Guild Wars 2

Looks fine to me for general map completion. Are you planning on using this build for anything else?

DeathReign.7821:

Fay.2357:

25% uptime is the theoretical maximum. The icd of the trait ticks down while the distortion is active, so once the distortion ends there is only 4 seconds remaining on the icd. This allows you a pattern of 4s down and 1s up; 25% uptime. That’s obviously not quite realistic, but it is the theoretical maximum.

This might be a little pedantic, but isn’t that 20% uptime? Every 5 seconds, you have 1 second of invulnerability, so 1/5 = 20% uptime, right?

…yes. yeah, that’s 20%, not 25. My bad entirely.

MidoriMarch.8067:

l2p full zerker and u dont need this aids bunker

Always glad to accept some well reasoned and intelligent criticism. I’m pleased you made this invaluable contribution to the discussion here.

Ballads.2509:

Not running Chaos line, focus might be better then staff. Staff may have a kitten auto attack, but Phase Retreat is our best mobility skill after blink, and i think you undervalue the ability to generate a ranged phantasm/clone to shatter.

Phase retreat is definitely good mobility, but you don’t generally need more mobility than blink and occasional uses of iLeap. The value of having a ranged phantasm or clone to shatter is nonexistent though. The only thing that could be used for is f5, and you don’t need extra Illusions to do an effective f5 combo if you’re quick.

Ballads.2509:

Arcane thievery is for vrs other organised open field or gvg/scrims and acts as another Corrupt boon, on paper the phat is way better, in play i have had better luck with AT. I wouldn’t run it w/o Chaos line tho.

AT is just so inferior compared to corrupt boon though. Yeah, it does work…but it’s hardly powerful. 3 boons on a cooldown 3 times as long isn’t something to make me too excited.

Justine.6351:

Going wanderer/soldier is overkill. There is such a thing as too tanky.
…
17k hp is begging to get bug crunched. Its why I run some wanderer gear even if it does trim precision.

Potentially true. It really depends on personal experience. Personally, I’m fine with full commander gear and 17k hp. I almost never die unless I really screw something up, so there’s no personal need to tank up more. Other people will have different experiences. If you don’t feel comfortable without more hp, then by all means grab some wanderer’s gear to fill it out a bit more.

Justine.6351:

Honestly think the boon and energy sigils are not really needed. 77% boon duration is practically no different than lol 110%. As for energy sigils, this build already has so many i-frames. Might aswell shift some non-gear stat reliant dmg back into it while providing different survivability in the form of healing.

I’m definitely reluctant to give up my energy sigils, but you honestly may be right about them being unnecessary. I’ll have to hunt down a weapon with a sigil of draining equipped to test out how that feels.

Justine.6351:

You may not like scepter but I’ve run around with only sword and it has got to be the most boring/inpotent play ever and I’ve played staff guardian. As for not having defensive skill when you need it, its why I run sword with focus, scepter with shield so I always have a hard defensive skill available on my weapon bar.

I think we may just need to agree to disagree here. I’m very much not a fan of the zero cleave issue on scepter, so I see that as a very substantial downside that I’m not willing to accept.

@Daniel Handler: 25% uptime is the theoretical maximum. The icd of the trait ticks down while the distortion is active, so once the distortion ends there is only 4 seconds remaining on the icd. This allows you a pattern of 4s down and 1s up; 25% uptime. That’s obviously not quite realistic, but it is the theoretical maximum.

Pretty much all normal PvE builds are full melee. Condie builds will use scepter, but just about everything else uses double sword mainland.

Justine.6351:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Block
unless the wiki is outdated it applies weakness.

Ah, you’re quite right about that. I don’t really consider the weakness to be a particularly attractive part of that trait though, the other aspects of it are significantly more powerful. In general, the choice of power block vs mental torment is primarily consistent but smaller damage amp vs a conditional but larger damage spike + utility. I personally prefer that consistency, but power block is definitely a usable alternative. I’ll probably edit in some variations to the build based on the feedback I’ve been getting here.

Justine.6351:

The reason I suggested scepter isn’t about yay more dmg, its about different type of dmg with a ranged laser beam instead of ONLY melee cleave. With atleast a 10sec CD on blurred frenzy there is no losing defense by swapping out of sword and you gain a block or a blinding bolt.

Well, it’s not just about cooldowns though, it’s about having the skill available if you need it. Still, the biggest downside of scepter is the lack of melee cleave. While you’re right that the beam is a different type of damage, that’s not a good thing here. In a group, you want to be putting focused cleave in front of the melee ball to kill people as you pass over them, and scepter is unable to do that.

Justine.6351:

If you don’t want to try anything else with build hey that’s fine but ya if you are unwilling to take anyones suggestions and try them while behaving like this build is the be-all-end-all expect the thread to become a build-defending battle if it hasn’t become that already.

I’m regularly discussing viable alternatives that people are bringing up in this thread. Take a look at my discussion on greatsword, power block, or wanderers gear. Scepter simply isn’t one of those viable alternatives in my opinion. It isn’t capable of some important things that you want to have in a functioning melee party.

