Guild Wars 2

maha.7902:

gw2 pvp is superior to its competition, despite the shortcomings.

LOL

Care to elaborate – I’ve highlighted the reasons I find it more fun than “similar” games.

Also, if mesmer didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be playing this game anyway – and I certainly wouldn’t play any other mmo – but I enjoy the mechanics and visual effects of mesmer too much.

If a game has boring mechanics (like LoL and similar games), I don’t care how well balanced it is, I’m not interested, period. Therefore, in my eyes gw2 pvp combat playing as a mesmer is superior. It is more fluid, fast paced, action based and more satisfying mechanically, visually and aurally. There are many problems in this game, but the core pvp combat mechanics is not one of them.

MailMail.6534:

maha.7902:

actually get out and play a game besides GW2 and you’ll see that there are games with gameplay on par or superior to it, and LoL is one of them.

I’d rather watch paint dry than play LoL. The acronym for their game is appropriate.

Agreed.

Wait till we see the warrior spec…

Don’t worry – I’m sure it will be the most powerful by far, followed by thief.

Ithamir.5928:

Illusion
Minors
- Confusion on shatter.
- 80% illusion skills recharge.
- Might on shatter.
- 85% shatters recharge.

Majors
- Torch skills remove conditions.
- Torch skills recharge faster.
- 5+ stacks of Confusion apply Torment.
- Shatter skills are improved.

That’s a lot to give up on. I guess only time will tell ;P

Agreed, there are a lot of good things in illusions, so who knows whether dom/due/chrono or dom/due/ill will “win” when it comes to the competitive meta.
I still think DE is too much to give up for power shatter, despite the chrono traits.

maha.7902:

I love people holding GW2 combat as some sort of holy grail.

actually get out and play a game besides GW2 and you’ll see that there are games with gameplay on par or superior to it, and LoL is one of them.

I have – it’s unbelievably boring (lol that is).

But then I am from an action TPS/FPS/RPG background so I seriously dislike that style of game as it is. I enjoy things like mass effect 3 multiplayer, jedi knight series games, TES games and so on (sorry, ESO just doesn’t cut it for me, and things like tera/rift don’t either).

Holding right click for camera and lack of a crosshair was enough of an adjustment to make in GW2, as well as tab targeting, and I dislike gw2 pve enough as it is because the enemies aren’t unpredictable like in action games.

Edit: so I should clarify – gw2 pvp is superior to its competition, despite the shortcomings.

Good, it’s about time.

Finally some real sacrifices to make – hopefully each choice will produce builds similar in strength.

I’m so glad we can’t have all the good traits together – so every build is going to have some weakness, whether it is condition removal, control, damage, support, defence etc.
And I love there are one or two big reasons to take every tree:
- CS, SC, MT and PB in Domination
- Minors, DE, Blinding Dissipation and a few others in Duelling
- Chaotic Dampening, Master of Manipulation, CI/PU/BD in Chaos
- Mender’s, Warden’s Feedback, RI, SC and the minors in Inspiration
- 20% illusion cooldown and 15% shatter cooldown, torch trait, scepter trait, MtD, MoF in Illusions
- and of course all the amazing traits in Chrono

I love these tough choices and that no one will be able to cheese the system by going a few points here and there in different trait lines – so for this reason, GJ Anet.

Of course in practice there are bound to be overpowered classes/builds, underpowered and everything in between, as well as bugs – but at least in theory/on paper it looks much better so far than what we have currently.

Amazing promo videos – awful gameplay compared to GW2.

Despite all the problems, GW2 combat is still the best so far – even ESO doesn’t touch it.

Milamberr.1705:

All it needs is maybe some quince paste and some sliced melon?

Surely the new “tactical nuke” power shatter/interrupt variants will be equally as powerful – especially if bursting from stealth/surprise openings and the opponent has no chance to save themselves.

I belive PU might be more of a hindrance with 6s decoys, prestiges and 10s MI – as it may mess up the flow of skill usage that would otherwise reveal you. I’m not too keen on using it as it looks at the moment.
In fact, BD might be better with that stability.

