Guild Wars 2

Assuming the illusions work the same as the player, then no, the phantasms won’t reflect.

iDefender will not take damage during that one second…but mainly because it takes about a second for it to run to the target and actually cast the aura.

Xavi.6591:

Why not for pvp? Mimic then SoI to share with everyone on the point?

So you’re burning two 30+ second utilities just for maybe 15 seconds of boons, and now you’re left with what?

You can choose one (maybe two) of the following:

• A mobility skill
• A stunbreak
• A condition removal

…yeah. Not sure that’s gonna go too well.

Catcrafter.3917:

@Fay
Hey mate thanks for your response and the link, I already read that guide yesterday
I disagree with your presumption am going in an entirely wrong direction.

Sorry man, but it’s not a presumption. You are going in the entirely wrong direction, and it’s not really something that can be argued. You’re choosing to go for a tanky build instead of a dps build. This means you are actively choosing to be useless to a party, they will have to carry you through dungeons.

Catcrafter.3917:

There are of course better and worse builds for certain content but it’s entirely up to player’s ability to make them work and cater to his personal play-style. I always try to encourage people in games such as this to be as creative as possible and to stay clear off metagame as much as they can.

Again, this build and any variation of it is simply bad for dungeons. Yes, you can run whatever you want to run, but if I (and many others) see someone running a build like this in my party, I will kick you immediately, because you’re not contributing anything to the party. It’s not a matter of personal skill and playstyle, it’s a matter of good versus bad. The best player in the game can’t make this build effective for dungeons.

Catcrafter.3917:

I hit lv80 yesterday I still have to get runes and sigils and so far I am very satisfied with my build. I am 80% of time in melee almost 100% of time in chaos armor (I like pretty bubbles) and am enjoying myself. Am also very satisfied with dps and support output of the build.

I too ran a very tanky build when I first started PvEing. It does unbelievably less damage, and you don’t really understand that until you’ve seen what a glassy build can do. Chaos armor simply isn’t necessary, and good PvErs stay in melee range the entire fight, in glassy builds.

Catcrafter.3917:

The purpose of this thread was not to ask do you think this build is good or is it necessary in dungeons but to share ideas of how to maximize potential of the melee/tanky/support mesmer and make it work as best it can.
Cheers

I’ll just say it one more time: Tanky builds are useless in PvE. Nobody is going to stop you from running them, but you will be useless in groups, and anyone who wants to make a dungeon party and doesn’t want to carry you will kick you instantly.

Signet mastery because there’s no better option. You’ll sometimes toss on signet of inspiration or signet of the ether, and that way you don’t have to swap out traits when you do so.

Swish.2463:

-snip-

I’m going to have to disagree with you on pretty much every account here.

Mesmer swords allow you to be very resilient to damage with a low cooldown evade and a block.

Mesmers are actually fantastic passive support. The key is that you bring this support while in a dps build, and that means there’s no reason to not build for that dps.

Chaos armor is actually a pretty potent defense in PvE. However, you can provide chaos armor from time warp and feedback without needing to scramble your entire build to do so.

Basically, mesmer is strong at a lot of these things, but you can either provide them while in a full DPS build, or they’re entirely unnecessary for PvE.

Well, my first question is what part of WvW do you intend on using this in?

Mender’s purity only removes on the activation of the charges, not on the charging itself unfortunately. On-heal runes like centaur or balthazar will activate on both the charging and activation though.

Hi there, I’ll just toss you this link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-How-To-Mesmer-in-Dungeons/page/4#post4316430

Basically, you’re going in the absolutely wrong direction. If you’re building for PvE, anything that isn’t damage is a waste. No tanky builds are brought in PvE groups, because they’re simply not necessary (No, guardians don’t build tanky either). If you don’t feel comfortable running 100% glass cannon in PvE, then you can add pieces of knights/cavaliers to your build until you feel safer.

StickerHappy.8052:

@all

Is the new MoD ground targeted? or the AoE is like the clone death traits? (effects automatically happen as long as the targets are in range)

Whatever gave you that idea?

MoD is exactly the same as before, except it’ll do an aoe on the target instead of only hitting the target.

StickerHappy.8052:

PS: Pyro, when you get the champ bags in PVE, are the dusts 100% there? or like a high drop rate right?

100%, which is what leads to the whole deleting 10s of thousands thing.