Me Games Ma.8426:

.You might consider using a Sigil of Draining because your builds’ aoe CC potential is quite high and a good Tides of Time or Gravity well can get you a really nice amount of health back.
I totally agree that Energy/Concentration is a great option though.
~ Me Games Ma

Sigil of draining is an interesting option, but dropping either concentration or energy for it is a very hard sell.

Ballads.2509:

This build is OK but i have a few issues with it.
-It requires a group comp exactly like the one in the revs video. I love our place in the Meta but this leaves no room for Necros or Warriors…and maybe drewd?

So this is a valid criticism. There definitely is some flexibility…but not a ton. You could play a bit with guard vs Warr vs ele or maybe squeeze a backline build into the comp, but you are correct that it requires a somewhat rigid setup to work properly.

Ballads.2509:

-Whats up with the second rate oil? Yeah, bountiful is expensive, but the stat gain op, suck it up.

Notice that I’m using sigil of concentration. That sigil bumps me up to 110% duration on swap. As long as I keep swapping weapons (which I do), I maintain overcapped duration. Bountiful oil is unneeded, so I use the normal oil instead.

Ballads.2509:

-If this build is support not damage why Commanders/knights over Wanders/Soldiers. (Even then 56% at 50% Rate/damage Vrs 11k hp and 300power.)

Honestay, those would work absolutely fine too. In fact, it might be even more optimal than Commanders. The true reason I’m using Commanders is because it’s what I’ve got for PvE raids too, but those stats are completely acceptable alternatives.

Ballads.2509:

-Lastly, as great as Sword is the ranged harassment and clone generation of Staff’s cds out weigh Focus alone.

Staff has basically nothing in the way of “ranged harassment”. Once you drop chaos storm, you’re left with wet noodle bouncing projectile autoattacks. Clone generation is completely useless in a group fight, so there is absolutely no good reason to use staff here.

Ballads.2509:

If your lucky enough not to have to run Veil i like Arcane Thievery or Phantasmal Disenchater. As far as elite skills go its hard to wrong for Mesmer. Well for open field, TW for tight spaces, MoA for GvG/scrims. Even MI can be goodish.

Arcane Thievery is total garbage, but pDisenchanter is a good utility. The problem is that dropping blink for that is a total non-starter. Blink is simply too essential for mobility and safety to give up.

Justine.6351:

Use power block. More utility and more dmg sources for slow procing. Also makes use of your condition duration.

I think you must be a bit confused, as power block doesn’t apply any conditions. I am using delayed reactions, the slow on interrupt trait. I prefer mental torment over power block because it provides more reliable damage.

Justine.6351:

Pickup scepter and pair it with focus. Use into the void and burn multiple people with confusing images. Also comes with a free block. Will also place clones at range (cannons and stuff too) for setting up shatters.

Confusing images, like greatsword, has very clunky targeting. I don’t view the slight damage it provides to be worth losing the cleaving damage of the sword auto and the defense of blurred frenzy.

adelaide.6213:

Some suggestions to consider:

- Signet of Illusions instead of Midnight for alternative means of providing distortion

This is an option, but it has a longer base cooldown as well as a cast time, making it overall worse. Signet of midnight also is a stunbreak, and that’s very powerful.

adelaide.6213:

- Phantasmal Disenchanter since you’re running Signet heal. Remember it recently got buffed to strip/cleanse 2 boons/condis on cast.

So I do like pDisenchanter, but it would have to take the place of blink, and that’s obviously not an option.

adelaide.6213:

- Not sure why you’re not choosing PowerBlock with focus/shield/gravity well providing interrupt sources.

I prefer the guaranteed damage amplifier from mental torment compared to the conditional from power block. That’s definitely an option though.

adelaide.6213:

- Greatsword over focus with the appropriate traits in Domination. With SignetHeal + iZerker, and high quickness uptime combined with (recently buffed) GS auto, you can output heavy pressure on enemy squishies, despite running commander gear.

The targeting mechanics of greatsword make it really clunky. Additionally, focus provides an extremely strong and useful aoe pull, making it an overall strong choice. If you want to use greatsword and don’t mind the targeting, it’s definitely an option. Just make sure to keep a focus handy for providing swiftness to your group.

It also provides enormous clarity to 3-way fights. Instead of just seeing a huge blurry sea of red names, you can clearly see the unique server groups and their positioning. It’s a massively good change to have that capability.

Ansau.7326:

Sorry, but I don’t see how this build can be effective in a meaningful way.

Well, if your numbers were correct I would agree, but they’re not really accurate at all.

Ansau.7326:

- Boonshare has been limited a lot since its nerf. You’re at most giving every ~20s: 6s of protection, 6s of quickness, 4s of resistance,10s of fury, 1 stack of stability and 10s of vigor as useful boons. And this is the ideal, but the reality makes boon sharing even worse.

