Guild Wars 2

Well then that’s pretty simple. Grab GS, sw/pistol take all the phantasm traits you like and run decoy/blink/signet of illusions and go learn you sumthin’.

Otherwise one of these other fine Phantasmy Mesmer folk can guide ya further, I haven’t run a phantasm build in foreverish.

This is gonna sounds strange coming from a 90% PvPer like me but.. Honestly? I really enjoy jumping puzzles. Being able to portal my homies when they fail is always pretty satisfying.

I play weird non-meta builds and so i always find opportunities to experiment with all my utilities. One thing Mesmer really excels at is reflects, such as traited focus and Feedback. Blinking to weird spaces, being able to pull/kite as many mobs as I want, and always having at least SOMETHING entirely unique to offer to a party is what makes it fun for me.

Mesmer is such a swiss-army-knife of utility that you can always find a creative solution for any problem. Sometimes you have to be creative to get by!

Avery Faustus.3015:

LOL nice!

coming from you, as you have 4 (very unique mesmers!), which of these PVP builds would best the easiest to learn and get down? i prefer fighting at a range, I would probably stick with one of the shatter builds. Maybe the traditionally but the meta build says they are difficult o learn x_x so that makes me unsure about playing those builds. D;

I also found this for WVW, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frKZAlOFixM

I followed one of his (i think roamer WVW necro builds for small 1v1 skirmishes or 2-3v1’s that I use in PVP as well) that works exceptionally well for me on necro. its probably common but yeah. (this is irrelevant xD ) I just trust Alcatraz’s stuff x)

But main question, which build do you think a newb should start off with in PVP? weapon wise and such.

Learn to play shatter. Yes it is difficult, and yes you will die a lot at first. Each death is a lesson in itself on what not to do next time, and you’ll find yourself getting better and better with each kill. Shatter teaches you the core fundamentals to play any Mesmer build properly.

… Otherwise Phantasm or PU can be pretty easy mode. 4/4/6 lockdown is defensively more forgiving than shatter but harder to learn to use properly. Or we can customize you a build based on your preferences, what weapons do you like to use and what is your favorite aspect of the Mesmer? (lots of illusions & condition, phantasms, teleports and stealth, big damage numbers, ECT?)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fzeromisbunker

Zeromis has a pretty cool bunker spec.

Awesome. =D I’ll be on the game tonight (around 8pm EST) so if ya have any questions hit me up or shoot me a pm

There are a few things you mentioned that I’d like if you could elaborate on:

“I assume things will change after the expansion. Currently however because of the role that Mesmer must play, shatter is mathematically the best and any build variant other than shatter makes you either lose Illusionary Persona, Deceptive Evasion, or Shattered Concentration, none of which you want to lose in higher end team queue.”

• Lets discuss this a bit, the “Role that Mesmer must play.” What “roles” do you feel exist in a standard tPvP team? Do you feel like each class has only one role that they can fill, and if so what are the roles for other classes? And what sets Mesmer apart from the rest?

• Do you feel that other builds from other classes offer better CC than Mesmer, or is it rather that “CC” simply isn’t a necessary main role for any build to play? That being said, what other meta builds have the same sort of AoE CC that keeps CI Mesmer from being viable?

• Have you ever tried Confounding Suggestions (6/4/0/0/4)? or Shattered Conditions (4/4/0/6/0)? What do you think of our current Grandmasters and the build potential that they offer?

SUPCUTIE: We’ll test Time Warp, it might be good with Power Ranger or something. My gut tells me that Mass Invis/Moa will still be better, since they offer more control, versatility, and team peels.

Mass Invis Vs. Moa. They’re both pretty good. Moa is good against transforms like Berserk, Tornado, Plague, Lich Form, and Death Shroud. Moa is also useful against tankier/bunkier people.
Mass Invis is good if you are running double burst so you can lower the counterplay on your target swaps for example. It’s also good for deaggroing people who are training you or your dps partner.

Torment is hard countered by generosity. Condition builds also suffer from needing to rely on clones which are unreliable, especially because of their pathing when you’re trying to have good positioning.

For me, I think the expansion is simply a great opportunity for the balance devs to do bigger changes that normally wouldn’t be palatable to players, in order to fix the balance mess.

New Mesmer weapon? I mean they could probably make up any ability and put it on any weapon and work the lore around it. Seeing another off-hand like shield though didn’t make me the most happy just because sword has been so nerfed that I don’t really like playing it anyway. I haven’t really thought of new abilities to be honest haha. I’m sure they could get some good inspiration from GW1 skills.

