 7480 burst healing depending on the number of illusions (1s)

Ether Feast w/ Healing Prism:
265 hps w/ 0 illusions
300 hps w/ 1 illusion
336 hps w/ 2 illusions
372 hps w/ 3 illusions
5560 – 7810 burst healing depending on the number of illusions (1s)

Signet of the Ether:
154 hps signet active, untraited
192 hps signet active, traited
113 hps signet passive, 1 illusion
220 hps signet passive, 2 illusions
327 hps signet passive, 3 illusions
5560 burst healing (1s)

Signet of the Ether w/ Healing Prism:
154 – 162 hps signet active, untraited
192 – 201 hps signet active, traited
115 hps signet passive, 1 illusion
226 hps signet passive, 2 illusions
339 hps signet passive, 3 illusions
5560 – 5815 burst healing (1s)

Mantra of Recovery:
411 hps untraited
616 hps harmonious mantras
615 hps restorative mantras
820 hps both traits
5240 burst healing (2s)
7860 burst healing harmonious mantras (3s)
10480 burst healing if recast (6.75s)
15720 burst healing if recast, harmonious mantras (8.75s)
13080 burst healing if recast, restorative mantras (6.75s)
18320 burst healing if recast, both traits (8.75s)

Mantra of Recovery w/ Healing Prism:
411 – 420 hps untraited
616 – 631 hps harmonious mantras
615 – 638 hps restorative mantras
820 – 853 hps both traits
5240 – 5480 burst healing (2s)
7860 – 8220 burst healing harmonious mantras (3s)
10480 – 10960 burst healing if recast (6.75s)
15720 – 16440 burst healing if recast, harmonious mantras (8.75s)
13080 – 13620 burst healing if recast, restorative mantras (6.75s)
18320 – 19100 burst healing if recast, both traits (8.75s)

Restorative Illusions w/ Healing Prism:
872 burst healing w/ 0 illusions
1084 burst healing w/ 1 illusion
1296 burst healing w/ 2 illusions
1508 burst healing w/ 3 illusions

The buff to Mirror Images by making it a Manipulation skill has given it healing potential on par or better than casting Ether Feast with one clone. This is huge for builds that don’t have deceptive evasion, such as the recent PU power burst setup. The extra long reflection duration will be handy against pistol thieves, rangers, and engineers, and even power necros. Don’t bring this heal in a fight against a greatsword Mesmer- Mirror Blade cannot be reflected.

Ether Feast is still a strong burst heal for phantasm builds and traditional Deceptive Evasion shatter builds. You only need active illusions when you decide to heal, so there’s a lot of versatility with different play styles.

While it is a mainstay of most PvE builds, Signet of Ether didn’t really benefit much from the patch. It’s severely lacking in heal potential, having terrible passive stats. Traiting for blurred inscriptions does give you a distortion and an extra clear, but the 1s cast time on the heal means you either have to know what’s coming before hand or have insane reflexes. Still, the extra phantasm can be nice and there could be some nice synergy with Inspiring Distortion.

Mantra of Recovery had some of the strongest gains with the patch. With traits, this skill has better sustained healing than Consume Conditions w/ 10 condis & MoC. Burst healing is absolutely ridiculous with the proper traits and this heal synergizes the best with the Inspiration minors. The 8% (2×4%) damage modifier you currently receive from Harmonious Mantras and Inspiration frees up another utility slot in PvE that would otherwise be used for mantra duty. Mimic anyone?

Let me know what you guys think.

In order to tackle the subject of server links, I’d like to take a step back and pose a question to help frame the discussion. Why do players play WvW and what keeps them coming back? Once we tackle this big picture “WHY” we can move on and worry about the finer details like game and game mode mechanics, concepts of fairness, etc.

Some people play for the sense of thrill, the excitement of an intimate fight, large or small. Others are playing because of the community, whether that’s coming from the guild that they’re in or the server that they’re on. There are also those that play to win, either through the point totals at the end of the week or the outcomes of each individual organized scrimmage or duel. Lastly, you have people that play WvW because of the rewards, namely the Daily rewards and Gift of Battle.

These groups are: for-the-fights, community-driven, play-to-win, and rewards-driven. They are themselves multifaceted in both polarity and intensity, and most definitely not mutually exclusive. The implementation of linked servers benefited and hindered these groups differently, but how so?

