Guild Wars 2

Yeah the stability would be pretty useful for the bigger fights for sure when there is some crazy CC’s flying around. CI allows to land the damage a bit easier in the smaller skirmishes I think. Even in prolonged fights, there will be a time where you will catch someone with a good interrupt and that will lock them down long enough to get burst off.

Mirror would be good for Hammer Rev’s and DH, that is true. I don’t usually change skills for specific fights that much (unless I see a condi heavy opponent I may switch WoP for Mantra). I find for me, getting a bigger burst heal with Ether Feast is better for my style, so I can concentrate on the active defenses more often. Bear in mind, that I am full glass too, no toughness at all cos I honestly don’t feel I need it! So good to not rely on stealth to get out of trouble for a change.

I agree on the F5! I still misuse it all the time, but it’s deffo a high skill cap skill. I’ve used it a couple of times to try and avoid incoming burst which has got me killed – as in, I predict there is burst coming, press F5, it runs out, then they burst. There are most definitely some tricky ways of using it rather than just getting loads of high cooldown abilities twice. I really want to use it to juke more often in hectic fights as a pseudo-portal but still a long way to go before mastering it!

Oh and sorry to those in Germany. I didn’t realise those songs blocked the video. I usually try to only use songs which are available world wide. YouTube’s audio library said they were fine but there we go..

I came here to post about how utterly awesome this build is. I spoke to Amadeus in game but I think letting everyone else know who is on the fence with trying it.

In my opinion, this is one of the most powerful builds for roaming ever. Along with the condi PU pre-HoT. It’s frickin great to have another build which is able to comfortably 1vX when roaming that doesn’t rely on stealth AT ALL. Awesome. This is all down to the sustain provided by Defender runes, Shield and Protection up time.

I’ve been recording some roaming footage recently so here is a video of it in action if any of you are interested:

https://youtu.be/eUyqJ6SLWnI

I realise some of the fights aren’t great, but I’ve tried to include more examples of how the build performs rather than just against some good opponents (which can turn out rather lengthy). I’ve been roaming a lot with this build and I do have a lot of footage very good duels against a lot of very good players. Dueling with this build is almost unfair though I think against almost every build in the game. There aren’t many weaknesses.

The biggest counters to the build in terms of opponents are very good zerk DH’s running LB and traps. The LB damage from range will out dps you and your phantasms, so you cannot stay at range, and when you go close, the traps just destroy your illusions. The match up is winnable but it will be a long one as you both do good damage and both have a lot of sustain.

The other build which is consistently troubles this one is glass S/D Daredevil/Thief. The problem with this is – they have so much evasion, stun breaks and immobilization removal. These are the things which allow you to land all your damage, but they can escape ALL the time. On top of that they have good boon steal/removal which ruins your protection up time, while bolstering their own. Again against average players, the match up still favours this build, but against very good players who know what to save their stunbreaks for, you will have trouble.

Other builds which aren’t as difficult as these two, but still can trouble it – Reaper running unblockable things like traited marks and/or the shout that makes attacks unblockable. With these, just watch out for the shout and kite while its active. The condi variant is a little harder with the boon corruption they have. Although, they are both weak to CC and interrupts/immobilizes so its not too bad. The other build which against this is Rev’s running unblockable traits and high stability up time. You can’t rely on Aegis or shield to save you, Rev’s are a bit easier though due to their terrible condi removal, so a well timed interrupt/immob and they can be weak to burst.

Now, I do run it a little different to Amadeus, as you can see I run WoP, WoC and Chaotic Interruption instead. Here is my build variant:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8enknBtfilpB2fCEgiFhj68D2gQzsAagAouTH1SF-TVSDABjfEAO4BA8kyvz3fYH1fAR3AAmgUQJoEXEAA-w

I tried Amadeus’ original set up but this one for me just adds that bit extra ability to drop some damage. Interrupting with CI is MASSIVE. It locks them down long enough to drop wells and gives you more damage through might. You’ll see a lot in the video I like to stun/interrupt with shield 5 then immediately use ileap and burst. This is because CC and immob simultaneously is troublesome for most classes as they have to use 2 skills (usually utilities) to escape it. I run the 3 wells because fighting 1vX it’s useful to have the evasion, added chaos armour uptime and AoE capabilities. As you see, WoC has got me kills many times. A well time Calamity can just finish pretty much anyone.

