Guild Wars 2

Look at it this way: The game is meant to be played in a variety of ways, and the trading post exists so that you can easily acquire the gear/material to facilitate the type of game you want to play.

Looking at it in this vein, the free and large trading post is actually very beneficial. If you want to WvW, you can use it to sell bags and buy gear. If you want to farm mats, you can use the TP to sell those you don’t need, whereas if you like to craft, you can use the tp in lieu of farming and as a market to sell your crafted goods. If you like dungeons, you can use the TP to pick up potions and unload drops. If you like world events, same deal.

While there are certainly side effects to a unified and lightly regulated trading post, in aggregate it’s so beneficial to most players in that it improves the way they want to play GW2. I think this is the lens through which JS and others thus see it.

Try a 30/30/10/0/0 with knights gear, knights/soldier/zerker trinkets, and melandru/hoelbrak and lemongrass, GS, Sword/Torch with sigils of fire and stamina. Take the two mantra grandmaster traits plus illusion damage, GS cooldowns, deceptive evasion, phantasmal fury, and debilitating dissiption. Use mantras of recovery, concentration, resolve, and either a glamour or blink.

Playstyle is to move just behind the front line, unload with GS skills, shatter, swap to sword/torch and push through the melee using sword, prestige, and dodging. With sigil of stamina and clone-death traits, you’re tagging everyone and spreading some condos with nonstop clone spamming. You can either stay on the heels of the melee classes or stay with ranged and jump into melee, burst DPS, and then blink back to safety.

Anyway, this is just one DPS option for zerg play.

If you’re playing a pure power-based build, I’d reccomed sigil of fire instead of battle, especially in large battles. If you do the math, your damage is actually higher with two flame blasts per swap as opposed to three stacks of might, and it’s more or less garaunteed aoe damage. This is not to say might isn’t good, but sigil of fire will do for you. In hybrid or condition builds, might is more valuable, and thus sigil of battle can be more effective. But for straight power big-fight builds, go fire. (And this is coming from someone who used battle forever and has them on like all my weapons.)

Okaishi.8320:

Bunda.2691:

It comes down to fun. And for all non thieves, getting ganked from out of nowhere by an enemy you didn’t/can’t see just isn’t fun. This should be the baseline of this discussion.

This corresponds with a general issue of fairness. The most fun games are not necessarily the most balanced, but the ones in which you always believe that you have an equal chance to win. The stealth-opening gameplay of the thief unfortunately runs counter to this principle.

It’s not a l2p or “try playing a thief” issue either. I accept that playing one isn’t easy, and that other classes have counters. The issue is that in WvW all other classes allow for you to enter combat on a more agreed-upon playing field, whereas thieves’ mechanics are all about starting off with the advantage. Again, this just isn’t fun.

Stealth should be used to drop targeting and allow for brief repositioning. It should not be allowed to give one player a massive leg up at the start of a fight.

You’re misunderstanding one thing though. Thieves generally aren’t in stealth before ganking an enemy player. I almost always see thieves coming just by keeping an eye on my surroundings. Unlike what certain people believe, thieves don’t roam around on the map permanently in stealth. I believe that many people mistake getting ganked from behind/the sides with getting ganked from stealth.

Really. Stealth —> 1500-range steal —> cloak and dagger (stealth) —> backstab.

You’re correct that they’re not always running around in stealth, but most good thieves will use stealth (or terrain, if that’s an option) to position themselves for the above combo opener. And that combo + venom is brutal and essentially unblockable if you can’t see the thief coming. That is the problem.

Again, I’m not saying that combo is the easiest to pull off, but few other classes have similar combos that, if played well, are essentially guaranteed damage.

I love playing and running alongside thieves, and the class mechanics. It’s only the high-damage stealth opener that I find problematic.

It comes down to fun. And for all non thieves, getting ganked from out of nowhere by an enemy you didn’t/can’t see just isn’t fun. This should be the baseline of this discussion.

This corresponds with a general issue of fairness. The most fun games are not necessarily the most balanced, but the ones in which you always believe that you have an equal chance to win. The stealth-opening gameplay of the thief unfortunately runs counter to this principle.