I often hear that the for-the-fights crowd benefited from having more players squeezed into the same matchup. Servers that were formerly described as ghost towns would now get a taste of the action that they had longed for. However, things aren’t so cut and dry. Being for-the-fights isn’t reserved for liking large-scale 30+v30+ engagements. We as a community don’t hear very much about the solo roamer who walked with two heavy loot bags after getting ambushed at a camp. You rarely hear the tales of the organized roaming teams winning five versus seven, eight, ten, and so on. More common are the laments of the self-described “fight” guilds fielding 20-odd players in open field and their frustration of always getting “a—jammed” or “blobbed” down by the map zerg of the hour. I think it is to fair to say that for these players, the influx of players and elimination of many matchup tiers made the possibility of having clean engagements and winning outnumbered fights more difficult- before you factor in arguments about post-HoT skill balance and the like.

Community-driven players are a diverse bunch as well. You’ve probably heard of the term “server loyalty” before—previously as mark of praise and now a self-contained sardonic joke. Whether it was intended or not the implementation of linked servers knocked down the support pillars of each community that was slowly erased. It removed any incentive for the scouts, roamers, and defenders, sometimes playfully referred to as the “homeland moms” to keep participating. Your server now existed in name only, and each cycle of relinks only diluted the familiar names you remember. On the flip side, if your community was the guild that you played with then links probably had little or no effect in this regard. In fact some guilds took advantage of this system to get in favorable matchups and drive their poaching and recruitment of players. To be quite honest I don’t really hear about this disparity in winners and losers talked about very much. I suppose it wouldn’t be as discouraging if the doomed servers weren’t home to predominately smaller and medium sized communities that rely on each other even more.

Partially because of time constraints and because they weren’t significantly impacted by server links; the last two groups, the play-to-win and rewards-driven players can be covered together. When I say play-to-win I’m talking about folks in the upper-end GvG guilds, the server leaders and organizers that take after buying guilds and managing communities, or the aficionados of siege play who use every tool at their disposal to achieve victory. Aside inflated numbers of players and the syncopated nature of relinks, nothing else here is drastically different post-links that hasn’t already been covered. The same applies to folks hopping into WvW for rewards. The zergs that they run with might be larger, but it goes both ways. And once those dailies are out of the way—out they leave, as fast as they came!

Understanding the underlying motivations driving WvW players has helped me defog my picture of the situation. The server links produced distinct winners and losers. These winners tended to be players on more populated servers that weren’t at risk of closure and large guilds that gained from the escalation in combat sizes. Their guild centric mindsets benefited from easier recruiting via links. The losers were the sentenced players on servers about to be erased and those players that enjoyed roaming and medium/small size engagements. The unaffected were the PvXers and the resident “elites” of each mid/upper tier server.

Is there any surprise that the feedback that ArenaNet surely received and factored in to their decisions benefited the aforementioned parties? Is there any surprise the discord between the parties rarely intersect meaningfully on the subject?

It’s one Winds of Chaos per target, targets can be anywhere around you, target limit of three. You can see this occurring in this video at 3:12.

Even with the addition of a passive heal on Signet of the Ether, the healing it provides is pitiful compared to Ether Feast. Aside from niche uses in certain dueling builds and instanced PvE, it isn’t really used by experienced players. Signet of the Ether needs either a cooldown reduction or increased healing rate wiith illusions (better as to differentiate from Ether Feast) in order to be competitive with the alternatives.

edit: grammar

Celestial is really nice for duels. Here are a couple tips for build theory crafting.

To benefit from healing power you need to pick up Inspiration
To benefit from condition damage you need to pick up Illusions
To survive in WvW without PU (or allies) you need Chronomancer

Hey everyone, I’d like to discuss the synergy of Veil and Temporal Enchanter.

Veil – Create a wall that grants stealth to you and your allies.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Veil

Temporal Enchanter – Glamour skills last longer. When you cast a glamour, allies near the glamour gain resistance and super speed.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Temporal_Enchanter

Currently, when you cast Veil with the Temporal Enchanter trait, the added Super Speed and Resistance is only granted to players standing directly on top of the veil during creation, and not those who run through the Veil shortly afterwards.

I’d like the propose a QoL change for Veil, when this trait is equipped, to grant Super Speed and Resistance upon application of Hide in Shadows. Although this would most likely be considered a buff, I believe that this change help Veil better fulfil its purpose from a gameplay design perspective.

