Guild Wars 2

Really? I tend to stay in sword for my shatters. With the whole 3-3-2 combo to insure a full burst. GS isn’t my burst weapon, it’s more of the “I’m on cool down and that last burst didn’t kill them so I’m going to get as far as possible while still doing damage” weapon.

Sylvari, master race!

http://imgur.com/a/9duSX

Menaka.5092:

I would love if you could decide when to apply the blast finisher (as you do with Temporal Curtain/Into the void).

This would be perfect! So the first skill is to stealth, the 2nd skill that appears would be to trigger the blast aoe. No more ruined chain stealth and finally a reliable blast finisher. Great idea!!

All things purple (and meteorlogicus cause why not?):

abyssal scepter [&AgFSeQAA]
immobolus [&AgFReQAA]
meteorlogicus [&AgHndwAA]
nightmare scepter [&AgHUQwAA]
peacemaker scepter [&AgFSfAAA]
princess wand [&AgFFlgAA]
wupwup ascended [&CrYcAAA=]

mesmer: no deal.

I run a shatter spec in roaming wvw, so removing PU doesn’t even effect my build, but neither do I care for increased phantasm health, since, I shatter them almost immediately. And then I only have 1 damaging phantasm in my build, in any case.

All in all, I have got to look out for my PU roaming buddies. You want to destroy our best roaming builds for increased phant health and damage? In the current bunker condi meta? Where our currently best and some may argue, only viable survival option is through the use of PU? Really???

a better deal would be more bunker style skills for the removal of PU, not the complete removal of it with little benefit.

I have to agree with attrail, you do seem heavily biased against certain classes.

Hi all, this may have been posted before, but it wasn’t on the first 3 pages, so I’m going to go ahead a post it.

Does anyone else feel like their hands are tied when it comes to exploring build diversity with regards to runes/sigils? Whenever I find a new rune that I want to test, it comes at the expense of my current set of runes, or buying a whole new set of armor and weapons (which are most likely the same stats as the armor you are running!). This can get extremely pricey, and all for a rune set that may or may not work. You can, of course, use the extractor, however, that is pricey as well (150 gems).

Now obviously you can test in pvp, but how does one test the effectiveness of their runes when they primarily run in zergs or solo roam in wvw? I suggest runes/sigils be slotted into and out of armor/weapons without having to destroy either armor or sigils/runes. In this way, we can finally test an expensive rune set without the risk of wasting an exorbitant amount of gold on a set that may or may not be viable. You also get the added bonus of runes stacking, so you don’t have 5 armor sets with the same stats (different runes) taking up bag space.

As an example, I main a mesmer that is locked into a set of runes due to our lack of reliable speed boosts. I require travelers runes to be competitive in solo/small man group roaming. I have 2 zerker sets (1 for pve, 1 for wvw) with different runes (strength and travelers) and another set, knights, with the same runes as my wvw zerker set, travelers. So that’s 6×2 travelers runes, at ~10g each, and 6 strength runes at ~13g each. I could have saved 60g on runes alone with my proposed rune application system, not to mention saving gold on purchasing another full zerker armor set. And to experiment with a set other than travelers, I would be at a 60g loss in runes, or a roughly 31g loss in buying another set of armor (checked buy now price of a full zerker light armor set), which takes up bag space and runs the risk of not being viable. For me, I rarely experiment with runes for just this reason.

Another example, I want to use a weapon in both a power build and a condi build, but I want bloodlust stacks for power and corruption stacks for condi. Our current system either demands you buy another of the same weapon, or you run an inferior build. I currently run condi stacks in a power build, which isn’t helpful, but nor do I want to shell out for another bloodlust sigil when I have 2 already, just on different weapons.

Of course, Anet has stated they don’t want us to grind out the best gear to remain competitive, but it feels like that is the case now-a-days. We need to shell out big money for the best runes/sigils:

Runes:
strength: 13g
exuberance: 8g
meandru: 7g
travelers: 6g (oh god, i spent 10g per ;o;)
torment: 6g
perplexity: 6g

Sigils:
generosity: 47g (buy now, 32g otherwise)
bursting: 11g
bloodlust: 11g
energy: 10g
renewal: 9g

One criticism that I’ve seen before: This is a reliable gold sink for the game. This is a valid criticism, so we would have to consider those ramifications and whether it is worth it.