It’s not a l2p or “try playing a thief” issue either. I accept that playing one isn’t easy, and that other classes have counters. The issue is that in WvW all other classes allow for you to enter combat on a more agreed-upon playing field, whereas thieves’ mechanics are all about starting off with the advantage. Again, this just isn’t fun.

Stealth should be used to drop targeting and allow for brief repositioning. It should not be allowed to give one player a massive leg up at the start of a fight.

I didn’t mean to cherry pick what you said, and you make a good point re: stats.

My evidence for the WvW and 6/6 preferences is twofold, though I admit neither is perfect:
- anecdotal evidence via popular builds, guides, discussions with guild, listening on teamspeak/mumble, etc. And in this, there is a significant preference in WvW for a few rune sets
- look at the prices of the most expensive runes. While it’s again not conclusive evidence, there is an argument to be made that the expensive ones are more popular. And if you look at the most expensive runes, they are all (with two exceptions—divinity and exuberance) runes with amazing 6/6 skills.

I agree that there should be sacrifices in taking sets. All I was advocating was an increased variety.

TheGuy.3568:

Most 6/6 bonuses aren’t good enough to warrant this.

There are 60+ rune sets with lots of different bonuses and they add new sets in periodically. I think it is fine as is.

I would actually argue that most people take their runes based on the 6/6, with the exception of few who just want max stats (divinity, ruby orbs, etc.). And really, how many players are running mixed sets by choice (with the exception of those going for boon duration)?

In WvW, it seem that >50% of people run soldiers, melandru, or traveler, and to a lesser extent hoelbrak, perplexity, lyssa, and scholar. All more or less for the 6/6.

My only point was that there are some good 2/2 or 4/4 skills that I’ll never take because either the 6/6 is not useful or there is another more useful 6/6 elsewhere. It’d be nice to do some mixing of sets.

Qaelyn.7612:

Well, in the interest of it being worth continuing to try different things I am experimenting with a mantra build again. So far so good in hotjoin, but well, it’s hotjoin.

I do miss my 30 points in Chaos and PU though. They are pretty addictive.

Try going 30 in domination for the harmonious mantras. It’s a whole new playstyle. Right now I’m using an interrupt/phantasm build in wvw. It’s a much more active than PU (but what isn’t), using daze/interrupts defensively and hitting hard with high power. And unlike PU, people aren’t yet as good responding to it.

The way runes are structured is highly detrimental to mixing and build diversity, for two reasons:
1. the 3rd and 5th stat bonuses are generally wasted unless taking a full set
2. the 6/6 skill, generally being the most powerful, discourages any mixing of sets

Now, I know there are exceptions (such as for boon duration), but in general there is almost no incentive to mix runes, which highly limits build diversity. I’m not entirely sure how to fix this, but I can think of a few options:
- increase slightly the power of the 2nd and 4th skills and tone down the 6/6
- make some 4/4 or 6/6 bonuses available only for mixed sets
- standardize the stat increases on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th slots independent of runes; or in other words, allow the ability to get the +50 and +90 stat bonuses even if you mix and match.

Anyway, just a thought on trying to increase build diversity. There are a lot of runes that I’d use for the 2/2 or 4/4 bonuses, but are never touched because a) the 6/6 is either not good or too good on another set, or b) I lose a lot of stats in mixing sets.

Just flip a few mats or run a few dungeons and buy your traveller runes. You won’t regret it.

I agree that the problem is that they reduce build diversity, but until then just buy a set.

Personally, i’d like to see a little less emphasis on the #6 rune-set skill, becauae right now that skill is often powerful enough to discourage mixing runes. I’d love to see anet find ways to encourage mixed sets to increase diversity.

I’ve found Mantra Mastery (cooldown reduction) to be next to useless. The reason being that you need to time your mantra recharges to moments when you can breath for a sec, and the chance of that moment occurring right at cooldown is next to zero. In general, you’re waiting until you decoy or have stability or cover before you recharge, and the extra few seconds doesn’t really help there. Also, I’m talking wvw here. PvE might be a different story.

Now, if the trait reduced the recharge time by 20 percent, it’s a whole different story.

+1 for Merry Mantras.