You’re forgetting that SoI is also procced from a trait. What you actually give is as follows…

On a 24 second cycle:

• 12 seconds of quickness (50% uptime)
• 20 seconds of vigor and fury (83% uptime)
• 12 seconds of protection (50% uptime)
• 2 stacks of stability
• 8s of resistance (40% uptime)

The actual numbers are quite a bit more impressive than what you stated there.

Ansau.7326:

- Distorion share is a nice feature, but it is extremely limited. We are talking about 5-6s every 50s. That is laughable.

Again, this is totally incorrect. There are 2 metrics you can use for the distortion share: long duration average and realistic average. The long duration average is ~1 use every 7 seconds. However, a realistic fight has ebb and flow, meaning that you’ll easily produce 1s up for every 4 or 5s down during high pressure and recover cooldowns during low pressure.

To use your 50 seconds metric, that’s 10-12.5s of invuln, or 20-25% uptime. 20-25% uptime on invulnerability is pretty insane if you think about it, and substantially higher than your estimate.

So yeah, if your numbers were accurate, I’d agree that the build isn’t worth running. However, your numbers are actually about 50% of the realistic values that this build produces, making that analysis invalid.

Ithilwen.1529:

This build did not work at all for me. I got repeatedly pounded into the soil, even worse than power shatter.

Ithilwen…

Is it really too much to ask that you read the build description before complaining about it? Let me quote 2 pertinent bits here:

Fay.2357:

This build is for organized group WvW

Fay.2357:

This build is designed for use in an organized WvW group. If you try and use this in pugs, you’re going to have a bad time. If you try and use this without your group being aware and on board, you’re going to have a bad time.

Ok? You obviously tried to use this build in PvP and failed because this is not a PvP build. Granted, I didn’t actually say “don’t use this in PvP”, but I honestly didn’t think I needed to be quite that explicit with my disclaimers past stating the direct purpose and proper use of this build.

Silverkey.2078:

I would feel better if the video was not your group destroying my server, but this being said, Pyro did give me this build a little while back, and from my testing it works great, and is also very survivable even if you find yourself isolated for some reason.

It’s definitely very survivable on its own. Something you can do is if you’re trying to catch or bait a group that’s close to blink range, just blink into them for the bait (note: don’t do this without driver approval). You can sustain through an arbitrary-sized group attacking you by blowing invuln and block cooldowns, and your team catches up and gets a priority attack after they’ve wasted cooldowns on you.

So I could go through that paragraph of verbal vomit and explain precisely how almost everything you said was wrong, but it’s simply not worth the effort. I’ll leave you with this instead:

You have no clue what you’re talking about and clearly have a very poor understanding of game mechanics. I recommend spending some quality time on the wiki learning about the game before making more complaint posts on the forums.

Eddbopkins.2630:

if i clear 1st with just 5 stack of confusion along with a few stacks of torments and 3 other condis to early you fools just put them right back on me with no down time in-between and 5 stack is nothing iv been bombed for up to 20stack at once. the amount of condi replication after you enemy has cleared the condis is to much.

I know that this might be a lot to ask, but have you tried dodging? I’ve had great success with it myself.

SloRules.3560:

You are way too tanky for the party you are playing in.

Full commander’s gear is the only reliable way to hit high boon duration in chaotic WvW fights. The tankiness it provides through toughness is a secondary consideration.

That being said, ‘too tanky’ is an absurd sentiment for a Mesmer build in a WvW group. What are you going to get by sacrificing tankiness? Another 30 damage on your crappy autoattack? Mesmer is best optimized for a WvW group in the way that keeps it alive the longest so that you can provide your utility to your group.

Reserved Post because I haven’t reserved a post in like 3 years and I heard it’s a cool thing to do.

Gearing Specifics
Stats: Commander’s

Runes: Durability

Sigils: Energy x2 in offhands, Concentration in mainhand

Food: Something with boon duration

The idea here is to hit 100% boon duration. With full commander’s and 20% food, you’ll be at ~80% static, overcapping to 110% on swap. For this reason, the sigil of concentration is not strictly required, but it is nice to have that fully capped duration for a good portion of the fight. Runes of durability are also not strictly required, but the stats they provide along with the surprisingly strong passive boon support makes them BiS.

Gear Variations

Stats: For a tankier variation, swap out pieces of Commander’s gear for wanderer’s gear instead. This provides the same boon duration and toughness bonuses, but with extra vitality. Make this swap with gear until you reach an hp level that you personally feel comfortable with.

Sigils: Instead of double energy in the offhand, you can use sigils of draining instead. This reduces your available dodges, but provides another source of damage and sustain linked to your cc. Alternatively, drop the sigil of concentration for a sigil of draining. To make up the lost boon duration, you’ll want to use a bountiful utility food, as well as potentially an exotic backpiece with a platinum doubloon.

Playing the Build

Distortion

With the minor trait Inspiring Distortion, you provide 1 second of distortion to 5 nearby targets with a 5 second internal cooldown. Using this effect properly is basically the whole point of this build, so it’s exceedingly important that this is done correctly.

