Guild Wars 2

That’s kinda hilarious

Ego Wars 2. I love it!

But actually, we do have a bit of trickery at our disposal. Some of my favorite shenanigans are:

• The Immortal build did no real damage on its own, you had to trick your opponent into constantly attacking you, little did they know they were really doing all the damage to themselves and it wasn’t coming from the Mesmer.

• Cloaking and Blinking behind people always screws with them. Phase Retreat + Decoy also invokes the ire of our opponents. X/Torch-Staff condition builds rock for this.

• With Mirror Images, Deceptive Evasion, Traited Weapons, iCelerity, and Decoy we can create clone armies. Literally having 9+ clones charging at the enemy at once for a massive shatter and all kinds of “OMGWTFBBQ-OPnerfPLZ!”

I dunno if I have enough experience with the class to contribute.. but I think Necromancer SHOULD have more interesting death-related (and condition-related) abilities. Such as:

• Create a death nova when target dies.
• When target dies, its conditions are spread to nearby target
• Make fear a true interrupt, add a trait for like 8x bleed on interrupt.

I think Necromancer should excel at AoE “condition control.” Weakness in particular is a very powerful condition that few classes have much access to. Another idea harkens back to the GW1 Mesmer and “hexes.” Something like ..

• Curse of Weakness: Target produces AoE Weakness. Each time target attacks in the next 5 seconds they apply 2x Bleed to themself.
• Curse of Betrayal: Target’s next AoE attack affects their allies.

Another idea kinda pulls from the Death Shroud mechanic. What if there were different shrouds selectable (sorta like rangers pets) that offered different effects?

• Blood shroud: Constantly drain your HP, each spell inflicts an additional 5x bleed.
• Horror Shroud: Each attack has a 25% to inflict Fear. Drains 4x faster than Deathshroud.
• Revenant Shroud: Minions damage boosted by 50%

.. Hope I didn’t just repeat ideas from someone else’s post. x.x

Ever since it’s become an AoE, MoConcentration has been looking rather promising (it hits in a 240 range, which is about the distance of a side capture node in PvP). I knew it had gotten a lot of praise in dungeons, but recently I’ve been bringing it to PvP and it works very well.

(Edit: Just to clarify, I’m not saying that MoConcentration is an absolute must that should be on every Mesmer’s bar. I’m saying I feel its much more underrated than it should be on the surface. Even with the small amount of stability -which, with a lil boon duration, is still 5 seconds of AoE stab on a 20-25 sec cooldown- it has its uses especially in an unorganized/PUG team. In a more organized teamfight, there are definitely more lucrative options. )

While providing AoE stab is usually a Guardian thing, this mantra is glorious in teamfights for securing stomps. (Provided you’re not stuck in the mentality of Mesmer = Portal Bots)

@Pyro: On the subject of Furious Interrupt (FI) vs Shattered Concentration (SC), I don’t know if I agree on how much better Shattered is. SC is definitely superior, but I had to try out FI and originally I combined it with the quickness-on-shatter trait along with shield to see how much quickness uptime I could stack. Was cool and all, but chronophantasma simply far outclasses it. Furious Interruption, though, works so well with the shield that I just couldn’t drop it. I knew that SC is great and would likely always be my “meta” choice, but landing 6 seconds of quickness almost every time I interrupted with the shield was really, really enjoyable.

Problem was, for me, that I was using the wrong weapon.

Staff doesn’t benefit nearly as much from quickness as greatsword, and scepter moreso than sword. Granted, I did like how it sped up my wells/mantra and was tons of fun to use. Furious Interrupt is a really good trait IMO, but hamstringed by its competition with Shattered Concentration. For the beta I wanted to climb out of SC’s shadow and give FI some time to shine, and I definitely didn’t regret it.

Chaos was a must for me in this build, mostly because of the staff. Alacrity + Dampening made my cooldowns wither, especially with both wells and shield granting an Ethereal field. It was more of a playstyle thing, but also because since Dom/Dueling works with everything, I knew it’d already be great with Chrono. The changes you’d be suggestion would turn the build into the upcoming “meta” chronomancer build.

Domination: Confounding / Shattered concentration / Power Block or Anguish
Dueling: Phant Fury / Blinding Dissipate / Deceptive
Chaos: SlowInterrupt / CloneShatter / PhantasmShatter

I’m 99% positive that’ll be the meta shatter spec for Chrono, and I’m allergic to cookie-cutter. =[
(Edit: OK, now I’m like 78%)

@Tealots: Like Pyro said … Alls Well that Ends Well is such a disappointment. I tried so hard to like it and make it work but it is actually pretty rare that you’re able to predict a condi dump AND standing in the well for the last pulse. Siiigh. Rework plz.

@Armadeus: Gonna have to try that next time!

@LordByron: Please don’t post any further in this thread if you’re just gonna spew jaded (and inaccurate) opinion. Whats the point of coming into the Ele forums and starting your post with “Ele sucks”?

@Sabull: The major damage sacrifice is actually a pretty common misconception. Everything I posted about Mesmer support is accurate and doesn’t require much change from the traditional setups. Besides for increased healing, you don’t need to switch gear as much as swap around some traits (about 20 in inspiration) and grab your choice of utilities. To get all of that requires 20 Inspiration, 20 Chaos, Signet of Inspiration, and a few choice runes. A lot of the info for building a support Mes is in my sig.

But most of you all have a lot of valid points I’m going to post a comparison between Mesmer & Ele shortly so please correct any inaccuracies.

What Kind of Mesmer Are You?—
Mesmer, being such a varied and creative class, can be played in all manner of different styles. Each playstyle is radically different and requires time to learn. One of the most common reasons people dismiss a build as “bad” is because they expect to be able to play it masterfully within the first few moments of picking it up. As a general rule:

-Phantasm – Easy to learn / More relaxed pace / Accessible for beginners.

-Shatter – Takes practice / Fast pace / Medium difficulty but high risk high reward with high skill cap.

-Condition – Easy to learn / Medium pace / Medium difficulty with high skill cap.

-Support – Takes practice / Pace varies by build / Medium difficulty with high skill
cap.

-Lockdown – Difficult to learn / Fast pace / High difficulty high skill cap.

- Fay’s List of Mesmer Builds/Guides -

• SHATTER Mesmer can inflict sudden high damaging AoE spikes in bursts by manually destroying their illusions for a variety of effects. Shatter builds tend to be active, fast-paced reflexive playstyles that are highly mobile, flashy and confusing. The typical Shatter build uses clones for both offense and defense, and thus needs to have a high rate of clone production. Deceptive Evasion (Dueling X) is perfect for this and practically essential for shatter builds, giving us the ability to spawn clones on dodge ( Protip: Orrian Truffle & Meat Stew increases our dodge rate.). Most shatter builds will also climb 30 points into Illusions both to reduce the cooldown on shatters and for Illusionary Persona, which both maximizes shatter damage and significantly increases the build’s defenses.
- Classic Shatter Build: 20/20/0/0/30
- Key Weapons: Sword
- Key Skills: Mirror Images, Blink, Decoy
- Key Traits: Deceptive Evasion (Dueling X) / Illusionary Persona (Illusions XI)
- Most Popular Shatter Build: Osicat’s Shattercat Series