StickerHappy.8052:

Can someone confirm this… I posted on the pvp forums and they say that you can get it from the champion bags..

I have 1k + hrs on my mesmer on pvp and not even once did i get the dusts.. Does it have to do something with rank, magic find or the toon lvl youre currently playing?

I do get the emp fragments and d. Ore from the tier rewards (the last reward on the track)

I’m pretty positive you should be getting it from champ bags that pvp rewards provide. Magic find, rank, and toon level do not change the bloodstone dust output.

Menaka.5092:

eldenbri.1059:

Well, I think thanks are certainly in order at this point because they are trying to address things that people have pointed out need addressing – iLeap, Warden, and elasticity on staff clone. If someone tries to do something to help you and you say “f-u” until you see if they succeed, you are not really likely to motivate them to continue to try to help you.

ANet is not a charity and these people are not unpaid volunteers; they are professionals and we are their customers. I’m not gonna thank them because they tried to fix their product… iWarden has been broken for what, 9 months now? If your mechanic failed to fix your car twice would you thank him if he manages to fix it the third time, 9 months later?

No, I would quit giving him service, left horrible reviews in every way I could, advised anyone that asked to not go there, and lastly I would have gone to a competent mechanic that would fix the mistakes made by the first one.

I truly don’t understand how people are thinking that fixing what they broke is worth a thanks.

keenlam.4753:

@Pyro:
In the ReadyUp vid on Dulfy, I saw the new iLeap still maintains its double leap finisher as Karl used it in Chaos Storm.
Can someone confirm if this is true or not?

That could be, I may have received faulty info.

Shen Slayer.3058:

I just rolled a Mez to try it out and I have managed to get it to level 20…but it had to be the most boring thing I have ever done in this game, it’s more fun watching paint dry. I’m really tried hard to like her, but it’s just too hard. My question…is it going to get better, more fun? Or should I just delete her and and go with something else?

It will get better at level 60.

My advice is to use level up tomes or just karma train in EoTM until you get to 60, otherwise you will end up absolutely despising it. Anet really did a number on leveling mesmers with the feature patch; it went from hard to absolutely hellish.

Henrik.7560:

Veil (90s)

Note that veil has no target limit. That being said, the cd should be lower, probably 60 seconds.

Henrik.7560:

Mass invisability (90s)

Note that MI doesn’t tether you to one spot for a long time like SR does, and stealths 10 people instead of 5. That being said, it’s still weak for an elite with 90s cd comparatively, so I’d bump it up to 20 people to make it more in line.

Henrik.7560:

Desperate Decoy (90s) —> Last Refuge (60s blinds, aoe stealth, blast finisher)

I can guarantee you that any thief would trade last refuge for desperate decoy in an instant…..but only because it would allow them to not take it, since last refuge is a minor trait. They’re badly designed traits that nobody takes, so it’s sorta a moot point.

Henrik.7560:

Decoy (35s) —> Blinding Powder (40s blinds, aoe stealth, blast finisher)

Decoy is a stunbreak, blinding powder is not. Decoy additionally ignores revealed.

Torment on the scepter autoattack is lazy and bad design. There are other options that could have made the weapon better without simply tacking on conditions. For example:

What if scepter clones behaved as melee clones? Now you’ve given scepter clones a unique niche for condition builds, because no other condition based weapon has melee clones. With that change, your clones would stick close to your opponents, making it difficult for them to avoid the aoe condition spread from clone deaths. This puts more condition pressure on your opponents without simply adding autoattack spam.

Korusef.3714:

I think the CD is based on Thief steal and guardian Save Yourself!

…because comparing to a skill that pulls all conditions from nearby allies and grants all boons

…or because comparing it to a skill that can be buffed to be 1500 range instant 20s cd daze, stability steal, vigor, poison, damage

is sensible?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Lopez.7369:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

so if my warrior with “shrug it off” gets hit by a pin down, and “shrug it off” activates “shake it off” there is a chance this bug may occur?

and when it does, my warrior will be rooted in place, despite not having the immobilized condition on him?

Yes.

ouch. thanks for confirming that.
eh, the chance that it occurs, is it 100% confirmed will occur or just sometimes or very high chance it will occur?

It’s not even very high chance really. It happens often enough to be noticed and absolutely horrid, but infrequent enough to make reproducing it an enormous pain.