In terms of roles in sPvP, you basically have your point holders, dps roamers, and sometimes 1v1ers. Although currently the best point holders are also the best 1v1ers. Not sure if that will change this patch. So any role you try to put Mesmer in, there will be an ele/engi/war/necro/thief thief spec that does it better. Mesmer is best at doing damage, but then you have thieves who do damage and do well against Mesmer in most scenarios, especially in a team setting.

I do feel that other classes offer better CC. Necro can go pure damage and still have fear chains. Cele rifle war has pull, immob, and knock, all in addition to chill, cripple, etc. Ele updraft is AoE and knocks bodies which makes it hard to resurrect allies, so their CC is really effective.
I have tried Confounding Suggestions. It was good when it was bugged with Chaos Storm, but since the nerf it’s too anti-synergetic with itself and there are better options. Most Grandmaster traits aren’t worth going the 6 points to get.

Click here for Part 1 of the Interview

I’ll get around to the editing when I can, but wanted to toss this up before it fell out of my goldfish memory

• What does standard shatter offer in high end pvp that other builds can’t match?

• Specifically comparing 4/4/6 to 4/4/0/0/6, what makes the latter more preferable?

• Do you see more build diversity for Mesmers possible, or do you think standard shatter will always be dominant?

SUPCUTIE: Standard shatter offers higher damage out of stealth, and higher ranged damage, without requiring interrupts.
It has more survivability from CDs (like illusionary persona and shatter reset) compared to toughness or extended prot duration.
I assume things will change after the expansion. Currently however because of the role that Mesmer must play, shatter is mathematically the best and any build variant other than shatter makes you either lose Illusionary Persona, Deceptive Evasion, or Shattered Concentration, none of which you want to lose in higher end team queue.
The interrupt spec 446 comes the closest but unfortunately it doesn’t have the damage required and trades it for cc. It’s best to take other meta builds who have cc in their builds anyway, and then take Mesmer to do damage.
The interrupt spec 446 comes the closest but unfortunately it doesn’t have the damage required and trades it for cc. It’s best to take other meta builds who have cc in their builds anyway, and then take Mesmer to do damage.

• “Timewarp viable with the cd change? I Ran it last night and want impressed, but I forgot I had it a few times after losing a group fight”

• “Hmm, how does he decide between using mass invisibility and moa morph?”

• “Are you saying these condition builds are more viable than torment shatter because of their cleanses?”

• Any hopes for the expansion?

• If you could add a new Mesmer weapon what would it be and why?

0/4/6/4/0 is really fun, and hella versatile. You should take Null Field though. For boonstrip, condi removal, AND the ethereal field for more boons.

kodesh.2851:

Scepter = fail.

Oh, dude… Scepter works. Especially going double offhands, even in a power build, and definitely with the pistol.

This may help!

Some of the info in the above link is slightly outdated, but that will be rectified soon.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Kicast.1459:

If it is a mesmer skill … it must not work on thief….this is game design (see power block trait)
L2p…change profession.

i don’t know who you are but you must be a noob with mesmers, the block go trhough stealth.

It was a joke about Thieves hardcountering Mesmer, dude. =P

Here’s my perspective..

Countless uses a clone-death build. Ross, though still new to pvp, uses a Phantasm/Interrupt mix with good success. Misha has gone to tournaments with a CS/CI 6/2/6/0/0 build with no DE. Icyicyicy in OMFG is the best PU Mesmer I’ve ever seen and completely shatters all of the PU condi stereotypes.

Viable, in the ultimate measure, is whatever works for you. Shatter and CI Interrupt are powerful builds that work all the way up into high level play, but they are not the only builds that will work in tpvp. Your team, your opponents team, your personal playstyle and ability all need to be taken into account. “Viable” essentially ends up being “most successful.”

Phantasm builds are considered unviable because they are too 1v1 focused, Phantasms die to AoE, and take too long to kill a competent opponent. These are the challenges that any Mesmer going phantasm in pvp must face but that should not stop anyone from making the attempt. It will take time and practice and suck at first, but that’s just kind of how it is with almost all Mesmer builds.

If, for whatever reason, you ended up on a top team and won a high level tournament against the Abjured/TCG/55HP Monks with a phantasm build, then suddenly you just made Phantasm viable. Don’t let the meta define you.

I don’t think CI needs much of a buff (besides the cripple removal) but I DO think that our other lockdown traits need to be raised up.

• Furious Interruption: Reduces cooldowns by 5s per interrupt (15s ICD)
• Disruptors Sustainment: 2k AoE Heal on Interrupt
• Wastrel’s Punishment: Gain 3s of Retaliation per daze. (Or Furious Interruption’s trait moved here)

But as for other things, some nice Quality of Life changes would be:

- Sword/Scepter blocks now have distortion frames inbetween the counter and the hit.
- Staff 4 skill reduced CD by 10s or reworked
- iWarlock has better tracking
- Removed the ridiculous blind-glamour CD
- Removed ICD of Triumphant Distortion
- Reverted Sword 3 change so you can port to the clones last location.
- Increase staff auto attack speed.
- Clones wield offhands again, godkitten it anet

Wait, hold on! Before you stick your nose up into the air and say “Hmph, any good player always knows where the Mesmer is.” (Looking at you, Pyro) read on, as I feel this statement may not be as absolute as many believe.

