Guild Wars 2

As cultish as that sounded, that’s some real talk right there Me Games Ma, respect.

@Levetty: We have a difference of opinion, obviously. =P But I don’t mean to cut you down or discredit you. That was wrong of me.

Like it or not, we’re going into the future of this class with these changes. This forum has always been one of the best sources of info and camaraderie for Mesmers out there and I’d very much like it to stay that way.

I apologize for losing my cool, and my offer still stands: Lets theorycraft something awesome.

My only question.. Will the new Inspiration GM (cast signet of inspiration on phant summon) activate the signet trait. O.o

Distortion/cleans on phant summon ftw … Every 36 seconds.

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.

I’ve been wondering about this, I don’t think 5% is too bad. In theory, that’s a lot of reduction with even just one Glamour.

Lets take Null Field. Cast chaos armor 5 sec later drop c-storm, phase retreat swap to sword/torch combo. 5 sec later Null Field, sword combo, phase retreat…

Now in small scale fights, 1v1s or 2v2s this rotation is easy to pull. As things get more hectic it’ll be far less likely.

What’s amazing about that sequence is really the amount of protection you get.

I’m loving how Chaotic Dampening is changed, helps make Chaos Armor more tactical and staff a more interesting weapon in general. I think 3-5% is legit since the times you will be able to rotate a chaos armor chain is actually pretty situational. More PvP and roaming than anything.

That shield has a gear in it.

POLYMORPH MESMER confirmed Engineer elite

I really wanna tackle the elephant in the forums right now and ask straight up:

Have the upcoming Mesmer changes altered your opinion of the devs?

I know I’m known for being optimistic, which drives some people nuts, but I can’t help but feel like some of our conversations/discussions have rang through to dev ears.

• Signet of Inspiration granting passive swiftness. Boonsharing heavily buffed (Mesmers have always been good at boon sharing but builds always slightly lacked)

• Lockdown builds buffed exactly how we asked. Confounding Suggestions, Duelist Discipline (recharge phants on interrupt. Thanks pyro!) power block.

• Ip made baseline. We’ve been begging for this (and most didn’t believe it would happen) since launch.

• Protected Mantras made baseline (been asking for a while)

All the other changes are great, but I feel like these particular changes are more than just coincidence. I have an inkling that at least some of our discussions and input have reached the devs.

Am I crazy? A little conceited? Yeah, probably. But this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve managed to get our input to the devs. What say you?

While news has been great for Mesmer on the pvp side of things, there hasn’t been as much clear discussion on Mesmer in PvE. Sure there’s been some tears, plenty of salt, but I haven’t seen much legitimate discussion on the subject of Mesmer going forward in PvE and dungeons/fractals.

What do you guys think about the changes? What would you have preferred and how do you wanna see Mesmer improved in PvE?

Hell.. Are we even in a bad place in PvE? (I mean like Necro bad)

Resistance plz!

@Fay: That sounds like a less-than-subtle “shut up with your knee-jerk proclamations Chaos! You know nothing!”

…. /lockdown2015

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Somebody get these Mesmers a mop.

(And check Levettys blood pressure. All that salt is bad for the heart)

Keep insulting me and being petty. You have yet to point out how anything I have said is wrong.

I’m teasing man, no hard feelings.

and yeah I have. I’d do it again but it seems your mind is pretty made up. I told you, at this point you’re only bringing yourself down. If/when you wanna meet up and theorycraft and come up with interesting new builds for HoT you know where to find me.

And uh… You started the petty insults first. =P which is petty of me to bring up,but still!

Eh.. Reserved x.x

Overall I’m really happy with these baseline changes. iPersona being baseline alone would’ve been enough to merit a backflip or two, but if I had to rate my top three favorite changes it’d be:

3) Glamour 20% Recharge Reduction
2) Manipulation Range Increase
1) iPersona! Still can’t get over this! /hypetrainoverload

I think these three changes will have the most noticeable effect on overall Mesmer gameplay, no matter what the build. Glamour Cooldowns makes Null Field a very strong contender for condi removal/boonstrip, especially with the Chaos Armor buff (more on this soon), Blink is a staple of most Mesmer, so the range increase is fantastic. And iPersona.. Jeez, I really can’t explain all the benefits this grants us, but no matter what build you run iPersona will grant you a noticeable damage/defense/control boost. 1 extra shatter may not seem like much, but it makes a massive difference in the fast-paced playstyle of the Mesmer.

(Pt 2 will detail traitlines)

• 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.

(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.

Somebody get these Mesmers a mop.

(And check Levettys blood pressure. All that salt is bad for the heart)

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

Consider me enlightened.
(No seriously, why?)

J I think you’re overreacting a bit.