The 1 second distortion isn’t very long, so you need to provide it at appropriate moments. Here’s a list of the most common situations where distortion is appropriate to use.

• Use distortion as the enemy group engages to avoid their heavy damage and cc
• Use distortion as your driver paths through the enemy group
• Use distortion when a res is called
• Use distortion in a hot area when static dps pressure is called

All of these uses require heavy situational awareness. You need to be carefully watching both your group and the enemy group to gauge when the appropriate time for distortion is. Follow the movements of both groups and pay attention to positioning to make sure you don’t get caught off guard.

Remember that non-midnight signets have a cast time, so you need to pre-cast them!

Additionally, you need to track the internal cooldown of inspiring distortion. Using distortion too quickly means that it won’t proc the share and will be wasted. The way I personally do this is by counting to 5 in my head every time I proc distortion, that way I’m continually aware of when the cooldown is ready.

Boons

With proper group composition, this build facilitates high uptime of most boons. Excepting quickness, stability, and resistance, you can have all other boons permanently available. Quickness can have ~90% uptime with the addition of 2 feel my wrath shouts. Resistance doesn’t really have high uptime, but you can maintain about 15 seconds of it after the beginning of a fight if you bring a mallyx rev.

Obviously, boonshare is accomplished by using Signet of Inspiration, but you can’t just use it and the trait off cooldown because that would waste the distortion. Instead, you need to use them as appropriate within the guidelines of distortion sharing. Simply prioritize them first, using the other signets only when the trait and SoI are on cooldown.

Videos

I’m actually still putting together a more detailed guide video for this build, but this video is from the perspective of a revenant in my sub squad, providing the important view of what the other members are actually getting out of the distortion sharing. This video is mainly uncut raid footage so feel free to skip through it, but keep an eye on the boon upkeep (particularly quickness) and invulnerability floaters that get procced during fights.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LmYhIKIfcQA

Introduction

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a build guide here. Between the trait reworks and the substantially larger pool of people exploring builds, having a build actually unique enough to discuss in a guide is a rather rare thing. This build is for organized group WvW and is what I consider to be the Holy Grail of Mesmer WvW builds. It provides usable and powerful utility that truly feels good and enjoyable to play, which to me is the perfect build.

Mesmer has never had good damage, so we’ve attempted to make up for that by providing strong utility. Unfortunately, that has always taken the form of either one-off skills with long cooldowns and questionable impact (portal and veil) or overpowered gimmicks that require zero skill or coordination to be monstrously powerful (old boonshare). The build I’m presenting here provides powerful defensive and offensive utility in a form that requires both personally skilled play and effective group coordination to be fully effective.

Overview

This build is designed for use in an organized WvW group. If you try and use this in pugs, you’re going to have a bad time. If you try and use this without your group being aware and on board, you’re going to have a bad time.

This build is designed to do 2 primary things: share boons and share distortion. You accomplish this through the use of signets with boon duration gear while being supported by the appropriate team composition.

The Build

Traits
Domination: Rending Shatter, Blurred Inscriptions, Mental Torment

Inspiration: Medic’s Feedback, Restorative Illusions, Illusionary Inspiration

Chronomancer: Delayed Reactions, Improved Alacrity, Seize the Moment

Domination is chosen primarily for the signet trait. Traited signets are the highest frequency way to produce distortion. Rending Shatter is primarily taken because the other two are pretty useless. Mental Torment is taken for the same reason.

Inspiration is chosen for the obvious defensive utility, but also because it enables the distortion share through the minor trait Inspiring Distortion. Medic’s Feedback is a fantastic trait in WvW groups as well.

Lastly, Chronomancer is taken for reasons that I probably shouldn’t need to explain. Delayed reactions is taken because it’s the only trait that has an effect, even if that effect is rare. Same thing for Improved Alacrity, since you do get alacrity from shatters. Take Seize the Moment because it provides on-demand access to quickness that “primes” your boons prior to using Signet of Inspiration.

Weapons: Sword/Shield + Focus

I use double mainhand sword because blurred frenzy is by far the strongest mainhand defensive skill we have. Offhand shield is incredibly strong, and offhand focus is the best offhand other than shield for group play.

Utility Skills
Heal: Signet

Utilities: Blink, Signet of Midnight, Signet of Inspiration

Elite: Gravity Well

The focus on signets here is to proc distortion as often as possible. The heal signet also has the extremely handy effect of refreshing your shield block, so that enables a lot of defensive capability. Blink allows you to get out of sticky situations, and gravity well is simply the best elite for group play unless you specifically need the MI stealth.

Build Variations

Domination Traits: swap out mental torment for power block. This trades a small but reliable damage amplifier for a substantially larger spike with added utility…but at the cost of reliability.

But Pyro, my commander says I need to use Veil!