PRETENDING TO BE A CLONE
At one point or another, every Mesmer gets to experience satisfaction of watching an opponent -say some eager Guardian leaping in with his greatsword and spinning to win- on a clone that they were so sure was the actual Mesmer. You can tell their frustration, you can tell somewhere inside they’re saying to themselves “$@#$! Mesmers!” and you want to do it to them again and again. Taking a moment to pretend to be a clone isn’t just for fun though. There can be a number of useful reasons to do this, such as health regeneration (Ether Signet), letting your cooldowns recharge, tricking your opponent into leaving themselves open or taking a moment to plan your next move. People won’t be fooled for more than a couple seconds, but in a fight even half-seconds count!
It turns out that part of being a talented Mesmer is forcing your opponent to have a hard time catching you, and learning to understand how you appear from their point of view is a big factor in that. Here are the tools you’ll need:

• A form of stealth: (Desperate Decoy; Dueling V, Veil, Mass Invisibility, or Decoy)
• A staff, scepter, or sword.
• Patience and precision.

PLAYING HIDE-&-SEEK WITH STEALTH
Stealth breaks targetting, meaning that the moment you dissapear your opponent has to scramble to find you again. Since the opponent does not have a 360 field of vision, there will always be blind spots that they will not see. The trick is to utilize these blind spots to allow yourself to reappear out of their sight. It is common for a Mesmer to scramble around behind the opponent, since it forces them to wheel their camera around, but the problem here is that such a technique is too simple. Adding an illusion into the mix forces the opponent to divide their attention, but there are a number of other techniques you can do to add to the confusion. -Remember that any skill that does not do damage does not break stealth, including:-

• Illusionary Leap/Swap (Sword 3: You can even AoE immobilize opponents and remain stealthed)
• Phase Retreat
• All Utilities (Except Mantra of Pain’s attack)
• All Phantasm Summons
  This means you could DodgeClone > Phase Retreat > Illusionary Leap + Swap and even summon a phantasm all while stealthed, leaving the opponent with all sorts of things to deal with other than you.

THE CLONE LIFE
This would be all for nothing if you still end up sidestepping and jumping around like a spazz the moment you come out of stealth. Sometimes it is better to just chill, expecially when using ranged weapons such as Scepter, Staff, or Greatsword. Remember that clones:

• Attack at a specific pace
• Do not sidestep
• Only move to keep in range of the opponent
• Are again bugged not to wield offhand weapons. Wtf anet!?

This isn’t some gamebreaking technique and isn’t something you should expect to utilize often, but it is one of those small things that separate good Mesmer from bad Mesmer. Despite playing Mesmer for years, I sometimes find myself having to take a split second to reorient myself when an opponent catches me offguard with smart positioning and a screen-full of particle effects (Warlord of Chaos.. /sideglance) . Remember that as a Mesmer, we are required to be more creative than most other classes in order to succeed, and little quirks like this are skills that take just a bit of practice to edge you over the competition.

Yo!

So its time for a pretty big overhaul to Lyssas Grimoire, and I’m hoping to edit and expand upon everything in it. Such as

• Making information easier to find and more informative ( /cough Mesmer build archtypes. How to shatter sections)

• Updating all skills/traits to match current patch notes

• More funny Mesmer quotes from around the forums

• More videos

• Overhaul to the PvE section

• I.. Uh.. I just really wanted to add another bullet. I’m sure there’s something else needs fixing.

So any and all help, links to threads or videos or if anyone has something they want to write to add to the guide, would be massively appreciated! If you see something you wanna edit, quote the page and make yer edits and post em here. Thanks again!

I hate this build and I hate you people for beating me up with it. =[

I guess you can say I hate it in all the right ways!

cyyrix.6105:

Me Games Ma.8426:

pepper.6179:

meh, forums aren’t as active anymore.

all forums or just ours? (I’m only here so I don’t really know about the others)

All of them. Fewer people playing with not as much to talk about.

Most professions/matchups are pretty thoroughly explored at this point. Even Chaos, the man of a million surveys/guides/explanations/talking points, is struggling for content these days.

They’ve been consolidating a lot of the sub-forums because of it. Things will pick up again when the HoT is released.

Ironically, I have at least 3 different articles I wanted to write and no more time at work to write them. When I get home I get swallowed by Smash Brothers or the X1. =[

I mean really, tho. A dueling system would reaallllyy help with the whole “lack of anything to do while waiting on queue” thing.