With the new change any Mesmer that went dueling before will now have access to the full trait tree, de being grandmaster makes room for the majors not to be overshadowed.

With things the way they are, we’re essentially getting 6/6/0/0/6 builds now, which means both shatter and lockdown got significantly buffed.. You don’t even have to go into illusions for IP anymore and have you seen the new shatter traits?

And Confounding is now adept… You can grab all three traits and still nah shattered conditions.

Oh muh gawd.

The OP says “interrupts get buff” what’s that mean?

I actually didn’t hear of any direct lockdown buffs yet. What’s happening with halting/power block?

skcamow.3527:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

With the IP change.. Lockdown Mesmer will overcome shatter in pvp meta. Calling it now.

It might, but there is soooo much more viability now for sustain-y support shatter builds it’s crazy. You can take restorative illusions and shattered conditions in the same build while still dishing massive dmg.

oh snap. Alright I’ll take it back now until we see all the changes. Maybe making IP baseline was the “something just as good”

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

With the IP change.. Lockdown Mesmer will overcome shatter in pvp meta. Calling it now.

Except that Mental Torment now turns Mind Wrack into a nuclear explosion…

That’s fine. I may be taking that along with my lockdown. But without needing to go to IP Chaotic Interruption is the next best pvp grandmaster.

Unless the Chrono tree has some crazy awesome stuff (which may still relate to lockdown)

The way they have it set up now with DE being grandmaster and IP as default is perfect.

Opens up traits that DE overshadowed in the major class.

Kraljevo.2801:

IP

IP

IP

I came.

Word. Not even mad about Moa anymore.

With the IP change.. Lockdown Mesmer will overcome shatter in pvp meta. Calling it now.

What’s Mistrust?

Dude.

Bruh.

… Bruh!!

With IP baseline, Lockdown will be the new Mesmer meta. Shatter builds now have very little reason to spec into illusions and CI was already RIGHT behind it.

I don’t usually make such grand claims, but DOM/DUEL/CHAOS will be the new tpvp Mesmer meta unless the CHRONO tree is glorious.

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

1200r blinks!? My heart.

Skcamow change the title right the eff now.

IP is confirmed baseline! Tia a glorious day!

…….

/hypeTrainTURBOMODE

alanis.6094:

alanis.6094:

Holy menders purity buff…

For those not watching, they basically made Menders Purity an aoe cleanse. Oh, and the merged Restorative Mantra’s into it.

/Hype intensifies!

Chaos Maestro may be returning soon. Dat Dueling/Chaos/Inspiration spec.

Oh man, I sense a monstrous “I told you so” coming to pyro by the end of this.

Gimme some news fay! Get me hype

This drip feed of info is killing me. This express bus needs to get me home faster!

Anet just broke Chaos…

and I don’t even use Moa. Wtf!! Moa!? Moa tho!?! That’s Mesmer, that’s all Mesmer, and it should stay Mesmer. And if not, then we need our Moa Morph changed into something more Mesmery..

Like morphing the opponent into a clone of the Mesmer. O.o

/15 buckets of salt

Eff that. I got the swaggiest shield in the world ready for when HoT drops and kitten sure Ima make it work.

If shield offers two AoE abilities, with one of them damaging, I’m likely going to try to make sw/sw – sc/sh work.

Ugh.. More I think about the shield, more I want a mainhand dagger instead.

I kinda wanna roll with you guys using Furious Interruption now.

Though you know.. I never actually made an honest attempt at making Disruptors Sustain work. O.o

… Nah.

So much.. Math… Its.. Like my.. Kryptonite.

TL;DR: This expansion better open up at LEAST three new viable builds. Else fail. Right now there’s already proof that lots of change is in the air.

I think the first “tournament” build Ima try is Shatterlock (6/6/0/0/6 Confounding, Harmonious, with shatter traits) which is probably gonna end up extremely similar to the new meta shatter build.

Levetty.1279:

So why is it ok to be blindly optimistic when we don’t have any information but not ok to point out that the stuff we do know and past behavior by anet shows that this expansion is giving Mesmers the short end of the stick?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

However, on the off chance you really don’t see the new possibilities..

• Dom, Duel, Illusions. — pistol cooldowns adds for a lot more condition pressure.

• Dueling, Illusions, Chaos – I dunno if you’ve explored bountiful/chaotic but even outside of lockdown builds bountiful adds a massive power boost. Chaotic adds more Condi pressure and cover conditions for Torment and the immob makes shatters easier to land.

• Dueling, Inspiration, Illusions – Now that stats aren’t a worry, Inspiration line offers scepter cooldowns, Shattered Conditions, and Glamour pressure. Maimed + Glamours really could be a thing.

These are some new possibilities just based off the blog today, we don’t even know what our new traitline or utilities will offer.