But MtD with built in IP will be wonderful – so taking Illusions and Duelling, either paired with Chronomancer or Inpiration (shattered conditions and restorative illusions :o) will be great.

eldenbri.1059:

Chaos also has the chaotic persistence minor trait. That looks like it will probably increase condition duration by around 10% in a lot of cases. So that’s kind of like getting a 10% damage boost. You can also take chaotic transference to boost condi damage in this line.

Basically, it seems like Deceptive Evasion isn’t needed since you can use up all your shatter skills faster than you run out of ways to create illusions.

But only time will tell if it actually works like this

The thing about duelling is not really DE because as you said you’ve got the chronomancer traits, baseline IP and the ability to slot mirror images among other things.

Rather it is about the minors – Sharpened Images and Confusing Combatants. I seriously believe these two traits will be huge in any condition build and the main reason for a condition build to take duelling.

Take MH sword for instance – suddenly with confusing combatants and possibly sum of all fears – and then with all the confusion on shatter and especially cry of frustration it allows a non-native condition weapon to be used in a condition build, so we can have more variety instead of scepter all the time.

I would even imagine you will be able to use Greatsword in a condition build thanks to these two traits.

I think I may prefer Duelling/Illusions/Chronomancer because don’t forget with frequent shatters alacrity will reduce weapon cooldowns so you can still run staff with that benefit – only losing out on protection with chaos armour and further cooldown reduction but tbh I don’t think it will be necessary compared to all the good chronomancer traits.

The biggest problem as with anything not taking inspiration is conditon removal – torch traited will help but I think either MoR or AT will.be necessary utilities.

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

Daniel Handler.4816:

bump because vanity.

Trouble now is what sacrifice to make to get the slow access and other chronomancer benefits.

Duelling/Chaos/Chrono for condi interrupt builds.
Duelling/Illusions/Chrono for condi shatter builds.
Duelling/Inspiration/Chrono for condi phantasm builds.

Done.

lolDuelling.

So much for variety. xD

Anyway as this thread is solely about condirupt rather than any other build, it seems Duelling/Chaos/Chrono is the only way to go, if taking chrono (but I may still prefer duelling/chaos/inspiration or other core trait line combinations).

eldenbri.1059:

Yeah, part of this is just my love of stealth

But it feels to me like the whole game is going to get a lot more dangerous when HoT comes out. So far, basically all the builds that I’ve looked at are significantly stronger than older builds. So it feels like the bar is going to get raised on defense as well – particularly if you expect to fight 1v2 fights while roaming.

Perhaps this is much more defense than needed. In that case, I could imagine doing something like dropping Arcane Thievery and putting in Mirror Images. That definitely lets you get the battle going faster…

Still lots to see, but I think some of the new builds are going to have very powerful combinations of skills

Agreed – there’s no way to know how much defence we’ll need until it drops. Every class is looking to hurt a lot more, so maybe what is considered overkill now will be mandatory for outnumbered survival.

The thing with the MtD PU build is either:
1) You take Duelling/Chaos/Illusions and forced into travler runes and losing out on tormenting runes.
2) You take Chaos/Illusions/Chronomancy and while you can take tormenting runes you lose out on all the nice benefits in Duelling.

Dropping Chaos allows interesting combos like:
Duelling/Inspiration/Illusions – for ridiculous condition removal through frequent shatters also proccing MtD
Duelling/Illusions/Chronomancy – which I feel is more offensive but of course lacks on the condition removal aspect.

No idea what might work best yet but it is exciting.

Ragnarox.9601:

Sebrent.3625:

Ragnarox.9601:

As usual guardians get slap in the face….only class without passive speed trait. GG Anet.

Yeah, as usual, the class that has been in the meta for every aspect of the game is getting slapped in the face again … it must be so hard being part of every meta … obviously always part of the meta due to all of those slaps to the face … /eyeroll.

Dont forget you are too in the meta. Thats not the reason for it. I guess they want to destroy guardians from that every aspect of the game….

There’s a difference between being the rock solid backbone of every meta across all three game modes and being reluctantly allowed in to make use of one or two tricks we have access to.