After going 30 in domination for harmonious mantras, I’m not sure I can ever go back to ether feast in WvW. Combined with Mender’s purity, the instant spike heals and condi removal are borderline op. And the best part is you don’t need PU because you have so much healing. Also, just time the recharge for when you go decoy or duck behind cover. Once you get used to it, its really not bad. (And I retract a previous comment about hating mantras. I’m beginning to fall in love with them.)

You do, and thus the trade off. But you shouldn’t bunker for bunker’s sake. I mean, it’s fun not to die, but I feel like mesmer should be tailored to something specific (burst, condis, etc.), because unlike say, guardian or ele, we sacrifice a lot of group utility for personal tankiness. I can maybe see this as useful in spvp to challenge a far point, but with invis you likely won’t cap it either. And in zergy fights you can provide glamours and invis. But I’m not sure you have enough burst and mobility for roaming.

Qaelyn.7612:

You said PU was “so 2013”. One week left.

Where does anything bigger than a 5 man fight matter? Zerging? I don’t like my mesmer in zergs anyway, and that doesn’t leave much else. In PvE I think everyone pretty much agrees PU sucks.

Oh yeah, I did say that. A bit thick at the moment, it seems.

I think my experience is colored by my server (TC), where the population is high enough that small fights always seem to end with reinforcements pouring in from one site or the other, and so I’ve thus been forced into larger fights where PU is less useful. That said, I’ve been enjoying a 30/30/0/10/0 mesmer in big fights, so long as lag doesn’t get too high.

Qaelyn.7612:

Bunda.2691:

Come on, condition PU is so 2013. PU Phantasms are the new thing. Too bad they’re next to useless in anything but roaming.

If by “roaming” you mean “doing pretty much anything”, then yeah, they’re useless except for roaming.

Seriously, what’s with all the oversimplifications? PU is one trait and there are dozens of builds that use it.

PS Even if you’re right, I still have 1 more week to enjoy it.

Wait, one week? What?

And yeah,was being a little coy. But I mostly mean that, in my opinion, PU has much less utility in anything bigger than a 5 man fight. It inherently brings no group utility, and since conditions are harder to stick in large fights, that forces us towards phantasms and shatters. And since phatasms go down way to quick in large fights, that leaves shatter, and I’ve yet to see a good PU shatter build. Anyone have one by chance?

Come on, condition PU is so 2013. PU Phantasms are the new thing. Too bad they’re next to useless in anything but roaming.

Might stacking is much less valuable if you have no crit. Consider it like this. Say you have 3k attack with zero crit. Even if you gain 20 might stacks (700 power), each attack is doing only ~25% more damage. Now consider that 3k attack with a modest 50% crit chance and 50% crit damage. Now, every other attack is powered at 6k, for an average of 4500 (+50%). And that is with zero might.

Compare this to, say, BlackDevil’s 10/20/30/10 but using knight’s gear w/ traveler runes and zerker trinkets. Without might or stacks, you have 3.3k attack, 50% crit, 70% crit damage. And you are averaging 5.28k attack power. With full precision stacks, sigil of accuracy, and just 10 stacks of might, you’re averaging ~6.5k attack power. And then don’t forget bleeds as well (~60 damage per bleed per second with just a little might and zero condi gear).

Pretty sure my math is right, but please correct if wrong. The tl;dr is that if you’re going direct damage, you need crit.

These days I like going glass if I use PU. I’ve gotten wrecked by some staff, sword/pistol PU builds running rampagers.

@Dekk
I give this build wholehearted support. I really like this setup when you’re running with a large group, and I’ve been testing the setup (and variants) for the past few days, but I’m finding your damage output a bit limited in smaller fights.

A couple quick observations:

- Ditch Empowering Mantras. Unless I’m mistaken, it does’t affect phantasms, and as such doesn’t do a whole lot for you. Instead, consider taking Phantasmal Fury or, in large groups, Protective Mantras. The extra 600 toughness goes really far in zerg battles.
- Also, when running in large groups, consider swapping mantra of distraction for mantra of resolve. The three stuns, while amazing in small battles, don’t really do as much in large fights with all of the damage mitigation of massed groups, and the aoe condi clear of resolve can provide a lot of team support (not to mention veil or null field or so forth).
- Finally, consider the pistol or offhand sword instead of the torch for small group roaming, and decoy instead of mantra of stability. Since most of your damage is coming from phantasms, you really need two hard hitting phantasms to do enough damage. With all of your interrupts, the torch adds a bit less than a hard hitting phantasm. And between sword and blink, you already have a couple stun breaks. Instead, decoy will give you another and time to recharge your mantra