All of them. =P We’re still one of the most active forums.

I fail every time I try to use Illusion of Life .. All 4 times in over two years.

50% Failure rate with moa.

Never use: iMage, Signet of Midnight, Veil, Signet of the Ether

Warden is excellent in smaller engagements (or any situation a phantasm can survive in). The projectile absorb gives Engineers, Rangers, longbow warriors, staff Mesmer and plenty of other classes hell.

Hey TyPin. The build you posted should work fine (I hate trav runes tho) Play its role like you would a shatter build, but in team fights try to keep an eye on allies that may need your help, or enemies that needa be stripped. Prioritize rangers, necros, and other Mesmer.

The advantage you have over shatter is that your team fight potential goes beyond damage. Try to use iWave and sword daze on as many people as possible, and when you can sometimes its better to use the mantra on a second target while you’re fighting yours.

.. If you really want to improve your game.

I spend a lot of my time ingame helping other Mesmer improve their play, but I often get accused of always going easy on people. This isn’t exactly true, but its not quite false either.

Dueling someone equal skill or greater to yourself often pushes you into another state of focus. Suddenly every movement, every action is a test of your skill and that drive to win will often push players to play at a level that they rarely exhibit. You don’t allow yourself to make the same mistakes over and over, you learn new things both consciously and unconsciously, and you may not even notice the change within you.

As an example, I used to have a problem with other Mesmer. Stealth always screwed me up until one day I dueled a very talented friend of mine over and over.. I started keeping note of his stealth patterns and the time he had, started timing my defenses to compensate. I didn’t notice the change in me until I went back to regular matches and found my reflexes sharpened to deal with other Mesmer.

… And then I started fighting players like Supcutie and Warlord of Chaos. Top tier Mesmer who fought on an entirely new level. I was getting crushed over and over and felt like I wasn’t learning a kitten thing.. Until again when I faced other Mesmer around my level they could not compare. Because my skill level had grown without me realizing it.

So if you haven’t done so yet, take the time to find someone better than you at your profession. Fight them without thinking (I’m gonna lose this). Fight at your best and fight off being demoralized and you’ll come out a better player for it in the end.

(Also works for fighting games. =P )

@smilko: That would be excellent! Things like that are exactly what I’m hoping for from the specialization.

@Duck: The thing is, the New F1-4 lines would still have to be tied to illusions. Too many of our traits, skills, utilities revolve around clones or phantasms. Unless specializing into Chronomancer alters/replaces traits like Deceptive Evasion, Desperate Decoy, Phantasmal fury, ect I still think that any new class Mechanic would still involve Clones/Phants. Maybe it won’t be “Shattering” them though. Maybe it’ll be a different form of conversion.

Hell.. It may not even be 4 abilities as it is for vanilla Mesmer, may only be one or two.

I was gonna say something, but skcamow pretty much hit the nail on the head:

skcamow.3527:

Ross Biddle.2367:

trooper.2650:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Added a pure vs thief montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz3vb8fBIoY

Somebody may think you have something against thieves Do you?

Actually my beef is with Mesmers atm. To much QQ over them being hard countered by thieves. All the while trying to run a build not viable against them -_-u

In high tier play, running a build other than shatter just isn’t as effective as any other mesmer build currently available. Double ranged seems to be the most popular, but you’re seeing many more Sw/T-GS or Staff shatter mesmers to help with the thief issue (and it indeed does).

When you get down below high level play, I 100% agree with your statement.

Even so, it could justifiably be said that the aspiring few top tier players learning the most effective build and getting wrecked over and over by the hard counter gets old. The QQ is understandable. For the more casual players, yeah stop whining when there are plenty of builds you can play.

The ultimate issue in my opinion is a lack of build diversity in the top tier.

P.S. nice montage

The advice you give here is great for anything below high tier play, but as you ascend the pyramid your build choices really start to narrow. The question of “Why take a Mesmer when you can have X?” becomes much harder to justify in favor of the Mesmer, especially when Thieves crush the most dominant and useful Mesmer build (IP Shatter).

The suggestion of “just change your build” isn’t as easy at that point, but the problem still persists. The only way that will change is finding another role Mesmer can viably play at top level, which is what I’m hoping for from the “Chronomancer” spec.

It doesn’t need a target to activate, but there is an obnoxious window of opportunity between mesmers block and counter that does need to be addressed. After the block lands there is more than enough time to dodge the counter.

The sword block is slightly slower than the scepters, it really needs a slight buff (something like a .5 second evade between the block and hit) to make offhand sword useful for anything beyond extremely small fights, otherwise it is actually more of a liability to try to use defensively in anything beyond 1v1

Tealots.6095:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

zexion.5842:

Hey chaos for lockdown is Staff scepter/pistol a good set up for a power build (with a side of conditions, mainly confusion) if so which of your builds would you use. Or would scepter/sword work better?