Thoughts?

TL;DR
I am cheap; stop making me destroy my expensive runes and sigils whenever I want to test out a new rune/sigil set.

EverythingEnds.4261:

My idea would actually be to buff Mesmer Weapon damage.

Except I doubt Anet will do this, since they rarely revert nerfs. Remember the patch where main-hand sword was nerfed for every skill? EVERY. SKILL. THE HORROR!!! And people already complain about GS damage…. They might boost staff damage, since it is laughably bad, or scepter (lol). However, most shatters don’t run these weapons (exception: staff, which I think is big in EU pvp where they use GS/staff?).

EverythingEnds.4261:

What I would also like, would be the removal, or a reduction of the CD between the shatter skills. I know, it’s only 0.25s, but it actually happens a lot to me, that my shatter skills don’t trigger because of this.

Remember when A-net said this was supposed to be a temporary fix and that they were going to look into it? Yea….

EverythingEnds.4261:

And ofc, fixing also those bugs, which harm Mesmers, would be great.

*sobs uncontrollably *

I know you have the qualifier for pvp, but power shatter mesmers need some love in wvw too. It’s the only spec I play, whether solo roaming or group play. With the current nerf to power damage and vigor, and no buff to the current power spec, I do feel a tad neglected.

I like your idea of shorter cd on the F1-4 skills. That F4 evade is too few and far between, especially if you need it instantly with no clones up and all you get is a 1 sec evade. I too also find our bursts take too long (and requires a hefty price in cd’s or dodges) between shatters to keep the pressure up. If that original burst doesn’t down the player or get them below half hp, we need to get outta there or else we are gonna die. Perhaps there is a way to slightly buff our sustained damage between bursts? Or a different fix would be to our damage mitigation so we can stick around more to do better sustained damage.

We are supposed to confuse our opponent with clones, and originally we did when we were all new to the game, but now it’s been over a year and people have learned our mechanics. Clones rarely fool our opponents these days. Further, our stealth is just short enough that when we use it to avoid damage, most of the time we are hit anyways because it only procs for 2-4 seconds. I usually have to combine a stealth with a blink, dodge or an evade to avoid any damage completely. Perhaps more access to blinds? Like our clones periodically aoe proc blind on a reasonable cd? Or a trait we can pick up that makes our stealths blind, a la thieves? More ways to bolster our sustainability would go a long way to reviving the power shatter builds. As it stands now, it feels like the risk is too high for the reward.

I created a second mesmer right before the patch hit. I tried to struggle through leveling in PVE, but it was painful to say the least. So I ended up going to edge of the mists. It was like a 24/7 karma train. Just hop on a tag and go. I got about 20 levels this weekend alone, with a lot of gold and karma! And it was surprisingly fun. The zerg is a friendly bunch even though we were pv-door the entire time. Just make sure to keep up the chatter in chat, and the time will pass easily enough.

Give it a shot!

I’m loving the new short hair for my engi:

Finally got my engi to where i wanted her. I wanted a plant & machine fusion type look, so here she is

Go guildy! Team Mesmer is looking pretty good

Dee Jay.2460:

To be honest though, while I do think Initiative management is a little easier than it should be, managing cooldowns isn’t exactly rocket-science either. Using all your skills, switching weapons, using all those, switching back again isn’t exactly the most skillful element of GW2. It might appear more involving, but it isn’t.

The problem is, thieves only need 2 or 3 of 5 skills on their weapon sets to be effective. Therefore spamming them is the most effective way to fight. I too, have only 2 or 3 out of 5 skills that I want to use, the rest being situational or in fact, absolutely useless. Yet, I can only use my useful skills once? And then what, I sit in my weapon set until i can swap, or do I use the rest of my bar instead of 111111? Most people just use the rest of their skills since their best are on cd, and then they are wasting time until they can get a swap to to get to their good skills on their other weapon.

Can I list an entire profession? Delete thieves!
That would be living the dream!

Any perplexity build on all classes (mostly warr, thief, engi).

Condi warrior.

Nade spam engi.

Condimancer.

You might notice a theme…. Down with condis! My poor mesmer body can’t handle it

Hi,

Does signet of spite require line of sight to hit? Thanks!