Anyway, love the build, but I think you should tailor it into two versions—one for small roaming, and the other for large battles. Of course take it as you will, but I’ve been using:

Large Battles: Domination III, X, XI; Dueling II, VII, X; Mantras Stability, Resolve & Blink; GS, Sword/Torch
Small Fights/Roaming: Domination II, III, XI; Dueling II, IX, X (taking pistol); Mantra Distraction, Decoy, Blink; GS, Sword/pistol (or staff and sword/pistol).

Just food for thought. But great build. I’m fully on the 30/30/0/10/0 bandwagon.

Yeah, I know it’s totally lame, but I’d love to swap my mantra build for my 30/30/0/10/0 mantra that I’ve been using recently. Totally understand if its late, and I admit that this is a lame request, but I’d be more than happy to compensate testers with a (reasonably priced) exotic of their choice to make up for it. If not, happy to wait until next contest, and also happy to help anyone test theirs if they need help.

Sorry, I just so want to make a viable mantra build, and I think I may finally have something. Really appreciate everyone’s work on this.

Used this last night for a little solo roaming. Same 30/30/0/10/0, but used pretty much all knights gear for some added toughness. Also ran halting strike and Mantra of Distraction for 5+ interrupts (with weapon skills), of which I’d generally land two or three in 1v1. But this is still a phantasm dominant build, and I forget that high bleed stacks still do some damage when you can stack might. Anyway, this is what I used, switching GS for staff whenever I felt like it, as both work well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8al4zKqnRTmGb9IypCQHpHqmptalegb52FC-jkDBYLCyUEAkIQEBwJQFRjtMsIasqaA6FYqTI6To6XQqYweDY+DJVGgqFA-w

Worked pretty well except when ambushed by necros and didn’t have time to switch in mantra of resolve.

And totally unrelated, what is that ranged underwater necro skill that drops you in like two seconds? I went from full health to downed in moments, and I think the necro knew it was a bit OP because he just stood aside and let me heal up.

Yeah Joe, wtf. Learn to play man.

Seriously though, that video was awesome, and your play makes my mesmer look almost … rangerish. Very nicely done.

I just happened to try it first with Rampager’s gear (as its been sitting unused in my bank forever). I think youre totally right that zerker might just have more bang, evwn without the bleeds.

Last night I ran Protective Mantras when running this build with my guild (no need for duelists discipline in large fights) and found it really effective. I tried both my knights/zerk and dire sets and it worked with both, taking mantras of recovery, concentration, and resolve, or sometimes glamors for the confusion on glamor if traited. I basically never got downed while charging a mantra (though, to be fair, the guardians in my party may have had something to do with that), as your armor goes through the roof, and you have so many stun breaks and condi clears. I’m sure my damage is subpar, but my numbers seemed ok and I still got a good number of bags.

Tl;dr. For roaming protective mantras is probably not as useful, but it seemed to work in large chaotic fights.

Can the +600 toughness on mantra cast be utilized defensively? I keep wanting to make that trait work, but haven’t yet found a way.

Yeah, mantras just kind of suck, as much as I really want them to work. Maybe a small decrease in charge time would change everything

Regardign the build, I think it’s only viable in WvW. For solo roaming, with mix of Knights and Rabid, you’re able to get you toughness up to around 1700, which in my experience is enough to survive bursts. And with full sigil of perceptions stacks + oil, you can get your crit chance to around 80%. Your power suffers a little, but with sigils of battle, might-on-dodge food, and GS2, you can ratchet up your power quickly. But it really shines in groups when you can go glass have others provide support.

Edit: I should have said that mantra recharge is brutal, especially without access to stealth. Otherwise, mantras are quite useful. There are just very few other skills in the game with such a large penalty for using them in combat.

Qaelyn.7612:

Well I don’t like rampager’s in the PvP version, just too glassy.

And even with 6 condition cleanses in 15 seconds I had no chance against a condi-spammer necro. I think that’s one place where PU is flatly better — it doesn’t have as much condition clearing but it has more avoidance tricks. Still though, just a mesmer weakness overall I guess.