Scepter Pistol would be more effective imo, especially if you want a Condi spice. Check out Ross Biddle’s phantasm/lockdown build. Scepter can output some nice power damage, and I’m personally a fan of mixing a sigil of rage with my scept for the quickness boost to auto attack and confuse ray. (but I like weird things like furious interruption on scepter which no one agrees with me on =P)

You’re trading off a damaging boon stripping cleaving auto attack, a very strong defense in blurred frenzy and an immobilize for ranged damage and an on-demand blind, though so your spec would be more effective at mid to far ranges rather than close so be prepared to kite a lot and use ledges to your advantage =P use the scepters ability to delay the last part of the auto attack to mix in different things (ex: auto1, auto2, counter, auto 3 gives you a nice two clones to Diversion[F3] shatter with)

Ummmm, I believe on that very Phantrupt Asskicker thread that I totally vouched for Furious Interruption. I even like scepter/pistol with CI sometimes. Sword-focus is still a mainstay.

You’re not everyone. You’re T!

zexion.5842:

Hey chaos for lockdown is Staff scepter/pistol a good set up for a power build (with a side of conditions, mainly confusion) if so which of your builds would you use. Or would scepter/sword work better?

Scepter Pistol would be more effective imo, especially if you want a Condi spice. Check out Ross Biddle’s phantasm/lockdown build. Scepter can output some nice power damage, and I’m personally a fan of mixing a sigil of rage with my scept for the quickness boost to auto attack and confuse ray. (but I like weird things like furious interruption on scepter which no one agrees with me on =P)

You’re trading off a damaging boon stripping cleaving auto attack, a very strong defense in blurred frenzy and an immobilize for ranged damage and an on-demand blind, though so your spec would be more effective at mid to far ranges rather than close so be prepared to kite a lot and use ledges to your advantage =P use the scepters ability to delay the last part of the auto attack to mix in different things (ex: auto1, auto2, counter, auto 3 gives you a nice two clones to Diversion[F3] shatter with)

BurrTheKing.8571:

Because CI lockdown is the closest you can get to the old GW1 interrupt Mesmer (Power Block doesn’t seem that great atm) it’s the build I started playing Mes with. Now, I feel pretty kitten confident with it (I can generally beat teefs if they don’t catch me w/o CDs), but when it comes to Shatter I’m actually kinda rubbish at it in comparison.

The build also just feels…complete. With Sword/Focus GS you have strong DPS, a skill that can give you and your team swiftness which in addition to Blink means your mobility isn’t too shabby. The damage if you consistently interrupt seems on par if not greater than Shatter. I feel way more valuable when the time comes to save a teammate than on Shatter.

The one weakness is that you have to play well, and that you don’t have room for Portal. That is probably the largest drawback. At the end of the day though it’s a build that is fun to play and you’re not totally screwing your team over when you use it (like when I run a all Physical War) and once mastered can put you on par with Shatter.

I run portal all the time. =P Blink, Portal, and Mantra. I used to run null field but after some clutch portal plays I became a believer.

@Blissless: Landing the interrupts isn’t the difficult part of CI, its capitalizing on them that is. A lot of people have a hard time doing significant damage with CI because its more difficult to land shatters and focus/staff phantasms are madly inaccurate unless your timing is very precise. And again, phantasms aren’t the primary damage source, so its not like you’re kiting all day.

It is easier to survive with CI, but much harder to do significant damage than it is for shatter.

@Warlord: Ty man! And you’re right, maybe we should give that a shot! I’ll work on a new vid for mind crush at least. Dude you gotta fight Helseth while you’re in EU.

Omg I love you for this. Definitely need more EU activities

As a Mesmer, I’m pretty used to such a …

Wait for it..

Cry of Frustration!

edit: ugh.. Mailmail. You ninja’d my cheesy pun!

VIDEOS!

Lockdown Mesmer Guide

Chaotic Interruption Vids

Confounding Suggestions Vids

(Lookit theres videos links in the next post!)

Lockdown refers to both Interrupt (Chaotic Interruption) and Chainstun( Confounding Suggestions) style of play.

6) LOCKDOWN IS A SEPARATE PLAYSTYLE

• If you’ve been playing Shatter for over a year, don’t expect to be a Day 1 champion. Lockdown has its own rules, rotations, weapons and playstyle. In a lockdown build, you are no longer simply relying on just shatters, phantasms or just condition damage. You have to intelligently manage conditions, shattering, and know when to maintain phantasms all while keeping an eye out for interrupts. All these nuances have to be learned to be successful and as a result, playing a lockdown build is often difficult and frustrating at the start and not very rewarding. Give yourself about a week to adjust to the differences and learn new habits before deciding whether or not lockdown is for you.

