Guild Wars 2

—MESMERING IN TYRIA—

LEVELING YOUR MESMER
(UPDATED) Sanderinoa’s PvE Guide
Following info taken from Kaiyanwan.8521’s Lazy Kai’s Leveling Guide

Part 1 – The Basics

Leveling as a Mesmer is – unfortunately – not as lazy as most other classes. So before you can get lazy, you will have to make your way to the pinnacle of existence, known as level 80.

There are several stages in the ascend of a new Mesmer, and I will try to cover the shifts as simple as possible.

1.1.1 General Advice: Did you know?

Nourishment – Food:

There is a plethora of food in Guild Wars 2. The good point – some of it is dirt cheap. Why would you bother? Well, most food give a 10% experience boost (some 15%) for all kills, which will, over time, sum up. The food is actually so cheap, even a level 2 can get some off the auction house (just search for food and sort by price). So just buy it. You won’t get much food in the open world, unless you become a cook, but that’s another topic…

Nourishment – Utility:

As with food, utility buffs (from slayer potions, maintenance oils, sharpening stones and tuning crystals) also offer a 10% experience boost. The great thing is, one food buff and one utility buff will stack. They are all crafted by thier respective professions, or you can simply buy some off the auction house.

Boosters:

Boosters can further improve your leveling speed. They can be randomly aquired out of Black Lion Chests or directly from the Gem Store or for Laurel (reward for daily quest). They will stack with each other and potions/food. Combining an Experience Booster, an Improved Experience Booster and a Laureate Experience Booster will already give you additional 180% kill experience. This can be pushed by a further 100% with a Kill Streak Experience Booster, as long as you keep up with killing things.
If you want to invest real money to level, boosters can be a great help to speed things up, but they are in no way a necessity. My advice is to at least save your Laurels for gear instead of investing them in boosters.

1.1.2 What grinds my gears: Stuff

Armor:

Power is what you want as primary stat. Secondary is Precision. If both is on the armor, perfect. Leveling is all about killing things fast, this will help.
Personal advise: Armor is cheap on the trading post, most of the time, you can get level accurate stuff for about the same coin it will give you back when you sell it to a merchant. Keep your gear up-to-date.

Weapons:

Greatsword + Sword/Focus, same stats/advise as armor.

What to put in slots:

While leveling you will change your equipment – a lot. In early levels probably several times a play session. So buying upgrade components is not the best idea. You will probably find yourself running around with empty slots on your armor most of the time.
You can find some upgrade items from different sources, use them if they offer useful buffs.
Later on it is very helpful to at least choose a sigil for your weapon to help you with an area you feel lacking (probably condition removal or simply more damage).

Gathering and salvaging:

The first things you should buy the moment you earned your first few coppers are some gathering tools and salvage kits.
Gathering will give you experience and resources you need for crafting, that again will also give you experience (you can level a character completely with crafting).
Salvaging will also give you resources and will help you to manage your limited inventory space.

So says the devs.. Annddd still no change. Really? Really tho?

You can’t possibly feel 2% is enough. Cuz its not, not even on paper.

Also, duelists discipline. Fix plz? Condi Mesmers everywhere are still sore over the 50% Maimed Nerf.

Well of Eternity – Now grants resistance per pulse rather than granting vigor (Why are we promoting DODGING in a well we need to stand inside!?)

… What say you!?

While this is more geared towards newer players, I try to keep it entertaining and informative for everyone! Add up the number of your answers and match to the key on the bottom. I left out the “Illusions” line because of how much weaker it is than the other trees (and it’s kind of hard to come up with answers for it. X_x) but anyone considering a condition Mesmer should absolutely invest in Illusions!

What Mesmer Are You Webquiz!

• A) Adventuring through Tyria can be daunting, but …

1) I know exactly where I’m going and already have planned the quickest and most efficient way to get there and complete my goals.
2) I don’t mind. The journey is more important than the destination, I’ll probably see something cool along the way.
3) I have friends and some perma-swiftness, what more do I need?
4) I don’t adventure. I slay. Mercilessly.

• B) Oh snap! Your ally is downed!

1) It’s my responsibility to get them up!
2) No one will stomp them as long as I’m around.
3) Well that’s convenient, the perfect bait to get all my enemies clustered together for one heavy blow. Why risk my life rezzing them when they will rally when I stomp?
4) Sounds like someone needs a quick Mass Invisibility. Sweet, glorious Mass Invisibility.

• C ) My favorite Shatter is

1) Mind Wrack
2) Cry of Frustration
3) Diversion
4) Distortion

• D) To me, Mesmer is all about..

1) Style and finesse. No one looks better than a Mesmer at what they do.. Except me, a better-looking Mesmer.
2) Precision and efficiency. Make them dead fast, move on.
3) Misdirection and confusion. That wasn’t me, that was a clone! Yes, slam your face against the keyboard more as I mine the salt from your eyejelly.
4) Utility. I have every tool for every situation, like the worlds’ most fabulous swiss-army-knife.

• E) If I could only use one of the following, I’d stick with…

1) Glamours
2) Manipulations
3) Illusions
4) Punishment/Control

• Most Mesmer only have 2-3 forms of stealth: Decoy (3s. Stunbreak), The Prestige (3s) and Mass Invisibility (5s. Elite)
• Most Mesmer only have 2 teleports every ~20 seconds: Blink (30s), Illusionary Leap (12s – Sword)
• Most Mesmer run the same effing build: (Sword/Torch + Greatsword. Blink/Decoy/Portal (or Mantra of Distraction – Dom/Dueling/ X )

So the Mesmer builds that are being targeted here are your standard shatter Mesmer and standard condition Mesmer (can someone provide me the link to condi Mes? I don’t wanna assume and screw it up) yet in actuality,* the majority of the above complaints are focusing on a few things: Greatsword damage burst, Prismatic Understanding (Chaos Grandmaster – 50% stealth duration & random boons every second stealthed), Confounding Suggestions (daze = stun every 5 seconds + increased daze/stun duration) combined with Mantra of Distraction (instant 1200r daze).*

That’s about it.. The entire class claimed OP mostly because of two traits and how they interact with two utility skills… But are these traits really OP?

”MESMER HAS AN INSTANT-CAST 0-100 BURST! THEY CAN INSTANT STUN YOU EVERY 5 SECONDS! THEY DOMINATE 1v1s!”

Why yes, yes we do. If you’d like to see it in action, take a gander here..

Now here’s the fine print to this so-called instant burst. Or rather, here are the requirements:

• Enemy must be wearing Marauder or Berserker Amulet (any tankier and it wont work)

• Enemy be a Mesmer, Ranger, Guardian, or Thief

• Mesmer must engage with this burst or single out one target in a teamfight.

There is a little guide on performing the burst, linked here and it is super powerful in 1v1s.. But guess what? Mesmers were designed to be master duelists. This is the burst that makes people claim Mesmer takes no skill, or atleast far less skill to master than before.

Heres the thing… One trait doesn’t mean you’ve “mastered” anything. Even if it did, it only means you mastered one build. Take away that guys greatsword, or mantra of distraction, and see how much of a “master” they are.

CS doesn’t make Mesmer as a whole easier to play, it makes a somewhat hard-to-grasp meta build more forgiving. If the only thing that makes CS too “faceroll” is the combination of dom/dueling + fire/air runes + marauder amulet + mantra of distraction + greatsword…

… Then you’re not mad at the trait, you’re mad at a specific build that incorporates it.

SO.. IS MESMER OP?
At the end of the day, the only format Mesmer are OP in are duels. Not teamfights, not WvW zerging, not PvE open world or dungeons, not organized PvP. All of the above complaints come from people who lost to a Mesmer or play a Mesmer in small skirmishes.. Where the Mesmer is MEANT to shine.

People will always find a way to blame their faults on something or someone else, it’s just human nature. They didn’t lose because they’re bad, they lost because you’re OP. Or because their team sucks, or a glitch, lag, a bug, a pet, or whatever else they need to tell themselves for sake of pride and to ignore the fact that they could’ve done something better.

Fact is there’s always gonna be someone better than you, and there are always going to be higher levels of play. If you’re not playing top tier, or studying the class, then what gives you the right to argue with the people who put HOURS of time and work into learning their class and builds?

And if you do have a valid complaint or concern, voice it in a way that actually can be discussed. Be literal and direct, rather than obtuse, because saying things like “tons of X” or “can ALWAYs do Y” or “this happens all the time” or “a bunch of conditions” then you slip into the realm of hyperbole and half-truths.

An educated discussion is always welcome. Whining an ranting will get you flamed.