I’ll try it later with Mantra of Resolve. Also, try it with staff instead of GS for PvP.

Qaelyn.7612:

Just tried it. Not bad so far. It’s obviously much less defensive than my PU hybrid but it hits like a ton of bricks. I like it better than the more conventional phantasm builds I’ve tried before. And I like getting the 3 charges thing more than the heal-on-charge thing.

I kept the scepter in my build because I figure this is supposed to be hybrid and, well, I’m a scepter guy. Even the scepter #3 hits pretty hard with the 30/30 up top. Also swapped cripple for greatsword training.

And I’m trying my auto-mantra-of-pain thing again too because I am determined to find a way to make that work.

Going to try rampager amulet next but that probably won’t end well as it will leave me rather glassy.

Yeah, the third utility slot is complely switchable, but makes mantras even more viable. Let me know what kind of damage you are getting with the three manta of pain hits.

@qaelyn: Bleeds. Tons and tons of bleeds (plus a touch of cunfusion, but thats incidental). Also, I’ll switch GS for staff half the time in larger fights, in which case you have some burning and more confusion.

This is definitely harder to pull off in PvP without food (orrian truffle stew or rare veggie pizza) and without optimal stat distribution.

@xovian: yeah, similar idea, and looks great, but if going Rampagers you probably want the pistol so the phantasm can stack up to 8 bleeds. I’d actually rather be using your stat allocation for the chaos V, but I just couldn’t pull it off without dropping phantasmal fury, DE, and either sword or pistol cooldown (or even blink range for escapes). Plus, the extra precision and crit damage is more valuable than a tad more toughness and boon duration.

Nice as well. I think hybrids are the way to go these days.

Harmonious Mantras + Mender’s Purity + Mantra of Recovery = Awesome. Possibly best healing and condi removal of any class.

I’ve been playing with this for the past two nights, and had more success than with anything else in a long while. Best build I’ve found so far is as follows, but looking for something better.

using 30/30/0/10/0, but I’m sure others exist using 30/x/x/10/x

This is a 100% crit chance build (80% + phantasmal fury) that relies on phantasms and clone-death traits. Stacks massive bleeds (20 stacks are easily obtainable in seconds) and phantasms hit super hard. But others probably work as well.

Armor: Rampagers, with a tiny bit of knights/rabid. Runes either Traveler or Centaur
Weapons: GS, Sword/Pistol (all rampager). You can swap GS for staff if you prefer, though it limits your chasing. Sigils of perception until you get stacks, then swap for battle and accuracy

Anyway, sorry for posting another build, but I’ve had more fun running this the past few nights than any other non-PU build.

As always, comments are more than appreciated.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8al4zKqnUTmGb9IypCQHpHqWptalegb52FC-jkCBIgCyUEQkIAEBw5PDZNHKilhFRjVVDQZDTBbR1SBAzwK-w

Edit: build is pretty flexible gear wise. You can go knights/cav for awesome sustainability, or even zerker for super had hitting phantasms. I’m also playing around with protective mantras as well to see if they have a place.

If there are too many you’re welcome to withdraw mine. I’m finding it pretty powerful, but it’s an annoying button mashing mess, and mantras just aren’t that fun to play, even if the build is viable.

Moth.5682:

for solo roaming in WvW ….
I feel like “direct damage PU” has lower dps than “condition damage PU”.
I think it will take longer time when you fight multiple opponents.

Keep in mind that a direct-damage PU build can bring out a hard hitting mind wrack (figure around 5-6k damage, aoe), blurred frenzy (2-4k damage, aoe), and phantasm hit, and that it takes advantage of vulnerability, which the blackwater and condi builds don’t/can’t match. I’m not sure which has an overall higher dps in the long run, but in my experience direct damage lets you be a little more bursty, which has its advantages in some fights.

Let’s not forget fun, as well. I would think that “fun to play” is a major factor in build success (and unfortunately, for example, a potential weakness of, say, mantra builds).