Anyway…..essay over. Thanks for Amadeus for finding/posting this, best fun I’ve had in ages. I like to have prolonged fights and I love to 1vX – so this is perfect!

Probably would be better to run Dire, if not full then at least some. I have basically no ‘on crit’ traits apart from Vigor on crit. Gotta have those dodges!

I really only have Rabid because it was the gear I already had. I very rarely build a whole new set if the one equipped already works. I mentioned on the first video that this build is not optimized in any way, just a bunch of gear I had already and decided to roll with.

I’ve held off with a lot of the theorycrafting for now. Got a few builds I’m looking at but it definitely depends on what they do with the stat distribution as well. I won’t be looking forward to re-gear 2/3 builds for 8 professions :/

Got a feeling this may be a huge power increase for the whole game. Fights may barely last 30 seconds with all the offensive capabilities a lot of classes are getting.

Hey all,

While trawling through all the footage I recorded, (finding fights interesting enough to include in parts I & II) I noticed I had quite a few brief fights, where my opponent just died without putting up much of a fight. I realise that these do not constitute ‘good’ fights as they are totally one sided, but I made a quick compilation of all the people I had ‘burst’ down. Even as they aren’t fair fights as such, I still do think it’s entertaining to watch. You can’t run from condi’s after all!

Now, I thought I would upload this before all the condi changes come in and condi bursting and insane specialization builds will be flying around everywhere. This is showing that in WvW at least, condi’s really didn’t need any help being prolific in small scale. Quite honestly, I have the feeling that the newer specialization version of this build is going to be extremely over-powered and will no doubt end up being looked at. That doesn’t mean I won’t be making the OP version, and I’m certainly going to try it out and have fun with it for a bit. Anyway, here is the vid:

https://youtu.be/KNj96zErIlU

Build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8flknpItlpxRNcrNitBZ6LUiKg6hckVWqAA-TlyAABWoEEhjAAQq/88DAAATQxobAMlfJt/gGHEAOuAACCYRA-w

Hey guys,

It’s been a few weeks since I posted the first one, so I’m a bit late with this one. Most of this footage is from around the same time as Part I. (Part I is on the channel if you’re interested). It’s taken me a while to get round to editing and uploading. Same deal as the first, exact same build, me roaming and fighting. Tried to show some more fights that I did get recorded and are hopefully interesting.

https://youtu.be/DTWtfDEOtuA

I did have a lot of other footage of random encounters, some good fights but interrupted, or unfinished or just bad fights against the less experienced roamers I met, so didn’t include them. I have compiled a short vid which I’ll be uploading soon of all the people I condi ‘bursted’. They didn’t really have a place in normal videos as they don’t really qualify as fights, but still interesting to see how fast you can kill people with condis when they aren’t paying attention.

Build is the same:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8flknpItlpxRNcrNitBZ6LUiKg6hckVWqAA-TlyAABWoEEhjAAQq/88DAAATQxobAMlfJt/gGHEAOuAACCYRA-w

MailMail.6534:

Looking at some of these traits, I can see the nerf hammer already. Let’s not get too excited! lol My hope is that our buffs will simply pale in comparison to the buffs of the other professions.

I see a lot of potential for build variety in pvp. Interrupt/Lockdown will become the top meta build. Classic shatter will be no more since its defining trait was IP. Depending on how accepting the meta is of conditions, Torment/Confusion will be much more deadlier on Mesmer.

Think we may be looking at a new higher sustain shatter meta:

Domination/Dueling/Inspiration:

Rending Shatter/Shattered Concentration/Mental Torment
Phantasmal Fury/Blinding Dissipation/DE
Mender’s Purity/Restorative Illusions/Shattered Conditions

Gives a bit of AoE support in there with a bit of sustain while also completely destroying someone who didn’t see you coming with mental torment still. Looking pretty strong

There are some seriously OP builds in there in the the current format. Imagine:

Dueling/Chaos/Illusions: Condi – Staff/Scepter/torch

Desperate Decoy/Evasive Mirror/DE
Master of Manipulations/Chaotic Dampening/PU
The Pledge/Malicious Sorcery/MtD

That is slightly ridiculous when you also consider the greater flexibility with gearing and also all the great minors and buffs we get as standard now.