Noah.9654:

Read my latter comment as to why its much better to have the clone summoned at the target than to have the clone run to the target. Its now an almost unavoidable Blurred Frenzy.

You say this as if it has no counter. The skill still has a cast time, and the clone can still be killed in a single autoattack unless you swap instantly….in which case it can simply be dodged by someone that dodges when they see the clone appear.

Noah.9654:

Very few Mesmers in PvP tried to ‘play mind games’ with their iLeap. It was a gap closer. No more, no less.

This is outright false. Poor mesmer players didn’t utilize iLeap to its best potential. Skilled mesmer players did. This is one of the things that showed the difference.

Noah.9654:

This is the part that perplexes me. Who exactly are you to decide whether or not something is lazy/bad design. If you were working with ANet and thus shared thier vision of their game, I would respect that. However, because it is something that you dislike, you opt to deem it as ‘lazy design’?

I call it lazy/bad design because it makes the game less skillful. It takes no skill to spam autoattacks to apply conditions, and the counter to that is simply spamming condition removals to remove them. Skillful play is when you have high impact skills that need to be countered in some way. By placing conditions on autoattacks instead of making more high impact skills, it reduces the amount of skillful play possible. This makes it lazy/bad design.

Noah.9654:

-snip for efficient use of space-

Note that I’m not complaining about PU at all. I enjoy playing PU myself, it’s more useful in tPvP than most people give it credit for (see my solo queue guide), and I never fault anyone else for playing it. However, the issue that I have is with incredibly limited build diversity.

Noah.9654:

Now, as most people have been discussing already, the torment buff will most likely not even be used on PU builds. In short, the buff is giving us a better option for condi builds that could very well take us out of the low tier class level. If they have to nerf us because we might be too OP after the update, that will be fine. At worst they’ll just take away torment from our clones and we’ll still have great condi specs.

Scepter is a staple of all condie builds, and PU condie builds are the only good PU builds, so all good PU builds will be using the torment. It’s going to be incredibly strong, and it’ll probably be nerfed at some point.

Now, you’ve mentioned a quite balanced way to nerf it into something less painful, but this again gives the devs the benefit of the doubt, and they don’t deserve this. Their record shows either nerfs that do absolutely nothing or nerfs that are incredibly over-the-top, with very little middle ground. This means that we can safely make the assumption that something will get overnerfed and limit our build diversity even more.

This is where I have an issue with PU. There’s nothing wrong with playing the build that you choose, the problem is when it starts to become the only viable set of builds. PU is the only viable set of builds while solo roaming in WvW, and it’s the only build you can use in PvP without being immediately hard-countered by a thief on the other team. Limited build diversity is always bad, and overnerfing mechanics as Anet is wont to do leads to limited build diversity.

Noah.9654:

If you’re actively searching for reasons to be unhappy, why are you still here? With all due respect, the Mesmer community—given all that its already been through—really doesn’t need your negativity. All you’re doing is dissuading new players from rolling Mesmer. I don’t even see how you still play a Mesmer (if at all in which case, why complain) if you’re so unhappy about it.

I used to play mesmer. I used to enjoy playing the class, and that’s why I’m here. I no longer enjoy playing the class, and subsequently I no longer enjoy playing the game, so I can be found in Firefall and more normally in Dragon Nest. That being said, I want to enjoy playing mesmer and GW2 again, and so I take every opportunity to do what I can to cause positive change for this class.

MandJ.8965:

EnderzShadow.2506:

MandJ.8965:

Please dont play Builds like that. Because of that, People qq like hell, and Anet nerfs mesmer again to the ground.

I dont want to be mean..but…you know..

I don’t mean to be mean…but you know, actually I do.

They QQ and then You QQ about their QQ
Is the irony lost on you?

I think I will run this build purely on principle.

Yea, play that my friend. Play whatever you want.
But it tells me what kind of person you are

Yes, we’re the kind of people that will trash you in a fight and then feast on your tears.

StickerHappy.8052:

Ah i see, so any lvl champs? Even the Queensdale train?

Any level champs yes, but I don’t believe the queensdale train still exists.

StickerHappy.8052:

Also, Are you coming back?

Maybe.

Uhmmmm.

Gosh. I’ve honestly never heard someone say this before. I’ve deleted probably 10s of thousands of bloodstone dust.