I believe Duelling > Chaos because of sharper images and confusing combatants plus all the other good duelling traits. Something like this:
http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/#profession=mesmer&traits=%22Dueling%22,1,5,9-%22Illusions%22,3,6,9-%22Chronomancer%22,1,4,9

I don’t believe PU is necessary at all, and the staff trait can be sacrificed for the much better Duelling line. The only issue is full rabid would be necessary for the on crit condition traits – so I can certainly appreciate the benefit of the chaos line allowing use of full Dire with insane survivability.

Weapon choice can be flexible – Scepter/Torch, Scepter/Shield, Scepter/Pistol, Sword/Torch, Sword/Shield, Sword/Pistol, Staff…

Daniel Handler.4816:

bump because vanity.

Trouble now is what sacrifice to make to get the slow access and other chronomancer benefits.

Chaos is pretty important for condirupt because CI is a good trait now and will be even better then because of the merge with BI.

So that leaves one choice – between Duelling, Inspiration or Illusions – with Duelling being the obvious choice because of sharper images, confusing combatants and access to mistrust.

So I think it will have to be Duelling/Chaos/Chronomancy in this case, which means almost certain weapon set of x/Pistol (or Scepter/Shield) + Staff.

I think I will still prefer Duelling/Chaos/Inspiration because I enjoy Focus >>>>>>> Pistol., and I’m not sure how much I’m likely to enjoy shield.

Juba.8406:

this trait is freaking OP, compared to warrior it’s 2 traits in one:
Warrior’s Sprint
weaker version of Dogged March

and it’s a minor trait!!

This single trait is the main reason I’m trying to shoehorn the traitline into a suitable playstyle for myself.

Combined with Antitoxin, Melandru or Hoelbrak runes… :o

I can’t believe that_shaman’s specialisation calculator on Dulfy’s site has already been updated for Chronomancy trait line. :o

That was fast.

All’s Well that Ends Well

Need an alternative trait “This won’t end Well” – wells deal bonus conditions/effects or whatever to enemies. :p

Time Marches On – You move 25% faster. The duration of incoming movement-impairing conditions is reduced by 25%. (Cripple. Chilled, Immobilize)

:o

…

That’s a huge incentive to pick the trait line.

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

The thing is I strongly believe you should not be able to take Blade Training AND Evasive Mirror together – it should be one or the other, either lower cooldown on BF, ileap, iRiposte and Swordsman, or have a reflect available on your BF (as well as dodging). That is why they should stay in the same tree.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Evasive Mirror looks promising but the devs stated they are still working on cooldowns and the duration of the effect. Things might change but let’s assume it stays at it is.

What would Sword gain over non-Sword users? Reflect on BF every 10s. It it cool? Yes, it’s pretty awesome. Does it increase the offensive power of Sword? Yes, it does, since I can reflect projectiles. Does it increase the survivablity of Sword? No, it doesn’t since projectiles are already evaded anyway. It might actually be bad because the reflected projectiles can trigger Retaliation.

Ok this I can accept – I may be overestimating the synergy. My reasoning is I do not want there to be an “obvious path” through any traitline as soon as you choose a particular weapon, but each path should be equally valid.

Xaylin.1860:

I simply disagree with your assessment of how powerful the synergy could be. Maybe even more importantly it doesn’t make the other traits unappealing. If Blade Training was on the Adept level, Duelists Discpline and Blinding Dissipation might be equally appealing as Evasive Mirror depending on your overall build.

Likewise I don’t consider Duelists Discipline to be as strong as you believe – it should be a solid trait but evasive mirror and blinding dissipation should be much better (providing no annoying ICDs).

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

Don’t forget offhand sword when it comes to synergy – having phantasmal fury on that can make a difference, so Blade Training is a solid trait affecting 5 skills, unlike the pistol trait.

I didn’t. But not everyone runs Sw/Sw. That’s also somewhat like saying that 2-handed weapon traits should generall be weaker than others. Additionally, so far the secondary bonus on Blade Training doesn’t contribute a significant benefit to most of the skills since they are single hit abilities.