5) EVERY WEAPON (EXCEPT TORCH) WORKS IN LOCKDOWN

• You can run sword, scepter, offhand sword, pistol, focus gs, or staff in just about any combination and still make a lockdown build that works for you. The standard 4/4/6 Chaotic Interruption (Chaos XI) build can successfully run with sword, any offhand (except torch), and even GS/Staff double-ranged.

4) PEOPLE WILL CALL YOU CHEESE, YET THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE BUILD

• “Lockdown Mesmers just spam instant interrupts. Its so cheese.” Your response to this is simple: “You do realize we only have two instant interrupts on a 36 second cooldown, right? And no good player will be beaten by someone simply spamming interrupt after interrupt.” This is fact. Good players will not be beaten by simply spamming, and only bad lockdown Mesmer spam anyway.

3) BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR MANTRA INTERRUPT

• Having an instant 1200 range interrupt is great, yet it rarely gets used to its full potential. While interrupting heals and rezz/stomps is the most obvious use, sometimes there are opportunities that we overlook. If in a clustered group fight keep an eye out for where there may be two or more enemies close together; sometimes it is more beneficial to target a turret or pet positioned between 3 enemies in order to daze them all. Sometimes it is better to save the mantra for defense, to cover your own heal or escape from a chase.

2) THE MOST COMPETITIVELY VIABLE LOCKDOWN BUILD IS 4/4/6 CI

• The PvP viability of Mesmer in general can be called into question time and again, but when it comes to competitive play build variety begins to narrow for all classes. At the highest level, Shatter has been proven to be the most dominant, but 4/4/6 Chaotic Interruption – played well – is nearly, (if not just) as viable.
  Now this is only for the highest level, and anywhere below that there is room for all kinds of build diversity. Arguments of “top players don’t use CI for a reason” can run into a lot of hurdles, especially going back to the first point of the build being a completely unique playstyle. Sure experience, positioning, and general game knowledge will carry an advanced player but to go so far as to unlearn shatter reflexes and habits in order to properly play lockdown is a massive change for a top player. I’ve yet to have a conversation with someone who wasn’t biased towards Interrupt or Shatter, but the arguments against interrupt often come from people who have either never or rarely played the spec for themselves and are parroting things they’ve heard from others.

1) GOOD LOCKDOWN MESMER ARE RIDICULOUSLY RARE

• Seriously. Lockdown has risen in popularity over the past year and a half and has established itself comfortably into peoples’ minds, even those who don’t main Mesmer. Each person playing lockdown is essentially representing and advertising this rare, difficult playstyle. They’re saying “Hey, yo, yeah I’m not shatter. I’m not condi, oh are you confused? I’m a lockdown Mesmer, chief! Be enlightened!” and that is all well and good.. except for one problem: Most people aren’t very good with it.
  Lockdown is more than just interrupts and chain dazes, a good lockdown Mesmer:

• Can strip boons from priority targets.
• Wins the majority of their 1v1s.
• Knows when and where to shatter, and when to maintain phantasms.
• Does not panic and spam dazes, interrupts both preemptively & on reaction.
• Can, if they wanted, keep an enemy locked down for over 6 seconds.

If you struggle with 3 of those 6 things, then you’ve got some work to do on your locking down. But do not let that discourage you, you are working with a difficult build in an unforgiving meta. The struggle is indeed real, but be persistent and the rewards will be worthwhile. There is nothing like the satisfying experience of crushing an opponent with well-timed dazes and interrupts!

Shatteroar? Shimmerfang? Uh.. Telepanther? Pride of Mirrors? Chaotic Claws?

Dreameater? .. I’m lousy with Charr. X.x

Any way I look at it, I see a loss in damage.

I don’t see the “chronomancer” (assuming it is this) or whatever specialization being able to out damage shatter or Phantasm Mesmer. I think the traitline will have a higher emphasis on control. And if I’m looking at 4/4/0/0/6, its almost obvious that dueling has to stay, so I’m looking at 0/4/0/0/0/6 with 4 free points to throw around…

Unless, the traitline offers a new form of clone production.

Bigbosos.2063:

Ross Biddle.2367:

The typical Lockdown build is 4, 4, 6, using CI, BI, DE, boon remove on shatter, with either staff, GS, sword/focus, or possibly pistol.

Ok so, I tried this build, with staff + sword / focus. (tried as in, I tested vs the fighting npcs in HoTM).

How the kitten does it work? I literally can’t wrap my mind around it. Does one open with sword 3? Or curtain?

Also, it’s kitten hard to spot when to interrupt without an enemy casting bar. How does one go at it?