Please discuss.

Regarding PvE,

Xyonon published a table here yesterday that made a strong argument for Eagle runes in conjunction with Assassin’s armor.

I’m not sure if Ranger runes are still working as intended or bugged to allow illusions to count towards the 6th rune bonus. Strength runes don’t seem very attractive unless you run some sort of Illusioned Burden or Bountiful Interruption build, both options being quite the departure from the usual straight-up phantasm builds you see posted here.

Regarding WvW,

If you are a solo-roamer, I would strongly suggest running Traveler runes unless you are using focus off-hand or staff for the about-face phase retreat trick. If you are using a focus, you can easily maintain swiftness by slotting in harder-hitting Pack runes with Signet of Inspiration (swap out before combat of course). The benefit of running Traveler runes is likely to diminish once the Chronomancer elite specialization arrives. There is an old build by Dooid that utilizes centaur runes with transformation tonics to proc the 6th rune bonus, though I don’t think the condition pressure from Sharper Images is anywhere as dangerous now with the June 23 patch changes. If you really want people to hate you, you might be able to get away with Scholar runes in a Power-PU shatter setup, though I’d expect that to get nerfed any day now.

If you participate in small-group roaming, havoc teams, or focus parties/“gank”, I would strongly recommend you to consider Pack runes. Access to boon duration post-patch is much more limited post-patch so topping your team off with extra time for boons that stack in duration, e.g., swiftness and fury, is a smart move.

If you pugmand or drive on your Mesmer, Pack, Melandru, and Lyssa runes are all strong options that offer different benefits. The last patch brought changes that made Mesmer a lot more viable in large scale non-periphery roles. There are things like the stealth buff to Mantra of Concentration, changes to mantra recharge mechanics in general, baseline traits, revamped utilities and elites, resistance, boon-sharing, and party-wide Distortion, just to name a few.

note:

I personally use Pack runes for PvE (mainly fractals) because phantasms don’t benefit from any percent damage modifiers other than Empowered Illusions. I usually engage bosses head-on in melee and my micro isn’t good enough to maintain a very high Scholar’s uptime. This is also the same set I use for WvW so it’s very convenient to not have to switch back and forth, even though I realize that the 4th rune bonus is redundant in group play. With the amount of interrupts and Power Block procs I’ve been getting however, I may pick up a set of Eagle runes in the near future since interrupt damage does benefit from those aforementioned modifiers.

Echoing what other commenters have said. One thing I’d like to add is there’s a distinction to be had between fights where participants on both sides are simultaneously engaged and those that are not. In the linked video I came up with around 15-18 hostiles in the entire clip. Of those there were only around a dozen present for the lord’s fight, and not even at the same time. Granted, an outnumbered win is a win and I congratulate you and your buddies, but if your group of five was fighting the dozen head on with no distractions I don’t think its a stretch to say the outcome could have been vastly different. Whether some person on a forum validates your montage doesn’t really matter though. The important thing is that you had fun, a culmination of a number of factors-
communication, teamwork, practice, and yes also the builds.

Hello. If anyone is interested in learning how to play Mesmer in a competitive setting for GvGs and is looking for a new guild, please PM me. I’m willing to devote time for one on one tutoring and footage review to help you improve. Serious inquiries only.

Since Air still works off a five second ICD, I’d pick Fire over it unless you’re dueling. As for alternatives, Hydromancy is pretty nice on GS to connect that PB-GS2. Double energy is still pretty handy regardless of what you decide. Hobbling + Condi Food + Imagined Burden makes for an interesting kiting build.

Pretty funny scrolling through the responses. There’s a lot of salt coming from players on DH and AR hating on DB because they don’t abide by some honor code. I think all of that goes out the window by virtue of PPTing and unless you’re openly willing to scrim and GvG other guilds you have no merit to complain. Anyways, back on topic…

If you are a solo-roamer, transferring to Dragonbrand is a GOOD option because you avoid all the “PU condi yolo swag” roamers on DB that other servers complain about. Transferring to a server that already has skilled roamers means that you won’t ever be able to fight those players. If you are looking for a roaming guild, Darkhaven has several of those, among them [Sold], [VOID], and the recent remnants of [XOXO]. Anvil Rock only has one- a guild called [KAOS]. Dragonbrand has two small ones, [GFC] and [Yaks], and potentially more as FA transfers come in.