Maugetarr.6823:

The thief version (if you mean feline grace) is slightly worse than the current mesmer version. Thief access to actual vigor was nerfed by over 33% last patch. There are a few key differences though as to why the mesmer one is going to be nerfed now.

Mesmers have access to more defensive boons (regen, protection, aegis) which thieves don’t have

The trait is a 5 point minor in an offensive line while it’s a 15 point minor for thieves in a defensive line.

Feline grace is automatic, we have to crit for our vigor. On top of that, you can also get vigor from other sources.

Mesmers only have reliable access to regen, protection, and aegis if they take the master trait, PU. In the tpvp setting, people (generally) run shatter. That is a minimum of 20 in dueling and 30 in illusions, making PU inaccessible. All other boons are generated randomly and are unreliable.

If the issue is it only requires 5 minor points, I was then hoping they would move it into the 15 point spot and leave it’s current functionality.

With vigor nerf and 10% crit damage nerf, I am concerned that my GC shatter mesmer, which isn’t the best choice for wvw roaming atm, will become even less viable than it currently is. PU is king for mesmers at the moment, and with these upcoming changes, I am worried I will be forced into PU as the only viable/reliable roaming build.

Joel.8215:

Too many thiefs are doing this trolling for it to be just “skill check”.

A lot of people doing something isn’t an argument against stealth.

Joel.8215:

Your right, stealth isn’t god mode, but in my opinion it is being abused. Leaving combat freely and coming back in 30 seconds to try and get lucky is not skill. I have spent upwards of 10 mins at a time fighting one thief with 3 people constantly, because i can’t land enough hits before the thief stealths and runs away till his health is back up.

It seems to me that your issue isn’t with stealth, but with the thief mechanic of initiative rather than cooldowns. It is only exasperated further because of the high stealth up-keep that they can achieve.

I don’t think any of these things are an issue.

Stability is a boon that can be stripped. Smart players will strip the boon before going for dazes, stuns, knockbacks etc.

Stealth isn’t as “god mode” as it is made out to be. Channeled skills can still hit, AOE still hits, cleave still hits, and conditions still tick. The 2 classes that use stealth can be extremely squishy, and they need these skills to survive an encounter. Yes, a single thief or mesmer can harass a group, but it really is a skill check. They’ll go after the weakest link and if they can’t down them, they will leave to find another prey. The easiest kills for these types of players are the ones that don’t know what they are doing.

Distortion/invulnerable skills all have lengthy cooldowns. Good players will use it situationally to escape, to protect their burst damage (or a stomp), or to mitigate bursts against them. I see nothing wrong with how these skills are implemented.

Here is bamf Joe with off-hand quip for reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Ad1CnN1vI

You don’t need to take sword. I would do the manipulation trait, or fury if on phantasm build.

What would this be for? General PVE? Dungeons? Zerg wvw? Small-man group roaming? Solo roaming? All the above?

I was thinking something like (this feels more PVE to me): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQBgExkieL4QpA7APSFUtSK4tLE

Which is 10/20/20/0/20 and you can flip flop between phantasms or shatter pretty easily. Right now it is traited for both phantasms and shatter, but you can easily retrait it to focus in either respected areas.

Punishing style builds and stealth are always going to be considered OP. Add them together and I guess people are starting to foam at the mouth.

It doesn’t need a nerf. It needs you, as an opponent, to understand how the build works and to THINK about what you are doing.

If you want some tips (shameless self promotion), I posted this on reddit a while back: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1tr7pa/lets_talk_about_the_pu_mesmer/

tl;dr: CC and conditions are the best offense. Avoid killing clones (the ones that look like the mesmer). Kill the phantasms (the ones that don’t look like the mesmer). And for god’s sake, do not attack when they are blocking.

Reds and yellows are quite rare. I’ve been designing one for a few days now, however, so there will at least be 2 when I get my engi to 80

I think it depends on how close they are to you when they stealth, and how quickly you re-stealth. I know I’ve seen my swordsman advance to within range of his leap attack and then stop because the thief disappeared.

Stealthing on a whim is my point though. For these builds, if I am not dead by 3 chains of stealth, that’s their cue to exit. I know they don’t want to lengthen the fight. That’s when they start getting pressure put back on them.