Basically, you get a lot of bloodstone dust from every single champion bag. You’ll get loads from champ trains anywhere, you’ll get loads from eotm, you’ll get loads from doing dungeons. Pretty much any and all PvE content will unload copious amounts of bloodstone dust onto you.

Noah.9654:

Maybe I’m missing something

You sort of are, let me try to explain.

Noah.9654:

but iWarden was fixed

iWarden has been “fixed” before. The devs no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt, and so until I see it in front of me working correctly, I will assume that not only will it not be fixed, it will actually be broken even worse.

Noah.9654:

iElasticity was fixed

Same as iWarden. iElasticity has supposedly been “fixed” before. Until I see it working, I’ll assume that it won’t work.

Noah.9654:

iLeap was fixed and immensely buffed

Not exactly. I’m not entirely sure what you’re referring to with immensely buffed at all actually. Having the clone summon on target basically gives us the functionality that it is supposed to have, just without the pathing issues that they were unable to resolve. However, it leaves us with quite a few downsides.

1. It no longer is a double leap finisher, as the first leap finish was removed.
2. Whether it can still be used without LoS is in question. If the no-LoS functionality was removed, then it was an enormous nerf.
3. The skill will still be 100% entirely useless in large groups. Pathing wasn’t the main problem in zergs, it’s the fact that the clone dies instantly upon being summoned. With the lag in group fights, it’s fair to assume the clone will be dead before you can swap.
4. The skill still has significantly less room for skillful usage without the clone dying functionality. It means that the ONLY way to use this skill is to put the clone out and then swap immediately, because any other way doesn’t work due to the clone dying. It’s no longer something that you can use to play mind games or in interesting ways. It’s purely a skill that you double click to gap close with. This means not only is it less interesting, it’s also enormously less functional than every other leap skill in the game, which allow for gap closing/opening, don’t require targets, and don’t waste the cooldown if used outside of range.

Basically, this change makes iLeap just barely usable, but still crap.

Noah.9654:

we were finally given some form of AoE and usefulness in dungeons

We’ve never had a problem with aoe in dungeons. Mainhand sword cleaves just as well as anything else. The issue is that our damage is still on the low side due to phantasms squishing, and it remains to be seen if the iWarden actually works. If it does, then we’re going to be pretty ok in dungeons.

Noah.9654:

and now we’re a part of the condi PvP meta

If by this you’re referring to the torment on scepter auto, then let me explain why this is ultimately a bad thing.

Firstly, conditions on autoattacks is simply bad/lazy design. It was apparently too difficult to come up with a creative way to make scepter autoattacks interesting (despite no lack of suggestions), and so torment was added. This is overall bad for the class and bad for the game.

Next, this is going to be incredibly strong. Incredibly strong things leads to incredibly loud complaining, and incredibly loud complaining leads to heavy-handed unnecessary nerfs (see confusion, glamour builds, blurred frenzy). So ultimately this change gets us a month or two of fun, followed by some enormous unspecified nerf that’ll probably kill a good subset of mesmer condition builds, and pidgeonhole us even more into PU.

We don’t have to search hard to find things to complain about. They’re handed to us on a silver platter. Yes, there were some very significant good changes…but there’s also a lot of not so great. I’m far too jaded to applaud the devs for the proverbial ‘a broken clock is right twice a day’, and so I’m all too happy to point out and pick on the stuff that is still horrid and needs work.

Right, so I typed up a big response then accidentally deleted it all, so I’m gonna be editing this thing in piecemeal.

Torment Shatter: Isn’t good. The shatters can be dodged, blocked, clones can be cleaved down en route or before they even are shattered, there’s simply so many ways to counter it easily. Compare that to clone deaths, which can’t be blocked, can’t be dodged, cleaving them down is the point of it, and the aoe spread is close to the size of a capture point, so they’re hard to avoid.

Runes: Don’t take krait, as you can’t really use them well. MI is on a 90s cooldown, so it’s just not that useful. I prefer nightmare or undead. Undead runes are just a flat boost to all of your condition damage, and nightmare are a flat boost to all of your condition durations. Pick which one seems to suit you better.

Torch: Torch is a bit of a problem weapon. Without the trait, it’s an offhand with only one skill. However, the prestige truly is an amazing skill. It has stealth, aoe blind, aoe burning, and a blast finisher. The iMage, on the other hand, is a pile of kitten. It’s slow, uses a bouncing attack that doesn’t bounce properly, often misses, and only applies low duration stacks of confusion.