Your commander is stuck in the past and should feel bad. Think about actual situations in WvW. How many times have you actually been caught off guard by another group because of a Veil? It’s obvious when groups use it, it’s obvious where they’re going during it, and literally nobody is surprised by a veiled group unless you’re just afk ramming a gate without paying attention to anything. It’s a garbage skill that was useful years ago due to culling and has stuck around because critical thinking is apparently not a strong point of most drivers.

But Pyro, you don’t have portal either!

That’s true. Portal, unlike Veil, is a legitimately powerful and useful skill. However, its pool of useful situations is exceedingly limited. Due to this, I don’t keep portal on my bar; Mesmer utilities are simply too valuable to have a slot go mostly unused. If we’re approaching a situation that could benefit from portal, the driver will ask for it and I’ll swap Signet of Midnight for portal (and usually gravity well for MI at the same time).

Eddbopkins.2630:

I don’t know if it’s 100% l2p, it not having a internal cool dow kinda makes it unchallenged in damage potenial. When I cleared 5 stacks with cleansing fire those 5 stacks did full damage to be when I activated a cleans skill. Since I have the stack on me befor activating it, once I click cleans the confusion does full damage then it’s cleared making cleansing a double edge sword, well more like a single edge that I stab my self with befor clearing takes affect.
Since attunement switching causes some effects regen water, protection earth, fire might flame blast, Air swiftness and lightingstrike, it seems to do extra unessasary damage that puts eles in a worse state when fighting confusion

Yeah, it’s 100% l2p. If you faceroll your keyboard for a fresh air combo with confusion on you, you’re going to die. If you pay attention to the game and cleanse it first, you won’t die. That’s essentially what an l2p problem is.

Not our fault that you’re spamming skills and turning damage over time into an instakill…

Disclaimer: Any build made with your requirements will be disgustingly slow and miserable to play in most situations.

The best build you can produce with those requirements is a condie build. You’ll trait dueling, chaos, and illusions. When you get Chronomancer you could drop chaos for Chronomancy, but it won’t change much. You’ll want full viper/sinister gear for the best damage output.

To deal damage, you use shatters (causing torment and confusion) and your staff autoattacks. Staff clones also apply the conditions on the autoattack, so you use them too.

For most normal mobs in vanilla maps, a few autos and a shatter will kill them. Tougher mobs (vets/champions) are best killed by putting up 3 staff clones and autoattacking until the target dies. Chaos storm will provide a bit of additional damage, but the staff phantasm will be a dps loss in solo situations.

In HoT maps…good luck. Pretty much every mob will provide you with an extended fight. You can pretty much kiss goodbye to any relevant aoe damage, so just focus on killing 1 thing at a time.

For world bosses, you’re in luck! This build actually isn’t garbage for world bosses. Just put up 3 staff phantasms and afk.

Azukas.1426:

Fay.2357:

If we’re talking PvP, you don’t. Leave the point and fight something else.

If we’re talking WvW, you win with massive amounts of kiting. Go in and burst, drop a zerker for some sustained damage and run away until it’s back up. Never stay closer than 900 range unless you’re ready to lockdown and burst.

This is sound advice here, but to take it a bit further you should understand that you can kill them in PvP. The problem is you will lose the point and it takes time so you’re prolly better off somewhere else on the map. Think about it logically.

How many blocks?
How many Invulns?
How easy is it to proc Adrenal Health using bow?

Those right there will pretty much make the fight take long enough for help to arrive. Can you do it though?

Ya if you are good enough

Yeah, I should have specified a bit more.

There’s no inherent difference in PvP that makes it actually impossible to kill a warrior as a power shatter mesmer. The difference is that you can’t do it while being successful at any of the things that matter in a PvP match.

If we’re talking PvP, you don’t. Leave the point and fight something else.

If we’re talking WvW, you win with massive amounts of kiting. Go in and burst, drop a zerker for some sustained damage and run away until it’s back up. Never stay closer than 900 range unless you’re ready to lockdown and burst.

Xyonon.3987:

There’s a “brand new” content called raids …

Just a myth, nothing to see here.

Yeah, I’ll concur with DeathReign here. That was an awful lot of text to say “All of the mesmer problems would be fixed with this perfect new weapon that I’ve imagined”. I mean, you didn’t even lay out any specifics for how the skills would work other than “aoe stuff”.

abullenfla.9632:

Fay.2357:

rabidsmiles.5926:

Is there a video of the Dom rotation? I know it’s spelled out but sometimes watching it while it’s explained makes it make more sense than trying to remember it by reading it. Been trying to figure it out but it’s frustrating having to try to remember all the steps but not having a reference beyond a frantic video with music and words on a webite.

It’s…pretty simple. Start up with iLeap, use shield 5 and then cast shield 4. An instant before shield 4 ends, enter CS. Now you do well of action, SoI, and have time for 1 more (usually heal well), exit CS, use shield 4 again, well of action, soi, and then heal well/well of recall if you have it.

That’s the startup. When CS comes off of cd again, you should have 3 illusions up and you won’t need to do that awkward timing, and can double up on shield 5 as well. Until then, just use well of action, SoI, and proc the SoI trait off cooldown, it’s that simple.