But the precision does contribute to overall crit chance when running any kind of shatter build speccing into duelling (power or condition), or even to any other weapon skills paired with either sword main or off hand (for example confusing images with sword offhand).

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

1) Keep the precision bonus on sword but change the trait to grant reduced cooldown for every attack you evade or block (either from dodging or BF or iRiposte), and
2) Delete Desperate Decoy and replace it with a skill that inflicts bleeding when you interrupt a foe or something (specifically for any player not using a pistol).

The bolt part could be OP as hell. Perma-BF says ‘Heeeey!’.

Talking tiny percentages – given two dodges and BF and an average number of evades per fight. The block effect could be set to trigger only on iRiposte and not on any random aegis or anything else.

The time it would become powerful is in 1vX where you evade half a dozen attacks in one dodge or BF – but the solution here would be to cap the max recharge reduction.

To be honest I can think of one solution but I don’t think many people will like it:
- Move Phantasmal Fury to the master minor slot and swap it with Sharper Images which would become an adept major – reason being I don’t think any traitline should lean towards a particular method of dealing damage and at the moment I think it’s not right that both confusing combatants and sharper images are both minor traits – given confusion should be one of our trademark conditions, I believe it should remain as the grandmaster minor trait – but instead, Sharper Images should be a choice and not automatically gained.

I find it silly that power builds speccing into duelling automatically get illusions bleeding and confusing on crit, as well as confusing themselves on crit, all for free – doesn’t make sense to me.

Excessive ground targeting is not my cup of tea so no, I don’t think I will be using them regularly.

If I spec chrono for whatever reason – the main reason will be to gain access to gravity well because it’s cool. :p

The thing is I strongly believe you should not be able to take Blade Training AND Evasive Mirror together – it should be one or the other, either lower cooldown on BF, ileap, iRiposte and Swordsman, or have a reflect available on your BF (as well as dodging). That is why they should stay in the same tree.

Blinding Dissipation is also looking to be a very strong trait, and as such I think it should not be able to be paired with Evasive Mirror. So that’s why I prefer them all to stay mutually exclusive in the same tier.

Don’t forget offhand sword when it comes to synergy – having phantasmal fury on that can make a difference, so Blade Training is a solid trait affecting 5 skills, unlike the pistol trait.

As for Phantasmal Fury + Duelist’s Discipline -> I believe it should be a choice between " other phantasms crit more often proccing sharper images and confusing combatants" and “pistol phantasm (and magic bullet) delivers more conditions but with a lower crit rate”. I honestly think it’s good to have to choose between them.

I think:
1) Keep the precision bonus on sword but change the trait to grant reduced cooldown for every attack you evade or block (either from dodging or BF or iRiposte), and
2) Delete Desperate Decoy and replace it with a skill that inflicts bleeding when you interrupt a foe or something (specifically for any player not using a pistol).
3) Change Phantasmal Fury to pulse AoE Fury to allies (like regen does in Inspiration), or instead maybe summoning a phantasms gives you 5s of fury.

If Phantasmal Fury can be moved, then I think it is best to swap with one of the minor traits in duelling (though I don’t know which one), so then you can take it with the pistol.

Then that’s the issue of Desperate Decoy and Phantasmal Fury – the rest of the traits are fine.

Something like “x chance to grant fury on critical hits” added to phantasmal fury and you could get fury on yourself using sword.

Desperate Decoy needs to just be deleted and replaced with something entirely new – and this could be the trait that synergises with sword.

(On the note of DD – it’s only going to be magic bullet and the Duelist that get this bleeding bonus so I don’t see it as being an amazing trait, and totally useless without using offhand pistol)

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

<snip> (post too long)

So you’re not even slightly bothered that the current set up of Duelling denies you any possible synergy between the Adept and Master tier?

Let’s look at some scenarios. Of course, this is slightly exaggereted. But it shows where I’m comming from and why I’m not very statisfied with the previewed trait distribution.

---

A: Random build running Sword MH

Master trait

• Blade Training: Likely.
• Blinding Dissipation: If shatter focussed, maybe. Otherwise BF > occasional Blind.
• Evasive Mirror: Generic trait. Maybe.