As far as I am aware You have to choose 1 adept, major and GM, correct me if I am wrong because I would like to be. So we can’t take DE and Pistol Cooldown (which actually is a nerf on a the clone death build I was using before maim).

… Blindly optimistic? Wat?

All I said was that the news we got recently got about specializations was good news. How is that blind optimism about things we don’t know? Other than that everything else we don’t have enough information on to make a judgment, good or bad.

..Ahh you know what? I’m done. You’re only seeing what you want to see, and you’re only dampening yourself.

(And you may be right about the pistol thing, hope that gets changed.)

Menaka.5092:

From this other interview

Ten Ton Hammer: Where Elite Specializations are concerned, it seems slightly unfair that some only get an off-hand when some get a two handed or main hand weapon (thus more skills). How are you making this appealing for professions who only get an off-hand?

Jon: Fair doesn’t always mean equal. It’s fair because we’re trying to make sure that they all get a lot of really cool things and they get a new way to define their profession. Like we did with the original professions, it doesn’t mean that one-to-one trying to make an equal number of skills one-to-one. To give an example with engineer, we made what felt like it would be like to be an engineer.

The other thing too is that the weapon is just one component of what makes a spec what it is. Weapon skills don’t define the spec. Just like the new healing skills, the new elite skills and the new traits, they complement it and altogether build the spec out. Because of that we feel it’s fine if it’s an offhand, a main hand, or a two-handed weapon, it’s just part of what defines what that spec is.

I’m somewhat less hyped than before.

So if I’m understanding thus right, our new traits/utilities are soooo good that we only get an offhand?

See, now its things like this that make me unsure. Considering Anet hasn’t exactly shown that they know what to do with Mesmer (..Disruptors Sustainment) Its really hard to accept how certain they are that these new abilities will really be all that amazing. X.x

However, on the off chance you really don’t see the new possibilities..

• Dom, Duel, Illusions. — pistol cooldowns adds for a lot more condition pressure.

• Dueling, Illusions, Chaos – I dunno if you’ve explored bountiful/chaotic but even outside of lockdown builds bountiful adds a massive power boost. Chaotic adds more Condi pressure and cover conditions for Torment and the immob makes shatters easier to land.

• Dueling, Inspiration, Illusions – Now that stats aren’t a worry, Inspiration line offers scepter cooldowns, Shattered Conditions, and Glamour pressure. Maimed + Glamours really could be a thing.

These are some new possibilities just based off the blog today, we don’t even know what our new traitline or utilities will offer.

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Currently toying around with a 4/4/0/0/6 Maim build still trying to customize it to my liking.

At the expense of some power, crit damage and condition duration I get two filler Grandmasters.

See, now you’re just actively trying to hate on the changes.

If you honestly don’t see the potential this change offers Maimed builds, then we could get some great theorycrafting in and I’d be happy to elaborate.

If you do, and just don’t care because “wahhh offhand shield” then you’re only screwing yourself.

As has been pointed out countless times since it was shown off, shield is just the perfect representation that Anet just doesn’t listen to us. If they can’t get that right why should we have any hope they know about any of our other problems?

But go on how will it help maim builds. Off the top of my head I’ve considered swapping dom for Chaos and doing a PU/Maim build but then you lose Shattered concentration which is one of the best parts of shatter.

Also I find it pretty telling how everybody is deflecting away from the main point of the thread, at least fay gave an answer so thanks for that.

This is a cry thread.

You’re not looking for constructive feedback, because that’s been given to you by multiple people. You’re not interested in theorycrafting new builds. What you want is someone to complain with.

I tried to reason with you, and used actual facts to prove that the information that we’ve been given is good news so far. Even despite your silly little ad hominem, I offer possibilities.

The simple fact is this: All we’ve heard of so far are buffs to many established builds, including shatter mantra and yes, lockdown.

But you don’t care about any of that. You’re too salty over the offhand shield. Obviously specializations aren’t going to remake the class: Mesmer is still going to be Mesmer and play like Mesmer. But to ignore all the new possibilities and potential because you didn’t get exactly what you want and to go “omg anet sux” when its been stated that more specializations/new weapons are on the way (in like 2018 lul) is ridiculous.

So what is it you really wanna hear? “ya anet sux mesmer sux they don’t know what to do with us. Expansion gonna suck.”

There. Feel better?

With every utility/heal/elite getting a type (Glamour, Manipulation, ECT.) We’ll finally be able to reduce the cooldowns on our elite skills.

Timewarp – Glamour
Mass Invis – Manipilation
Moa Morph – Manipulation

This also extends to heals meaning Ether Feast may also become a manipulation. Anyone can math up what a 20% reduction would make our cooldowns? And does this change make you more likely to branch out?