DAMAGE / CONTROL / SUPPORT / SURVIVABILITY
Though a build is made up of many parts, chief among them are a build’s damage output, ability to control enemys, ability to assist allies, and how well it survives. Investing in one category usually means a decline in another, so finding the right balance is crucial. At the same time, having too much balance can be a detriment; a jack-of-all-trades is a king of none. You want your build to stand out, to be excellent at something and fairly good at most others sometimes at the cost of lacking in one section. A full mantra damage build lacks the team support/control Mesmers excel at. A full boon/healing support build will excel with a partner, but be ineffective alone. Make sure you trait accordingly:

>>> DAMAGE - Made up of either Power or Condition Damage (sometimes both)While a majority of our DPS comes from either shattering or maintaining clones and phantasms, Mesmer damage tends to go hand-in-hand with control (Ex: Reflects and clone-death traits). Our only utility skill that does damage is Mantra of Pain

CONDITION
- Mistrust – Cause AoE confusion on interrupt (Dueling)
- Sharper Images – Illusions cause Bleed on Crit. (Dueling)
- Ineptitude – Cause Confusion when you Blind a Foe. Blind when you Evade. (Illusions)
-Master of Misdirection – Confusion lasts 33% longer (Illusions)
- Chaotic Transference – 10% of Toughness = Condition Damage (Chaos)
- Maim the Disillusioned – Inflict 1x Torment per clone shattered. (Illusions)
-Compounding Power -3% more damage for each of your active illusions. (Illusions)

POWER

- Power Block Damage on interrupt (Domination)
-Mental Anguish 15% more shatter damage, 30% on inactive foes. (Domination)
-Compounding Power -3% more damage for each of your active illusions. (Illusions)
- Empowered Illusions – Illusions inflict 15% more damage (Domination)
- Phantasmal Fury – Phantasms have Fury (Dueling)
- Empowering Mantras – 4% more damage for each casted mantra. (Dueling)

• Damage Skills: Mind Wrack/Cry of Frustration [F1/F2], auto attacks, Phantasms, Blurred Frenzy, Illusionary Riposte, Illusionary Counter, Confusing Images, Mirror Blade, Mind Spike, Chaos Storm, Mantra of Pain

>>> CONTROL -Control is the Mesmer’s specialty. Hindering movement (Cripple), reflecting projectiles, punishment for attacking (Confusion), and eliminating boons/conditions are some of the many ways we can hinder the enemy, most of which are in the DOMINATION land CHAOS lines. With access to an abundance of reflects, nearly all the boons/conditions in the game, and a control ability on every weapon, Mesmer is a swiss-army-knife of utility.

-Illusion of Vulnerability/Dazzling – 3x Vuln for 5 seconds on interrupt. / 5x Vuln for 8s on Daze (Domination 5 / 15)
- Rending Shatter -Shattering illusions causes vulnerability for 8 seconds to nearby foes. (Domination IV)
- Imagined Burden -Greatsword skills cripple foes. (Domination)
- Shattered Concentration -Shatter skills also remove a boon on hit. (Domination VII)
- Confounding Suggestions – Cause a 1-second stun whenever you daze a target. Dazes/Stuns last 25% longer (Domination)
- Mirror of Anguish -When disabled (by stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, or launch), you mirror the disable back to the source. This effect can only trigger once every 60 seconds. (Chaos)
- Warden’s Feedback -Focus skills reflect projectiles. Reduces recharge of focus skills by 20%. (Inspiration)
- Chaotic Interruption -Immobilize your target when you interrupt them and randomly apply blind, cripple, or chill. (Chaos)
- Persisting Images – Grants retaliation to Phantasms. (Inspiration)
- Ineptitude – Blind foes on dodge. (Illusions)
- Blinding Dissipation – Blind foes on Shatter (Dueling)

• Control Skills: Distraction [F3], Illusionary Leap, Illusionary Counter, Illusionary Riposte Illusionary Wave, Chaos Storm/Armor, Magic Bullet, The Prestige, Temporal Curtain, iWarden, Arcane Thievery, Feedback, Null Field, Mantra of Resolve/Concentration/Distraction, iDisenchanter, Signet of Domination, Signet of Midnight, Moa Morph

….When you smirk everytime you look into a mirror, have a newly acquired affinity for the color purple, and can never look at butterflies the same way again.

I just checked the article. While Tempest is looking cool as hell, check the skill again:

• Rebound: Causes the next skill to have a 25% reduced recharge.

Its an elite (so likely longish cooldown) and only affects the next skill. Alacrity is a much stronger effect that is more easily applied.

Uh.. would you happen to be on US or EU? I think this is gonna take a more-personal touch. (which is what she said. nyuk nyukk)

Oh Greatsword.

You and I have had a rollercoaster relationship from the start.

I hated you, because everyone used you.
I loved you, because you shot lazers.

“Much too common!” I said, with my nose held high and arms folded smugly. When I first started playing, every Mesmer on my server ran Sword/Pistol – Greatsword. Focus was taboo, staff was taboo, but yet I refused to be “just another Mesmer.”

So I turned my back on you.

I leveled using Sword/Focus and staff and never regretted it. I eventually branched out and learned Scepter, Offhand sword. Even Pistol found it’s way back into my heart, though it lasted about a good 2 hours before it gathered dust in one of my 12 slot “bags of holding.”

But it would be years before you saw the light of day.

I knew others loved you, I’d seen videos of your performance in WvW, and that only made me rebel against you further… Then it happened almost by accident.
That random drop from a random coffer that bestowed upon me a random Crystal Guardian. Sparkly, shiney, and made my friends wet with envy… so I decided to finally give you a chance after over a year of neglect.

Oh Greatsword! How ignorant I have been!

Yes, you may be labeled as “sucks” in dungeons, but everywhere else? You are a master of your craft! In terms of damage, you vastly outshine every other weapon in the Mesmer kitten nal, hitting like a truck and only getting stronger the farther away you are. I called you uncreative, but I was wrong! Bountiful Interruption and lockdown builds proved that the issue with creativity was my fault, not yours! Your ability to synergize with Mimic to form a shield is glorious, your ability to stack might for support builds is fantastic, and best of all.. Your phantasm is both AoE damage and control all in one! Alas, but your defenses are poor and the Staff has spoiled me. Yet since the staff performs better at close range, and Greatsword at far, it is a perfect marriage!

I let pride, prejudice, and a desire to be “different” drop a veil of ignorance over my eyes. But no more! Oh, greatsword, now and forever will you have a place in my builds. My apologies for a year of neglect.

Hey.. I went and looked at the other class threads.

“Wahh Tempest is bad.”
“DragonHunter is useless”
“Reaper GS too slow!”
“I am loooving my Chronomancer!”

… Theres a whole -…. Shatterload. (-__- damb you profanity filter!) of changes coming to the Mesmer with the upcoming HoT expansion. The Chronomancer, master manipulator of the time/space continuum, has a access to unique speed-altering abilities like Slow, Quickness, and Alacrity which may be a bit daunting to players who have never had to utilize these boons/buffs.

OK, lets be honest, none of us have gotten to try Slow & Alacrity (except TyPin who is apparently such a pro Chronomancer that he fell out of his timeline and into our present – his past.. Hmm not so pro then, I guess? ) but Quickness is a boon that has been in the game for a while, though mostly utilized by other classes such as Ranger and Thief.

Well now it’s the Mesmer’s turn.

QUICKNESS

Quickness is currently a buff (but it is soon to be a duration-stacking boon) that increases all actions by 50%. This can be beneficial for things like rezzing/stomping and any sort of channel such as Scepter’s confuse ray or Greatsword’s autoattack. Most applications of quickness are short duration, and for good reason: quickness is a pretty hefty damage boost. Sometimes, though, it can be a detriment such as when using a defensive ability like Mirror to defend against an attack. Using a quickness-boosted Blurred Frenzy against a fricking Rangers 1500r Rapid Fire? Lol sorry, says the smug little boon.

- It’s worth noting that Quickness from most sources is usually granted for 3 seconds.

Ways to Apply Quickness

• Furious Interruption (Dueling XII ; 3s Quickness on interrupt; 15s ICD) A good trait if you can grab it, but odds are.. you won’t be able to grab it! There are so many traits in Dueling that overshadow this ability, but the 15s ICD is being reduced to 5s when the expansion hits. After the patch, this will be an excellent way to gain quickness, especially with about 30% boon duration boosting this to 4s

• Seize The Moment(Chrono) (Chrono XIII ; 1s Quickness Per Illusion Shattered) 3 Clone shatters grant 4s of quickness?! Check the Greatsword section below.