Adept trait

• Duelists Discpline: Only for Pistol OH.
• Desperate Decoy: If you’re crazy? It will remain underused for good reasons.
• Phantasmal Fury. Last option. Extremly small synergy with Sword.

Currently, anyone going Duelling with Sword MH without Pistol OH gets shafted on the Adept level. Personally, I do feel that this is a rather significant issue.

---

B: Random build running Pistol OH

Master trait

• Blade Training: Maybe. If using MH Sword. Which condi builds might not.
• Blinding Disspation: Maybe. If not using MH Sword and utilizing shatters.
• Evasive Mirror: Maybe. If neither MH Sword or shatter focus or just for more reflects.

Adept trait

• Duelists Discpline: Yes, please!
• Desperate Decoy: If you’re crazy.
• Phantasmal Fury: Why would you? You get Bleeds for free from DD!

Trait choice on the Adept level is painfully obvious. On the Master level it is more like ‘Meh, whatever.’ The only reason why it isn’t as annoying as scenario A is because two out of three traits are generally useful.

---

The addition of Bleeds to DD makes it painfully obvious that Phantasmal Fury, Sharper Images and DD were supposed to synergize. The current trait placement makes this impossible which probably eventually lead to them to adding the Bleeds to DD. At this point I really got to ask myself why this was even considered? Sword will lack any efficient synergies with the Adept line while Pistol gets a bandaid. The only set up which benefits from the previewed change would be Sword/Focus.

Personally, I feel that a traitline within itself should have synergies among its traits. Of course, we should have to make decisions but if balancing the available options on a certain tier results in the removal of any relevant synergy among the traits within the traitline I really got to question if the right design decisions were made.

Where did I ever say anything about Adept or even Grandmaster tiers?

“Master tier in duelling is probably the best balanced choice of traits out of all of the lines and tiers because each one is a solid choice and none of them should be able to be taken together.”

I never said anything about synergy across the whole line – I spoke only about the Master tier, and those three choices of Blade Training, Blinding Dissipation and Evasive Mirror being excellent that you can only take one at a time.

Duelling Adept traits are not good in terms of choice, I agree – Desperate Decoy is kitten no matter how you look at it, Phantasmal Fury depends on which phantasms you’re using, and Pistol trait is only useful if you’re using offhand pistol.

The choice between Phantasmal Fury and Duelist’s Discipline is akin to the choice between Sum of All Fears and Malicious Sorcery, and I believe this is a good choice – if you’re using Pistol or Scepter you can take those traits, if not you’ve got a decent alternative. The problem is the third trait being pretty bad – Desperate Decoy in the case of duelling adept and Phantasmal Haste (illusions master) in a line strongly geared towards frequent shatters such that you likely won’t keep phantasms alive long enough to get more than two attacks off anyway. And secondly both Sum of all Fears and Phantasmal Fury could do with sometihng to make them more appealing – for the former reduce the number of confusion stacks per torment to 3 (to make it more attractive for a condition build not using the scepter), for the latter I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Edit: kitten it, I keep trying to edit something in here – having typed 3 times now and the forum keeps swallowing it up. I’ll try typing again hopefully it saves this time.

I believe there should be sacrifices at each tier such that there is no “best” route through any traitline, but only different flavours – and all hopefully similarly effective just in different ways. Regarding phantasmal fury – perhaps it could include something like “inflict bleeding when you interrupt a foe” to make it more of a direct alternative to DD similar to how SoaF is to MS in illusions.

Quadox.7834:

Chaotic transference is only for condition build, and condition builds use staff or they suck. The trait is bad.

Staff is not mandatory now, and certainly won’t be lost patch because:
- You can use Sw/P + Sc/T or similar combinations, where chaotic transference will be a solid choice.
- With the confusing combatants rework, your crits will apply confusion (as well as illusions applying both confusion and bleeding) so non-native condition weapons like sword (and possible even greatsword) may see more use in condition builds.

Also regarding Blade Training and Evasive Mirror – the Master tier in duelling is probably the best balanced choice of traits out of all of the lines and tiers because each one is a solid choice and none of them should be able to be taken together.
I think if Blade Training needs a tweak it should be along the lines of what tobascodagama suggested – ie that you gain reduced recharge every time you or an illusion crits alongside a precision/ferocity bonus.
Evasive mirror should remain a separate trait.