If you only run and find enjoyment with zergs during NA, it is UNCERTAIN if transferring is a good idea. We recently received three NA guilds from Fort Aspenwood that you could run with, but I can’t comment much beyond that. It’s too early to tell. Before those guilds arrived Dragonbrand didn’t have consistent pugmanders and only one hardcore NA guild.

OP I think you should be selfish and choose the server that best fits what you want to do in WvW and has the best infrastructure to help you do it. I’ve seen good things from all the servers in this tier and I don’t think you can go wrong either way. Transferring to Anvil Rock would go the furthest to keeping the tier balanced, but I think you should expand your search to servers in T4 as well.

P.S. You won’t find any roamers on DH/AR/DB actually solo/duo-roaming during NA prime. Most of the actual roaming, when players aren’t glued to their zergs, happens during late NA when tags from all servers have clocked out.

At least in the current meta, the only situation where you’d probably want an Assassin’s set to maximize your critical hit chance is for one of those glassy roaming shatter builds. The reason is if you’re trying to squeeze a large amount of burst damage into a short interval of time the damage you give up by maximizing crit outweighs the devastating damage loss of not landing a crit in that burst.

We don’t need this crap on this forum. Report and move on.

1. Highly unlikely game-breaking bug was intentional.
2. There were two mass messages about the patch 10m and 3m prior to deployment.

Hi Skot.

I’ve used both of the gear combinations you’ve listed and I think for large scale battles you’ll get more mileage out of the Minstrel’s set with Monk runes. The reason is because, as you alluded to with your necro build, conditions are extremely prevalent in the zerg fights you see today. Having a health buffer allows you to use your cooldowns more proactively instead of reactively. Due to Chaotic Persistence, I think you’ll be fine on boon duration as long as you remember to proc your Concentration sigils.

Friendly bump

I was talking with a couple of friends yesterday about how interesting it would be if only the green team had its home map changed to the Alpine borderlands. Players would have a second map besides EBG to populate and we might see closer matchups as well.

About Dragonbrand

Dragonbrand is a friendly community of loyal and dedicated players. We have undergone a rebuilding process in the past couple of months and are now on the rise. On the WvW front we boast a stable and resilient core of players and guilds that serve as a backbone for our growing competitive community. We value this community on Dragonbrand more than anything else and are looking for like-minded people to keep us competitive across all time zones.

http://gw2dragonbrand.com

What Do We Have To Offer?

• Friendly, positive community that plays to have fun
• Democratic and transparent server organization
• Active community Teamspeak with Commander Chat
• Balanced blend of PPT, fight-oriented, havoc, and roaming guilds

What Are We Looking For?

Most importantly, we are looking for guilds and players that want a home to stay, rather than a bandwagon to hop on to. Our intent is to have competitive and fun WvW matchups while still fostering a strong, positive server community. Guilds that thrive on community and enjoy open raids will find themselves comfortable on Dragonbrand.

The following list gives an assessment of what we’re looking for in each time zone:

• EU: Dragonbrand does not have any dedicated guilds that raid during early EU or EU prime. This is the most severe coverage gap for the server. We do have drivers that occasionally tag up but are looking for cohesive guilds that can bridge the SEA-NA gap, rally the militia, and join our family.
• NA: Dragonbrand’s North American coverage is in a healthy position. We’re not the dominant contenders during NA, but for the sake of tier balance that’s alright. There are weekday queues for Eternal Battlegrounds, and often on the borderlands. We also typically have 1-2 small and mid size guilds that will run during PST.
• OCX: Dragonbrand’s oceanic coverage is represented by 2-3 guilds of small, mid, and large sizes. The militia presence is relatively newer, with many players having sought refuge to rebuild from servers like IoJ, SoR, and SoS.
• SEA: Dragonbrand has traditionally had a very strong and stable SEA population, though two of these guilds are currently on hiatus. The server has an healthy militia in addition to 1-2 active small and mid size guilds.

Still Reading?

Out of sheer luck, Dragonbrand is now in Tier 1. The next couple of weeks are going to be incredibly interesting with the glicko volatility reset. Before the server mergers were implemented, the consensus was to remain in Tier 2. The dust needs to settle before the community decides on a new course of action. Thanks for reading.

Grimaldi and his alliance has left Dragonbrand months ago and we are now the prime destination for many former Fort Aspenwood guilds that are seeking to rebuild. Please do not hesitate to contact me, we are all in this together. I will give you the no-bullkitten lowdown of what is going on in Dragonbrand. Thanks for reading.