The problem is the GC gets that hit in. I’ve got to do something to anticipate it, but I don’t have a well defined approach for these guys. I’ve tried anticipating it and putting up a block, but they just wait it out and I lose my block. I then try stealth, for the dude to reappear, but my clones are CnD friendly. Now I’ve got my defense on CD, and the thief hasn’t done anything yet. Like seriously, what do you do?? I need clones to shatter, so removing phantasms isn’t a good idea, but then it’s just re-stealth fodder. Is this just a fight I cannot win? This might just be the case for my current build.

It’s actually the balanced thief (or the bad thief, ha) that I can handle. He can’t devastate me as quickly in one hit so I can actually do some offense instead of pure reactionary defense in that scenario (if they come out of stealth long enough for a daze).

RedSpectrum.1975

1. You misunderstood my point, when a thief stealths off of one of your clones it is so they can look at the situation and thus control the fight, otherwise, mesmers are in control of the field when the set up their clone playground. The decisions usually are, should I attack now or wait just a bit longer? Is that the right guy, am I sure? What kind of phantom is this? Maybe I should chain CnD it to death so it doesn’t kill me while I’m revealed (thank you Yishis). And careful with your terms, DD has no stealth uptime adding. each stealth with CnD will be 3-4 seconds, no more. It’s not like D/P and therefore, the CnD can be countered. If a DD thief is running at you, you know what they’re going to do.

No, I don’t think I misunderstood your point. I acknowledged that stealth will dictate the encounter. I think this is all semantic, we agree that D/D thieves stealth to control the match. I consider that they do “stealth because they can” because they literally can keep it up for long periods of time with a single skill that has little consequence to the rest of the fight. I am also aware of how CnD works, you can’t chain it in the traditional sense, but they can destealth and then just hit a clone. I don’t even think my phantasms have time to react. What would be interesting would be if CnD didn’t work on phantasms/clones/pets, and then the thief would have to actively hit a moving player with CnD. This is just a thought experiment though, but it would be interesting to see how that would play out.

2.The point of a full glass thief build wasn’t about stealth, it was about damage. Before the thief collapse, a full GC’s utilities and traits barely had anything to do with stealth. And as for the guarantee, it was a blanket statement, not just for mesmers.

Is this still a thing? The only stealth skill I’ve seen these thieves use is CnD and that stealth heal. Their bar isn’t filled with stealth, mostly it looks like that teleport skill (I don’t know the name), probably SR (but rarely mid fight, mostly as a run away tactic), and something else? Not exactly filled with stealth skills, but I don’t know the specifics of the build.

Of course you’d want to be in stealth as long as possible, mesmers are very dangerous opponents. And you are not invulnerable while in stealth, the mitigation comes from lack of awareness, which is kinda what stealth was made for.

And I will contest that specifically against a mesmer, you are practically invulnerable in stealth. Now I may be able to hit you with a 1 sword skill, a chaos storm (1 pulse, no one would stand in it for more than that – long CD), or a blurred frenzy. Those are the only offensive skills that require no targets. The chances of hitting you with any of these is low, but even if I did, my auto’s are laughably weak, and the others are easy to avoid. The rest, as stated previously, require a target. My phantasms/clones can’t attack, I can’t attack. You are, in fact, invulnerable in a mesmer fight when stealthed.

This is why glassy D/D thieves are the only class style that I am having so much difficulty with. They don’t need to chain their stealth for long, maybe enter and reenter twice, and with 3 hits I can be dead. The combination of big hits and my gamestyle being forcibly adjusted to purely reactionary is what makes this so difficult. It is my aggressive playstyle that keeps me alive in most fights, but if I can’t attack…? It is a situation where I have to out burst my opponent, but a thief that can burst me from stealth leaves me at a great disadvantage. By starting this thread, I am hoping their is at least something I can do, without having to resort to butchering my build.

And just think, I don’t see why even bring up the point o open field fighting etc, if we focues less on stealth, dont you think we’d function a bit differently in other areas to compensate ._.

I do think you would function differently. Specifically, you wouldn’t be able to go full glass. Even with high uptime on evades as a replacement, the fact that I can see you to avoid the heavy hits would make the fight last longer than the current “3 hits and I am dead” scenario. That block I wasted in order to anticipate a backstab? I can now actually see it coming. As well, all the classes that required targets now have their full builds to work with, rather than 50% of it.