Madisonlee.9641:

All I hear is “give me the best of both worlds, let me keep DE, don’t make anything good compare to DE”

I really think this trait is damaging to our build variety

heh, actually i’m more interested in Mistrust come the patch.

Fhaeris.9237:

Curunen.8729:

I kind of wish 3 casts was baseline.

Then Harmonious Mantras could instead automatically restore 1 charge every so many seconds (can make it different for each mantra – 20s per charge restored for MoRecovery, 40s for MoDistraction, 30s for MoResolve, 35s for MoC).

That would incentive passive play, and it’s not a good thing.

Not really because you’d be missing out on the restorative mantras and protected mantras bonuses if not using them up and recharging manually.

I dunno, perhaps another option is Harmonious mantras could reduce the cast time of charging to under 1 second?

(For the record I still wouldn’t use the trait – just wondering ways of making a useful trait and have 3 charges standard, instead of adding an extra charge on the trait).

I kind of wish 3 casts was baseline.

Then Harmonious Mantras could instead automatically restore 1 charge every so many seconds (can make it different for each mantra – 20s per charge restored for MoRecovery, 40s for MoDistraction, 30s for MoResolve, 35s for MoC).

Quadox.7834:

Curunen.8729:

Those mirror traits/skills are looking even more juicy now. :>

Yep, but i think the trait that knockbacks can’t be reflected. I hope it will be, but i doubt it highly.

Yeah, I expect some things may be immune to the effect, but at least giving them a longbow means we have the potential to counter it (unlike if they gave them a mesmer GS like weapon… shudder)

Those mirror traits/skills are looking even more juicy now. :>

Not a lot – maybe a decent amount of gems to gold, to kit out my character in whatever gear I wanted, including any legendaries.

A few outfits and gemstore weapon skins, one or two finishers, the tab/inventory expanders and a few other bits and bobs.

Anything that means I can play whatever I like in the game whenever and never have to consider grinding (doing something I don’t want to do ie silverwastes) for gold to get some nice gear or whatever.

But that wouldn’t cost more than a few hundred £ I think, so the other 99% of the winnings would of course be for more important things.

I’ll be surprised if eles get glamours, or if any class gets glamours – all the glamour skills are very thematic in both name and function, and unlike wells, don’t seem to be able to fit any other class.

I’d guess it’s more likely that eles will get mantras, if their spec happens to be an ele/mesmer hybrid.

I would like to rejoin if possible whenever a solution is found for having max capacity.

IGN: Sailears
Server: Currently Desolation
Playstyle: Casual pvp/wvw/eotm/open world pve. I pretty much never do dungeons or fractals or any kind of instanced pve.
Role: Scholar
Time: Weekday evenings anytime between 6pm and 10pm GMT (BST now though so GMT+1). Weekends, anytime.

All this talk about mirror is making me drool.

Mirror + Evasive mirror + master of manipulation (+blink & MI) + traited focus…

I will forgive Anet for removing the old mimic bubble shield if all of the above is possible with no hidden catches/ICD on any traits…

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Elementalist is getting shouts.
Heal: “Water!”
Utility 1: “Fire!”
Utility 2: “Earth!”
Utility 3: “Air!”
Elite: “Heart!”

Using them all in succession turns you into captain planet for 30 seconds.

:o

You made my day – this is amazing.

Very good stuff – I’m only halfway through it so far, might have to watch the rest later. I like hearing the “poker” like thought process and broad quick thinking.

Thank you for posting it in here!

Very strange guardian spec, and the name is… well… I can think of many better names, most of which have already been suggested by other people in suitable threads. I hope they change the name to something better.

inb4 “It’s Morphin’ Time!”

;)

Yeah that’s why as in the other topic I said I don’t think I would like to run with both focus and shield together – taking staff and focus means enough swiftness out of combat (I don’t care for 100%) and enough in combat (chaos armour and chaos storm as well as focus), taking focus and shield would push me to run traveler – but then the question again with focus and shield together is power or condition?