• Sigil of Rage (50% Chance on Crit – 3s Quickness; 30s ICD) Sigils of Rage aren’t the best when used alone, but when combined with FI they start to show promise. When the expansion hits, these will be much more valuable as an extra source of quickness.

• Tides of Time(Chrono) (Shield 5 ; Grant 1.5s of Quickness when struck by Projectile.) While this seems minimal, remember that the skill shoots out and returns, granting 1.5s of quickness both times. Not sure how useful this will be for the Mesmer personally, but will be nice for allies.

• Time Warp ( 11 pulses of 1s Quickness in a large AoE Ethereal field ; 180s CD) Time Warp is an excellent team ability that is held back by an agonizing 3 minute cooldown. When the patch drops it’ll become a Glamour and have its cooldown reduced to something more manageable. Still, this is a valuable elite when used properly.

• Well of Action(Chrono) (3s Quickness on final pulse ; 30s CD) More ways to grant Quickness to yourself, your illusions ,and your allies. What makes Well of Action interesting is the potential to synergize with other quickness sources like Furious Interruption, Continuum Shift(F5) and Seize the Moment. Imagine sharing all that with Signet of Inspiration!

When someone asks you, “How is mesmer right now?” what do you tell them?

I hear a range of responses from “Mesmer is one of the worst classes in all parts of the game” to “Mesmer is OP” my response to the question has always been a little different…

I believe that mesmer isn’t a class that’s for everyone. Some people play mesmer specifically to feel overpowered in a PU build, or just because their team is lacking one. But to me, the mesmer’s effectiveness depends on the creativity and skill of the player. Our abilities aren’t straightforward, our role isn’t clear-cut, and there’s so many ways to play the class effectively that different builds feel like entirely new playstyles.

I’m not someone who min/maxes and I don’t have any ambition to go into top level PvP (er.. anymore). This isn’t because of any lack of confidence in my abilities, but because I find more enjoyment in the journey, rather than the destination. I enjoy trying strange builds, wierd traits, and unusual skills. I can play an effective shatter, condition, boonshare, lockdown, glamour builds and anything inbetween and still be a large asset to my group. I was playing a lockdown Mesmer before it became “meta” and will continue to play one now that the hype train has passed because it’s one of my favorite builds.. I say all of this to emphasis that I do not believe in letting other people dictate how I should play.

I am not a leech for not running a min/maxed build. I am not bad for running a non-meta spec in pvp. I am me, and I cater to my own sensibilities. I believe that that is what makes me a good player. The fact that I’m willing to do my own research and not simply agree when someone says “this is bad.” Sure, once in a while I’ll fold to Pyro’s unyielding logic, but not everything can be proven with math and theory. Some things you just have to feel out and see how well you do with it. Osicat runs PU now even though some people say it’s bad, or doesn’t work for roaming, ect. He runs it because it’s what he enjoys and suits his goals the best. I’ve been stomped out by a full-signet Mesmer. Hell, for a while I was talking crap about how Guardians can’t beat Mesmer and then got my shiz pushed in by a spirit guard. (Sigh =[)

Helseth has an awesome title for one of his insanely sick videos “Mesmer isn’t viable, I am.” , and I agree wholeheartedly: The class and build you play don’t determine your skill level. Your intelligence and reflexes do. Of course there are badly made builds, but that doesn’t mean the concept or player behind them are bad. What is “the best” for everyone may not be the best for you… It all comes down to arrogence and humility: If my goal is insane PvE damage I’m not going to arrogantly claim Shatter is the best when I’ve never even tried a Phantasm build, especially when someone who has done the research is telling me otherwise. If I want to join a competitive tPvP team I’m going to make sure my role doesn’t conflict with someone elses (IE not running a support build when there’s already a support player and my team is lacking damage). It all comes down to keeping an open mind about your abilities and limitations.

If nothing else, remember that no matter what you do people are going to judge you for good or for ill, but no one can live your life. Be smart, be creative, be open minded with your Mesmer and you’ll find a way to succeed.

There’s supposed to be forum maintenance today… or at some point soon. PLEASE put this at the top of the fix list.

… Or hire Arc. I’ll pay their salary.

Me Games Ma.8426:

Another thought:
What do you guys think? Will Continuum Shift also restore our Mantra stacks?
Would be VERY awesome!

Nearly positive.

Agony .. Torment.. Pain! Pain!… Pain!. .. Pain!

/roflstomp

HOW TO MAKE OTHER CLASSES HATE YOU

• Guardians and Warriors hate… Boon removal & Clone deaths.
  Guardians and Warriors thrive on boons such as Protection, Stability, and Fury for both doing damage and survival. A Warrior without Stability, or a Guardian without Protection can end up being a hilariously easy kill. Many of these soldiers also are at their best while in melee. Clone-death traits makes it difficult for them to attack you in melee without risking being crippled/weakness, effectively making them.. well, suck.

• Rangers and Engineers hate… Reflection.
  Pretty self-explainatory, but not always a constant rule. Reflection shuts down a huge majority of what Rangers and Engineers can do for damage and throws it right back in their faces. Feedback and traited Focus together can really shut these classes out of a fight for a bit.

• Thieves and Elementalists hate… Halting Strike & Chaotic Interruption.
  Thieves and Elementalists both have very low base HP, and thus are classes that must maintain their mobility in order to be effective. Elementalists are very succeptable to interrupts, and Halting Strike hits them very hard due to their low armor. Chaotic Interruption deserves mention here because all of the conditions it applies can really ruin these squishy opponents’ day. Mantra of Distraction with Halting Strike hurts Eles particularly hard since their heals are rather easy to interrupt and Halting Strike can very easily finish them off. In my experience, certain Thief-specs are very interruptable as well, but I don’t play Thief well enough to be able to explain how/why.

• Necromancer hate… Mantra of Distraction & Boon Removal.
  Have you ever seen a Necromancer go Lich/Plague form only to have their long-lasting Stability get ripped off them by a crafty Mesmer? It’s hilarious. Suddenly that giant lich is getting yanked left & right, dazed and stunned, and is nothing but a big green target for everyone else. Serves them right for flaunting those incredible glowing 6-pack abs liches have for.. whatever reason. When they’re not using wells or Staff, Necromancer are actually rather easy to interrupt.

• Mesmer hate… Condition Damage.
  I’ll be honest.. There’s no one particular way to keep a Mesmer locked down. Too many teleports and stealths for that pathetic nonsense that those other inferior classes can’t hand-…er, Mesmer fanboyism leaking in. Apologies. Anyways, while Mesmer are resiliant to hard CC (stuns, dazes, ect.) conditions tend to screw us over sideways with no lubricant. Most Mesmer carry only one form of condition removal, and that tends to be either on a long cooldown (Null Field) or tied to some silly stipulation (Arcane Thievery needs a target / iDisenchanter can be destroyed/shattered ). Condition damage and condition debilitations are the best way to take down a slippery Mesmer.

Pop quiz! What builds are these?

20/20/0/0/30
20/20/30/0/0
30/20/20/0/0

If you said DPS-shatter, PU, and lockdown then you missed the ungodly obvious trick question.

Those traits could’ve been for any number of builds. ( such as 20/20/0/0/30 lockdown, 20/20/30/0/0 boon support, 30/20/20/0/0 Mantra) but a lot of people are too quick to judge a build by its cover rather than its contents.

Utilities, gear, runes, and sigils are just as important in determining a build’s playstyle, and as a result builds with different runes and utilities can play vastly different even if they share many similar traits.

There are some builds posted that get overlooked for seeming too similar to another build and end up lost in the post graveyard before they ever have a chance to shine, so lets not be too quick to dismiss without giving builds a fair chance.

Also, I been thinking of inserting something like “If you like this build (MindCrush for example) you may also like theCOREYCOLAK’s StunWay” in my builds to help prlmote other similar builds for people who may like the build to a degree but it doesnt fully click with them. I think this’d help not only further unite the community, but offer more build diversity aswell.

Such a detailed, thoughtful explanation as to why, Guang-senpai.

Consider me enlightened.
(No seriously, why?)

Hey robert, overall I think that those are good changes.

• Alls Well That Ends Well: Yes! One of the biggest problems with Chronomancer IMO was that we really couldn’t share alacrity in any meaningful way, this change is a nice step towards fixing that and opens up the possibility of well builds.

• Speaking of well builds, Well of Eternity would probably be better if it removed conditions per pulse rather than granting Vigor. Vigor is great, but getting a boon that promotes dodging for standing within a well seems a bit.. not right.