Now, if you trait the torch, it becomes better, as the iMage is a condition removal both on summon and if the bolt hits you.

Deceptive Evasion: Is absolutely essential. You can not run an effective shatter build or clone death build without DE. Clone generation on weapons simply isn’t fast enough. What will end up happening is that you’ll get your clones cleaved down, and then you’ll be stuck unable to do anything for a while. Shatters really require full clones to work, but you can’t produce these clones rapidly. The fastest you could make illusions would be casting a phantasm and then using phase retreat I suppose….and that’s only 2, pretty slow, and then you have to shatter immediately to not have them killed. It simply doesn’t work.

Sigils: So since you’re taking DE, it means that energy sigils are even more important. Dodges for a mesmer aren’t simply defense, they’re also a means to offense through clone generation. Double energy sigils are required, and then I like to take double doom just for that consistent poison generation, but that’s really up to you.

Boon stripping and Condition Removal: Since you’re not going to be shatter condie, shattered concentration no longer works. So instead of taking null field, you should take the pDisenchanter. This is a 20s cd phantasm that attacks every 4 seconds with a 5 target bouncing projectile removing 2 boons from enemies and 2 conditions from allies. It’s basically an all-purpose boon strip/condition cleanse that works pretty much anywhere with a bit of skill for placement.

Mobility: Since you’re going 20 into dueling for DE, you’ll also take far reaching manipulations to extend your blink range to 1200. With a 1200 range blink, you can get from one point to another nearly instantaneously if you know the proper places to blink at. This solves most of the mesmer mobility problems without the use of a focus, allowing you to take torch. If, however, you still want that focus, it’s not a huge problem. Focus has a nice aoe pull and the phantasm can provide a projectile-safe bubble, so it’s still useful.

Wyrden.4713:

i once heard pyro loved iMage for no particular reason, so u might look into it!

D:

Lies and slander! I’ve made entire posts dedicated to exploring how iMage is one of the weakest skills in the entire game

Yeah, I’ll hold my thanks until I see these supposed changes realize in actuality.

CD is too long. As I said before, it’ll have to be 20-25s base cooldown to be worth taking.

frifox.5283:

I just dropped about 150g on gear. This patch made my head spin with all the condition possibilities.

In PvE O.o?

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

Fay.2357:

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

When I asked I wanted to learn Condition game play, I was told to forget it. I am glad I keep to it and now my paid off.

Considered I have been doing some serious investment in condition damage / duration / torment gear. With this buff to Condition and scepter, I am so so happy.

Now who is laughing now.

Muuuaaaaaa

None of the facts stated in that thread you had made have changed. If you run condition damage in a fractal or dungeon, you are purposefully choosing to make your group carry you.

I only run Condition to get use to the play style not using it in fractal or dungeon.

So you still believe with the change, condition will still be bad in PVE content? You could be right, but let just wait and see shall we.

I just hope you are wrong

It’s not really a wait and see thing. You could maintain 25 stacks of permatorment and still do less damage than a zerker build.

Crossplay.2067:

Fay.2357:

You’re thinking too hard about it.

Phantasms are invulnerable for the first second of their existence when taking that trait.

That’s what I meant. You get a kill and summon a phantasm, then you summon another. Do both get distortion or just one?

Again, you’re still thinking too hard. It’s not a complex trait. When TD is slotted, phantasms will have invulnerability for 1 second when summoned.

Crossplay.2067:

Upon further reflection, it still seems useless. I don’t know of any phantasm that does its first attack within one second of being spawned. The closest may be the swordsman. Granted, I haven’t used it in forever but last I remembered, it has a fraction of warm-up time before it attacked. It’s still possible that all of them will get killed during their first attack. I also don’t see fit to using phantasms kittenter fodder so what’s the point of them being invincible for one second?

Yes, it’ll have limited usefulness certainly. iZerker will attain the largest boost from it, as most of its damage occurs rapidly after summoning.

Crossplay.2067:

Fay.2357:

Ok folks, please pay just a liiitle bit of attention to what they actually said, and if OP could edit the post to be not incredibly misleading, it would be great.