I think you mixed up shield 4 and 5

I didn’t. It’s a wonky startup that allows you to double up on both the active SoI and the SoI proc at the cost of not doubling shield 5.

rabidsmiles.5926:

And then do it all over again once CS is off cooldown? It’s after the first round of cooldowns is where I start to lose myself and the rotation…

Each CS rotation is identical of course, you don’t change anything from one to the next outside of not needing to do that awkward startup as I mentioned.

rabidsmiles.5926:

Is there a video of the Dom rotation? I know it’s spelled out but sometimes watching it while it’s explained makes it make more sense than trying to remember it by reading it. Been trying to figure it out but it’s frustrating having to try to remember all the steps but not having a reference beyond a frantic video with music and words on a webite.

It’s…pretty simple. Start up with iLeap, use shield 5 and then cast shield 4. An instant before shield 4 ends, enter CS. Now you do well of action, SoI, and have time for 1 more (usually heal well), exit CS, use shield 4 again, well of action, soi, and then heal well/well of recall if you have it.

That’s the startup. When CS comes off of cd again, you should have 3 illusions up and you won’t need to do that awkward timing, and can double up on shield 5 as well. Until then, just use well of action, SoI, and proc the SoI trait off cooldown, it’s that simple.

DreamyLove.8947:

and i still wanna know what is max limit at wvw map?

Why don’t you just transfer to a server that needs players instead of complaining about queues?

You have got some OLD footage in that video. I can’t even remember the last time I saw moa the skill unsigneted.

If you try to land an extremely powerful elite on people without properly setting it up, you have a low success rate.

This is how it should be.

If you want to boost that success rate, try baiting dodges, locking them with cc or immob, or doing it from stealth.

Dvantaman.3617:

Well it seems like he’s hacking.

@Ghataka, he was just standing on his spot(no blink no split etc), he was able to port us into really far places (like what i said, areas blocked by vines)

Yeah, that’s gotta be hacking.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Godkitten , I don’t even play this game anymore since it’s utter trash, and I’m still a mesmer god -_-

Killshot mesmer doesn’t count.

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

I’d like you to show me a vid of you providing “Permanent quickness and alacrity” while also saving skills to distort on-demand, aside from F3.

So even without trying to save for distort on demand, doing a normal rotation provides a significant (~10%) uptime on invulnerability for the party, and that’s not something to dismess so easily. Additionally, the playstyle options that become available when using distortion to tactically avoid certain mechanics FAR outweigh the tradeoff of slightly lower quickness uptime (alacrity is not affected at all by signet usage obviously). These include stationary VG (no green circle group), full melee range on gorse breakbars (no need to back out to avoid ground aoes), easy group mitigation on spore shake (no need to blow cooldowns or slow dps to avoid it).

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

And this “Most people” stuff is most likely exactly why OP is having trouble pushing rotations, cause he’s running something that “most people” are trying to run, and sadly I see alot of chrono’s out there not able to even keep up even 50% quickness uptime and barely any alacrity uptime. Trying to run pointlessly complex rotations and setups like “most people” is not a good idea..
And honestly if a team needs 3x distortion’s on-demand.. then meh.

This is a strawman argument. The rotation used for the domination traiset that enables the option of providing distortion is no more complex than the illusions version. If someone can do one, they can easily do the other. Additionally, alacrity uptime is a separate issue altogether. The vast majority of alacrity upkeep comes from the shield phantasms, so rotation is almost completely meaningless if the chrono isn’t maintaining alacrity.

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

Here you go. Rotations made easy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7IezTwrp40

Most people use the domination variant over the illusions variant. There are some situations where illusions is better, but in the vast majority of fights domination is superior due to the utility that distortion provides. Both can provide permanent quickness and alacrity of course.

InsaneQR.7412:

The only thing why i am askinh this is not because ig lazyness its because if you want as much block duration as possible and activate the skill in the last second it doesnt activate. If you didnt block an attack it would be fitting if there is an activation on the end of the channel time or at least some duration after the channel (0.5 s) so you didnt miss the hit.

Or, how about there’s consequences to failing to use the skill properly. If you’re not good enough to execute a split second activation at the end, then you’re not good enough to get the benefits. Simple as that. Get better and this is a nonissue.

OriOri.8724:

Fay.2357:

OriOri.8724:

Xyonon.3987:

InsaneQR.7412:

What if they just get all targets in the well just block instead of aegis? It could be countered by unblockable attacks and gives 5s of air in pve.

Probably most realistic suggestion here. Love the idea.

That just seems like another, unnecesary, nerf to WoP though

?

Switching from aegis to blocks means that it would no longer block unblockable attacks. I don’t see a reason to nerf it like that

Hate to break it to you, but aegis is simply the one-off boon form of block.

Blackari.2051:

This itteration of the #3 is awesome in comparison to what it was before just be sure you are close enough

Press 3. Watch clone spawn next to you. Clone proceeds to take a moment to enjoy its surroundings. Clone notices that an enemy exists. Clone casually strolls to enemy.