Its about planning ahead, not just reacting. Look at your skills and start to figure how you can link together your dazed, stuns, immobs.

Focus Pull → iLeap
Chaos Storm + Diversion[F3] shatter.

Take it step by step, first train yourself to spot interrupts, the GS Mesmer, Necro and Guardian NPCs are good practice for this since they all have obnoxious attacks. Try to save your mantra interrupt for when you know it will hit, rather than spamming it in hopes of an interrupt. Then practice with temporal curtain: place it down and let it linger for a bit until you see an interrupt opportunity.

After you get comfortable interrupting, start trying to find ways to capitalize on interrupts. You have a 2s immobilize to work with, either shatter with Mind Wrack or let iWarlock do its work. Sometimes try using ileap on an interrupted opponent to prolong the immobilize duration. Work on saving Chaos Storm for when you can swap back to sword so you can immobilize people inside the storm with leap. Eventually it all becomes natural, you’ll be immobilizing people for iWardens full spinny duration, hitting them with blurred frenzy, and shattering all over their faces in some mighty bursts!

Also.. Greatsword works just as well in place of staff.

Harbinger.8637:

glock.6590:

The other day I also tried guardian and bunker seems to be squishier than any celestial build out there. Even full zerk medi guard seems to have more sustain than bunker guard lol.

What a lot of people don’t realize, bunker guard is all about active defense. You have to use your blocks, blinds, and skills appropriately. You can easily spot a new bunker guard. They usually blow all their skills very quickly, and then they get punished hard for it.

Most people think you can just stand there and take all the damage, you can’t, especially on a Virtues bunker. The more you play the class, the better you’ll get, and know how to adapt to situations.

I’m going to go on a bit rant here, but oh well.

Bunker Guard requires a different type of player and mindset. It’s all about your team, everything you do needs to help benefit them. If you’re only thinking about yourself, you already failed. You need to know when to sacrifice our own defenses to help them. For example, lets say you’re in a fight and you see some team mates getting loaded with conditions, yet you used all your clears. This is when you need to use your Renewed Focus to refresh your virtues and help them out with clears. Sure you didn’t need it, but your team did. Another example is you see a necro on your team getting trained; you need to get on that necro and use your abilities to help him and not worry about yourself.

This is why a lot of players fail with bunker Guard; it requires very selfless type of mindset. You have to put your ego and personal agenda aside for the better of your team. A lot of other professions are just about you and your own survivability. However, bunker Guard is much different. It’s all about empowering your team (no pun intended), in order to win. This is the reason why I enjoy bunker Guard so much.

Ok I’m done now.

Annd just like that I’m sold on playing bunker guard

Yo J!

Yeah looks good, you don’t exactly need the 4 points in Dom tho, so you have some wiggle room to play around. May wanna throw some clone deaths in there foe more Condi. 2/4/2/0/6. I’ve seen successful Maim builds with 4 in inspiration or chaos too.

Also, Hydro/Doom on staff is glorious, instant poison/chill on swap. Balthazar runes are also a thing.

Nah, it’s simple AoE behavior.

If chaos storm had hit any npc that the thief had also damaged, he would’ve revived if the creature died.

Thanks so much for the support guys, reading these are a big help!

Just wanted to chime in on something @Kusumura pets and NPCs aren’t prioritized for friendly boons/heals. It will always go to nearby players first.

Warhorn. Bard specialization plz!

Sup guys,

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you guys could help out.

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as a Warrior? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• Which type of Thief build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

• What Thief skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

In my experience (4/4/6 Lockdown Mesmer) Thieves are.. well, Thieves. Even though Lockdown has a better chance vs them than Shatter, it is still a nightmare of a battle. If the Mes hasn’t played Thief or extensively fought them then it’s practically a guaranteed loss. Most of the time, it comes down to a lucky or particularly well-timed interrupt or two (and fire proc) but without that interrupt, it’s almost always GG. =/

Sup guys,

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you guys could help out.

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as a Warrior? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• Which type of Warrior build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

• What Warrior skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

In my experience (4/4/6 Lockdown Mesmer) Warriors are opponents you never actually want to fight, but end up having to sooner or later. I use Sword/focus-staff, so I have a bit of an advantage in that my focus Phantasm (spinning axe-wielding iWarden) can completely negate projectiles, rendering most of the Longbow useless for it’s duration. Otherwise the firefield is a nightmare, and whatever is in the Warrior’s offset is also a nightmare. The most frustrating thing fighting a Warrior is how they just never seem to simply die. There’s always a smidgen of life left that will eventually regenerate into half life if I don’t bust my kitten to try and put the War down. That survivability has to be respected though, I’ve seen Warriors do a lit with very little life.