That reminds me. Shatterlock, which was 62006 will now be 66006 and much stronger.

It’ll essentially be a perfect blend of shatter and lockdown and finally tourney viable.. Except the meta will likely change dramatically. X.x

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Currently toying around with a 4/4/0/0/6 Maim build still trying to customize it to my liking.

At the expense of some power, crit damage and condition duration I get two filler Grandmasters.

See, now you’re just actively trying to hate on the changes.

If you honestly don’t see the potential this change offers Maimed builds, then we could get some great theorycrafting in and I’d be happy to elaborate.

If you do, and just don’t care because “wahhh offhand shield” then you’re only screwing yourself.

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Dondagora.9645:

Unsure if we’ll be able to go all the way into each spec…

They specifically said we’ll be able to grab 3 Grandmasters. So instead of putting trait points, we choose the traitline we want. Since most mesmer builds only jump into 3 traitlines anyway, this is a potentially a pretty major buff to build variety. (sorry Phantasm builds. =[ )

@Swish: Anything that went 644 or 662 is now going to be a full 666. It isn’t very likely that they’ll remove working, effective traits rather than merge ineffective ones so it’s likely we’ll be in better shape than before. Our pool of traits aren’t being slashed, we’re gaining more Master traits, keeping the same amount of Grandmasters and I believe minors are the same.

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

Levetty.. What exactly where you expecting?

They’ve only teased a bit of info. Nothing much on new content for PvE/PvP ect. No info on our new traits, skills, utilities, elites.

I can understand bitterness about us only getting an offhand, but to take any good or fresh news and turn it into something sour because it’s not exactly what you wanted to hear.. Well that’s a bit silly.

We simply don’t know enough yet.

But we do know we are getting a sup standard weapon that will lock us into using Sword or Scepter, and we all know very well what Sword and Scepter are like.

And now we have confirmation that we are keeping illusions (don’t know why people expected any differently) and we all know how they preform in different areas.

What exactly is going to vastly change Mesmer gameplay when we have the same weapons and are still having to manage illusions?

Why wouldn’t we be keeping illusions? Why exactly is that a bad thing? Sword is meta for PvE, and still pretty good in PvP. Scepter is much better than it used to be, and while awkward still, makes for an effective condi weapon.

Calling our new weapon sub-standard without knowing anything about it is a bit much…

What exactly is going to vastly change? Builds, traits, utilities, elites, a new heal, and the fact that this is one of several specializations to come.

First thing is first: Traits are being reworked so that you must pick 3 traitlines to specialize in and can go all the way to grandmaster for all three lines. This means we can easily have a build specced in Domination, Dueling, and Chaos.

Halting Strike, Shattered Concentration, Confounding Suggestions (or Power Block), Deceptive Evasion, Furious Interruption, Bountiful Interruption, & Chaotic Interruption all in one build!

So from the get-go we’re seeing a massive buff to Lockdown build versatility without even having to grab the expansion. This also means that Shatter builds can now grab some lockdown traits. Your standard 4/4/0/0/6 can now also grab Confounding suggestions/power block, and Furious Interruption.

Considering our Chronomancer* tree is almost guaranteed to have some nice new lockdown/interrupt traits involving Slow/Quickness, I’m seeing the potential for atleast three viable lockdown build specializations:

Dom / Dueling / Chaos – Dueling / Chaos / Chrono – Dom / Dueling / Chrono

And that is just considering what we know now. We’ve been told about some traits being merged, which opens up opportunities for Manipulations, Glamours, Signets, and Mantras, and some traits may become baseline abilities. If DE becomes baseline, I see no reason not to spec into Chaos, Chrono, and Domination.

As of now, I see the trait changes being a bigger buff to Lockdown than shatter. Since most builds end up going 4, 4, 6 it is pretty awesome that we’ll be able to fully max out these skill trees. With traits no-longer granting stats I have no idea what is going to happen to boon/condition duration, since both our 4/4/6 lockdown and 6/4/4 builds benefit greatly from the duration increases but all in all I’m seeing a lot of potential for lockdown to rise in prominence in the future.

One thing that does kind of bother me, though, is that I’m thinking we’ll see a large influx of lockdown players. While the style getting more representation is awesome, a small selfish part of me always enjoyed the uniqueness that comes with playing lockdown, being so different from shatter and condi. On the bright side, with so much potential build diversity down the road I’m hoping (or pipedreaming) the meta expands to allow for more build variety, even among similar builds.

Personally, I’ll be running with the Dueling, Chaos, Chrono specs first. What are you looking forward to most as a lockdown Mesmer?

(* = There has been no official confirmation that Mesmer specialization is Chronomancer, but judging by the abilities teased it is highly likely.)