I think it might work best as a power shatter/interrupt variant – so chronomancy, inspiration (take shattered conditions) and domination (boon strip, CS, and likely PB), full zerker, blink decoy and MoD (don’t need condi removal because of shattered conditions and menders purity).
Actually that could be a very fun shatter/interrupt build, but naturally quite glassy – although the weapons would provide good defence as well as the inspiration traits.

Yeah, it’s the mainhand issue again. :/

I personally wouldn’t use both at the same time, but if I did I’d pair scepter with focus and sword with shield.
Scepter with focus because it’s the “running” set – curtain for swiftness and pulls, and ranged weapon.
Sword with shield because you should be able to do some nice ileap tricks with tides of time, and it would be the defensive/melee set.

But this just highlights how desperately we need the choice of a third mainhand…

Scepter/Focus + Sword/Shield and this might be a lot of fun – certainly have a stupid amount of projectile mitigation through weapons, utilities and traits (if you take evasive mirror over blinding dissipation – but obviously not sure how useful each will be yet).

And yes – the main concern as you’ve highlighted is damage output – not sure how it will work in this case – whether the shatters would be hard hitting enough (even if you go full zerker), or if the conditions would be damaging enough (given sword, focus and shield are not natural condition weapons and would be relying heavily on sharper images and confusing combatants).

But for control/support in small groups, it could be quite potent.

Another thing – Sum of all Fears…

This looks awful – anyone playing a condition build taking illusion line would very likely take Scepter, and therefore take the scepter trait. Only exception I can think of is something like GS+Staff or Sw/P/T+Staff MtD shatter – but even then scepter would be a better choice.

Madisonlee.9641:

Is anyone else bummed out about not having access to mender’s purity anymore? Is anyone gonna pick inspiration for any build? :x Before we just needed two points for it ;-;

Hell yes – condition interrupt with the focus, Duelling/Chaos/Inspiration. I seriously can’t wait to try it out – it’s difficult at the moment to properly enjoy 0/4/6/4/0 while anticipating the upcoming changes.

Edit: But anyway, the fewer people that play this the better – I like it to remain a niche build, which it should do as most condition mesmers would likely stick with the torch and be attracted to PU+MtD playstyles.

Pyro – why don’t you create a regional list in the OP for those interested? Seems like there’s a fair few here interested in an EU initiative alongside an NA group.

I am thinking about server transfer, but trouble is playtime (I don’t usually go beyond 10pm gmt/bst during weekdays/working days, and weekends can be sporadic) and concerns with lag/ping.

Beautiful – the first gemstore item I honestly want to buy at some point (I would now but I’m saving gold for a legendary).

Fay.2357:

Sebrent.3625:

Just saying … why even let them stack up stability when you can pop out of stealth fully loaded with boons and stunlock them with shields of death :-p

This is pretty much exactly what I have in mind, though more from a temporary stealth for engage perspective than a permastealthed mesmer zerg.

…that’s a scary thought.

Curunen.8729:

Did he/his guild quit gw2? Would have been the perfect guinea pigs for this kind of thing.

Yeah, he’s moved on to star citizen, and his guild has mostly scattered. That reminds me though, I should contact Selan, she’d be all over this idea.

Ah, now that you mention it I thought I recognised this org:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs/AVTR

That’s a shame – I’m kind of playing both gw2 and SC arena commander side by side (well… the latter is on hold until I upgrade my machine), and even when the PU (persistent universe, not prismatic understanding!) goes live I don’t think I’ll be dropping gw2.

Heh, I recall selan always moaning about lack of AoE – funny now we get a whole load of Wells. xD

Fay.2357:

Loboling.5293:

Like a lot of people, I still haven’t settled on a class for HoT.

However I want to make a suggestion on a funny strategy. Call it “Gopher Up”. Have everyone scatter and drop portals, the zerg then moves from portal to portal that are scattered everywhere. Looking like the old game of whack a mole. It would be funny to hear, and funny to watch. Good luck with your group, and I hope I get to see it. (I’m on FA too)

Sebrent.3625:

Apparently Team Legacy did that during WvW against a very organized guild group at one time as a counter to their deathball tactic as the deathball could never run over the Team Legacy zerg as it kept porting around … back when there wasn’t a limit.