OriOri nailed it on the head. Having a separate thread is useful so we can focus, more so if guilds are open to sharing information.

In a slightly related note, Karl McLain responded to a comment I made in the official feedback thread about epidemic.

Works fine in WvW

Disenchanter is a fine third-slot utility for power shatter. Defender only make sense if you’re not running Chaos IMO. If you use both, I wouldn’t recommend going below 2400 armor.

edit: There is already an Illusions type skill that breaks stun. Its name is Decoy.

Using a shatter skill sends your illusions running towards their targets. While they are running they do not count towards the three illusion cap. So if your target is far enough way and you have the proper traits to support it, it’s possible to have a dozen illusions out on the field simultaneously.

Hello! I’d like to propose a change to the way supply caravans work.

Currently, a camp will only send out supply caravans to objectives that belong to the same team. Camps will not feed yaks to objectives of a different color unless that path continues towards a keep or castle.

My proposal is to allow yaks to continue spawning from camps towards opposing objectives. These yaks (whose mechanics and attributes could be identical to the existing ones) would instead DRAIN supply and/or REDUCE the upgrade progress of an objective.

I think this change would increase the strategic depth of playing in WvW. It would incentivize players to return to the borderlands, and shift some of the impact that large guild groups and zergs currently possess back towards roamers and small teams. Players would have to venture beyond their walls to engage the enemy and reinforces the idea that in this game you can play and contribute however you want. I also think this change would be relatively easier to implement than some of the other proposals, with gains being immediately realized.

I realize some details may have slipped through the cracks and thus I’m happy to respond to any comments or questions.

Quick update with the 7/28/2015 patch. Due to the way Mantra cooldowns have been reverted, the time it takes to execute a MoR heal chain back-to-back has been increased from 12.75s to 14.75s. These numbers don’t include healing prism.

411 hps untraited —> 355 hps untraited
616 hps harmonious mantras --> 532 hps harmonious mantras
615 hps restorative mantras —> 532 hps restorative mantras
820 hps both traits --> 709 hps both traits

Because immediate recasts of MoR are no longer possible, burst healing has been reduced by 10.5k health, a reduction of 57% heal throughput.

To summarize, MoR is still the most effective sustained heal for our class, but if you don’t trait for it other options like Ether Feast are on the table.

From a PvE perspective you’ll still want MoR for the multiplier and extra Mender’s Purity, but these changes crippled MoR synergy with Restorative Mantras. Signet of the Ether and Mantra of Pain are more competitive as a result, but that’s a moot point since they’re already the standard for solely DPS builds.

If you’re an sPvPer, taking MoR for most builds is suicide. The liability of the cast time and the limited burst healing makes Signet of the Ether better for dueling/bunker play, Mirror better for consistency, and Ether Feast dominant with DE builds.

For WvW (my main game mode), Mantra use among roamers will likely be relegated to specific interrupt builds. Small group roaming builds will probably revert back to vanilla shatter specs, and the effectiveness of Mantra-based zerging builds will go down the tube in favor of glamour bots.

I might redo the numbers to account for the healing prism changes, but will probably wait until after the dust has settled.

Nice catch. I think it’s because I assumed there would kittenarges for all scenarios. How about this:

411 hps untraited —> 381 hps untraited (13.75s)
616 hps harmonious mantras —> 533 hps harmonious mantras (14.75s)
615 hps restorative mantras —> 570 hps restorative mantras (13.75s)
820 hps both traits —> 709 hps both traits (14.75s)

@Zenith: I don’t think there there would ever be an application for this in PvE until Chronomancer gets here.

@Excite: They wiki is wrong. Each phantasm shattered reduces phantasm cool downs by 2s.

I did some duels in PvP earlier with the test build. Observations:

Running into similar issues as a mantra setup. You need stealth access to cover phantasm spawns and blinds are a PitA. Final build wound up being S/P & GS with more or less a pre-patch 44006 setup with empowered illusions and phantasmal fury.

I’ll see if my guildies uploaded anything tomorrow. In the mean time for anyone out there looking at the trait, just play it like standard shatter but with a lot more phantasm uptime.

Quick update.