• PHANTASM Mesmer play more like minion masters. The Phantasm playstyle is more welcoming to newcomers of the game/class and as a result have gotten the reputation of “faceroll easymode” which in many cases … is true. Phantasms are devastatingly powerful 1v1 specs as the Mesmer merely has to focus on staying alive, via stealths, teleports, and other kind of defenses while their Phantasms hit hard, respawn quickly, and have large fountains of health. Phantasm specs are also preferred for dungeon runs.*
- Key Weapons: Greatsword, Offhand Sword/Pistol/Focus
- Key Traits: Empowered Illusions (Domination III), Phantasmal Fury (Dueling II), Phantasmal Haste (Illusions X), Persisting Images (Inspiration V) , (Inspiration 5, 15, 25)
- Key Skills: Phantasmal Defender/Disenchanter, Signet of Illusions
- Sample Phantasm Build: 10/30/0/30/0
- PvE Phantasm Build: Pyroathiest’s PvE Phantasm Build
- Dungeon Phantasm Build:Colesy’s Dungeon Phantasm Build

• CONDITION
Condition Mesmer have seen a rise in popularity recently and, to the ire of many Necromancer, have proven to be a devastating force to be reckoned with. Many condition Mesmer enjoy dancing in and out of stealth (and thus gaining high amounts of defensive boons like protection) while their clones release a plethora of debilitating conditions whenever an unfortunate nearby enemy destroys them. In addition to disease-filled illusions, Condition Mesmer use Confusion and Torment to great effect with the Scepter and shatters.
- Key Weapons: Staff, Scepter, Torch
- Key Traits: Sharper Images (Dueling 15), Deceptive Evasion (Dueling X), Debilitating Dissipation (Chaos V), Master of Misdirection (Illusions V)
- Key Skills: Signet of Domination
- Most Popular Condition Build – 20/20/30/0/0 – Blackwater Mesmer

Here ya go:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/MirrorBlink-A-Secret-Recipe-for-Mesmer-Burst/first#post5353029

Should explain the Mesmer burst pretty well, complete with a demonstrative video. Some quick notes on building a mesmer:

• Domination/Dueling goes with everything. (Dom: Confounding Suggestions, Shattered Concentration, PowerBlock OR Mental Anguish / Dueling: Furious Interruption OR desperate decoy, Blinding dissipation, Deceptive evasion). Slap on any third trait line behind that and you’re good to go. Best bets are Inspiration or Chaos. (Chaos for PU stealth bursts or lockdown. Inspiration for more survival/condition removal)

• The “meta” weaponset is sword/torch – greatsword … But technically anything + Greatsword can work, just don’t try and throw scepter in there.

• People will hate you -no matter how good or bad you’re doing- simply because you’re playing Mesmer. They’ll call you cheese no matter what build you run. 90% of these people are ego-bruised parrots who have no idea how the class works. (Same could be said for the hate on Eles)

• Thieves are still a big concern. Mastering use of blinding dissipation and shatters in general is your only hope of taking a skilled thief down.

Good luck, and feel free to w/ or hit up the Mes forums if you have any further questions or want someone to pvp with in-game!

HELL – … wait.

So, it’s now more vulnerable to cleave/AOE damage and won’t function as a stationary projectile-reflecting bubble?

… Erm. Let’s see how this goes.

Appreciate the input man!

• Try Imagined burden to generate more might. I know you don’t like GS though …
• Try furious interruption over blurred inscriptions.

It’s not that I don’t like GS, nor was I intentionally focusing on interrupts, it’s that I see staff as FAR more effective in this situation. Chaotic Dampening puts a single Chaos Armor/Storm on a 20s cooldown, and with 10s of armor I can pump out storms pretty often, which really helps boon generation even without the signet. I’d consider GS/Staff, but Sword kind of goes along with the whole staff thing. Still, I’m willing to give it a shot.

Was considering Furious Interruption too, ESPECIALLY if I grab Chaotic Interruption. My only gripe here is that without any way to trait boon duration, it’s really hard to get a decent amount of quickness to share. If I’m not using GS, pistol or scepter, the quickness isn’t really all that useful for me personally. The signet trait is fantastic, albiet very different from what I’m used to. I actually tried running without it for a bit while we dueled (or rather… accidentally ran without it) and I felt much less effective.

Distort losing the cap is actually something I hadn’t considered much though. I’ll keep that in mind.

• Try CI to see how it goes.

I will tonight. CI vs BD is the biggest argument I’m having with myself on this build. That stability though.. man it’s nice. Stomps are guaranteed with this build.

• Finally, I would experiment with a few other amulets to give you a bit more staying power. This especially if you’re using BD.

I tried soldiers for a bit after zerker, with runes of Mercy to grab 30% revive speed. I actually didn’t feel much of a difference in my survivability but noticed a massive drop in damage. I’m still juggling different ideas as far as amulets are concerned and am definitely not married to Zerk… it’s just what I’ve been most comfortable with on lockdown. Any other suggestions would be massively appreciated though.

I agree with skcamow, the problem is the meta moreso than the class.

Having a hardcounter isn’t a balance issue. Engis are hardcountered by Necros, Necros are completely shut down by lockdown Mesmer, Thieves have plenty of lousy matchups themselves. Check this from the How Mesmer Feel About Thieves thread in the Thief forum.

Arikyali.5804:

Meh..I get the feeling that thieves in general, are a little more ‘humble’ than mesmers. Usually. Not always. Just usually.

Mesmers hate thieves. It’s justified hate, it’s understandable hate, but it’s uneducated hate. I play both mesmer and thief, and I’ve see how they interact and counter each other. But if I try to defend a thief from mesmer, I know it’ll fall on deaf ears.

What counters a mesmer? Nothing but thief. What counters a thief? Everything but mesmer.

I’m in the minority here, but I feel Mesmer is pretty balanced for PvP atm. Yes Celestial Might Stacking is ridiculous, yes Engineers & some others need some tweeks, but things aren’t as terrible as this thread is making it out to seem.

There’s a lot that needs rebalancing, but this whack-a-mole stuff to fix class vs class interactions isn’t the way to go about it. And besides, what would you suggest? A buff to Mesmer? A nerf to Thieves? Crying just to make noise for a change is less likely to be listened to than a reasonable argument with reasonable requests.

• Support
10 points into the Inspiration line opens up a number of ways to add an aspect of ally support to a build. Not only do Mesmer have access to every boon in the game (6 of the 9 boons alone available to Staff), but we have the unique ability to copy any boons we have onto all nearby allies. (Video courtesy of Alissah.9281) This, combined with our ability to rapidly heal allies, cast group stealth, portal, and mitigate damage with dazes, pulls/pushes, solo stack up to 25 might, and reflects make Mesmer one of the best supportive classes along with Engineers, Guardian, and Elementalists. Mesmer support builds vary from heavy crowd control, boon support, heals, or a mix of all of the above and in most cases can be done without any major sacrifice to damage. While not ideal for dungeons, Mesmer support is being explored for PvP and has been proven effective in WvW for both small man and zergs. (Protip: Chocolate Omnomberry Creams grant 20% boon duration)
- Key Weapons: Staff, Focus
- Key Traits: Bountiful Interruption (Chaos VIII), Warden’s Feedback (Inspiration VIII), Restorative Mantras (Inspiration X), Vigorous Revelation (Inspiration III)
- Key Skills: Signet of Inspiration, Mantra of Resolve/Concentration, iDefender, iDisenchanter, Veil, Illusion of Life, Feedback, Null Field, Portal
- Sample Boonshare setup: Sword+Focus – Staff / 15 Inspiration & Chaos / 6x Runes of Altruism
- Sample Support Build: The Chaos Maestro
(List of Mesmer Support Builds)