Try Grimm’s seven mirrors sword/torch, staff 0/20/30/0/20 direct damage shatter build (and keep in mind that he made that build before the buff to PU). Shatter is completely viable even if you don’t go 30 in illusions. Sure, your mind wrack is hitting for only 6k instead of 8k, but the added defense of PU makes up for it. But anyway, its just one playstle. You can go PU phantasm as well, but in my opinion it’s a little more boring to play, though equally viable.

To each their own. Mesmer allows so much variety.

If you’re shattering a lot or taking clone-death traits, zerker staff is fine. But greatsword works fine as well, just a different playstyle. Staff just can’t be beat for clone output in a shatter spec, even if GS works well too. I just prefer staff a little more in shatter because the boons and defensive qualities help mitigate the squishiness of full zerker.

Try either a 20/20/30/0/0 or a 0/20/30/0/20. Staff, sword/torch and full zerker gear. Deceptive evasion and PU, and then either mental torment (if taking domination) or compounding power (in illusions) for hard hitting mind wracks. You have lots of mobility and clone production, as well as high stealth uptime and defensive boons.

@Pyro: I was including the 1.2 increase of Mental Torment (for around 1.775 total)

This all said, while I am getting good numbers, I must say that mantras just aren’t … well, fun, which puts a major crimp in this build. Putting it succinctly, managing mantras just kind of blows. It feels like I’m doubling the button mashing (ele style) for not that much greater a payoff.

Ok, so doing the math, with three mantras and three clones, you’re hitting for ~150%. Throw on a sigil of force (5% damage increase) and the 15 point trait in domination becomes really appealing: if you can apply all 15 stacks, your mind wrack is basically hitting for 180% before crit.

So, with only 80% crit damage, your mind wrack crits hit for ~400% if you can pull off the F3 —> F1 combo.

I’ll test it a little, but 20/30/0/0/20 (likely taking shattered concentration) might be more powerful (if less original).

Even more math: Which gives a bigger burst, 10/30/0/0/30 with IP, or 20/30/0/0/20 with the vulnerability stacking but no IP?

@WoC: Thanks for the info. In light of that, I’ve changed the build a little and put 20 in Illusions to take both. I’m going to spend a little time with static weapons to try to measure damage.

Shoot, you’re right. I meant to have celestial on the amulet, not backpack. Wish I had one of those too.

Quick question re: compounding power. I’m sure this has been asked before, but how does it work with mind wrack. I’ve seen different answers here on the forum.

Edit: played around with scepter/sword last night, and liked the additional defence with the dual blocks and additional clone generation. I’m going to try out switching deceptive evasion For protective mantras today and see if I still have enough clones for shatter and defense. If so, I may switch to 20/30/0/0/20 and add a little more tough/vit to my gear. Ignore this, too clunky.

For the contest:

Build Name: The Shmantra-er
Originator: Bunda
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-The-Shmantra-er/first#post3370939

Edit: made a slight change on account of staff being a lot more fun to play on this.

Best name ever, right? (I know, it needs work.)

Anyway, I’ve been playing a lot of old-school shatter recently, and wanted to come up with something a little tankier than the traditional 20/20/0/0/30. And with the recent patch—in particular the changes to mender’s purity and mantra mastery—I’ve been using mantras a little more, and enjoying their flexibility. As such, I sought to combine the the two, and thus I give you the shmantra-er—a shatter focused build with good sustain, and which comes close to bringing the damage of traditional shatter builds while being a bit more trolly and annoying.

Traits are 10/30/10/0/20.

Why it’s fun: You are moving so much and spamming clones like crazy. Sword, Staff (with IC), blink, travelers. You have all clone-on-death traits, and with 3 mantras & compounding power, your dps is super high. Staff provides the boons and defense, torch gives you survivability, sword whittles down the enemy, and wrack hits hard.

Domination: I or V (Mental Torment or Crippling Dissipation); I’m finding that the perma cripple is a good trade for mental torment. But both work.
Dueling: VI, X, XI (Mantra Mastery, Deceptive Evasion, Empowering Mantras); the meat of the build—keep mantras up as much as possible
Chaos: V (Debilitating Dissipation); DD helps stack vulnerability and is troll-y, in it’s own way
Inspiration: na
Illusions: I, VII (Precise Wrack, Compounding Power or Illusionary Elasticity); higher crit on mind wrack, and i’m still toying with the last to see which brings greater dps.