Shinyruku_ku tested Imagined Burden on his stream just now with Berserkers amulet, Strength runes, and Air/Fire sigils. He was able to hit 25 stacks of might on a test dummy, albeit using Mirror Blade and Mindwrack.

CS + Power Block wombo combo is still very strong IMO. Interrupt Mesmer is probably where it’s at right now. We’ll know more once they push on the next balance patch if non CC burst style builds will be competitive.

Since Imagined Burden (IB) doesn’t rely on crits, a Soldier’s setup geared towards outlasting your opponent would probably be more effective. I made ascended Berserker’s gear because I also wanted to experiment with IB builds in PvE and zerging (link).

“By Ogden’s hammer, what savings driver-sniping!”

There are more options for shattering when playing a condition build versus power. Because of this, Illusionary Reversion impacts condition builds relatively more. Combined with the changes to core shatter traits, this levels the playing field between the two and more importantly (for Anet) opens up some wiggle room for the new elite specialization to compete.

Not sure about PvE but I was using a glamour based dueling build with Radiance runes pre-6/23 patch. Can confirm that the duration bonus works with chaos armor. You’ll see a lot more utility and synergy for large-scale WvW applications though.

Hey guys, one of the new grandmaster traits being introduced next Tuesday is Imagined Burden, named after the Illusionary Berserker attack skill, under the Domination trait line. Here’s what it reads:

Imagined Burden: Reduces recharge of greatsword skills by 20%. Gain 2 stacks of might for 5 seconds whenever you or an illusion uses special surge. All of your other greatsword skills inflict cripple for 2s when they hit.

This trait could have fantastic might generation potential in PvE & WvW, and immense group utility when synergized with the Illusionary Inspiration grandmaster trait in the Inspiration trait line. I did some napkin math in sPvP earlier with the target dummies and found that:

• My character was able to perform 7 spatial surge attack chains in 10s, which should translate to a sustained 7 stacks every 5s.
• Each clone was able to perform 19 spatial surges over the course of a minute, which should translate to a sustained 9.5 stacks every 5s when you have 3 greatsword clones.
• Fried Golden Dumplings have a 33% chance to proc might for 5s with no ICD when you critically hit. If we assume the Mesmer has 80% crit including Fury, that’s roughly 2.8 stacks every 5s.
• Superior Sigils of Strength have a 60% chance to proc might for 10s on crit with a 1s ICD. With a 78% crit rate in sPvP using high-crit gear, I was able to produce a sustained 6-8 stacks of might off AAs alone. This is in line with the numbers on paper, which says we should expect a sustained 6.72 stacks over kitten period. There is a slight discrepancy with the sigil ICD nullifying the next might proc but from my testing this seems to have a larger impact on variance rather than the averages.

When you sum these numbers up, a post-patch greatsword Mesmer could self-stack a sustained 26 stacks (if it wasn’t capped at 25) after the ramp-up phase before you factor in boon duration. This doesn’t even take into account the might and vuln stacking of Mirror Blade, which will benefit from baseline Illusionary Elasticity. When you add the boon duration multipliers, you get the following estimates:

• +65% boon duration (strength runes, dumplings, 80% crit inc Fury) —> ~43 stacks
• +75% boon duration (strength runes, dumplings, bountiful stones, 80% crit inc Fury) —> ~45.5 stacks
• +65% boon duration (strength runes, dumplings, 100% crit inc Fury) —> ~46-48 stacks
• +75% boon duration (strength runes, dumplings, bountiful stones, 100% crit inc Fury) —> ~49-51 stacks

To achieve these numbers you would have to camp greatsword and maintain three clones. This is a huge departure from the phantasm and sword mainhand oriented builds that are currently popular. If you want to share this might with the rest of the party, you’ll need to trait into Inspiration and grab the new grandmaster trait Illusionary Inspiration. Here’s what it does:

llusionary Inspiration: Phantasms grant 3 seconds regeneration to allies near them every 3 seconds. If you have any boons when you summon a phantasm you cast Signet of Inspiration. This trait benefits from the recharge bonus provided by Blurred Inscriptions.

Unfortunately, the last bit about the recharge bonus hints that there will be a 24s ICD on the signet active if you have Blurred Inscriptions, so I don’t expect people to abandon the damage and reflect capability of their phantasm builds anytime soon. The might stacks gained from Illusionary Burden simply don’t last long enough to make it through to each phantasm cast. Had there been no ICD on this trait, IB mesmer could have had the might stacking utility of PS warrior and reflection capability of guardian rolled into one build. I did consider using Mimic and slotting in the actual signet for 40s of boon sharing at 8s intervals, but at that point you’re better off just using other classes.