• Lockdown
Lockdown Mesmer are all about control: limiting enemy movement, eliminating their boons, dazing/stunning, reflects and smothering them with debilitating conditions such as Weakness, Vulnerability, and much more. Lockdown is one of the more controversial, but least explored of Mesmer playstyles. While Lockdown finds little use in dungeons due to the Defiant buff on most bosses, it’s popularity is rising in PvP. Most control builds grab traits that grant bonuses when interrupting opponents, the most popular being Halting Strike (Domination II) which grants damage on interrupt, and Bountiful Interruption (Chaos VIII) which grants 5 stacks of might per opponent interrupted.
A thing of note about Lockdown builds; try to make sure whatever kind of Lockdown build you have can be strong on its own without interrupts. For example: Mind Crush does very good damage via Shatters and Phantasms, has good lockdown/control via chain-dazes, Weakness/Vuln on clone deaths, and Chaos Storm, can rapidly strip enemy boons and stack vulnerability, and has AoE condition removal. These traits alone make it a strong build, but the rewards for nailing interrupts (5x Might / 3x Vuln / Instant 2k+ damage on interrupt) makes it that much better.
AoE control options.: Staff, Focus, Superior Sigils of Hydromancy, and Imbued Diversion(Illusions XII)
- Key Skills: Mantra of Distraction, Signet of Domination, Null Field, Arcane Thievery
- Key Traits: Confounding Suggestions (Domination XII), Dazzling (Domination 15), Shattered Concentration (Domination VII), Bountiful Interruption (Chaos VIII)
- Sample Build: 10/0/30/0/30 skcamow’s Chillruption
- (List of Lockdown Builds)

My villainous sylvari Mesmer, Aeoldyn.

(Another external continuation of something I wanted to put into the guide. As usual anyone is free to add/correct the data. Additional contributions from: Dietzen, EverythingEnds, and Heinel)

—Stealths and Teleports —

Stealths and Teleports some of the Mesmer’s main defenses in combat. Skills such as iLeap, Phase Retreat, Veil, Blink, and Decoy are almost always in a Mesmer’s repertoire in PvP or WvW for good reason.

STEALTH

Stealth works a little differently for Mesmer than it does for other classes. The Decoy ability allows us to cloak even through the 3 second Revealed (Cannot go invisible) debuff (4 seconds in sPvP). Which means you could attack out of The Prestige (Torch 4) and then immediately use Decoy to stealth again, making Thieves wet with envy. Stealth is great for escaping combat, healing, and charging mantras among other things.

- Also note that projectiles in flight and reflected attacks will trigger revealed if it happens after you go in stealth. Winds of chaos, chaos storm, feedback, etc. can be offenders of this.
- If you use a shatter skill and a stealth skill, when your “shattered” illusions haven’t hit the target yet, you will become revealed when an illusions hits (don’t know if on miss, too).

Stealth Skills
The Prestige (Torch) / Decoy / Veil / Mass Invisibility

Stealth Traits
Desperate Decoy (Decoy at 25%HP) / Prismatic Understanding (Gain Aegis/Protection/Regen every second while stealthed. Stealth skills last 1s longer )

Skills that DO NOT Reveal when used.

• Phantasm Summons
• Illusionary Leap (Sword)
• Sword/Scepter Counter (Until the counter attack hits)
• Phase Retreat (Staff)
• Chaos Armor (Staff)
• Temporal Curtain
• All Utility skills except Mantra of Pain. (Signet of Domination untested)

TELEPORTS

If you’ve never traited Blink for longer range (Dueling I) go do it right now, and watch this video (Supcutie’s PvP Blink locations) I’ll wait…

…

Awesome. That’s what you just said to yourself. Mesmers have five teleports, three of which belong to our weapons (Sword/Staff/Spear) and all of which are extremely useful. Blink, Portal and Phase Retreat, being instant-cast, can be used in the middle of other attacks. Blink can even be used while wearing town-clothes. Teleport skills work across gaps if you could normally jump across and occasionally can take you to higher elevations.

- Concerning Skyhammer: DONT use Blink, to teleport over those “breaking glas fields” if you use Blink, you will exactly being ported where the glass begins. ? If there is none and you are pressing W / vorwards, you are going to run right into the hole.

Teleport Skills
Phase Retreat (Staff) / Illusionary Leap (Sword. Still works, when the clone gets destroyed.) / Feigned Surge (Spear) / Blink / Portal

Teleport Traits
Far-Reaching Manipulations (Increase range to 1200) / Master of Manipulations (Reduce cooldown by 2) / Glamour Mastery (Glamours cooldown 20% faster) / Temporal Enchanter (Glamours last 2s longer)

• Sensotix’s Portal and Phase Retreat stomping guides.

• Osicat’s Mesmer Movement Guide (featuring the Phase Retreat + Blink combo dubbed the “Cat Leap” at about 30 seconds in)

CS in its current form cannot compete with power block. Almost any lockdown build that would choose CS over a mixture of weakness/halting strike/15s cool down is hurting themselves.

I do agree that CS is strong, but DE as a comparison isn’t exactly correct. DE isn’t build-defining, despite that it used to be necessary in most builds. DE never defined any build that it was in except standard shatter, and even then the signature trait of shatter was iPersona.

DE was required for the ability to shatter properly because without it Mesmer is woefully lacking in clone production. It didn’t define lockdown, shatter, condition, or phantasm the way Chaotic Interruption, iPersona, Prismatic Understanding ECT. did.

And CS, outside of a couple specific Dom/Duel/Chaos or Illusions setups isn’t that strong. Can it be build definining..? Somewhat, I’d say it deserves Master tier. Let it compete with Furious Interrupt and Shattered Concentration.

I disagree, with the exception of the torch I feel all our offhands are range from decent to great. Temporal curtain has learning curve, but its a fantastic skill. The “clunky” feeling is the 1s delay to give it some counterplay.

Magic bullet ranges from good to fantastic depending on build.

Sword does need just a slight bit of love, but riposte is still a decent/good skill.

(PVP)

I tried to explore a bit more builds for this beta, but I found that I wasn’t very successful. It’s not for lack of viable builds to try out:

• Dom/Dueling still goes with everything, even Chronomancy.
• Chaos/Illusions Makes for an interesting condi build
• Dueling/Illusions Makes for an interesting Phantasm-Shatter or pure Phantasm
• Dom/Illusions Makes for a pure Phantasm build
• Chaos/Inspiration For an awesome support build.
  
  There is a lot you can pair up with Chronomancy and still come out with a pretty viable build. But for me specifically, one build pulled at my heart and never let go; never left any room for me to show love to any other spec.

Clockdown – Domination / Chaos / Chronomancy

• Sword+Shield/Staff (Or Greatsword)
• Runes of Hoelbrak – Sigils of Fire/Energy/Hydromancy(on staff) – Marauder Amulet

Here’s a video of the build in a ranked match.
Edit: Well that video kind of sucks for the sake of demonstrating the build.. but this one doesn’t!
—-

THE UNEXPECTED BUILD THAT SHOULD’VE BEEN EXPECTED

The thing is, with all the builds I had theorycrafted in anticipation for the beta (especially regarding support builds) I had never actually expected this particular setup to become my main build. I was simply experimenting with a well build, and my thought process went a little something like this …

Me: Alright, so .. Wells. First up, I’ll need a way to keep people from moving out of wells, so that must mean..