PHANTASMS WILL RECEIVE 1 SECOND OF DISTORTION ON SUMMON, NOT WHEN SOMETHING DIES

I wasn’t following the OP. I actually watched the podcast and wrote that post afterwards so I didn’t see all the post before mine. I can see what he meant now but the way he said it was VERY misleading!

I still don’t feel it’ll make much of a difference and I’m not even sure how it would work. Once you get a kill, does it apply the distortion to all phantasms or just the next one summoned? How long do we have before the buff wears off and we have to get a kill again?

You’re thinking too hard about it.

Phantasms are invulnerable for the first second of their existence when taking that trait.

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

When I asked I wanted to learn Condition game play, I was told to forget it. I am glad I keep to it and now my paid off.

Considered I have been doing some serious investment in condition damage / duration / torment gear. With this buff to Condition and scepter, I am so so happy.

Now who is laughing now.

Muuuaaaaaa

None of the facts stated in that thread you had made have changed. If you run condition damage in a fractal or dungeon, you are purposefully choosing to make your group carry you.

Sethren.8472:

Disagreed. PU Mesmers might have been powerful in PvP, but regular PvE condi mesmers were not. We needed that bit of love. If you play a power mes (Sw/Sw, or whatever combination of Sword), then you wouldn’t realize how nice/needed this is.

PvE condition mesmer builds have never even flirted with the concept of viability. Using one is basically saying that you want your team to carry you through every encounter ever. These buffs do not change that.

Ok folks, please pay just a liiitle bit of attention to what they actually said, and if OP could edit the post to be not incredibly misleading, it would be great.

PHANTASMS WILL RECEIVE 1 SECOND OF DISTORTION ON SUMMON, NOT WHEN SOMETHING DIES

A 30s base cooldown on the new mimic is too long for sure. It’ll need to be at 25 or 20 for me to ever put it on my bar again.

Torment on scepter autoattack is bad. This will make several condition builds crazy strong, and this means we’ll get hit with heavy nerfs in the future.

The change to mantra of pain, however, means that mesmers now have a potentially effective way to contribute to aoe damage in a large group fight. Aoe daze mantra could potentially contribute to this as well. I look forward to seeing how they play out.

Xyonon.3987:

Well as a PvE fotm and dungeon mesmer, I am extremly excited about the mantra changes.

Mantra of Pain will hit 5 !!! targets wich is extremly high damage with 3 mantras, ON RANGE. In other words: GS becomes viable. You don’t have to use AA, you can use mantra of pain instead. With this patch the GS is immediately superior as a aoe wapon compared to a pistol or sword offhand. I just wonder how much the difference of a 3 hit sword aa chain to a kitten mantra chain is.

Hate to break it to you, but GS will still be crap in FOTM/Dungeons. Sword cleaves and has much higher damage than GS, so it’s really not a comparison, since you can also use the mantra with sword.

Navi.7142:

A red sign here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mesmer-Bugs-40-Updated-August-10th/page/3#post4319725

Sounds nice. Let us hope they will do it right.

Yes, but we’ve danced this dance before. I’ll believe it when I see it, and not a moment before.

Purr Kitten.8731:

Interesting thing happened:

Anet employee was running with us in wvw and on our ts. So I took the time as I always do when I see anet running in the group, to bemoan the state of the mesmer. What he said was interesting:

“It is a common misconception that the Mesmer is full of bugs. That is not actually true, a lot of these things work as intended.”

that is what he said. I have to admit I was a tad ticked. I do kind of with I had pressed the issue a bit, but I did not. Problem is not just the bugs but the massive constant nerfs to memser that bug me. But I just thought it was interesting.

Either way I still play Mesmer, find it a lot of fun. Frustrating, but still fun.

Do you remember the name of said Anet employee?

I can say with 100% certainty that there are less than 10 people within the company of anet that have the position of knowledge and power to make that statement. It’s both highly unlikely that you met any of them, and it’s even more unlikely that they would say that.

Edit: And pretty much none of those people would hop onto a player TS that they didn’t know.

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

StickerHappy.8052:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Fay.2357:

If you interrupt two targets with one skill, only one of them will receive the confusion.

The base duration (as I recall) is 10 seconds. The runes give 30%, you can trait for 33%, and runes provide 40%. These sum to ~100% duration boost, bringing the interrupt confusion duration to 10s.