D/D as it is currently (from my experiences) are only in a fight for short periods of time. Anything longer than that, and they run the risk of running out of initiative and leaving themselves easy targets. They have set up a build that leaves them protected from most damage, all while dictating how the fight should proceed. High stealth up times removes a lot of the risk that other classes must face when going full glass.

Arganthium.5638

If you know the exact method in which you attempt to counter a thief, and can narrate it from start to finish, then, IMO, that is your problem.

Yes, it seems a bit rehearsed. But that’s because it is driving me crazy! I go to bed thinking about what I can do to counter it! Which is why I am here ;D

1. Don’t start with Distortion.

Yes, that seems to be what most people recommend. Honestly, it’s purely reactionary to big hits that I need to stop doing. It is definitely my “oh kitten!” button. Although, i do have an auto cooldown for it when I drop below 50% HP, so it should be back up after that backstab.

I tend to be extremely suspicious of “X on swap” sigils unless 1. The player using them is an elementalist, 2. The player using them is using two of the same (or very, very similar) weapon set (Jumper’s S/D S/D build comes to mind for me), or 3. The player using them is using them in such a way as to burst an enemy all of a sudden in a battle (warrior rifle, IMO, is one such type of weapon).

I am in that third category, actually. I am mostly the burst damage in my small roaming group while my other party member is sustained damage. I sort of jump in and out of combat to heal while he holds down the fort. I am taking after Osicat on this one, he seems to be a big advocate of them.

- If you haven’t yet, consider using a staff. Those help with stuns a lot (unless 2 got nerfed, like Shadow Return is being nerfed for thief)

Yes, the staff would be better for survival. I concede this, but it just doesn’t have the pressure that GS has. And I don’t think phase retreat is getting nerfed, cause that would reaaaally suck.

- Consider taking 5 points out of both Dueling and Illusions. I’ve been playing 10/25/0/10/25 with Vigorous Revelation on the Inspiration Tree. It’s just a generally useful trait which you can use to keep up long durations of vigor and the cost isn’t much (never been much of a fan of Illusionary Persona, personally, and taking an Adept trait for your GM tier in Dueling seems a bit suspect to me). The other option is 10/25/10/0/25 (which I believe is PvP mesmer Countless’ build), w/ Debilitating Dissipation. Either way, both of these trait choices are going to have a bit more utility against thieves than your current build, IMO.

Illusionary persona I simply cannot do away with. That’s the bread and butter of a shatter build! I am actually doing 100% uptime on vigor when fighting since I gain vigor on crit (dueling adept), so I should be ok in that respects. I am actually thinking of moving 10 out of dueling and placing it into inspiration for the upcoming patch (which isn’t a nerf for once!). Mender’s purity removes 2 conditions on a heal.

One last thing- do you really have all of that Ascended gear? I’m so jealous. :/

Ah yes, that is my exact equipment. I was a bit of a PVE junky, so I got all the good stuff back then. After I made bolt, I got burnt out so now I’ve been wvw-ing ever since. Do you do guild missions? That’s how I got all my trinkets.

crouze.3078

It might be true that the thief stealth because he wants to migate some damage by getting hit less. But it does make the thief as immune to damage as you getting immune to damage when having clones.

This is why I put the qualifier that this is mostly true for a mesmer fight. You may take note, that I conceded that this is not the case in other fights against other classes. Reading comprehension ftw!

RedSpectrum.1955

there are decisions being made when one stealths off of a clone. People don’t just stealth off of mesmer clones to just be in stealth, also considering DD get’s its main power attack off of getting stealth. Guarantee if we could backstab without stealth, we’d be stealthing a bit less.

I just can’t agree with this line of reasoning. People stealth because you are, for all intents and purposes, immune to damage and can dictate how and when you want the fight to continue (all the more evident with the stealth up-time that a D/D thief can maintain). This is especially apparent in a fight with a mesmer where 50%-70% (depending on your weapon choice) of their offensive skills requires a target as well as having no offensive aoe’s (except chaos storm and mirror blades). Now this is purely from a mesmer perspective since other classes could handle a D/D thief with melee damage or aoe spam with a lot more ease when they stealth. Regardless, it is in a thief’s best interest to remain hidden when fighting a mesmer to remove 50-70% of their effectiveness.