Chaos: You already know, buddy. ;D When have I ever let you down?

Me: Chaotic Interruption makes sense, each interrupt will keep them trapped in a well. And so does using staff, I mean all the wells are Ethereal fields, so …

Chaos Exactly! I was made for a Well build! Ethereal Fields, Staff Traited for Chaos Armor, Chaos STORM! Alacrity! =D Your staff cooldowns will wither! And Chaotic Interruption is also BOUNTIFUL interruption! Meaning each interrupt will make your wells do more damage.

Me: You’re gonna stop cutting me off, Chaos line.

Chaos: … Sorry boss.

Me: Alright, so Chronomancer, Chaos .. that leaves one more traitline to specialize in.

Inspiration: Oh boy! =D You know how much you love playing support, so-

Me: Dueling! Clone production and damage!

Dueling: Sweet!

Inspiration: … Oh, well.. I guess that works too…

DUELING/CHAOS/CHRONO – ALMOST PARADISE

So my first attempt ended up being Dueling/Chaos/Chrono. Dueling’s Deceptive Evasion grandmaster adds an element of smoothness to the build, making it easy to pump out clones and shatter when needed for both offense and defense. I also figured that Blinding Dissipation would help keep me safe while inside of my wells. I ended up grabbing Phantasmal Fury – Blinding Dissipation – Deceptive Evasion.

With a steady supply of perma fury, vigor on crit and blind on shatter, Dueling offered me plenty to work with. iWarlock hit like a truck, I had shatters out the butt and I felt pretty kitten versatile. It was a lot to manage and a very technical build, sure, but nothing that I felt was particularly beyond me.

Yet I felt… Off.

Me: Sorry Dueling, but it’s just not working out.

Dueling: What do you mean its not working out? Dueling always works out! In any build! Look! /flex

Me: Yeah, and you work in this build, but you don’t excel in it… I just don’t feel like I’m getting enough benefit from specializing in you.

Dueling: Two words, buddy: Deceptive freakin’ Evasion.

Me: That’s thre-

Chaos: Get outta here Dueling! You think you’re so popular because everyone always takes you well not this time! Right boss!?

Me: … >_> This is getting weird even for me.

Inspiration: So.. Without Dueling, I guess that means some survivability and sustain are needed huh? Have you TRIED Mental Defense out with Chronophantasma and Signet of the Ether? =D Now’s the time right? Right?

Me: Right. Now is the time for Domination.

Inspiration: … Oh man. =[

SOMETIMES POTENTIAL JUST ISN’T ENOUGH

Despite the potential damage, I wasn’t hitting hard enough. Plus.. Shatter-based builds really aren’t my playstyle, so Domination was next. I wanted damage and more control, and even though Confounding Suggestions didn’t feel like the best fit (though, admittedly, without Mantra of Distraction it always feels weird.) and I didn’t have the best clone production to make use of Shattered Concentration, I was nailing interrupts left and right even without trying, which meant I needed Halting Strike Power Block.

Oh.. What a difference just one trait can make.

Shield has two chances of interruption, Chaos Storm has 6 chances of interrupting, Gravity Well has 3 chances of interrupting and I always have the on-demand interrupt of [F3]. But lets rewind a bit to Gravity Well.

Gravity Well (or tides of time) + Halting Strike is such a win! The damage is fantastic, and allows me to make a build that doesn’t focus on shatters but still has to make tactical and intelligent use of them.

Here’s a video of skcamow and I kicking butt on Chrono.

Vengeful Images… Oh man, that’s a real kick in the nuts for Immortal Mesmers.

Support builds buffed, Confusion builds.. tickled, Phantasms nerfed. Most other builds nerfed.

@Dat build diversity.

BUILD VARIANTS

HYBRID >> PRISMATIC MAESTRO “You think I’m running away? Pfft. I weave light and shadow into health and armor.”

20/20/30/0/0 Domination: IV, IX Dueling: V, X Chaos: III, X, XII

Scepter or Sword/Torch – Staff ( Superior Runes of Lyssa / Rampagers, Rabid, or Berzerker Armor)

Feedback / Decoy / Signet of Inspiration /Mass Invisibility

One of the few exceptions to my usual preference of traiting into Inspiration. This build grants superior team defense using Prismatic Understanding for Protection/Aegis/Regeneration off Torch, Decoy and Mass Invisibility. IMO, this build lends itself to condition damage quite well, but can also be specced for more power or support depending on your rune setup.

SHATTER >> PURIFIER MAESTRO “I should start charging for all this stripping I’m doing! Oh yeah, and for the condition stripping too…”

20/20/0/30/0 Domination: I or IV, VII – Dueling: V, X – Inspiration: II, IX or VIII, XI

Sword-Focus/Staff (Superior sigil of Purity)

Null Field / Phantasmal Disenchanter / Feedback

With less focus on boon sharing, this build’s team utility comes in the removal of ally conditions and enemy boons; decoy and Mirror Images are also good choices here. The reduced focus on boon sharing eliminates some of the gear/rune restrictions of the other support setups. Though you may ask “What kind of Shatter build doesn’t go 30 into Illusions?” Shattered Conditions and Shattered Concentration both work per clone shattered so you don’t need to shatter often & Deceptive Evasion tends to be enough clone generation. The traits in those trees (and selected skills) are very flexible for your own flavor while still maintaining its supportive abilities.

SHATTER >> LOCKDOWN MAESTRO “You can’t attack.. but you can give me your boons.”

0/20/20/0/30 Dueling: IV, X – Chaos: III, X or VIII – Illusions: – VI,X XII

Sword-Focus/Staff (Runes of the Mesmer)

Feedback or Null Field / Arcane Thievery / Signet of Inspiration

Imbued Diversion is a surprisingly strong trait after the patch. Using iLeap(close) + Phase Retreat(Mid) + Deceptive Evasion(Far) to stagger your clones at different distances to keep multiple enemies locked down and smashing their keyboards. Phantasms are important here, so save them for AFTER you shatter your clones. If you’re feeling lucky, you can earn big rewards from Bountiful Interruption to share with your team. Alternatively, you can take the 20 from Chaos into Inspiration for mantra heals or other support.
(Protip: Keep an eye out for Necros, HGH engineers, or others you can steal massive boons from.)

PHANTASM >> WAR MAESTRO (I swear.. Naming these things is the best part) “The best defense is an obnoxious, gratutious, over-compensating offense.”

20/5/20/25/0 or 20/0/20/0/30 Domination: III, X or VI – Chaos: IV, VIII Inspiration: X or Illusions III, VII, X

Greatsword/Staff (Sigil of Battle on Both) – Superior Runes of Altruism or full Boon Duration / Berserkers or Knights gear

Signet of Inspiration / Signet of Illusions / Mantra of Pain* / Mantra of Recovery*

Even without Bountiful Interruption, you’re able to constantly supply 12+ stacks of Might (or 420+ power). This build has two variants: Traiting into Inspiration for mantra heals, this “minion-master” type setup allows you to summon Phantasms and focus on building might stacks while providing AoE Mantra heals.
*The healing and mantras are optional, alternatively you can slide those points into Illusions to add an extra bounce on greatsword(thus more might), faster attacking Phantasms, and overall cooldowns.