OriOri.8724:

Xyonon.3987:

InsaneQR.7412:

What if they just get all targets in the well just block instead of aegis? It could be countered by unblockable attacks and gives 5s of air in pve.

Probably most realistic suggestion here. Love the idea.

That just seems like another, unnecesary, nerf to WoP though

?

Lexander.4579:

Carighan.6758:

Fay.2357:

Ah, it must be that time of year again when the thieves come to the mesmer forum and complain to cover up their own inadequacies.

But Fay! If half of my skills are brokenly weak and abandoned, then it’s only fair that half of yours should be, too!

yeah its totes okay when one utility skill is about as good as all 3 utility skills + elite combined

It’s sorta adorable

Daniel Handler.4816:

I have now twice confirm that your preexisting sword clones will temporarily switch target to your IL target, perform the leap, then return to their original targets.

Which means if you 3 sword clones out, every time you use IL that person will get 3 stacks of cripple. Up to 6 seconds.

The bug that we don’t want may solve your problem.

Not sure why you’re spending so much time confirming that, that’s a known behavior that’s been in the game since launch. It’s only pre-existing sword clones created by IL though, ones you made from decoy/mirror images/DE won’t do it.

Will it be useful again?

No….?

Highly unlikely in the near future anyway. Anet doesn’t like to admit balancing mistakes until they’ve sat for at least a year and a half, so I’d look for it being made a bit better towards the end of 2018.

It’s not awful, it’s just not usually worth a spot on your bar.

So lets say you’re playing a shatter build, either power or condie. What utilities do you take?

First, you start with blink. You’ve got offensive utility, defensive utility, and mobility all wrapped up in one skill.

Next, you’ll often take portal. The team utility and mobility it provides is massive.

Now you’ve got an option for your third skill. If you’re a condie build, the impact of any individual shatter is on the lower side, and so it’s more important that you sustain your damage or yourself. You’ll pick Signet of Illusions or perhaps the mantra cleanse for those reasons. If you’re a power build, landing the burst successfully is the most important thing, and Mantra of Distraction enables successful burst far more effectively than any other utility.

And now you’re out of slots.

Mirror images is a handy skill that allows you to do some interesting burst, but in most normal situations it’s just not as good as the other options. You’ll see it more often in WvW where portal isn’t taken as much, though usually decoy will be picked in that case.

SlimChance.6593:

From the wiki:

June 23, 2015 Patch
Specialization update:

Increased the delay before the clone is summoned by about 0.25 seconds to allow players to start casting this skill while moving within range and not have it fail.

The speed of attack of Illusion has been increased by about 0.35 seconds to allow for better tracking against moving targets.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2015-06-23#Skills_4

I was wrong on the LOS requirement. Just assumed since the skill generates a clone, LOS was required.

That was them normalizing the behavior of the skill to be like every other skill in the game. Previously, it summoned the clone instantly upon pressing the button, with the channel just for show or something. Now it summons the clone at the end of the channel.

Uhm…sword 3 has 600 range. If you’re trying to land it at 1200 range, you’re gonna have a bad time. This is a pebkac issue, you’re just using the skill wrong. If you use it out of range, it fizzles. Same thing with phantasms or most other name-locked skills in this game.

Edit: Reading more of your post again, you seem to be making the claim that the skill will just “randomly fail”. Well…no, that’s not a thing. It fails if you use it when you’re out of range, that’s all. It can’t be blinded, it can’t be obstructed, it can’t be evaded, dodged, invulned, or otherwise mitigated. The only reason the skill will fail is if you’ve used it on a target out of range. If you cast it in range, it’s guaranteed to work.

savacli.8172:

I guess I’m still confused as to how you’re looking to compare to Chrono DPS VS everyone else.

• Are you wanting Chrono to retain her Quickness Alacrity uptime on herself?
• Are you wanting other team members to also be benefitting from this uptime?
• Are you wanting Chrono to have buffs that other team members would provide her?

Ultimately for a fair comparison you gotta treat this as an all or nothing. Either everyone is getting each other’s buffs, or everyone is being compared as an individual (no buff sharing) to one another.

If your perplexity (mesmer pun not intended) is with gear selection you can shoot me a GW2Skill breakdown at what you’re looking a and I can just do some ratios using the 12,974 as a baseline comparison.

It’s what he just said at the end of the post: looking for dps comparison between using a few pieces of commander’s gear.

Answer: If you use full zerker instead of 3 pieces of commander’s gear, you might kill VG about 2 seconds faster.

OriOri.8724:

@Fay I didn’t mean to imply that you would win a majority, or even a lot, of matchups if you were playing power shatter. I was trying to show him that you don’t have to play kittenous build to be able to win fights. I’m well aware that if you run a build like that you will lose most of the fights you come across in WvW.

Seems to me like you’re trying to pull some revisionist history here. Let’s assume that you’re telling the truth and you actually were aware of the reality before I explained. Now your original post reads more like this:

You don’t need to play kitten builds to win fights in WvW. Granted, you’ll still lose almost all the time and will have a miserable experience, but I’m just saying it’s possible to win fights on a burst build.