• Both Chronophantasma and Illusionary Reversion seem fair, but kind of hurts the idea of “you don’t need Deceptive Evasion to spawn clones.” If I don’t trait DE, Illusionary Reversion is likely going to be very hard to proc, could we try a one-clone requirement first and see how it works before pushing it up to 2?

• WHAT THE HELL IS GOOD WITH CHAOTIC DAMPENING BRO!? WUTS GUD BRO!? No seriously, can we get that 3% please?

• Can Tides of Time not fail miserably when it hits a wall?

• Well of Alacrity (forgot the actual name) isn’t very strong, even with the well trait. Could you consider changing the end pulse to something more impactful than 5s chill? perhaps adding some damage or another condition.

• Gravity Well is interesting specifically because of the float, it’s what makes it more unique than any other CC and the only time you’d ever see such a cool effect is from the Chronomancer. Please don’t remove this, it’s really what makes the well cool. Could you instead consider adding 1 pull on cast, and increasing the float time to 3s on the final pop? A damage boost would really help too.

Thanks for the feedback, and lookin forward to trying Chronomancer again!

The fact that you’re so adamant that confusion is the cause of Condi Mesmer damage..

The fact that you can somehow keep 6 stacks on a target permenantly…

The fact that you think anet should balance off duels (Condi mes has little team presence)

… Perfectly proves the OPs point. And no, you’re definitely not fighting good players

A couple gripes here:

• No ability to trait shield?

• No further support for wells? That well trait is barely worth it. Should be at least 2 condis cleansed if you have to wait in the well for 3s. Or one Condi per pulse.

While I admit Grandmaster is far more of an investment than I would’ve liked.. iCelerity was giving us a 20% cooldown on nearly all our skills with practically no investment, in addition to other weapon cooldown traits.

Its a really painful nerf, but more in line with other classes. Its not like we’re officially broken because we have to wait 2-6 seconds longer for some of our skills… but it does put increased importance on our other weapon-traits.

With it being a stunbreak, it’s very interesting.

3 seconds of blur for your entire team is very nice especially for guaranteed stomps and safe rezzes. Its hard to say, because right now all the wells are awesome at this point, and each one could find a place in any build.

(I promise I’ll stop being a cornball after this)

So you got an event coming up, everyone is expecting you to bring your best but.. You’re at a loss What build to try on? Do you mix Dueling with Illusions or go with the Chaos/Inspiration style? Fear not, fashionistas, there is an easy solution to all your Mesmer build woes:

DOMINATION & DUELING GO WITH EVERYTHING

Now before you smugly turn your face to the side, flutter your mesmery lashes and go “pfft, yet another pvp thread” you may want to turn your face to the other side and take notice that this rule also applies for PvE and PvP. The redesigned Domination/Dueling line comes with everything a Mesmer need to be both stylish and effective on the battlefield, even if you’re not really sure what kind of look you’re going for.

PvE
In open-world PvE you can honestly make anything work. But to make it work -effectively- you’ll need a few key features. In dungeons/fractals things get a bit more specific, so what does Dom/Dueling offer the PvE Mesmer?

In PvE the name of the game is Phantasms, and Domination/Dueling comes with all the modifiers you need to have your phantasms both hitting hard and critting hard. Empowered Illusions along with Phantasmal Fury will allow you to shred through mobs with ease along with keeping some nice sustained damage on bosses. A smart, trendy Mesmer knows that they need all their accessories for any given occasion, and each Phantasm from Sword to Staff has a place. Open world boss with tons of condis? Let your Staff phantasm shine. Dungeon run with projectiles all over the place? No one says spin-to-win like iWarden (except, maybe, Zerker. But only on trash mobs)

These fabulous figments of your imagination aren’t all you have to offer though. The audience loves a vocal Mesmer and who doesn’t want to hear “Agony, Torment, Pain!” repeated a dozen times over and over again until they’re chanting it in their dreams? Give yourself a healthy 20% damage bonus with Mantra of Pain/Recovery and Harmonious Mantras. Sometimes enemies may not appreciate your style and sass, critcism can be harsh, add a little extra Concentration to the mix when needed.
Know what else is cool? Particle effects! Take your team on a tour through space-time with some clutch distortions during big boss battles. Grab the Inspiration line in all it’s unicorned glory, trait your Signets up in Domation, and grab Signet of Midnight. Now suddenly not only can you do damage, but you’ll have an instant team-wide distortion. (Note: The radius of the AoE distortion is small. Make sure norn and charr don’t smudge your outfit when they invade your personal space)

Link to ideal Dungeon PvE builds

• For Phantasm Builds Dom/Dueling/Illusions

• For support through teamwide Reflects and AoE Distortions rock out with Dom/Dueling/Inspiration

Well let’s look at our manipulations..

• Blink
• Mirror
• Arcane Thievery
• Illusion of Life
• Mass Invisibility

Only one of those is a stealth skill, and causes the Mirror effect. When is this a problem? When you’re trying to use Mass Invis to disengage/escape.. Not including the times it works to..

- Give yourself & team an advantage at the start of a fight
- Help secure a Rez/stomp
- Allow another teammate to escape.

Yeah, traited mass Invis has a trade off, and you have to be more thoughtful for when you use it, but it not being ideal in one scenario (escaping) hardly makes the entire trait unusable.

(Sooo it only took, what, almost a year after the surprisingly well-recieved Mesmer vs Guardian fight I wrote, I’ve gotten something to share for Elementalists. This is something of a preview, as it’s a draft from part of a larger story that I’ll be sharing within the month. Special thanks to Gasmic for dueling me to determine the winner of this fight! Still working on the ending btw)

Aeoldyn stood nearly motionless out in an empty plain dotted with a few jutting stones and skinny leafless trees. He had a sword in each hand, blades pointed towards the floor, and felt the ethereal purple vines creeping from his wrists and crawling up and along the blade. These Nightmare Vines coated his sword with a toxin that, true to their name, induced nightmares so violent that it made it impossible for the afflicted to sleep. The gray clouds rolled across the sky, threatening of a coming storm, and the wind began to pick up. Aeoldyn, so lost in his thoughts, didn’t care.


“You know what I think? I think you spend 20 hours a day alone and contemplating about life since you have no friends and no one can suffer to be around you for more than five minutes at a time”

The words echoed in his mind, undeniably true.

You study and explore people’s thought processes and invent frivolous philosophies because quite frankly there’s nothing else for you to do!

He felt his grip tighten on his swords, and he inhaled sharply. Aeoldyn always found it interesting that air seemed to have an effect on emotions. People often sighed heavily when feeling down, as if breathing out their sorrows. When surprised, people would gasp as if to sublimate the shock. Laughter, an often-involuntary display of amusement, was achieved in a process eerily similar to the heavy gasps one took when trying to calm themselves from anger.

Aeoldyn shook his head, he was mentally distracting himself from the real problem. When Karayan had said those words to him, Aeoldyn gave in to anger and had assaulted the younger Mesmer, an action that spat on so many of the Mesmer’s creed.
“We all see the world through our own personal illusions…” He said outloud, to no one but himself. “We prefer half-truths, so that we may fill the other half with what we would like to believe. When someone throws an undeniable truth at us that clash with our illusion, our first response is frustration.” He said, putting his right sword into a slow rotation to feel its rhythm and balance. It was true that Aeoldyn, like most others, didn’t like being alone often. It was also true that Aeoldyn found himself alone most days because of his own insufferable personality. The second sword fell into a routine behind the first, as Aeol began practicing basic cuts and jabs. “How many of us can barely stand to look at our own reflection in a mirror? Or hear our own voice played back to us? How many personal flaws do we cover up, either with external makeup or internal lies?”

Fully engrossed in his deadly dance, Aeoldyn brought his right arm into an overhead chop, twisting with the motion to roll his trailing sword behind the first. The movement forced him into a slight spin that he ended with a forward thrust of both blades in a more solid stance. “Karayan exposed the flaws I choose not to see in myself. Thus, in a moment of weakness and damaged pride, I attacked him.” He stood calm, staring at his reflection in one of his blades, watching the thorned vines writhe across his hand without cutting them. “In order to erase this flaw, I accept it as truth.” He declared, again to himself. “And I accept that I made a ..” He coughed, “.. mistake.” It was a hard word to say, even to himself, but Aeoldyn never heard the word. A crack of thunder smothered his dialogue, and turned his attention to the sky with a slightly amused smirk.