Dondagora.9645:

Just an idea, but we could try a mesmer take-over of the Silverwastes and a guild event. It’s kinda like WvW, but we all don’t have to be in the same server and it is also more accepting of those who don’t necessarily PvP.

Just food for thought.

Uh so.. What’s the Silverwastes? o_O

I’m down for this weekend if anyone else is. I should be on sometime tonight around 10pm EST (US) and the following nights.
If we could put together a US and EU team for guild events that’d be awesome. I’ll send some messages out when I hop on.

I can’t stress enough how much of a bad move it was to nerf Chaotic Dampening to 2%. They took one of the most interesting traits and made it much less lucrative out of fear of it being too strong. This wasn’t a “small adjustment” it was a 60% slash without much thought or math done behind it. Combined with the knee-jerk 50% overnerf of Maimed and the devs are quickly losing the trust they only recently regained from us. How long it takes to adjust this will speak a lot about the balance team.

On the bright side, the pistol trait is awesome! … Except its bugged. (and while other classes got bug fixes, we got continual nerfs since the patch) However it does promote skilled play as was intended… Just not in PvE.

Mimic rocks and was a great and extremely “mesmery” change. I was running it before and I can see its potential. I think it will see use.

Every Mesmer I’ve fought runs the same two builds. And most are decent, but “skillful?” not in general. There is still a very profound difference between skillful Mesmer and spammy Mesmer… And I’m somewhere in the middle, depending on my opponent. X.x

/summons an AlphaTheWhite

Working with Chronomancer well-support has made me curious about the exact effects each burst of alacrity I’m granting to allies. Specifically, I’d like to figure out how much I’m reducing their cooldowns.

But that involves numbers. I’m woefully allergic to numbers.

So instead I’ll present this question off to the mathematically-inclined Mesmers out there: Around how much (rounded to the nearest .5) am I reducing the cool down of my allies when I hit them with.

• 1 Well / iAvenger (2s Alacrity)

• 2 Wells (4s Alacrity)

• 3 Wells (6s Alacrity)

• Well of Recall (5s Alacrity)

• Well of Recall traited (7s Alacrity)

• 4 Wells Without Recall ( 8s Alacrity)

• 4 Wells With Recall (11-13s Alacrity)

If you could use what a 20s CD would be reduced to as an example, would be much appreciated

I’ve always been a fan of Sw/Sw on Mesmer, we’re the only class that can make a viable sw/sw power build and aesthetically it just looks so kitten cool. But in the past Offhand sword was one of the worst possible choices for PvP/WvW compared to it’s competition (PvE offhand sword is actually one of the best choices for Dungeons) and unfortunately this recent balance patch gave no blessings to this awkward offhand.

.. Or did it?

PHANTASMAL HASTE – SPEEDY STABBINGS

The above link is a video comparing the attack speeds of iDuelist vs iSwordsman. iSwordsman (among other phantasms) was always bugged with pHaste to not give the proper boost in attack rate. With this patch, swordsman now clearly outpaces iDuelist damage-wise and as always the damage comes in one heavy hit rather than an easily-mitigated stream of projectiles. Both phantasms can be cast at 1200r, and at this point the only advantages Duelist has over Swordsman is that it sits safely at range and can work in condition builds… once it eventually gets fixed.

IP BASELINE & BLINDING DISSIPATION

Remember that painful illusionary counter that often ended up counter-productive when used defensively against multiple opponents? Well now you can more reliably net the damage without leaving yourself wide open. iCounter hits as hard as any of Swordsman’s attacks, and leaves you a clone to shatter after blocking. A quick Distortion or Blinding F2 should be enough to cover your animations, and the extra clone that the counter leaves makes for a nice shatter burst right behind the counter hit.

RELIABLE STUN – CONFOUNDING SUGGESTIONS

Of all our offhands, Sword grants the most consistent daze on a very low cooldown. With confounding, it is extremely easy to predict when this daze would be a stun and capitalize on it. As it stands, offhand sword is the most reliable and consistent weapon interrupt we have at the moment and on a much lower cooldown than the others.

LEAP FINISHER – CHAOTIC DAMPENING

So we need Chaos Armor to make our staff cooldown quickly huh? No better weaponset to compliment staff than Sword/Sword for this purpose. Summoning the iSwordsman counts as a leap finisher for the Mesmer, granting Chaos Armor on summon. This gives us 3 ways to proc Chaos Armor and a 30% reduction on our skills without needing another Ethereal field such as Null Field.

I’ve been running Sword/Sword+Staff since the patch and have a hard time leaving it. I believe it’s current state outshines the pistol, especially when paired with the staff and offers the second most damage behind Greatsword. I’d still like to see Illusionary Counter buffed to grant kitten evade between the block and counterattack but it is good to see that even though the Offhand sword wasn’t buffed directly, it’s still seen some noticeable improvement.

A lot of good points here.

This trait is going to be the one I focus on the most when the patch drops, boonshare builds have a special place in my heart and with the IP change, there is definitely some potential here.

I’m still torn on Bountiful Disillusionment vs Chaotic Interruption for boonsharing though now that Bountiful Interruption was merged with Chaotic, it makes for a rather rough choice since disillusionment was made to grant AoE boons.

SHOW STARTS AT 12p PST, ROUGHLY 40 MINS

Anet will be hosting their next Points of Interest featuring the Chronomancer soon, don’t miss out!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/catch-a-look-at-the-chronomancer-on-this-weeks-points-of-interest/

Miku Lawrence.6329:

• Note that you can pick glamours too (they’re select-able in the Utility slot).
• CONFUSION PULSES OMFGFGGGGGGGG

RIP mesmer, 2012-2015. Hail Chronomancer overlords.

TOOLTIPS http://i.imgur.com/RslLmYy.jpg

Ripped from Dulfy’s

Chronomancer – Alacrity

• Alacrity make the cooldown text for skils green instead of blue like chill.
• Alacrity increase your skill recharge by 66% while chill decrease your skill recharge by 66%. So if you have both of them on you your skill recharge should be normal. If you are chilled for 3 seconds or so you get an extra second of recharge. If you are under effects alacrity after 3 seconds or so you lose a second of recharge.
• One of your minor traits will give you alacrity everytime you shatter.
• Alacrity can be gained via shatters and the Well of Recall, which is one of the few ways you can give alacrity to allies. We are purposely limiting this a lot since recharge is a very dangerous stat for players to mess with.
• Alacrity is a buff right now and not a boon. You can’t increase it via boon duration buffs. Alacrity stacks in duration, not in intensity. There are some chronomancer traits that make alacrity lasts longer as well.
• Alacrity benfits phantasms since phantasms have skills with recharges. Clones won’t benefit from it as much since they just have auto-attack.

Chronomancer – Shield Skills

• Tooltips: http://i.imgur.com/jPYxrIn.jpg
• Tides of Time (#5 shield skill) is an etheral field so you can proc some combos with it. The wall will attempt to return to your original position. If you touch the wall when it returns, you will get a recharge bonus to make this skill recharge faster.
  Shield #4 skill is Echo of Memory, it is a bubble that will block attack and create a phantasm on the enemy that attacked you or on the enemy you targeted when it ends.
• If you block the attack with Echo of Memory, you get a second skill in its place called Déjà vu. Activating this skill will allow you to block a second time, even while Echo of Memory is recharging.