Armor: Full Zerker, with a little knights if I’m feeling squishy. I have travelers on right now, too.
Weapons: Staff, Sw/T. You can run offhand pistol or sword too for a little more bang. Also, you can switch out GS for staff in smaller fights.

The basic idea is that empowering mantras allows you to get some real bang out of mind wrack without taking illusionary persona, as all damage is increased by 12% so long as you have mantras ready. Use the invisibility on torch to recharge your mantras, and swap out mantras depending on situation. Necro or engi—take mantra of resolve. Warriors—take mantra of concentration. I kind of like mantra of pain as well for that added mini burst. But the key is to time your mantra recharges. And my “oh-kitten” skill is, believe it or not, avatar of melandru, at least in WvW. Otherwise, mass invis. Full cleanse, heal you up, tanky while your shatters recharge, and good cc

Anyway, feedback is always appreciated. I’m sure there are ways to improve this as well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNAW8fl4zSpHSTmGhNJipCBHKFaH2RqQrV6xtdhyGA-j0CBYLAYMRmEJwUBQJPCZJQSslhFRjVVDQvATVaR1eDMa1SBUlwK-w

Edit: after playing around a lot, staff provides just that much more utility than greatsword in any fight against more than 3 oponents. And given the insane amount of clones that can be pumped out, crippling dissipation is as valuable as mental torment (though you can use either) when you go staff.

Edit 2: I think that sigil of perception is are actually a little better than bloodlust, given all the damage boosts.

You can use it with zerker gear in a shatter spec. Just recognize that it excels at clone production but doesn’t do a whole lot of damage on its own, outside of shatters. Warlock hits hard, but is fairly easy to dodge, and often just misses the target.

My point is that you should first figure out how you want to play (shatter, phantasm, condition, etc.), and then choose weapons from there.

Two quick questions:

1) Chaos storm causes one boon/condi/daze every five seconds. Let’s say five enemies stand inside for all five seconds. Does it hit them with the same effect every second, or do each of them receive five different effects?

2) With the changes to chaos armor, does it award you a boon per second for each enemy that hits you, or is it capped at one per second, period?

Thanks.

Edit: Another question. Are the effects all equally probable? This is of particular interest in chaos storm, where daze is unquestionably the strongest effect. Anyone interested in testing 100 chaos storms and recording the results?

Alissah.9281:

Bunda.2691:

Jorjeis.2169:

Bunda.2691:

In WvW, cc is probably the most important skill, and what staff is (mostly) missing. So while you should play however you like (especially in PvE, where many builds work fine), my advice for WvW is this: learn to love the main hand sword, followed by greatsword, pistol, torch, scepter and focus. Staff is unfortunately a bit niche in WvW.

Wrong. The vast majority of WvW condition/support builds run staff because it is a very good support weapon. The auto attack is reasonable, and it has an ethereal field which can be blasted for chaos armor, as well as a self chaos armor and a stun break (that also provides chaos armor if you use it in an ethereal field). Chaos armor is absolutely amazing.

As I said, in WvW staff is a reactive condition weapon. It provides a ton of utility, but only so long as other players spam attack you. Good players won’t do this, and staff provides zero ability to close distance or chase.

In terms of support, sure it’s fine on paper, but chaos armor looks a lot cooler than it is, and chaos storm is on a long cooldown. And in WvW, support mesmers are mostly there for glamors, pulls, and reflects; other classes are much better at healing, boon support, and condition clearing.

In WvW, you can use staff as a secondary weapon, but except for PU condition builds, it’s hard to build around it as a primary weapon.

Finally, the OP asked for a staff DPS build, and I was explaining that this paradigm doesn’t really exist in WvW. Staff just isn’t great for direct damage, but can be useful for tanky condition builds.

Just fyi: Mesmers have amazing boon support and healing. Its very much comparable to engi/guard/ele.