Well golly gee what a ringing endorsement of power builds. “Maybe you won’t lose 100% of the time.” Fun fun fun right? Yeah, I don’t believe you for an instant. Nobody gives “advice” like that.

OriOri.8724:

The dire condi chrono build when played by a competent player is indeed kittenous build, and the game would not be worse off if it was nerfed. Its almost unkillable when played by a competent player, while at the same time it provides constant and heavy pressure of the two most dangerous condis in a PvP environment, while also allowing for heavy condi bursts fairly often, while it also have the ability to disengage almost at will if the fight is going poorly for it. There is absolutely no downside to playing it, none, and yet it is also one of the more dangerous builds in WvW roaming. I don’t know how you consider that ok, that we have a build with no downsides to it, absolutely amazing sustain, and also has the highest access to confusion/torment while still being able to disengage if they screw up and can’t win. No downsides, all of the upsides. How can you defend that as being balanced? And how can you encourage people to run builds like that?

Well, let’s see. First of all, the build has extremely poor access to boon strip. Anything with decent access to resistance is more or less a hardcounter, so that’s mallyx revs and resistance warriors.

Additionally, the build has some substantial weaknesses depending on how you’ve traited. All it takes is just a quick look at the traits and a good player can easily see counters.

If you go chaos/insp/Ill, you don’t have chrono. This means you’ll be hilariously slow and the hardcounter is anyone that decides to walk away from you.

If you go chaos/ill/chrono, you have awful condition removal and will be hammered by other condie builds.

If you go insp/ill/chrono, you’ll have poor access to stealth and no access to stability, so heavy cc is a good choice for combat, and you’ll be steamrolled by competent roaming parties.

So yeah, contrary to your paragraph of hyperbole, the build actually has substantial weaknesses, obvious counters, and most definitely doesn’t have the list of capabilities that you attributed to it. Perhaps you’re confusing it with the mythical 30/30/30/30/30/30 build that has boonstrip, cc, clone on dodge, PU, shatter cleansing, MtD, and chrono all in one build?

OriOri.8724:

tym.3791:

I play a ton of WvW. One thing I learned long ago, you will NEVER run into a fair fight. Wont happen. Either your gonna get Ganked, or you will Gank others with another toon or two.

To survive in WvW, you need to give your self a out. Thats why I run a Condition PU mesmer. I get in trouble, I stealth out, and get out of dodge.

I use torch for the condition removal, and stealth, I also run staff so I can keep my distance for the hard hitters, and while in stealth, if I need more, I pop mass invisibility and or Blink to keep from getting Ganked.

Mostly, unless I get steam rolled, I can pretty much get out myself out of a Jam when needed.

This is such a toxic mentality.

“I better run kitten build in case I run into someone else running kitten build”

All it does is vastly increase the amount of cancer builds out there, and its also based on false assumptions. There are several mesmer roaming videos on here and the WvW subforums of GS power shatter chronos winning 1v3s because they are just better than other players. You don’t need to play kitten build to win fights in WvW, you just need to be good at your class

No, that guy is basically right. You’re just experiencing a wicked case of sampling bias.

Yeah, there’s lots of videos of people demolishing enemies in a 1v3…but this is primarily possible because the 3 are garbage players. What you don’t see are the 20 times between the fancy highlight reel spots where they encountered a roaming group that weren’t idiots, because nobody wants to watch some poor Mesmer get pounded into the ground by multiple people. You’ve been deluded by these montages into thinking that every encounter is potentially winnable by the plucky shatter Mesmer with a good heart and fast reactions.

Ever wonder why you never see these same 1v3 montages in PvP? It’s because they don’t happen. In WvW, there’s situations where you can encounter people that are drastically weaker than normal. You’ve got uplevels, you’ve got noobs that just wandered in for a look-see, and you’ve got people running group builds that either got picked from a tail or are separated for some reason. Any of these situations will produce a drastic power imbalance that you can use to create the lovely 1v3 montages…but that doesn’t make those a realistic display of WvW roaming.

Here’s the way WvW roaming actually works: most roaming groups are out there to kill you. You’ll see a lot of duo thieves coordinating burst. If you’re not able to absorb some heavy damage then disengage and reset, you’ll die. You’ll see a lot of trios or 4 man groups. If you’re not able to control the pacing of the fight through mobility, cc, and stealth, you’ll get run down and killed. You’ll see a lot of heavy condie roamers, ghost thieves, condie Druids, even condie revs from time to time. If you don’t have heavy sustain and condition removal, you’ll get absolutely melted.

Ultimately, Condie PU is one viable way to deal with this. You can also go for a non-PU build with shield (which I prefer) if you’re worried about stealth denial from reveal.

Alternatively, you can run glass burst Mesmer and sort through hours of eating dirt to find those 3 sweet 1v3s where you stomp a couple uplevels.