Chronomancer – Well Skills

• With wells we want to provide some more AoE support.
• Well of Action slow enemies caught in it and when it ends it will give allies a burst of quickness.
• Wells of Recall is your alacrity well. It pulsates alacrity to all allies within its radius. When it ends it will chill enemies nearby.
• Well of Calamity – lowest recharge of all wells. It is a damage well that pulsates a few time with low damage and the final pulse does massive damage (over 50% of the damage on the last pulse).
• Elite – Gravity Well – It pulls all the enemies to the center of the well. It also grant stability to allies standing in it. The last pulse also a float effect which we may remove it since this well applies too many CCs.
• Healing well – Heal you while standing in it and grant vigor. Grant a second heal after 3 seconds.

Chronomancer – Traits

• New grandmaster trait – Chronophantasm. It will summon phantasms with butterfly effects that when shattered while be resummoned immediately (only works once). It only works on phantasms and we are still rebalancing it since it can be too deadly when you shatter 3 illusionary duelists and have them unload immediately. Each phantasm an be only resummoned once.
• Illusionary Reversion is the similar trait for clones. When you shatter clones it will resummon a new clone.You can have it along with Chronophantasm.

Chronomancer – F5 skill

• Continuum Shift – You can use it to catch the Tides of Time wall twice, recharging it twice as fast. However there is a caveat with using Continuum Shift and healing since it will revert you back to your health pre-heal. The Chronomancer wells heals are a bit different.
• Continuum Shift drops a Continuum Rift that marks the location where you will return. If this Rift gets destroyed, it will wrap you back to that location instantly. Other players can counter play it by destroying the rift and dropping an AoE on the location of the rift so the mesmer is wrapped back instantly to your AoE.

Just a bit of random curiosity, what builds are the devs running these days? I know their pvp matches don’t consist of Warriors running around going “trolololol” for 15 mins, so I was wondering what the devs enjoy playing and why they picked those particular builds?

From what I gather

Josh Davis/Grouch: Engineer (which?)
Justin Odell: Lockdown Mesmer (which?) / Teldo Engineer
Evan Lesh: Warrior (?)
Tyler Chapman/Powerr: Necro

anyone know anymore build specifics?

1) FROM CONCEPT TO CREATION
So maybe you want to hop into the arena, smeared in all of the gory downstate of your enemies. Perhaps you’re a soldier waging eternal war in WvW. Or you could be another hero chosen to face off against all of the many threats that Tyria faces. Whatever the case, you start by having a plan. Ask yourself( and answer) the following questions:

• What weapons/utilities do I like the most?
  Your build is not going to last if you don’t enjoy using it. It never hurts to try to mix in your favorite abilities into your build as long as they don’t stray too far from your theme.

• What will the goal of this build be? How will I achieve it?
  Do not fall into the trap of “making a build for all formats,” if you’re looking to make a powerful and effective build. There are SOME builds that can work decently for PvE,PvP, AND WvW but they are few and far between. In any event “decent” should not be your goal. The build should be good at something, even if that ‘something’ is just providing tons of fun for you.

• What is my role in a group fight?
  Often people make a build and then don’t know what to do with it. The build is strongish, has decent defense, and some nice utility, but no actual goal besides trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. Sometimes a build is super glassy, so obviously meant to do damage, but still feels lackluster. A good build and a strong purpose do not always go together. Sometimes a build is a good dueling build, but one can’t find a place for it in a teamfight. Sometimes an excellent team support build is still held back by sluggish mobility and lack of 1v1 potential. Figure out where your build will fit in by accepting both its strengths AND its weaknesses.

• How will I defend myself when under attack?
  Lets get one thing clear: you NEED a stunbreak. Sometimes condition removal is not necessary, but being able to break a heavy CC effect is mandatory for any good build. If you’re trading defensive stats for damage ( “Glasscannon” ) then you will need a form of mobility. Invest in obtaining the Vigor boon, look for any evades, invulnerabilities, or teleports you can find. You do not want to invest so much into defense that you cannot do damage otherwise you will be easy to ignore and maneuver around.

• What weaknesses will I have?
  Everything is a tradeoff. If you spec for damage you’ll likely lack defense. If you spec to be balanced then you’ll excel at nothing. Identifying the weakness of your build is key to learning how to protect yourself and remain effective. You want to avoid the trap of speccing too deep into extremes; building for durability and defense to be a tank may be ideal but too much defense with no offense gives you no pressure. A tank isn’t a tank without the ability to hold an enemy’s attention.

• How much time will I give myself to learn this build?
  Do not expect to learn a new build within a day. Learning a build requires creating rotations, learning new reflexes and having an intimate understanding of how the traits/gear work together. This does not happen in a day, especially when we’ve already become used to another build. The average time it takes to really understand and excel with a build, depending on difficult, tends to be from three days to about a week or so if it is far from our normal playstyle. Don’t be quick to dismiss a build as good or bad until you’ve really given yourself time to learn it. Sometimes a build that seems unlikely to work and feels bad at first can turn out to be extremely effective.

When making a build, these are some of the most important questions to determine whether or not it will be successful. There is no such thing as a perfect build, and there will always be a sort of trade-off (yes, even if you grab a Celestial Amulet) in order to spec the way you want. The most important aspect of a build is always going to be how much you enjoy it. GW2 is first and foremost a game you play to have fun on. It is not a job, not an obligation, and your class/build should be a representation of you rather than what everyone around you says you should be. This sort of “independence” isn’t as simple as it seems, however…

Sometimes I stand around on point admiring how insanely cool my Mesmer looks.

… Then I proceed to criticize everyone else characters for not matching up to my coolness. (Except skcamow. Leaf dreadlocks allday errday!)

Siva Mira.3546:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Keep in mind slow has no effect on movement speed.

…and if the Mesmer is sitting there auto attacking one target for longer than 2 … Maybe 3 seconds then something is wrong.

Also.. All those grandmasters are tempting, so you shouldn’t expect all Mesmer to be trying to slow you. (Just us dastardly lockdown Mesmer)

You should also keep in mind that a Mesmer doesn’t need Cripple or Chill to kill a target. On the other hand this Slow is way more dangerous than those 2 on Mesmer. It makes Mesmer’s enemy has a hard time to use their skill to counter him.

On the matter of AA, if you have mastered your GS or at least seen great players using it then there is no doubt that GS can pull out a lot of hits in just a matter of seconds with the combination of Spatial Surge, Mirror Blade and Mind Stab. The Slow here isn’t just there for itself but it also boost your Critical Chance by 30% and getting critical hit by a Mesmer GS for every hit isn’t funny.

But I am not saying “It is OP, NERF IT!” without actually seeing it in the final form in action but I am saying it has the potential to be OP.

Very good points, and I don’t dispute that.

I’m saying the threat of “permanent-slow” isn’t as profound as some may think.

Sidenote: Also, so many Mesmers all over Tyria are messing themselves over this bouncing/piecing, perma-crippling clone-obliterating bows y’all have.