Although saying that, Thieves look like they have some crazy builds, along with Guardians and Rangers

These changes are massive. All the baseline changes were things I often trait for, manip range/IP.

0/6/6/0/6 DE/PU/MtD! Fairly sure they will be nerfing us soon after this update to be honest. I was doubting the variation in builds after this when they announced it yesterday, but now I’m seeing every trait line being decent, and that isn’t even counting the specialisation.

Also, reflect on successful evade = gg rapid fire rangers

It looks pretty powerful single target dps for sure, especially when you get the block ‘riposte’ to land then a 3 clone CoF. Very good for 1v1’s. It definitely shows in that video. They did both stand still and let you shatter though, in my experience that rarely happens.

I’m not sure however about the survivability in 1v3 situations. I don’t think it would be outrunning any groups of 5-20 (like frequently has to happen for me) without runes for movement speed increase.

The speed thing is an issue, and also the mantra can easily be swapped back in. For me sometimes you just need to get rid of that cripple, immobilize, chill when you don’t have a target in range that will save your life. I used to run Arcane Thievery in a melandru/lemongrass build (before speed/traveler) but it used to fail so much that I switched it out and use the mantra now pretty much exclusively.

You are right yeah. Any build made specifically with as much condi removal as possible just to beat this one will do well, as it will be a specific counter. But in terms of roaming builds that people actually run, then no not many.

I’ve actually got videos beating celestial ele’s and SA thieves and cleansing ire warriors (there aren’t too many hambows in WvW though due to mobility issues), they are longer fights yeah, but beatable. I’ll include them in the next video if I don’t get shot down

The sustained pressure from staff clones (even though little) with the burst every so often of poison, burning, 4-6 bleeds, 2-6 torment and 4-10 confusion is too much for almost all builds that I’ve encountered. If that burst happens to be just after they switch out of water attunement, or empathic bond has killed their pet, or they miss an earthshaker, then often its just too much for them.

Like I said S/D thief is actually a direct counter to this, especially the SA 2/0/6/0/6 version. They can evade all your clone damage easily because the projectiles are slow, just like they can evade the shatters. You can’t lock them in place with ileap as they just use withdraw to break out, and they take away all your tankiness by stealing your boons. Not only that but the condition removal in stealth with the ability to just SR if it’s getting too much is the icing on the cake.

Against S/D thieves scepter is much better because of the block and confusing images can track them once cast obviously. In fact, encountering S/D thieves you’d be better swapping out PU for CI then you may be able to lock them down long enough to get shatters off.

Well what you are saying doesn’t fit my experience at all. Saying I’m wrong, when I have first-hand experience (and shown it in a video) is strange to say the least.

Let’s talk about the ranger fight at mill. I think that is THE highest condi removal spec in the game apart from maybe hoelbrak+lemongrass warrior with cleansing ire, signet and berzerkers stance. That Ranger had 3 survival skills (I think), each one removing 2 conditions with relatively low cooldowns when traited. Not only that, but he also had empathic bond, removing 3 every 10 seconds (well transferring to the pet). Now, even with all that removal, I managed to keep him under pressure and eventually get him to the point where it was all on cooldown and the pet was dead so could no longer use empathic bond.

Bear in mind I managed to do this with a camp of guards respawning and attacking me at the same time. Also note that the friendly ranger that came by only attacked the guards, the only thing that happened was the spider immobilized him further, all other damage was from me. He has already run out of removal.

So far in my experience running this build, there is only one build which counters this, and its not through abundant condition removal, but actually boon removal, and that of course is Thief S/D (what a surprise).

Having said that, your points about high condition removal are true. In fights against 3+ people with shared removal (guards and eles especially), I have very little way of doing enough damage in the time frame to win. They will still have a tough time killing me though with the high protection, regen up-time, invis and blinks.

Also, the scepter block is super powerful (if it lands), but as I do (and many decent people do against me) you simple dodge after you see the animation and ‘block’ appear. They do need to ‘fix’ that actually, needs a much faster counter blow, maybe make it near instant so you have to be really quick to react to dodge it. May need a damage reduction though in that case. Anyway I digress.