I rarely find a Warrior that can beat me, and more often have stalemated with quite a few, but the few who do are fantastic at the class and I have nothing but praise for their ability.

Yo yo!

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you guys could help out.

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as another Mes? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

In my experience (4/4/6 Lockdown Mesmer) it’s a battle of defensive CDs. Its always trying to make your opponent blow more cooldowns than you, as well as a whole lot of kiting and positioning, clutch stealths and blinking around behind your opponent. Some of the best Mesmers I face make me take a split second to have to find the real Mesmer under an armada of clones and then capitalize on that moment for a burst. Precise timing is key, constant movement is necessary, and having a mastery of your build is often not enough; you have to be able to predict the opponent, bait the opponent, and read their reactions in order to have a chance against a Mesmer of equal skill.

I did not know that, ty!

Quick question.. How useful is plague form? What’s its purpose besides general annoyance?

Sup guys,

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you guys could help out!

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as an Elementalist? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• Which type of Ele build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

• What Ele skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

In my experience (4/4/6 Lockdown Mes) facing Eles is .. a dance. Vs D/D or S/D all my movements are based on their attunement. Evasive against fire, aggressive against water, earth lets me catch my breath and is madly interruptable. Ironically, it always seems like the Ele is dancing with me; matching my spacing, attunement swapping depending on my clones position or mantra charges ect. It’s a very fun fight, but a painfully long fight. In sPvP there’s the problem, as a Mesmer I need to end fights quickly and be mobile while I do it. Eles tend to tie me up for longer than I wanna stay, even if I’m not worried about actually losing the fight.

Staff eles are interrupt fodder, unfortunately, but I have such love and respect for any/all Staff eles I find! (biased. I play one)

Sup guys,

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you guys could help out!

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as an Engineer? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• Which type of Engi build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

• What Engi skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way (especially since I know like nothing about Engineers). Thanks in advance for any assistance!

In my experience (4/4/6 Lockdown Mesmer) Engineers are.. difficult. I always run focus, so my spinning Phantasmal Warden does wonders eating/blocking turret and rifle shots and yet I have a really hard time fighting them nonetheless. A good engineer can sustain themselves just long enough so that their condis take me down before I take them down. Fighting turrets is a pain as I tend to have to dance around a lot and can’t get as close as I’d like. It doesn’t help that I have no idea what’s going on on the Engi’s side, so it makes it much harder to predict them. In this fight, if I don’t land two or three interrupts within about 15 seconds of eachother, the engi will never die.

Bumping for sticky request!

Sup guys,

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you arrow slangers could help out!

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as a Ranger? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• Which type of Ranger build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

• What Ranger skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

My perspective vs Rangers(as a 4/4/6 CI Lockdown Mes) – Rangers.. Oh ranger. For a long time Rangers did not even exist in any kind of relevant way to me, but once that pewpew buff dropped suddenly Rangers became a real and legitimate threat. Now you guys are one of my main focuses in a fight (besides Necro) as luckily longbow isn’t too difficult to interrupt, and I don’t have to do much to render you obsolete in a teamfight besides stay on yer kitten and throw some convenient interrupts.
Condition damage screws me, and it’s always interesting to see what the Ranger’s got going on once the bow gets stowed. I find Sword/dagger particularly interesting and aesthetically pleasing versus a Mesmer’s sw/sw.
In general I tend to find good Rangers to be a really fun, challenging fight (looking at you StickerHappy) and any average ranger to be a cakewalk. Now that Druid is confirmed, I plan to create one!

Sup guys,

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you guys could help out!

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as a Guardian? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• Which type of Guard build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

• What Guard skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

I figured I’d also give my experience (4/4/6 CI lockdown Mesmer) fighting Guards:

Meditation guards are interesting.. I often find myself facing off against either very good Meditation guards or lackluster ones; there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. The lack luster ones tend to be predictable: teleporting into a burst, blowing their wads while trying to spin to win, rinse and repeat with some scepter waving.

Now my problem is that Medi guard seems like the sort of build where you really have to take a second to play the spec to understand everything that’s going on. Since I haven’t yet done that.. I merely rely on waiting for the Guardian to switch to their ungodly-easy-to-interrupt greatsword and simply kitten everything with interrupts. Simple, easy, and predictable.
Against really good Medi guards though? Its such an uphill battle that I often wonder if I’m fighting the same build! That predictable burst is suddenly scarey, now I’m timing certain skills in reaction to the Guard (Judges intervention = Phase Retreat!) and praying for the opportunity to interrupt the GS. I used to say that “Guardians can’t beat Mesmers. Too easy of a fight.” But good Medi guards tend to shove that quote right back all over my face. I hate the face shoving, as it often reminds me I gotta try the spec out for myself. =/