As for your guarantee, if thieves that run the D/D build didn’t require stealth for a backstab, how would that effect their thinking at all? Should I attack this person in the open where they could potentially counter me, or should I stealth and do it, eliminating any retaliation? Not to mention it would become a lot more difficult to get behind your opponent when they can see you. Seriously, backstabs become easy mode in comparison when stealth is involved, and no thief with any sense would attempt a backstab without stealth in this scenario. Furthermore, lets say that stealth was eliminated entirely for this argument. It would then be almost impossible to run a full glass build in such a situation, in which case, as the opponent, I wouldn’t have to worry about the staggering amount of damage that this thief could do with one hit.

Hype

Until you’re ready to drop the training wheels and have a fair fight, I’d suggest you work on your teamwork.

I’m not sure what you mean by fair fight. I don’t initiate a D/D thief, they do. If it was up to me, I’d avoid that all day.

In a 2v1 you should never get stomped. Start ressing your downed teammate and daze the thief (F3) before the stomp finishes.

He does, but he isn’t a shatter build, so shattering effects don’t work on him, only his clones. And shattering on an invisible opponent (when they are stomping) generally fails. The only thing he can do is either MI to res me or put down a chaos storm. If he can get a res off, great, but I will still be 1 HS away from death. This is why I am focussing on what I can do, rather than what we can do.

Torch really is strong against thieves even though the phantasm sucks so bad. Staff in general is pretty great too, phase retreat will be a lot stronger than the thief’s sword return after Dec 10th. Chaos storm and Chaos armor are great to help with backstabs.
A d/d thief perma stealthing off of your clones is pretty cheesy but you’re playing with a PU mesmer (oh so cheesy) so honestly anything the thief does should be considered fair game.

I don’t think I once mentioned “fairness” in terms of what a D/D thief can do, and I thought I did a pretty good job of avoiding any “QQ” tendencies that these types of posts seem to generate. I would appreciate the same sentiment. That said, I would rather work on my skill set than change my build prematurely. I will scrap it if/when I can do all that I can with it.

Dahkeus, Phaeris, and Arikyali, I greatly appreciate your posts. The mindset of how a D/D thief acts is kind of foreign to me, so this will come as a great help! I am also a sylvari mesmer, but I think MI is going to remain as my elite, just because me and Panda can chain them together for a getaway when outnumbered.

Panda, aka damage sponge, you weren’t supposed to come creep on my posts. Also, GS 4 LYFE! :P

SoleciTO, If only you could hear me on TS. There is much kittening to be had about “those kitten thieves”. I know the build you are talking about and it’s the aforementioned PU build that seems to be the meta for roaming builds ATM. Granted, you can win fights and it is the one build I feel confident enough to go up against any class, however I just feel likes it’s too easy mode and frankly more of a troll build.

Sir Vincent III, I appreciate your comments on the build. I am only hesitant to change it since it is so effective against other classes (cept condi necro, kitten that guy). I would really rather work with elevating my skill level, since I think that is where the biggest problem lies.

Sir Vincent III

Part of L2P is making adjustments, changes, and adapting to the situation. If you fail at taking out the Thief and still insist on your current gear that brought you that failure — then you haven’t learn anything after all.

I totally understand, and upon rereading my response to you, I can see a lot of resistance to change. I am ok with that for now, since this is my first real attempt on figuring out the D/D problem. Honestly, me and Panda were discussing that this build is just particularly weak to D/D’s (and I think most shatter builds in general). I posted this to see if it is even remotely possible with this build to survive an encounter. It might be the case that this build will ultimately fail, but I first want to develop the skill set I need as a player before I start scrapping builds.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Sir Vincent III.1286

1st wasting your F4
2nd wasting your Blurred Frenzy
3rd no blindness
4th Blink —really?
5th off-hand sword —really?

1st: I wouldn’t consider my first F4 to be a waste. He used basilisk venom and then would have insta downed me with the subsequent HS and/or auto attacks.
2nd: My blurred frenzy was an attempt to prevent a back stab, although probably a sword block would have been better (I was running off hand pistol when I was thinking this scenario through). Not sure what the alternative would be. I can’t just do nothing otherwise I’m getting hit with another 10k. Suggestions?
3rd: No blindness -> not in my build, and as I stated, I’m not looking to change it.
4th: blink, see previous.
5th: off-hand sword, see previous.

I am actually kind of surprised that you hate on the off hand sword. I get a block (and clone) or a daze (on a relatively short CD) and our hardest hitting single target phantasm in the game.
And blink?? Are you trolling me with this one…?