All I’m saying is: I’m yet to find a build 1v1 which can out-sustain this one from condi removal alone.

ASP.8093:

Sword damage is very low. IIRC, at one point I saw you Blurred Frenzy into a glassy dude and only put out like 900 damage. It seems like the main value of Sword was tanking stuff with Blurred Frenzy and forcing ranged peeps to run away from you because they do it reflexively and don’t notice how low the damage it.

Yeah, sword is utility/defense only. Need the immobilize and the evasion. Usually I just use ileap then blurred frenzy out of force of habit to be honest, and I might as well hit them with it when they are stuck in place while the shatters get them

Oh yeah I know exactly what you’re both saying. I’ve played all the popular builds a lot, including a lot of my own, but actually this one is loads more fun, for me at least.

This isn’t really a build showcase, just a video of some fun fights I had really, showing the build because people always ask.

I actually fought a MtD mesmer yesterday with scepter instead of sword and honestly he just coudn’t land any shatters on me because he didn’t have any way of keeping me still and my mobility was too much. The sword is necessary to pin them in place for just long enough. Great defensive weapon too obviously for those outnumbered fights. For instance I NEVER would’ve lived long enough to kill 2 of the 3 warriors in that clip without sword. Mitigates so much damage when used at the right time.

I played the standard blackwater a lot when it was first ‘discovered’ and to me the playstyle is just a bit too passive for my liking, especially with shatter being my favourite style anyway.

For the fights against people with good removal, I WILL out-sustain them PU is so powerful I will win in the end. I like the longer fights at the moment, it’s refreshing change from running zerk shatter the whole time where its over in a matter of seconds one way or another.

This is just a bit of fun to be honest. It’s the condition build I’ve had the best time with in terms of enjoyment for a long time (on any class). I’m just showing the fun I have/had and while I know and completely agree that it isn’t meta or optimised, the PU aspect makes it viable for roaming.

Ross:

that build does look powerful for damage, but I need that speed in WvW (i used to run perplexity blackwater before the confusion nerf but even then got rid of them immediately when speed and traveler came out.) To me, it looks like it would have less sustain because the sword loss, so you would end up taking more damage overall. Plus that 1200 range blink just saves your kitten so much when running from angry zergs or guild groups when you poked north camp a bit too much.

messiah.1908:

Unfortunately ATM DE is must in any shatter build
Sure you can run without it but you will have harder time killing or staying alive
And for me it’s bit slower killing

I also tried up with mtd but felt wired with it

I completely agree for power set ups. With condi, it’s a bit more forgiving because you can set up more clones while the damage is still being done.

Ross is totally right too. 3 clones shatters are rare without DE, but still possible. Plus it’s fun trying to get those illusions out in time!

Cyninja.2954:

Seems like the standard PU condi build from ages ago. Whats new?

Happy you are having fun with it.

I believe the 4/4/6/0/0 ‘blackwater’ was the standard PU condi from when they originally buffed PU that you are talking about. Forgive me if I’m wrong and someone has posted this version before.

Like I said, it’s pretty standard in almost all way except I got rid of those pesky 2 points in dueling.

Yeah sharpened images and DE are great. But the clones and phantasms in this build are so slow hitting that you don’t miss the extra bleed procs that much. It’s a lot more effective with pistol for instance.

Personally I can’t live without the vigour or the 1200 blink in WvW either. They are both life savers. Same reason I need a permanent speed boost from runes rather than a 60% up-time on swiftness with focus. The extra 2 points usually for DE gives the MtD which if you get a 2/3 clone shatter on someone is HUGE damage.

I’ve got other clips where I’ve landed an early Prestige, 3 clones Cry of Frustration and the opponent has just melted in a couple of seconds. Burning, 6 torment and 6-10 stacks of confusion with their condi removal on cooldown is a quick death. Much more damage than 4 extra bleed stacks would give for sure.

I do love the idea of one day being able to run no DE, different runes and different utilities, but right now I think you can only give up one at a time.

Aight guys, I’m a long time player and reader of the forums (both since BWE 1), but rarely a poster. Thought I would do some more videos cos it’s fun.

Just as a preface to this I’m going to go ahead and say: Conditions are overpowered.