Robert Gee.9246:

Gravity well: Changed functionality. This well now pulls every pulse for a total of 3 pulls. The final pulse grants 5 stacks of stability to allies in the area.

• General sentiment from feedback was that the PULL was what was important to selling Gravity Well rather than the float. We’ve gone back to the earlier version where it does the standard 3 pulls but pulled out the ending stun to prevent kitten long AoE CC. I’m still a little concerned about how hard it is to stun break this thing but since it’s got a relatively long cast time and moderate area of effect I think it’s safe to try.

Echo of Memory: Fixed a bug which prevented this skill from working with the traits Illusionist’s Celerity and Persistence of Memory. Lowered slow applied by phantasm from 3s to 2s.

• The slow from these phantasms seemed a little too good considering they could hit multiple targets (especially if you got 2 of them out). With the fixes to traits that lower the recharge of this skill it seemed appropriate to reduce it a bit.

Well of Eternity: Lowered cast time from 0.75s to 0.25s

• The idea behind this skill has always been to wait for the big heal at the end, so it didn’t make sense for the cast time to be as long as it was. Healing numbers still might be adjusted in a future BWE.

Chronophantasma: Increased Daze duration from 1s to 1.5s

• Did anyone try spamming Illusionary Berserkers with Continuum Shift and Chronophantasma? This specific combo isn’t the only reason we are adjusting this trait, but we are watching the types of spikes that are coming from Chronomancer in general.

Illusionary Reversion: Updated functionality. You must shatter at least 2 illusions in order to generate a clone from this trait. (You do not count as an illusion towards this total.)

• Yeah I know this one probably stings but when we started looking at it it was pretty silly that this trait could let you get so much power out of just using all shatter skills back to back.

Alacrity
The last few changes are related to alacrity. We felt that as it was currently, alacrity wasn’t hitting the right level of impact due to how easy it was to get from the minor trait and how little you could share it with allies. These changes are intended to try and improve how alacrity feels to interact with though traits and skills.

• Flow of Time: Reduced alacrity per shattered illusion from 1s to 0.75s
• Improved Alacrity: Increased alacrity duration bonus from 33% to 50%.
• All’s Well that Ends Well: Changed functionality. This trait now grants 2s of alacrity to allies standing within the well when the well ends.

Slow Stacking
Finally let’s talk about Lost Time. Currently we don’t have plans to change this trait for the next BWE but it’s on our watchlist. This is trait is pretty fun and synergizes well with the other traits while working into the theme of chronomancer. However it can get a little blown out when used with certain skills (looking at you Spatial Surge). We’ll be keeping an eye on this one during the next beta event.

I hope this post has helped to explain our thoughts on the current state of Chronomancer and as a reminder these changes reflect our current thoughts and plans for the next BWE. We may add, subtract or change notes between now and then.

For this beta, I’ll be focusing on Alacrity sharing via wells and Clockdown in WvW. What’re yall looking forward to?

(OMG AND DAT THIEF SPECIALIZATION /hypetrainnn)

Thanks to my fantastic phone my post got deleted. I was saying that Invig was supposed to be bouncier-bounces. Also, MoDaze may get swapped with disenchanter or arcane thievery.. I like to have one slot flexible for different situations but.. The idea of a double-traited Blink AND P-retreat is hella tempting for wvw

Where [X] = the cooldown of the mimic’d skill.

Pushing my mathing to the limits!

So Mimic is in an odd place right now. It’s an interesting utility that could see a lot of play if it weren’t gated by two things:

• 90s Cooldown is longer than most skills.
• Not many utilities are worth mimicing.

Thus my idea of making Mimic match the cooldown of whatever skill you copy. As it stands, Mimic is only actually preferable if you grab Illusion of Life. Not only would it allow you to double-rezz, but Illusion of Life is on a 120 second cooldown, whereas Mimic is on a 90s (72 when traited) cooldown, making it more efficient to just Mimic the skill rather than casting it. Even when traited, its cooldown is lower than or equal to few other abilities…

• Illusion of Life
• Veil
• Portal

Right now, there aren’t many skills you’d actually want to copy on a 90s cooldown. It makes mimicking a skill like Blink feel like a waste, it doesn’t work with portal (or does it?), and… what exactly happens when you Mimic a mantra?

Oh, how I’d love to mimic Well of Recall or Precognition.

But at it’s current cautiously high cooldown, it isn’t really worth the utility slot. I think making the cooldown of Mimic match the cooldown of the mimic’d skill could really help with this, what say you?

Plenty fair. Its actually an improvement I think since that leaves major traits to not have to compete. And manipulation range baseline…

1200r blinks!? My heart.

What scares me is how the tweaked clone-deaths will actually work.

Since they can be dodged/blinded/ect, does that mean they count as a hit?

Does that mean they’ll proc Retaliation on us? Or counter-attack effects?

…Will clone deaths break stealth!?

Check out FLIMPY’s PvP videos, bro. He uses Scepter/Torch – Staff for an awesome stealth-confusion Conditionmancer.
Confusion is nerfed for sPvP but still works in a condition build when utilized properly.

(Ideally) Estimated Illusion Tweaks: iWarden, iWarlock, iLeap, iMage

Estimated Trait Tweaks: On-down/rezz because no one cares. Restorative Illusions, Power Block(!?!), Torment Shatter

Scepter Auto will see some love, likely with …Weakness or some other control CC

Improvements to MoPain/Daze? o_O Oh god what did they do to my daze mantra!?

skcamow.3527:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

For this update, we’re looking at improving multiple traits, utility skills, weapon skills, and illusions.

Oh hell, this feature patch is coming out in 2016.

Da salt has finally caught up with you.

Haha who knew salt was contagious? To be honest, if I’m not mistaken, this is probably the yearly awesome December balance patch.

Hey warshade. I saw some of the video earlier, but didn’t have time to comment. (even now I’m on my cell)

A couple things I noticed.. Check out terrorsquads phase retreat guide and youtube some blink spot guides to learn some Blink locations. Your blinks are often being wasted for an extra bit of mobility rather than being used to reposition into favorable spots or saving you from danger.

You seem to over rely on GS a bit too much, I saw a few instances where you were using GS in melee range when fighting on point, even though you coulda switched to sword. As a rule, greatsword is stronger the further you are from opponents, and the auto attack damage scales with the distance. Use iWave (GS5) to push people off point and away from you.

And shatters.. Specifically diversion[F3] if not being used to set up a chain daze -multiple illusions running from different distances to daze the opponent- then it should be either to save yerself defensively or interrupting stomps/rezzes.

Its difficult but yeah, better to absorb/reflect the damage with focus or mirror.

Which traits have ya been runnin?

Oh man good stuff! Will use this to update the Grimoire with anything outdated.

Hey. Ty for the kind words!
Sorry, its been a busy weekend and havent been on a computer so Ima reply quickly fro my phone. The original build sounds like exactly what you want.

0/10/30/30/0

Dueling: Protected Mantras (VI)
Chaos: Illusionary Defense (IV) , Chaotic Dampening (X) or Bountiful Interruption (VII), Prismatic Understanding (XII)
Inspiration: Medics Feedback (I)(optional) or Glamour Mastery (II), Warden’s Feedback (VIII) (optional but highly recommended) , Restorative Mantras (X)

- 2x Superior Sigil of Battle / 1 Superior Sigil of Life (Needed to top off your heals to 3000)
- Superior Runes of Dwayna (reliable AoE perma-regeneration) or Runes of Altruism (15% more boon duration and reliable AoE Might/Fury)
- Chocolate Omnomberry Cremes (20% boon duration)
Clerics Armor and Magis trinkets. (max healing power with atleast 20% crt chance)

MoRecovery/MoPain/Veil/Signet of Inspiration – Mass Invisibility.