Sir Vincent III.1286

1st only use F1 – low CD and stacks confusion – use often
2nd Blurred Frenzy only a Heartseeker – if you insist on using a sword main-hand, but use a torch off-hand
3rd you need blindness – obvious reasons
4th remove Blink and pick up Mirror Images – your build requires more clones and MM is a stun breaker
5th dump the off-hand sword, get a torch for blindness or just pick up a staff if you really want to be highly offensive plus you get Chaos Armor for regen and blindness.

1st: I use it purely for burst. GS gets them to 50%, and bam to the face with mind wrack!! My confusion stack damage is pitiful, although if they aren’t dead from F1, I’ll stack confusion with F2 on them to finish them off. I think this is just a difference of playstyles though.
2nd: Good point, and I think that is probably the best option. I have to comment, you have great disdain for the sword, when it is our seemingly single best weapon in the game…
4th: no. Although MM i nice, I am not exactly in need of more damage, I am looking to stay alive. I’ve toyed with switching out my condi removal for MM. If only I had some sort of passive condi removal
5th: I am not picking up torch. Torch is next to useless in a power build. Staff is the epitome of defensive play, and I concede that it would add survivability to my game play. However, I don’t like how passive it is and it doesn’t suit my playstyle (although I do bring it out for solo roaming on this build).

These are all fine suggestions for an overall look at my build, however none of these are helpful for specifically taking down (or even just surviving) a D/D thief (except the torch and blind, but that phantasm is too kittenty for me to even consider).

Regardless, my build works as intended against every class except the D/D glass thief. I am not looking for build changes, only on execution/L2P.

Sir Vincent III.1286

I like your build — I think I’ll use it for my Mesmer with some tweaking.

It’s actually tweaked from one of the kings of shatter builds, Osicat. His was for solo roaming, and thus had a lot more survival than mine. All credit goes to that mastermind. Check it out!

Thanks for your input.

-edit- It seems Arikyali.5804 has recommended removing blink as well and putting MM in its place. Granted, it will increase my dps, but I’m not sure if sacrificing my survivability is worth it. I should also mention I am in T1, so the chances of encountering an enemy zerg are high, and blink is the only thing keeping me alive.

Ok, on to the meat and potatoes of the problem.

I literally cannot figure out what to do against those D/D thieves that are pure glass. Every other thief style I can deal with (mostly by running away, if they are good – lol). D/P thieves also cause problems, but I’m not at a complete loss with them as I am with D/D.

If a D/D thief comes along, but he isn’t pure glass, I can generally handle myself since I do have back-up from my party, but those glassy thieves that hit outta stealth, disappear, and then HS me to death, I have no clue.

My max HP is generally 18-20k, depending on my wvw buffs. I will describe a typical encounter.

A thief will initiate a fight with a basilisk venom/backstab combo. The initial hit will be roughly 10k HP. I will hit my distortion (F4 skill – 1 sec invulnerable) to mitigate the rest of the damage he is dealing. I will then dodge. The thief will re-initiate with heartseeker and hit for 2-6k HP. I’ve never been able to avoid this second hit, but this might be where I could up my survivability. I will hit decoy, to stealth and blink (teleport) away since generally the thief will be spamming 1 around where I disappeared. I will heal in stealth so I should be around 1/2 health after this. At this point, since I stealthed, the thief will have stealthed as well. I de-stealth, and sit nervously…. I will trigger my evade on sword, blurred frenzy, in hopes to avoid another backstab. Generally, nothing comes of this, and I just wasted a skill. Thief either reappears, or re-initiates with a HS. Probably hits, or I might have gotten a block out with my offhand sword. At this point, all evades/blocks are gone (I’m pretty sure I wasted my second dodge like a kitten somewhere).This is generally followed with a barrage of HS to down me the rest of the way. Should only take 2-3 to take me down. It is also my understanding that if I’m below 50% health, HS damage increases? In which case I’ve been hit with an HS for 8-10k…