There was a flash in the puffy gray clouds, soon followed by another burst of thunder. A second flash, a third, and suddenly a crackling light spilled out of the sky. Aeoldyn’s eyes narrowed against the brilliant glare of a ball of lightning racing from the clouds. The electrical bolt seemed to oscilate down towards where he was standing, yet the Sylvari stood perfectly still as he watched. Aeoldyn finally drew his swords when it became clear that the crackling sphere was going to slam into him, but by then it was too close, too fast, and too late.

BOOM!

Dear guy-who-played-support-rev-in-that-one-pvp-match,

Revenant never looked all that interesting to me, despite being the newest thing on the block. None of the legends had really grabbed me and the only Rev weapon that caught my attention was staff. In PvP I’ve yet to face a Rev that I didn’t roll right over without even know what the hell they were trying to do (Granted, I am a lockdown Mesmer.).

Then you came along.

I didn’t notice at first, but I found myself outnumbered in a 2v1. Though I was handling the fight decently, I was constantly forced to teleport off-point and was rapidly losing ground. (This was Mid @Temple of the Silent Storm ) The 2v1 then turned into a 3v1, and right when I thought I was finished, right when my health was at 4%, my life jumped up. The 3v1 turned into a 3v2, but I didn’t notice you, I just kept fighting for my life. This strange tablet-thing (that I thought was a pet at first) kept stalking me, and you would never leave my side.

My life never dropped beyond 30% after that, and when it did you always boosted me back.

So I don’t know how you did it, but Healing Revenant & Lockdown Chronomancer fought off a 3v2 gloriously. You made me interested in Revenant and showed me that healing support can actually be a thing which is amazing, since its my favorite form of gameplay and I had assumed impossible to achieve. You followed me around after that, I assume you were using me as a test subject (appropriate, since you were an asura) and I learned quickly to fight alongside your tablet.

We never were defeated the rest of the match. You rock, Ventari Rev.

- Love & Respect, Chaos

Jeez dude how many forums did you post this on?

Its really not that big of a deal. Just a quality change and barely a buff. It should’ve already been like this IMO.

Man, when thieves actually get some true buffs people are going to be flipping kittens across the world. Poor kittens.

Our symbol is a butterfly. You didn’t expect bugs?

(Yes. That’s the best, most logical and informative answer I can give you. x.x )

Ithilwen.1529:

@PyroAthiest

I’m angry that Pyro is advocating nerfs. Sure, you may be a great Mesmer and find the class too easy to play now.

On the other hand, I’m finally having some fun playing shatter. Please don’t advocate nerfs. I think you’ve really lost perspective Pyro.

Ithilwen, no disrespect, but can you please relax?

In the pvp forum someone asked for advice for how to fight against Mesmer and you spazzed on them, claiming they have some secret agenda to get Mesmer nerfed and proclaiming they need to learn to play, you’ve been trying to cut down or demean other Mesmer that don’t share your opinion, and have generally been pretty unreasonable.

Mesmer isn’t going back to how it was before, that’s a fact. No one wants that anyway. You’ve been extremely abrasive to anyone even hinting that something may be wrong with some of the traits, even if they offer reasonable suggestions.

Just.. Come on. No one has been this disrespectful to you, why do you have to act like that with others?

(CURRENTLY A WORK IN PROGRESS WHILE @ WORK)

On Friday we were treated to a preview of the changes to come for Mesmer, the current 14-point trait system is being completely reworked into something a bit different; specializations.
Instead of applying a certain amount of points to a traitline, you now choose three of the six (including the new traitline coming in HoT) trees to “specialize” in, allowing you to fully travel up the tree and pick the traits you’d like. For Mesmer, a class that mostly only dips into three skilltrees anyway (Example: 4/4/0/0/6 Shatter), this seems like a profound buff.

.. But they also made massive tweaks to our traits themselves, dropping some and merging others while adding some completely new possibilities.

So I’d like to share my opinions and thoughts on all the changes mentioned so far that are arriving BEFORE the HoT expansion drops. For those of you who do not know me, I’m something of a Mesmer teacher and one of the people who helped found OMFG, led a Mesmer podcast (“Mesmerized” on youtube) with Pyro and Shan, had the privilege of training with, interviewing and learning from some of the best players in the game, helped push Lockdown Mesmer into mainstream, and crafted the stickied Mesmer guide among other things. Most of this analysis will come from a “vs player” perspective, concerning WvW and PvP as I’m not too strong on PvE stuff.

I wanna start by saying that I’m overall impressed with most of the changes presented. It seems Anet is finally crystalizing their vision of what they want the Mesmer to be, and are working towards pushing Mesmer into a more active and skill-based playstyle. I know someone will come chop my legs out for this, but I feel like they actually listened. From Chaos Armor to iPersona to the changes to interrupt traits, they’ve either listened to many of the things we’ve asked for happened to do some really lucky balancing. It’s interesting to see that it looks like some of changes they made came specifically from builds presented here on the forums, almost as if a dev finally decided to peek into what we have been building and trying to make work and added a little magic touch to it. Right now the builds most affected by this change are:

• Shatter
  AoE Blind on shatter? Mental Torment buff?! Mysterious new Illusions Grandmaster? Shatter builds will undoubtedly evolve after the patch, and the meta shatter build will no longer be the same. With iPersona as baseline, Shatter Mesmer aren’t trait-strangled anymore and have the freedom to invest in another line besides Illusions. I still think DOMINATION & DUELING will be crucial, but it’s interesting to see how many builds will now start to trait into INSPIRATION to gain abilities like Heal/Condi Cleanse on shatter.

• Lockdown

Hehehehehahahahahaa!!!! Man, I could type that a dozen more times and it still wouldn’t adequately express my hype. Anet has recognized Lockdown Mesmer as a truly legitimate playstyle and has actively pushed some pretty heavy support for us. Every lockdown trait has been buffed and rearranged into a better position to allow us to now grab even more lockdown traits and add versatility to lockdown builds. From condirupt to standard power shatter/interrupt every single current lockdown build will be receiving a massive buff. The most interesting buff comes from Duelists Discipline: Interrupts reduce Pistol Cooldown by 50%. I predict so many gunshots ringing out, almost makes me wish for a mainhand pistol.

If you haven’t heard it yet, check out the song “Shatter Me” by the marvelous Lindsey Stirling. How much more Mesmer can you get!?

Ross Biddle.2367:

Oh, also if you need it

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-How-to-make-a-half-decent-vid/first#

CONTEST

Create an awesome Mesmer video using the song “Shatter Me” (link) as the theme. Video must include:

• Interesting use of Mesmer abilities.
• Gameplay, preferably from all formats. (PvE, PvP, WvW)
• At least one stylish Mesmer.

PRIZES

I will be going out of my way to reach out to miss Stirling herself and submit the winning videos to her as a sort of tribute both to GW and to her hard work as an excellent violinist. If it sounds crazy, it’s not. She’s a person just like the rest of us and can be contacted all the same with a little bit of effort.

• 1st place: 30g & secret prize
• 2nd place: 20g & secret prize
• 3rd place: 15g

(All prizes are coming from my pocket. If anyone has anything to donate, me love you longtime.)

RULES

• One entry per person.
• Entries must be submitted to this thread or PMed to Chaos Archangel.5071
• Videos must be no longer than the duration of the song, (4:50) this does not include any pre/post video credits.
• To avoid copyright issues muting the video, please do not post videos before the deadline.
• DEADLINE Voting is finished!

ENTRANTS

• Guapo (My face is Pi) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcafCWKv1HU

• Decimus – https://youtu.be/g2DHLgoJiwc

• Messiah – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSAvmf7MS50

• Buton (Ross Biddle) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySX3QzaIg1c&feature=youtu.be

• Silverkey – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_y4emAQVAY

• Gantsherov – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiY3acPid54

• Blurry – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zNEQJHqZQs

• Elyr(Agendath.4032) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiY3acPid54

• Support

Now here’s a twist I didn’t expect, the INSPIRATION line is now bursting with all sorts of amazing support options, when mixed with the changes made to CHAOS Line (Chaotic Dampening: Chaos Armor grants 5s Protection, reduces Staff cooldowns by 5% for every second you have the armor up. Bountiful Disillusionment grants Stability & boon on shatter. Chaotic Interruption merged with bountiful) support builds now have more potential than ever before. Support builds are also going to benefit highly from iPersona being baseline and not having damage curtailed by traiting into Inspiration, allowing us to make boonshare, or even healer Mesmer without losing out so much on damage.