I actually believe that the first group to do this was Kylia’s guild Avatar. I’m trying to remember the deathball zerg guild, but I can’t quite remember it. They were always rather suspected of using a botting program due to the compactness of the deathball.

Did he/his guild quit gw2? Would have been the perfect guinea pigs for this kind of thing.

Rentlle.1370:

Hi guys,

i need some advice on the new trait-system that is upcomming.
I’m a pve-player, noticing that mesmers in higher areas Anet is developping (dry top, silverwastes) are more viable when using a lot of interrupts.

I also noticed the “warden’s feedback” is placed in a more “supportish” tier…
We can no longer go full dmg + reflect so it seems :/

So my question:
Could anyone give me some “general lineup” what a Reflect-phantasm-interrupt-dmg build is going to look?
if that is even possible…

with or without chronomancer :p

Stats are going to be removed from traitlines so you can easily spec full offence and take inpsiration traits for focus etc – traitlines will be more about flavour instead of kind of defining your stats as they do currently.

There should be some awesome reflects after patch – with evasive mirror, master of manipulation (reflects after blink, MI, AT, and extra for mirror heal which will also be on reduced cooldown), traited focus, maybe the shield trait will allow that to reflect (just guessing – but maybe not because it would step on the toes of the focus). I think honestly my favourite thing after the patch will be all the reflect access.

I’d imagine you could take Domination (key interrupt/damage traits for yourself and phantasms), Duelling (phantasmal fury, good choice of master traits and harmonious mantras) and Inspiration (menders purity, focus, good choice of grandmasters).

I’m going to try this as soon as the patch hits:

1) Offensive version (run if seriously outnumbered):
http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/#profession=mesmer&traits=%22Dueling%22,1,5,8-%22Chaos%22,3,6,7-%22Inspiration%22,2,4,7
Mirror or Ether Feast
Blink/MoD/Decoy/MI
Staff + Scepter/Focus
Full Rabid
Perplexity or Nightmare runes

With CI, Mistrust, Perplexity and all the interrupt weapon skills, this should be a decent condirupt build with a good ability to chase.

2) 1vX survivability version:
http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/#profession=mesmer&traits=%22Dueling%22,1,5,9-%22Chaos%22,3,6,8-%22Inspiration%22,2,4,7
Mirror or Ether Feast
Blink/Veil/Decoy/MI
Staff + Scepter/Focus
Full Rabid
Nightmare or Antitoxin Runes

This should be a seriously annoying troll build – between all the reflects, PU, and conditions. I can’t wait to try it out. Goal is not on killing targets (the first build is designed for that), but to mess around with groups. I know torch is more effective in 1vX, but focus is 10x more fun (and the iwarden should be able to output some serious confusion/bleeding as well as reflects).

fellyn.5083:

You can send it to me as well. I only need about 500g to finish my first legendary. It’s only taken me 3 years and an extremely lucky win from the halloween lottery to get to this point. My first and only piece of luck this game has ever thrown me.

You’re ahead of me – and I think I’m going to either have to buy the precursor at this point or wait for the HoT collection.

FoRcExVoRtEx.9548:

To the people who say mesmers are kicked from dungeon parties – you’re wrong. Yes, I main mesmer and yes, I don’t do dungeons constantly. However, mesmer brings utilties such as reflects and portals to parties that some ‘pros’ highly favor. You could say, ‘Oh, why don’t you use guardian then? They have a reflect!’ but the duration of a guardian’s reflect is puny compared to a mesmer’s (feedback, focus 4, double phatasmal warden using healing signet). Often a mesmer can deal massive damage just through assassin’s armor and reflects.

And the reflect potential once the patch hits will be insane – through evasive mirror, manipulation cooldown mirror (which also means mirror heal will be on 12s), traited focus and feedback… that’s a lot of reflects.

I can see some serious troll builds to annoy pew pew rangers, engis and power necros among other things (maybe even troll p/d condition thieves).