The base duration is actually 8 seconds, just checked in game. However, with the 30% rune increase it is 10 seconds. If you add the trait and food, which would be 100% duration, it would be 16 seconds. Got your back pyro

I think the duration on Perplexity is bugged. :/

Used to be for a long time. They fixed it in the April feature patch.

Both durations on it?

I believe so, not 100% sure.

StickerHappy.8052:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Fay.2357:

If you interrupt two targets with one skill, only one of them will receive the confusion.

The base duration (as I recall) is 10 seconds. The runes give 30%, you can trait for 33%, and runes provide 40%. These sum to ~100% duration boost, bringing the interrupt confusion duration to 10s.

The base duration is actually 8 seconds, just checked in game. However, with the 30% rune increase it is 10 seconds. If you add the trait and food, which would be 100% duration, it would be 16 seconds. Got your back pyro

I think the duration on Perplexity is bugged. :/

Used to be for a long time. They fixed it in the April feature patch.

If you interrupt two targets with one skill, only one of them will receive the confusion.

The base duration (as I recall) is 10 seconds. The runes give 30%, you can trait for 33%, and runes provide 40%. These sum to ~100% duration boost, bringing the interrupt confusion duration to 10s.

First, note that the link swish provided for builds is wrong. Please use Fay’s build list (also stickied of course), as it is coherent, organized, and designed as a resource for finding builds and guides.

Your first build is basically a somewhat defensive version of a phantasm build. The issues with this build for tPvP is that you’re not going to be helpful in team fights, as your phantasms die too quickly ( this is a problem inherent to all phantasm builds). You can use it as a point assaulter, but there are better builds for that (like your second build). In wvw, you can roam ok, but you’ll have a hard time handling more than one person (again inherent problem to phantasm builds), and your camp clear time will be on the slower side.

Your second build is very similar to my ‘Overpowered’ build, and can found in the build list. Main points of this build are that it’s incredibly strong for a 1v1 fight, but nearly useless if you’re outnumbered or in any fight larger than a 2v2. You can roam with it, but it’s very fragile and you’ll squish if you get hit by more than one person. In pvp it can be used, but due to it being bad in more than a 2v2, you’re rather limited in what you can do.

Now, for general strategy and aim in tPvP if you’re not playing with a team (so this applies to both solo queue and soloing in team queue), look at my guide to Mesmer in solo queue, found in that same stickied build/guide list.

As far as wvw roaming goes, there’s a very good reason as to why everyone uses PU builds when solo. PU builds are the absolute best survivability that Mesmer has (and note that I only consider PU conditions, as PU power is quite weak for multiple reasons). They allow you to survive and even win outnumbered fights, escape very nasty situations, and overall just accomplish more. Phantasm builds and shatter builds both get wrecked by any groups you’ll come across, and are more suited to play in those roaming groups (though PU can work in small groups too, depending on group comp).

This build won’t really work. Looking at your traits, I was confused as to what you were trying to do, but once I saw your amulet and runes it became more clear. You’re trying to do some sort of hybrid build with the celestial amulet and burns from Balthazar runes combined with some direct damage from shatters I suppose, and adding in some defense from the mantra heal and shattered conditions.

Essentially, none of this will work well. The celestial amulet by itself in a build provides lowish condition damage and lowish power damage. It is used by builds that can consistently stack high amounts of might, and this changes the overall effect to highish condition damage and highish power damage. Highish of both ends up producing a pretty nasty spread of damage pressure, but lowish of both is nothing.

Your build has no ability to stack might. This means that you will be doing lowish condition damage and lowish power damage. All of your damage will be ignorable by most players.

Additionally, your build has a lot of other problems. You have no coherent offense in the build. You’re not focused on phantasm damage, you have no good way to apply conditions, your shatters will be very wimpy, you have no interrupt traits, aaaand that’s about it as far as Mesmer offense goes.

You have decent defense/sustain in this build actually. With shattered conditions, the heal mantra, mender’s purity, and staff, you’re reasonably well equipped to survive. Unfortunately, being well equipped to survive does nothing on its own.

You’re not suited to defend a point because you can be easily knocked off and/or outmanouvered. You’re not suited to attack a point because you do no damage and have no knockbacks. You’re not suited for team support because shattered conditions isn’t a good team support due to the small range and necessity of having clones up in the midst of a fight, and lastly you’re not suited as a team bunker for multiple reasons.