At least in WvW small scale anyway. Condi builds are king. The strongest few builds in the entire game for roaming are condi (what I always have most trouble with on any class in a 1v1 anyway). Mesmer, Warrior, Thief, Ranger, hell even Ele these days. Necro and Engie do condi a bit more balanced in my opinion, probably because they were originally created with it in mind.
Tankiness and massive dps at the same time while barely sacrificing any utility is powerful. Not only that, but condi application is WAY more than the removal 1 or 2 people have.
Now I think that the food has a lot to do with it. +40% and -40% foods are crazy powerful for their cost and in my opinion WvW would be better if ArenaNet scrapped foods altogether (don’t kill me).

Anyway….. before this turns into a condi rant post (it already has) – I usually run zerk shatter or some kind of burst, just because it’s more fun to play. But frankly I was sick of having good 1vX fights and then being practically 1 shot by a ranger or thief I didn’t even see (you all know what I’m talking about). This happens all the time. So I decided to go tanky for a bit to get some longer (and more outnumbered) fights. But how do you go tanky AND do damage? …..Condi.

Ok, so the bit about Deceptive Evasion. GREAT trait obviously, but we are all being held back creating builds if we require 4 points in Dueling. Take those 2 points out and you can have 2 GM’s in other lines. So as I’m condi I went PU & MtD. Actually works pretty well, even though the best trait hands down to synergise with shatter builds is DE.

With some better clone awareness and OP-ness of condi’s it’s a fun and strong build to play. As zerk shatter and IP I would deffo still take DE just because 1 dodge and f4 is 2 secs of invulnerability with is amazing and life saving.
I know Mesmers are probably overall in one of the worst positions in the entire game, but for roaming I think this (or variations of this) may be the most OP build still even with the PU ‘nerf’.

With the standard 4/4/6 staff/scepter/torch build I personally think is slightly more powerful, but I get bored very quickly playing that though. It’s a much more passive play style and I prefer action packed fights to be honest. So, adding shatter means much more active play style – trying to avoid damage, manage illusions with skills only, and shatter while keeping pressure on the opponents all at the same time is pretty fun. Having both the staff traited and Illusionists Celerity is great for clone production by putting Phase Retreat on a 6 second cooldown, also gives awesome in-fight mobility and in combination with stealth means you can pretty much escape angry zergs (this happens a lot). Anyway, see what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-rG-aDb7Gg

Heres the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8flknpItlpxRNcrNitBZ6LUiKg6hckVWqAA-TlyAABWoEEhjAAQq/88DAAATQxobAMlfJt/gGHEAOuAACCYRA-w

Pretty standard stuff, definitely not optimized for anything really. Could do more damage, but it’s unnecessary. Went for Speed runes cos at the time I had just bought some Traveler for my zerk set and didn’t want spend that much again. Traveler would almost certainly synergise better with the boon and condi duration, but the extra vitality from Speed is nice enough.

Also, as an aside – youtube really butchered my video quality. Was really nice before hand. I guess it’s their re-sampler. It did take about 36 hours to ‘process’ and sat at 360p for that time before upgrading to 1080p60fps. Still, the quality sucks now especially in the high motion areas where it goes blurry. Anyone know any tricks? I’ve definitely seen much higher quality videos.

Hello again guys,

Thanks for all the comments about the Solo Hills Defence video, was cool to hear what you all think and how some of you now have adopted the build too, which is awesome!

Got a new video that’s finished uploading, forgot to put the last one up so I’ll stick it on here too. Enjoy.

Shatter Scrappin’

and additional:

Trolling and Patrolling

Thanks guys for the comments.

Milamberr – Build is in the video description

BlackDevil – Fort Ranik is lower Silver League now I believe. And yes they are one of those servers that on average are not very good. Which is great, because it makes things like this possible.

Wryden – Yeah I find Mesmers and Eles the worst to stomp especially when outnumbered, all the others can simply use invis or Distortion, or with Thieves just time the Blink.
I used to use the current popular GS, S/T but was finding that when playing against good stealth Thieves that the GS phantasm is always dodged so I sacrificed the range for Scepter/Pistol so I have a better time against Thieves.

Hi guys,

Recently got a nice PC so this is the first video I’ve made so far. Some more on the way. Hope you enjoy!

Solo Hills Defence