• Condition

Anet wants us to do confusion, and apparently Torment. They’ve loaded us with all sorts of ways to stack Confusion, with the most interesting being in the form of the new trait: Mistrust. Mistrust creates an AoE confusion burst on any interrupted target. See that beefy zerg over there? Drop a Chaos Storm and some Daze Mantras on them, watch as every interrupted target spikes confusion on all nearby targets, over and over in a glorious chain reaction. Cause some blinds, drop some glamours, don’t forget to mix in some torment and you’ll start to see that Condi Mesmer may now be one of our best AoE-oriented class. With Confusion-on-crit as a minor, Pistol Phantasms become much deadlier, but it also makes you wonder: Will Greatsword clones be our best confusion-stacking illusions? Also: Pistol clones now can cause bleeding when traited independently of Sharper Images (all illusions bleed on crit). Suck on that necros.

• Phantasm
  (TO BE INSERTED)

• Mantra
  (TO BE INSERTED)

• Signet
  (TO BE INSERTED)

One could argue that with less traits and a more streamlined way to grab them they’ve actually heavily diminished the amount of potential build diversity for all classes. I agree, but I do not think this is a bad thing. As far as Mesmer is concerned, the majority of the traits we lost were only used in bad or lackluster builds. Nearly every one of the current traits proposed here is effective and has a use, and every skill tree offers something very tempting.

BASELINE CHANGES
The following changes are now naturally a part of Mesmer and need no trait investments

• Skill trees no longer grant bonus stats. Stats are given through gear and increased base stats
  _Ugh, not exactly a fan of this change. While it makes certain trees like Inspiration less of dps loss to invest in, I really don’t like losing Boon/Condition duration.*
• Illusionary Persona, Illusionary Elasticity, Protected Mantras
  This is awesome! Illusionary Persona is an extremely strong trait that adds a ton of versatility to any Mesmer build that could grab it. iPersona makes the Mesmer count as an additional shatter, which boosts all shatter damage, allows for 0-clone distortions, and an instant point-blank daze. Shatter cooldowns have also been reduced overall to make up for the lack of ‘Shredding’ stat that used to reduce cooldowns when investing in the Illusion line. Many people feel that Deceptive Evasion should’ve been made baseline instead as it is more important to Mesmer builds, but I disagree. Yes, DE is extremely important for clone production, and many Mesmer builds are forced into dueling to take it, but it is still an “-on dodge” trait. It wouldn’t be fair for Mesmer to have their on-dodge baseline and other classes do not, alternatively iPersona should never have been a trait and should have always been baseline. I believe having iPersona as base will help push lackluster builds into viability and may even make it so we don’t have to rely on DE so often for every single kitten Mesmer build.
  
  Illusionary Elasticity adds an additional bounce to all bouncing moves. Greatsword 2, Staff auto (and clones), iDisenchanter and even the Pistol’s magic bullet will all be enhanced. Protected Mantras means that we’ll gain a pretty hefty toughness boost whenever a Mantra is charged, it was never a trait actually worth taking but is definitely nice to have as it further pushes the possibility of bunker Mesmer emerging.
• Glamours 20% Recharge Reduction, Manipulation Range Increase, 15% Phantasm damage increase
  Not much to say here. I wasn’t expecting this at all, but happy for it. Glamours have always had excessive cooldowns, so this is nice. But 1200 range blinks without having to trait for it?! Pinch me. Twice. Both of these changes are especially nice for WvW whether roaming or in a zerg, with 1200r blinks getting us much farther out of danger (or chasing people down) and more rapid glamours in group fights.

A little history lesson for those who’re interested.. and some writing practice while I mindlessly kill hours at work.

A few months back, while browsing through my local Barnes & Nobles with no intention of buying anything (But plenty intent on annoyingly sitting in the middle of an isle reading while people were forced to make disgruntled ugly-faces while they stepped over me) I came upon a book in the bargain section called “Extreme Science.” It looked really interesting, talking about things from Project MKULTRA to the history of LSD to.. omg.. Mesmerism! Being that it was only 10 bucks but filled with awesome, I bought it)

Franz Mesmer, as the name implies, is the father is Mesmerism. He was the first to lead hypnosis out of the occult and into science… barely. He was able to cure people of various diseases from psychosomatic blindness (How in the world do you make yourself believe you’re blind?), to more physical ailments ( His breakthrough case was that of Franzl Oesterline, a 27 year old woman suffering from what Mesmer described as a convulsive malady, “the most troublesome symptoms of which was that the blood rushed to her head and there set up the most cruel toothaches and earaches, followed by delirium, rage, vomiting and swooning.” These symptoms were so severe that Fraulein Oesterline moved into Mesmer’s house to receive round-the-clock care.*)

.. But he didn’t realize he was hypnotizing people. He thought his success was because of magnetism. He assumed the magnetic “tides” of the world also affected us as humans, occasionally throwing our “animal magnetism” out of balance and causing illness. Headaches? Nausea? Go swallow some iron and stick a kitchen magnet to each side of your head. Chronic Diarrhea? Rub a balloon on your scalp. That’ll work…

In fact, it actually did.

Using magnets to induce a feeling of “fluid draining from the body.” He was able to cure Fraulein Oesterline nearly instantly. Mesmer didn’t believe the magnet had healed her though, he believed that he had restored her depleted animal magnetism. The magnet, and some fancy hand gestures (known as the Mesmeric Pass), were simply his tools…. Yep. He cast a Mantra of Resolve on her, and his Focus was an Adamant Guard Gismo.

In Mesmer’s time, people were using leeches, drugs, and all kinds of painful, disturbing stuff to cure people… Like Heroin to cure a cough. So Mesmer’s methods were preferable. He successfully cured quite a few people, and ended up with so many patients that he started hosting group sessions.
Being a fan of theatrics and showmanship, he would darken the room, light candles and play soothing music while he groped his patients into healthiness..

Of course, with fame, comes an ample amount of haters. Even Benjamin Franklin had his hater-pants on tight. The scientific community could find no connection between magnetism and Franz Mesmer’s curing.. but failed to notice the profound effects of hypnotism on the mind.

Still, his legacy persisted. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about hypnotism is…

“In the latter half of the 20th Century, hypnosis expanded its horizons and moved into new territory. Our understanding of the trance state has been refined, so much so that the state/non-state debate, which preoccupied academic minds for generations, has come to seem rather outmoded. Advances in brain imaging technology, and the work of therapists like Stephen Wolinsky and psychologists like Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell, have shown, in effect, that both sides were right.

Brain imaging scans have shown that hypnotic suggestions do have an effect on perception. A study conducted at Stanford University showed that the colour processing areas of the brain were activated when subjects received a hypnotic suggestion that the black-and-white photo they were looking at was in colour. Griffin and Tyrrell explicitly linked hypnotic trance to the REM state, in their monograph Hypnosis and Trance States; A New Psychobiological Explanation (1999). At the same time, Wolinsky demonstrated that the so-called “Deep Trance Phenomena” can all be detected in everyday waking consciousness – in other words, “normal” consciousness is made up of layers of hypnotic trance that we move into and out of all day long. Hypnosis does produce a distinct state of mind – but it’s a perfectly ordinary and natural one that’s part of everyday consciousness.*

Yeah.. We’re hypnotized ALL THE TIME.

[*= taken from http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/franz-anton-mesmer/ ]

Hey Dantes, awesome list, just a note on the Lockdown Mesmer:

“A newer build with some of flavor of the GW1 Mesmer. It plays similar to a phantasm Mesmer but you constantly snare the opponent. And use well timed interrupts to stop or slow down key skills while staking might to increase your offensive power.”

One of the key aspects of the traditional 4/4/6 lockdown Mesmer build is it’s ability to strip boons (Domination VII) better than pretty much any other class/build besides 4/4/0/0/6 Shatter builds. Besides the interrupts, this is a big part of what make that build valuable and is far more important to trait Shattered Concentration over GS training. (Also, staff is a viable alternative to GS)

I’d also argue that grabbing offhand Focus is considerably more valuable than Pistol for tPvP as the focus offers an AoE interrupt, AoE Cripple, AoE Swiftness, LIGHT combo field (retaliation), and the iWarden nullifies projectiles (and.. hits in an AoE).

If you’ve seen the previews for our upcoming trait changes, all our weapon traits are getting a shiny new coat of paint except two: Focus, Sword.

The focus trait(focus skills reflect) is fantastic and was already one of the best weapon traits, so that’s understandable.

But the sword? (50 precision wielding a sword/spear)

What. The. Eff?

Of all our weapons, the sword is currently in the most need of a rework. Sword 3 is pitifully unreliable now that the clone is almost always killed and offhand sword skills both pale in comparison to the newly traited pistol.

When the patch drops, there will be no reason to ever trait the sword besides a reduced cool down.

While I applaud many of the currently proposed changes, this is a terrible oversight. Sword is one of our only two mainhand options and is becoming an irrelevant offhand once HoT drops.