That aside, I can’t wait to work with these traits as well as all the other Mesmer changes come Tuesday. Even now, I’m imagining how effective an IB sinister build would be for boss solos, benefiting from all the on-crit minor traits in Dueling. A backline IB phantasm build will be a game changer for small group roaming where mid-fight regroups and boon uptime is essential.

Questions and comments appreciated.

It’s amusing that people still think Dragonbrand wants to be up in tier one. Love or hate the server, if you know anything about the current makeup of guilds and players that makes absolutely no sense. As far as transfers are concerned, I think you’re reading way too much into the situation. T1 has been complaining about Yaks Bend for a long time (JQ drivers and guilds even boycotting WvW) and it’s completely logical that the guilds and players that are frustrated and upset would move to a different tier. Injecting a conspiracy theory in there to prove something that nobody gives a flying kitten about just makes you look stupid. Come to tier two for the fights and try to have fun. We’re all in this dying game mode together. Try to act like it.

Persistence of Memory – Illusions Adept Major Trait

This trait reduces the cooldowns on your phantasm-casting skills by two seconds for each phantasm that gets shattered. I was testing this earlier in EBG with iDefender and iDisenchanter and I was able to pump out iZerkers every 8s while aggressively shattering (w/ Imagined Burden and Illusionists Celerity). I imagine that if one is skilled enough they could shatter after a phantasm volley and then immediately recast instead of waiting the 5-6s for the phantasm to attack again.

Here’s an example of build that I thought up: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJARWlknhK1YhawRNwtGLpG0ZUay0Rv+a2O5AOQAA-TJhFABA8EAAvMwI7PkwlAAA

What do you guys think?

Let’s use this thread to gather feedback on the February 22nd balance patch change to light fields and blast finishers. We’ll probably see the most impact on large scale combat. Is it effective? Is it ineffective? Does it need tweaking? Let the community know how your guild, team, or server feels about the change in practice.

• Light Field: Blasting a light field will now cleanse a condition from allies in a radius of 360. This previously granted retaliation. [source]

For reference here is a list of appropriate and relevant light fields:

• Line of Warding
• Ring of Warding
• Shield of Absorption
• All Guardian Symbols
• Temporal Curtain
• Well of Eternity
• Well of Blood (including Ritual of Life)
• Sanctuary
• Wall of Reflection
• Protective Solace
• Flash Shell
• Super Elixir
• Seed of Life (including via Verdant Etching)

Here is a list of appropriate and relevant blast finishers:

• Mighty Blow
• Phase Smash
• Drop the Hammer
• Echoing Eruption
• Renewing Wave
• Call to Arms
• Call of the Wild (including Clarion Bond)
• Ancestral Grace
• Cluster Bomb
• Churning Earth
• Comet
• Frozen Burst
• Earthquake
• Eruption
• Magnetic Wave
• Sand Squall (including via Imbued Melodies)
• Putrid Mark
• All Warrior Banners
• Energy Expulsion
• Earthshaker/Rupturing Smash
• Acid Bomb
• Orbital Strike
• Lunar Impact
• Overload Earth
• Evasive Arcana

Sounds like someone got wrecked by Gravity Well + Mistrust.

Shadowsong.2569:

We are looking to fill Darkhaven with guild that have been looking to move servers for a more competitive WvW habitat.

Wouldn’t the WvW landscape be more competitive if guilds spread out over multiple servers instead of just simply stacking Darkhaven?

Straegen.2938:

It is sad when DB map chat became excited because Mag was taking garri so we didn’t have to see that ANet tattoo on garri. This game breaks my heart sometimes and this week after the last one is certainly trying.

Last of my guild to play and tonight I find myself wondering why I keep going.

That’s really disheartening to hear. Correct me if I’m wrong about this, but the point here isn’t so much about whether or not developers can play or should play in WvW. I think you’d be hard pressed to find any active WvW player who DOESN’T want more developers to be active in the game mode. The trouble here is more on the PR-side. Doing something like this has terrible optics. Is that really how you want your organization, company in this instance, to be perceived? The answer is obvious.

100% boon duration is going to be tough. You might be better off settling for a power-based phantasm build with centaur runes for the swiftness.