Edit: A lot of what I’m about to write is explained in the guide, but I figured a summary would be more convenient. The above mentioned setup should be exactly what you’re looking for, and I’ll explain based on your priority list:

1) Traits- Set you with full boon duration, full healing power, and additional 400 toughness – Protected Mantras - when you charge Mantras (Which will be constantly. Additionally, the 400 toughness should apply to your Phantasms aswell, though this means little in zerg situations). Protection is one of the most important buffs, so Prismatic Understanding is practically a must, especially if you have a thief on your team (Shadow Refuge before a battle). Preemptive Mass Invisibility will also give you a nice hefty amount of protection more often than not. Veil is optional, but you should definitely have two forms of stealth if you’re traiting Prismatic Understanding and I prefer Veil over Decoy because you can swing through the rift twice for a nice 6 seconds of stealth/boons, and its a combo field for Chaos Armor; best part is that you can do both of these while charging Mantras. Bountiful Interruption vs Chaotic Dampening is a tough choice. The cooldown difference is definitely noticeable, but Bountiful Interruption can give HUGE rewards. Then again, you could keep Chaotic Dampening decide between RNG-Might vs RNG-Protection (Bountinterupt vs PrismaUnderstand). Everything in Inspiration is pretty straightforward. I find Medic’s Feedback to be really useful in ZvZ fights, but Glamour Mastery is great both because it mitigates Veil’s stupidly long cooldown, and because when I’m NOT running Veil another glamour usually takes its place.

2) Mantra of Pain >> Mantra of Recovery >> Mantra of Pain will burst heal for 8-9k every 9 seconds. Since you’ll have constant high ticks of regen (over 3k every 10 secs) you’ll easily be healing for over 10k every 10 seconds. Mantra of Pain should be in CONSTANT use. You’re going to want to practice maintaining Chaos Armor for as long as possible, and it helps to have another glamour. Veil is good because not only does it allow you 6 boons, but you can channel Mantras and Phase Retreat while stealthed. See the “Boon Storm” for when you should use Signet of Inspiration, but if you ever find yourself with over 20+ seconds of protection, ignore those rules and pop that signet asap
Mantra of Recovery is important because it’s your prime source of spreading regeneration (If Runes of Dwayna). Try to stick near allies everytime you cast this, as you’ll be giving regen to nearby allies more reliably than your Phantasms would.

3-4) I hope you weren’t expecting to do much damage… Cuz ya likely won’t. The only time you can really burst is (assuming you have runes of altruism) when you have around 9 stacks of might, and fury, and even then its debatable whether it’ was worth it as in that time you could’ve been healing/protecting your allies in some way. Cleric’s gear, even with Magi’s trinkets, is lousy for damage. The upside is that with such healing power and toughness, you’ll be kitten hard to kill.

5) I HIGHLY recommend runes of Dwayna based on the request provided. It’s easily the most reliable way to spread regeneration. Sigil of Battle should definitely be in your arsenal, and I tend to carry two for the 6x Might (A nice 210 power boost, usually amplified by Might from allies) But it should be noted that two Sigils of Life will get your Mantraheals into the 3k mark much faster. Its a choice between offense and defense.

That’s untrue. Your perspective is just jaded.

Almost nobody in this thread disagree’d that melee is the way to go in dungeons. Almost nobody in this forums disagrees when you present facts. You seem to hold fast to the idea that everyone here disagrees with you when it’s actually the opposite. Its the usual stuff, the majority gets blamed/labeled because of the louder minority.

What people disagree with is the idea that the GS is complete and total trash with absolutely no uses. (And are saying that beginners should pick it up to learn tells.)

Will be updating the guide this weekend…ish.

Sigil of paralyze working with daze was a bug that got fixed around last month. It doesn’t work anymore.

That’s really good to hear guang, but I’ve a question..

How often/likely is it for Mesmers to land interrupts on bosses on dungeons? In PvP an interrupt build is only good if you can manage to land an interrupt about every 8-10 seconds. What should a Mesmer speccing interrupt traits be on the lookout for?

Honestly, what this patch did was make popular builds/weapons more difficult and less popular ones… well.. slightly more noticeable. But these changes are so radical, I feel like I’m playing a beta more than a real game. I mean.. just last month they fixed the tooltip to show that Signet of Illusions gives 200% HP, now they nerf it?

This change, besides celerity, doesn’t hurt my build.. but its a strange mix of a kick in the nuts & pat on the head.

Whats frustrating though, is that it seems Anet isn’t balancing this game anymore; disgruntled PvPers are.

Downloading now… Can we even talk about this here? xD

Anyways. How does Mesmer feel since the alacrity & friends nerf guys? Is it really “mez ded” or more of a really inconvenient and ill-thought change that makes the class harder and less rewarding to play… But somehow still viable?

So, my mesmer was pretty much forged in the mists. I spend 90% of my time in PvP since my friends grinded me to death on dungeon runs (that weren’t actually runs so much as a collection of dungeon exploits) and I was happy there until I recently upgraded my computer. Now I can roam in WvW without compromising my graphics, so I decided to explore this bold new world that until now I’ve only had very brief ventures in.

So, you often hear that your average WvW player isn’t nearly as good as your average PvPer, and I really wanted to see if it was true. So I’m running around on my PvP build (4/4/6 Staff sword-focus CI pack runes, fire+energy & doom+hydromancy) and while at first the world was barren and boring.. I came upon an enemy supply camp.

I tried to flip it cuz.. Pfft. Everyone else solo-flips camps why not I? .. 3 minutes later in chased out of the camp by like 9 angry NPCs.

.. Right into 3 enemy players on a team.

So I break the eff out, they’re chasing me, and as I’m running I stop to really take a good look at my terrain .. This isn’t PvP, I don’t need to fight on point, these guys are likely bad.. I can take these fools!

And so it began. I turned around vs a guardian, necro, and ele and charged back in. Necro was too slow to keep up, Ele was too tanky to do damage and the guardian was just kinda bad. Even though I was kind of wishing for Greatsword (which seems far superior to staff in WvW) I managed to wreck them all in a way that woulda made osicat and vashury proud.

3v1? The way I was managing my decoy and blinks it may as well have been 3 on 3. It was glorious.

Yo Pyro I want you to make a promise.

If Mesmer gets more than 2 new weapon skills (either by a new mainhand or if the specialization changes any of our current weapon skills) or if there’s at least 5 viable new traits and 3 viable utilities or chronomancer brings viable build diversity to pvp/pve.

I want a public apology thread! If not there will totally be an “I sorta-kinda told you so” thread popping up.

Guys, it’s jihm again.

Just.. Just do yourself a favor and check his posting history.

On topic: Moa is fine. It can be blocked/blinded/evaded/interrupted and rendered completely useless. Most of the time its only newer players or trolls who use Moa for 1v1s when it’s much more useful for unbalancing teamfights.

Complaining you got Moa’d is like complaining a Necro went Lich Form on you.. except Lich is more likely to kill you. =/