What do you think a rework of the sword trait should look like?

• Sword clones inflict decent damage
• Sword attacks have a 25% chance to steal a boon & transfer a condi.
• Crits with sword have a 25% chance to inflict slow

O.K. This is getting silly.

There is a lot of over dramatics and generalizing all over the place.

Why do people like to blame the entire forum for the actions of a few? And if you really look at those threads, they’re only pointing at a few specific traits that need tweaking.

All these diagnosis and claiming Mesmers want themselves nerfed makes the situation seem way worse than it really is. Its just a few non-Mesmers complaining and some Mesmer mains with obvious concerns over some extremely powerful specs that they don’t want Anet to overnerf like Chaotic Dampening and Maimed.

… And can we please stop with the underdog thing? People are blowing that way out of proportion.

Mesmer Tips: When you stealth, instead of running away from the opponent, which is obvious, cross pass them and run the opposite way instead.
//iLeap-Swap is an AoE immobilize
//Chaos Armor becomes more effective the more people who have it are close together. Blast that chaos storm!

Sup guys! I wanted to quickly address the “you’re never on!” messages I get everytime I log in. =P

As I’ve been getting swamped more with writing/drawing/capoeira I’ve found myself with less and less time to play, and when I do that gaming usually goes to the Xbox. I’m a console gamer at heart -from NES all the way through to X1- so before Gw2 came out I was practically console-exclusive.

That changed when this awesome game featuring this awesome class came out. I got to delve into a whole new world of gaming, meet some incredibly awesome and intelligent people (a true breath of fresh air from the intellectual standard of console gamers x.x) and even learned things about myself that I never really realized. No other game has inspired me to interact with a community like this one, to spend hours of my life writing guides (dat nerd wit somethin to say!), to co-host a podcast, write fan fiction and much more, but the most incredible, fulfilling thing about playing GW2 is the people I’ve met from around the world. Getting to talk builds with people from Greece, receiving compliments from strangers in Japan, nothing in any videogame has ever been more rewarding than moments like those.

To be clear, I’m not quitting GW2, I’ll still be hopping on from time to time specifically because of the people I’ve met, but I won’t be on often and with this asinine nerf to sword that just dropped I dunno how much of that time will be spent on Mesmer, so if I happen to not see yall again I wanted to give leave a note to a few special people:

- Fay: You’re the first female to ever beat me in any videogame despite me trying my very best.. and you beat me like it was nothing! Despite that, always enjoy getting to play with you.
- colesy: We probably don’t really agree on anything, and have polar opposite views on many things, but I do respect your diligence on the dungeon meta. I remember one PM we had, where I was trying to get a better view on your perspective on builds. I asked you to give me your opinion on the Chaos Maesto build… and you never responded to the PM again. =P
- StickerHappy: My lockdown buddy! I swear I never ignore you despite that my goldfish attention span makes it seem so. x_x You were one of the first lockdown Mesmer I was able to have a real nice conversation on the subject with and one of the first that comes to mind whenever I think Lockdown.
- skcamow: I wished you lived nearby, you’d make an awesome bar-hopping/drinking buddy. You always hold me down and are one of my best friends on GW2.
- Kaiwanan: I will never be able to pronounce your name right, and butchered it spectacularly on the podcast. You’ve been on the forums longer than I have, yet its a shame we never get to play/chat more often.
- Me Games Ma: I couldn’t NOT include you in this list, ever helpful and encouraging and you being inspired by me inspired me to be better overall!
- Pyro: Not much I can say here, really. You taught me the majority of what I know about the game, inspired me to believe in what I say as long as I have the facts to back it up, and helped me realize how much potential I really have.
- Alissah: ALISSAH! O_O WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ARE YOU EVEN READING THIS!? NO ME QUITTE PAS!

I know I’m missing people, of course, and probably some really obvious ones too. That’s just further proof of how many great people we have who’ve come together on our forums. *If you wanna keep in contact with me, you can still reach me on the forums via PM, on Xbox as “Chaos Archangei” or my art email at the_chaos.dimension@yahoo.com

THOUGHTS ON THE MESMER
We. Need. An. Expansion.
At this point, since Anet doesn’t seem to want to add the simple fixes that would be a huge help to the class and would rather nerf us time and time again, I feel like nothing short of new weapons/traits/utilities will add some luster to this dull gem. I love the class still, I love the core mechanics and style, but the devs seem determined to gradually lower the class’s effectiveness in all forms of play. The “bugfix” to iLeap is further proof of this and the last straw for me.

If I could change things, I’d make torch a true AoE Phantasm, summon phantasms with invuln until their first attack is finished, add a mainhand pistol or offhand dagger, add optional alternate shatter effects, and have the devs ACTUALLY COMMENT ON OUR FEEDBACK!

PU is not the most viable/effective Mesmer build for sPvP right now.

While PU definitely works in the right hands, and can be effective in team play when smartly utilized, most higher level players generally agree that your standard 4/4/0/0/6 Shatter or 4/4/6/0/0 Lockdown are the most superior specs.

While I linked basic templates, you can essentially make almost any weapon combination work. Its highly recommended to use a Sword if you’re just starting, but Staff/Greatsword can be just as effective.

(Mine is a PvP perspective, however this thread is intended for all Mesmer opinions across all formats)

• Evasive Mirror – With Blinding Dissipation stealing the Dueling show, it’s easy to forget that we have another strong and interesting option in the Master tier. Evasive Mirror synergizes wonderfully with Master of Manipulation and/or Warden’s feedback to make you a ranger/engineer’s worst nightmare. (Shoutouts to Kentigem -Daniel Handler- for putting me on to this awesome trait)

• Persistence of Memory – 2 seconds doesn’t mean much right? Well when you take Mental Defense and/or trait your weapons, you start to see that it isn’t too difficult to get 4-6s cooldowns on phantasms every 10 seconds or so.

• Bountiful Disillusionment – The Chaos line really hit the jackpot when it comes to grandmaster traits. All three are wonderful, but Disillusionment tends to get overlooked in favor of PU or CI. BD is a powerful trait for many reasons, especially combined with the other BD: Blinding dissipation. On-demand stability should not be overlooked.

• Restorative Illusions – Here is one of the staples of sustain in the Inspiration line. Restorative Illusions heals you per-clone-shattered and even 0-clone shatters can offer a decent chunk of life. But on-demand instant condition removal ONTOP of the heal? This is hands down one of the best traits for adding survivability to your Mesmer ontop of the passive benefits you gain just from traiting into Inspiration?

What say you? What other less popular traits do you think deserve some more spotlight?

oh lawd

@Necrotize: Pretty much this, but these aren’t definitive decision rather than impressions based on what we’ve seen and known. Buuut last time I called ..um.. a certain person out on their exaggerations and overly dramatic negativity their next like.. 4 posts were prefaced with “I’m scared to post because chaos will attack me, but…”

@Levetty: You do realize that you tend to over exaggerate, right?

-If we go heavy into shattering (which Anet thinks is the only thing we should do)…
-In terms of group support, which is what everybody is excited about and thinks will get us guaranteed slots everywhere…
-Failry indepth account of why I think a certain mechanic won’t be that great, usual suspect barge in to tell me to kitten off for not agreeing with them adding nothing to the conversation. Mesmer forums in a nut shell ladies and gentlemen.

and … you do realize you’re the same person who said “the devs wont listen to us. mesmer is gonna suck. they don’t care about what we say and if you look at the past you can tell this wont change” ?

I know you may consider this a “personal attack” or whatever but it’s really not.. I do agree that the shield phantasm will likely struggle in largescale combat, whether PvP or WvW. But I think both skills are good enough to be worth taking, ESPECIALLY if Tides of Time has no target limit and can mow through a zerg stunning/halting striking.

That brings up the debate of “viable vs optimal.” If you’re running a confusion build in PvE then you’re statistically doing less damage than you would in a power build.

But at the same time, is it worth it to run a meta build if you’re not enjoying yourself in the process? If doing that turn the game into work like Foosnark says, then what’s the point? I think in the end how ‘viable’ a pve build is comes down to how smooth and wipe-free the run goes.

@MailMail: Do I think our AoE capabilities need to be buffed? Yeah. What offensive AoEs do we have?

• Greatsword: Mindspike & zerker
• Staff: Chaos Storm
• Shatters, F1/F2

… Anddd that’s about it. Yeah we have null field and feedback, even Mantra of Pain/Distraction. But that’s just the problem: these things are less practical and more situational. You only sometimes take feedback or nullfield. Shatters are dependent on clone production. Mantra of pain rarely ever gets taken. MoDistraction has kitten radius.