Skills I have that are not on CD:
- sword phantasm (need a target to summon)
- illusionary leap (needs a target)
- arcane thievery (remove conditions/steal boons – not helpful) or veil (2 seconds stealth, does not stack. Could run over it again for 2 more when I reappear)
- all GS sword skills (all offensive, 3 require targets, 1 is a push which could be useful?)
- mass invisibility (however charge time is extremely long and leaves me vulnerable to HS barrage).
- offensive F1 and F2 traits (F1 is the power shatter that I use for burst, F2 is for condi shatter, which I am not specced for so kinda useless)
- defensive F3 daze shatter (1 sec daze for each clone, generally I will have maaaybe 1 clone out, otherwise the shatter effect would just be from me)
- I should have another F4 skill, since I traited it to recharge at 50% health

Things to keep in mind:
I am pure offense, so it is kill or be killed for my build, and generally the way to take pressure off of me is to apply my own. My attacks are linked to my clones/phantasm. I can, at most, get out 2 clones from dodges (which leaves me vulnerable), but I cannot summon any phantasms/clones on an invisible opponent. I have no aoe’s to protect myself. Finally, my friend is in the same boat, and can’t help out much with an invisible opponent.

Now I realize my build/class is weak against thieves, but I’m not looking for changes to builds or rerolling. This might be a case where there is nothing I can do, but running away/avoiding fights is completely dependent on the thief, and most times, they want to fight.

Also, I have no idea what their builds look like, so if anyone can link a build, that would be awesome!

Thanks!

Hi,

First time on this forum. It had a bit of a reputation which made me shy away from it, but I put my big person pants on to see if maybe you guys can help me out. This is for wvw havoc/roaming.

bit of an intro, but you can skip to the next post if you want.

I play a mesmer power/shatter build with another mesmer friend who either plays a PU build (that one you guys seem to hate, sorry (i’m not sorry…)) or a power phantasm build. I can dish out a lot of damage but can’t take much, so he sorta sustains the fight when I need to jump out and heal. I am extremely squishy (record for my quickest death was 3 attacks – we’ll see if we can get it to 2!) and extremely offensive (to a fault). Honestly I feel like I am channeling a thief mentality when playing.

If you ever have seen an Osicat shatter build or a Vash shatter build, it plays a similar style, although I am more recklessly offensively, since I have a party member (sorry buddy XD). Look it up on youtube if you’d like a reference.

build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAscRlwzipXUzmGb9ICqHaH49dkK0alewbXotB-j0BBYfCiEEgkIBKnrIaslhFRjVXDT5iIqWGAmtA-w

- Note: I might change out to veil (stealth skill) instead of arcane thievery (my only source of condition removal), depending on how the day is going (read – how many zergs have wiped me so far?).

I feel like the flower one needs more of the hair colour in it. It seems to only really work with the dark skin colours since you can actually see the extra colour that is added in there around the stem parts. It comes out with 3 distinct colours. With the lighter tones, you can barely see that secondary skin tone so you come off looking pretty bald

I feel you. I was so excited to see what changes were made to bolt only to see nothing. I know they said they changed it, but I can’t even tell

I was hoping we could highlight opposing classes and how best to fight against them. Like, hold a pvp training event on how to take down the stun-chaining warriors (I have some difficulty with them) and (to my shame) the d/d an p/d thieves. We all must know some people with these class builds. We could invite them in and learn their techniques, or bring your alts in if they don’t want to divulge strategy. Either way, I am not too familiar with some of the other classes so I’ve no idea what they are even capable of.

Know your enemies!!!!!

IGN: Wähn (ä = alt 132)
playstyle: PVE and beginner WVW (I want to solo roam like a pro)
server: SoR
role: scholar
time: 17:00-2:00 CST (central canada)

I just made my bolt and I was checking it out on my female sylvari mesmer. After I swing with the 1 skill (no target) and idle in the battle stance, their appears to be a duplicate bolt slightly askew of the one already in my hand. It lasts for approximately a second and then disappears. Doesn’t seem to happen with a different sword, and I’m not sure if it’s race/sex/class specific.

Sorry if this is already posted, I did a quick look and I didn’t find it.

tadaaaa

shoulders: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arah_armor
coat: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_cultural_armor/Light
pants: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tactical_armor
head: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zhed%27s_armor (although there are a bunch of other named exotics. You can easily buy these on the TP)

I was running the standard cof p1 farm, 4 warrs and my mes. We were at the rolling balls of fire part where I dropped my first portal and went to blink across to the other side. Instead I dropped my portal in the middle and ended up murdering my entire party >.>