If you dont believe me, try this build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Chaos-Maestro-Support-Builds/first (hint: signet of inspiration doesnt only copy your boons, but also boons you get from allies… To allies. Its amazing in groups, even if you dont generate boons yourself)

I actually believe our healling is the best, because its spammable without a cooldown. The downside is that we cant do anything else, of ourse. Not that that really matters, because we dont really have alot of aoe to contribute :/.

edit: and yea. Staff doesnt really work in pve. Pve is extreemely simple, and doesnt require as much defense or conditions that staff offers. It does work in pvp modes for shatter/phantasm/tank/lockdown/condition (and everything else I cant think of) builds, though

You’re right, we do. But there is a reason not many people run restorative manta builds in WvW, at least to my knowledge. They’re clunky, you spend all your time spamming mantras and not much else, and your dps is frightfully low.

Also, since the buff to PU, you can easily use signet of inspiration & the boonstorm without staff. But how many people really use signet of inspiration in WvW, when blink, decoy, glamors, and mantras are generally more useful?

There are plenty of uses for the staff, and you can easily make it work in PvE if you enjoy using it. All I’m saying is that if you come across a power-based staff mesmer in WvW, chances are he’s dead unless he’s a really skilled shatter spec.

Anyway, this is all just my opinion. Take it as you will.

Jorjeis.2169:

@Bunda It seems to me when you talk about WvW, you’re talking about roaming, because terms of ZvZ or GvG then chaos armor is very very good (in practice not just on paper).

For a ZvZ condition build the staff is perfectly fine as primary weapon, and does not require PU to be effective.

You are totally correct. For gvg or zvz (large battles with >15 per side) staff is more useful, as is chaos armor because you are getting hit more frequently. But mostly I’ll use staff in large battles because it is less bad than our other weapons, not because of how great it is on its own.

Jorjeis.2169:

Bunda.2691:

In WvW, cc is probably the most important skill, and what staff is (mostly) missing. So while you should play however you like (especially in PvE, where many builds work fine), my advice for WvW is this: learn to love the main hand sword, followed by greatsword, pistol, torch, scepter and focus. Staff is unfortunately a bit niche in WvW.

Wrong. The vast majority of WvW condition/support builds run staff because it is a very good support weapon. The auto attack is reasonable, and it has an ethereal field which can be blasted for chaos armor, as well as a self chaos armor and a stun break (that also provides chaos armor if you use it in an ethereal field). Chaos armor is absolutely amazing.

As I said, in WvW staff is a reactive condition weapon. It provides a ton of utility, but only so long as other players spam attack you. Good players won’t do this, and staff provides zero ability to close distance or chase.

In terms of support, sure it’s fine on paper, but chaos armor looks a lot cooler than it is, and chaos storm is on a long cooldown. And in WvW, support mesmers are mostly there for glamors, pulls, and reflects; other classes are much better at healing, boon support, and condition clearing.

In WvW, you can use staff as a secondary weapon, but except for PU condition builds, it’s hard to build around it as a primary weapon.

Finally, the OP asked for a staff DPS build, and I was explaining that this paradigm doesn’t really exist in WvW. Staff just isn’t great for direct damage, but can be useful for tanky condition builds.

I feel like every mesmer goes through the same progression, where they they start off loving the staff but eventually realize that it offers the least utility for WvW and sPvP (except for shatter, which has a super high skill ceiling). Staff is a reactive condition weapon … but it offers almost no cc and requires that your opponent attack you. In this regard, it’s great for PU condition bunker builds, but little else.

In WvW, cc is probably the most important skill, and what staff is (mostly) missing. So while you should play however you like (especially in PvE, where many builds work fine), my advice for WvW is this: learn to love the main hand sword, followed by greatsword, pistol, torch, scepter and focus. Staff is unfortunately a bit niche in WvW.

I used to use doom all the time until I accepted that its awesomeness is pretty much limited to duels or tiny fights. Torment is ok in large fights, but even then there is generally a ton of condi clearing going around, and the 1 stack doesn’t do that much damage. Still I like using it in zergs because of the glitch.

My advice: stick with battle, or even consider hydromancy (underrated).

Try clone-spamming with dire gear. 10/25/25/x/x with 10 point to spare (or 10/25/10/x/x with 25 to spare). Every clone that dies causes aoe confusion, cripple, and bleed/weakness/vulnerability. I like sigils of torment and stamina for aoe torment and near constant clone on dodge. You can use torch as well for aoe blind and burning.

Note that this a front line build. If you’re gong to fight from the rear, zerker and glamours are pretty much the way to go.

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