Bouncing attacks on phantasms do have a certain novelty, but there is a reason iDisenchanter is one of our worst forms of condition removal outside of a 1v1 and rarely ever gets taken. Theres a reason torch is considered to have 1.5 skills… and did you ever actually notice the alacrity iAvenger gave you? These phantasms not only have no team benefit but they don’t work more often then they do.

Carighan.6758:

Silverkey.2078:

That it is vastly inferior to AOE in number of targets and randomness. So it makes those phantasms fine in 1v1 but worse as the number increases.

The ability type frankly just isn’t comparable.
A bouncing attack can – usually – hit the same target more than once. Also it has a potentially far greater reach. An AE attack hits once in a defined area.

In the case of GW2, it adds that AE attacks are limited to 5 targets, while bouncing attacks are limited to X targets, X being dependent on the attack.

“Inferior”? That’s a pretty crude statement to throw out. Pre-nerf Mirror Blade as an AE would have been (in fact, it’d still be) pretty rubbish, even with hitting 5 allies around the one enemy target. Phantasmal Mage just giving burnin/retal in an area to 3-5 targets each could be superior, but with PMage the whole thing is so weak that I find it difficult to argue whether A or B would be marginally less bad.

But in general? Just not comparable. Say you got two targets and a few allies, set up like this: T1… A… A… A… T2. Casting an AE at either T1 or T2 would hit that target and one ally. Cast a bouncing attack with 5 targets total and you hit them all.

Cast that bouncing attack and if you’re not in range it wont bounce back to you. Worst, cast it and god forbid there was a guardian somewhere in there and it just got blocked/aegis’d. How about when it DOES hit but bounces off the opponent, their pet, some clones, an earth elemental, and somehow gets reflected by some random reflection?

The problem with bounces isn’t just in if it can connect, but the fact that these projectiles are so easily destroyed/evaded that you can’t really predict when you’ll get the reward. How many times do you use iDisenchanter only for it’s projectile to get dodged… and thus you never actually get any conditions removed before you have to shatter it or it gets killed.

Phantasms tend to only get 1-2 attacks off before they die, even worse for the torch/shield phantasms since they have insanely long attack rates. I’d rather something guaranteed to work then having to rely on my opponent to get the benefit.

Yea. Warriors got fire. We got time control.

Freaking time control!

Sidenote: Yet despite that, I’m still here if you wanna honestly talk shop and theorycraft.

But if you wanna argue, use legit facts and not broad generalizations.

Elementalist:

• note: Heat Sync is currently over-performing in its ability to spread all boons to allies. We’ll be looking to narrow down the boons it can spread, to just the Might boon, in order to keep its purpose more clear.

Mesmer:

• Temporal Curtain now grants 12s swiftness the first time an ally passes over the curtain, 1s swiftness each other time.

It looks like Tempest won’t be getting Signet of Inspiration after all. Additionally, we got a pretty nice buff with the fix to Temporal Curtain finally working with other forms of swiftness.

Things are looking good for boonshare Mesmer at the moment, especially with the coming of Chronomancer enhancing our abilities even further. Like lockdown, there is a strong chance boonshare could become a more prominent playstyle, especially with reports of being able to stack tons of quickness ontop of everything else.

In fact, I believe Quickness sharing along with Alacrity has the potential to make boonshare a very powerful spec for PvP and WvW.

After testing Alacrity/Well support and Chrono-lockdown, this next beta I intend on focusing on raw boonsharing with an emphasis on quickness. The build would look something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAsdWn0nBlphlfCGoBUrhlej6cEKhWzMAugMquUb1ZF-TpxEABQcCAGvMQDHBAb2fAgDBADPAAA

Featuring: Illusionary Inspiration / Seize the Moment / Bountiful Disillusionment & Chaotic Dampening

Now this would be more of a broader boonsharing build, if I wanted to focus on a ..uh.. Quicklock(?) build I’m thinking…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWn0nBlphlfCGoBUrhlTjysFGiiiMA2ggqOaz2vF-TZxHABEcKAuuMQAHBAV2fAgHAAA

Quicklock has a nice ring, and the idea is to mix Seize the Moment with Furious Interruption for a strong boonshare. I’d miss out on Inspiration, making this a rather offensive boonshare build, but if I have to chose between Inspiration and Chaos, Chaos edges out Inspiration in terms of types of boons shared (Protection, Stability) , despite Inspiration allowing for a higher boonshare output (losing Illusionary Inspiration.)

A lot of jumbled ideas. Maybe someone can help me sort things out before I get testing tonight? What do you think?

• Chaotic Dampening Reduced from 5% to 2% – This change makes obtaining a flat 20% cooldown reduction rather difficult for any build that doesn’t invest into sword+staff and atleast two ethereal fields… Except when you take into account Alacrity. Chaotic Dampening stacks well with alacrity for a speedy recovery.

• Maimed the Disillusioned Reduced torment stacks from 2 to 1 – With Imagined Burden, Deceptive Evasion, and Chronophantasma this trait is actually rather good for Chronomancer… But not for core Mesmer.

Right now Chronomancer seems like the Pay-to-Win version of Mesmer, and seeing Mesmer further nerfed to accommodate for this elite spec cements that point in further. Do you think that Mesmer is nerfed for the sake of other players, or for the sake of our elite?

Edit: This was made before the stream. I am far more impressed now, will edit shortly!

Of course, coolness is objective when I say so subjective, and we’ve still more to discover about this new class but…

The Dragon Hunter!

• Guardians.. a supporty class is getting more… active support?
• Guards get a longbow.
• Class Mechanic (Virtues) changed. Burning Virtue now .. Burns more! Healing Virtue now grants a leap along with its heal, making it .. Less accurate? Aegis virtue creates a shield that shelters allies from all damage; can’t really hate on that one it’s pretty tight.
• Traps! Made of light! Sorta like symbols but now more Ranger-esque!

Sorry guards, but nothing here is really all that impressive at first glance, hopefully the stream tomorrow will shed more light (get it? get it!?!) on this elite specialization. The Chronomancer spec seems like a much more dramatic change of style from core Mesmer than Hunter does for Guardian.

One down.. Six more to go! Who do you think will have the coolest specialization? I’m betting Necros may give us a run for our money. Dat Greatsword.

OK, SO QUICKNESS IS COOL AND ALL BUT.. HOW IS IT VALUABLE TO A MESMER?

Good question! Glad I asked!

• Phantasm Summons
• Mantra Charges
• Healing Skills
• Stomps/Rezzing
• Channeling

(Weapon skills are listed in order of most benefitting to least benefitting from Quickness)

• SCEPTER Every single scepter skill gains a considerable boost from Quickness. The autoattack will net more damage and produce clones quicker, the counter attack will proc faster, leaving less room for the opponent to react in the time between the block and torment, and most importatly Confusing Images will channel far quicker netting more power damage than even Blurred Frenzy! It’s advised to stick a Pistol along with the scepter when working with quickness for a strong mid-range game and access to a reliable interrupt.

• GREATSWORD I’ll just.. I’ll just throw this out there: Quickness Mirrorblade(2) -> Mindspike (3) -> Shatter. Owch! Quickness on greatsword is already a dangerous thing, since every skill has a bit of a cast time that can be enhanced, but when the patch drops the Greatsword trait will be changed to reduce GS cooldowns with every 3rd hit from the autoattack… Feel free to start rubbing your hands together sinisterly(which, amazingly, is an actual word) any time now.

• SWORD The sword benefits from quickness mostly through its autoattack (1). While both iSwordsman(5) and Illusionary Counter(4) on the offhand also benefit, the autoattack will both do more damage and strip boons at a much faster rate. Considering that it also cleaves (hits multiple targets), it is worth considering a Sigil of Rage.

• STAFF Like sword, the autoattack on the Staff along with the iWarlock summon benefit the most from Quickness. With the staff auto gaining an additional bounce in the upcoming patch, Quickness could help make the staff a decent power damage weapon while improving its already good condition application. Chaos Storm, Phase Retreat, and Chaos Armor are all either instant or near-instant and thus wouldn’t gain much if any benefit.

• PISTOL Pretty self explainatory, but its worth noting that the Pistol is the ideal offhand in a build that focuses on Quickness due to the cast time on both skills. I’d recommend combining it with Scepter, but Sword works just as well.

• Focus and Torch don’t gain as much benefit from Quickness as the other weapons, and thus there isn’t much to say on them.

BUILDS
(Coming soon)

VIDS
(Coming when the builds come.. Ideally.)