Overall, I’d like to know what you really envisioned doing with this build so that I can provide advice on how to actually achieve that.

Might be amusing to go through and note all the changes that were actually lies.

Coulter.2315:

frifox.5283:

Coulter.2315:

You’re talking nonsense if you think a warrior can reach never mind keep up 25 stacks of bleed in PvP, however giving staff clones a double hit which can proc Burning and have a 2nd chance at critting for Bleed will be OP.

I don’t do PvP, only PvE.

Then you need to think of PvP when balancing.

Ok, lets think PvP.

I’m thinking of a fire field that covers an entire point, pulses every couple of seconds applying burning, and has a 7 second cooldown.

I’m thinking of a fast autoattack that cleaves and applies 8 second base duration bleeds.

I’m thinking of a kit that can be used point blank and applies long duration bleeds, burns, chill, and poison.

I’m thinking that bouncing staff clones probably aren’t going to match up to the insane condition application sets that a lot of classes have.

infantrydiv.1620:

Lol why are you guys arguing over the way a tournament with no ACTUAL rewards is run? zzz pointless drama, you are just gonna make Hman clinically obese

Eh, it’s really just a symptom of how poorly executed any GW2 pvp is. Something like this would be absolutely unacceptable for any game with real pvp, so why should it be accepted here?

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

phirefox.2568:

PvE/WvW: Traveller. Don’t mind the loss in offensive power that much if it means that i don’t move around like a slug :O

I use focus so im not to slow and I don’t lose to many stats which is a bonus

Idk, you can use 1200 range blink to get from point to point nearly instantly on most maps. I don’t see either focus or travelers as remotely necessary (focus is obviously useful for other reasons).

No, it was not. It was appropriately strong as a zergbusting build.

Note that if it were truly that overpowered, the meta of wvw Zerging would have adapted to high condition removal output like you see currently. However, you didn’t see that meta take form until significantly after the confusion nerf. If you took pre-nerf glamour builds into today’s Zerging environment, they would be far less effective due to how fast conditions are cleansed.

The glamour nerf had multiple parts, and none of them were appropriate.

The confusion nerf was the first part. 1 stack of confusion did ~450 damage per skill use back then. Usually you could get 2 stacks on people with glamours, so your end up with 900ish per skill use. That…really isn’t that strong. It’s strong enough to hurt if you spam non-stop, but it’s very comparable to the damage other classes (ele/necro) can put out at range, and far less than melee classes (warrior/guardian) can do.

The other part of the nerf was the blinding befuddlement icd. While this nerf was absolutely uncalled for, it was part of what I like to call the This Easy Game Should Be Easier change suite, the other notable changes being icd on how often shields (chaos armor) could proc. While I disagree with all of these changes, part of Anet’s vision for the game is obviously removing mechanics that punish poor play, so that won’t get changed back.

Safe to assume that it is 100% “fixed”, yeas.

Bo Van Swill.7619:

Yeah i solo roam with a shatter build and find it just fine, as for PU i have never played it and never will it is what gives us mesmers a bad name and why every one calls for us to be nerfed.

You’ll be just fine on shatter unless you encounter pretty much any condie built class, or a thief, or more than 1 or 2 people…

You play PU when roaming solo or with a glass partner because it allows you to actually survive.

As for shatter/lockdown in PvP…you’ll be fine until you hit an enemy team with a thief that knows what to do, at which point you’ll become instantly borderline useless. I don’t like having my effectiveness dictated by a single pick on the other team, so I play PU.

While guides for PU can be greatly appreciated, I don’t think this one is particularly good.

Illusionary elasticity doesn’t work with staff clones, so that’s a useless trait. You’re also taking the confusion duration trait, but you have no effective way of applying confusion. Lastly, your only condition removal is null field, which is entirely inadequate as a personal condition removal.

Overall, not a good build. I wouldn’t recommend using it.

PU builds are very strong currently. The trait is one of the few remaining good traits that mesmers have, and PU builds simply are the best builds for any situation in which surviving is optimal.

Contrary to popular misbelief, PU builds have a skill cap just as monstrously high as any other build mesmers have. However, the difference is in how this skill is displayed. Where in an interrupt build you need to be greatly skilled to make it function at all, because interrupts are a poorly supported mechanic that don’t work well in this game, in PU builds that skill is shown as how effectively you can survive in increasingly hostile situations while still performing offensively.