Guild Wars 2

When duo roaming with a thief, you sorta have to choose how the two of you want to fight.

A difficult way that also is more vulnerable to surprise group smackdowns is by both of you going very glassy. You need to be on voip and coordinate your burst to instakill targets one at a time. This can be extremely effective, but it’s not easy to pull off.

A more flexible way of going is with you running a PU build and the thief running a glassy build. In this setup, you’d be the first to engage and draw attention. The thief would then pick off targets while they focused on you.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Also do you really want to be known beating me with a PU build lol)

I wouldn’t mind much :p

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I take Bountiful for A) those odd random interrupts. for interrupts from focus pulling clusters of enemies, Chaotic Interruption’s purpose here is to secure my Phantasm hits.

I can see how bountiful can be a nice damage boost now and then from those things. Unfortunately, chaotic interruption never actually secured any phantasm hits for you. If this isn’t really an interrupt build, then I’d ditch CI for staff cooldowns, since you’ll probably get far more mileage out of that.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Now, regarding the Washing Up video, keep in mind that it’s not just my signet that allows me to share boons. Phantasms, Pack Runes, Temporal Curtain and Chaos Storm all contribute, and even then I’m very judicious to when I pop the signet. In that video, I only popped the signet when I felt it was necessary otherwise I preferred to enjoy the passive (which isn’t as bad as people think: random Aegis, Protection, Fury, and Swiftness among others are always welcome). If the enemy is outnumbered or the fight is already in our favor there’s no need.

Fair enough, you definitely provide boons in other ways than the signet…but when you’re using the signet so infrequently, could you not get more overall use out of say…portal/pDisenchanter/feedback/decoy?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Regarding lockdown builds, they work in team fights. I’m tempted to say “Supcutie, Misha and Helseth endorsed lockdown builds at one point, which speaks towards their viability.” but that feels like a weak argument, and besides .. I’d rather just prove
you wrong myself! >=P

If I recall correctly, the main point at which lockdown builds were widespread was during the period of chaos storm + CS bug. While the 20/20/30 staff/gs build does take several interrupt traits, it’s aimed at interrupting rezzng/stomping as opposed to other skills (which is why power block is completely useless for that build type). Rezzing/stomping are the 2 actions that are always well telegraphed through animation, and this lends itself nicely to CI immobs followed by immediate shatter burst boosted by BI might. Note, however, that this is a shatter build that gains utility/power through use of some interrupts, not an interrupt focused build.

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

So note that I’m not trying to disparage your play with this analysis.

I watched to the 5 minute mark of ‘Washing up baddies’. Though it was a bit difficult to tell at times due to potato resolution, at 5 minutes you had:

• Used your signet 2 times in total
• Managed a total of ~5 interrupts

This means you got 1 interrupt per minute, and many fights you didn’t get any interrupts at all. This right here is why I absolutely despise interrupts. Even in a build built around interrupts, with a player that loves playing interrupt builds and is good at them, you’re only able to get 1 interrupt per minute.

For anything larger than a 1v1/2v2, Interrupts. Do. Not. Work.

Edit: In the duel against the thief on Khylo, you got 1 interrupt the entire fight. You got a couple more in the second duel though.

Edit: Watched the ‘Bitter Defeat’ video. You got 11 interrupts, so just a hair over 1 per minute, and you used the signet 3 times + 1 time with no teammates in range. It just doesn’t work. You’re winning matches through pure shatter damage and playstyle, not through boon-sharing and definitely not because of interrupts.

Out of due respect pyro, with the matter of interrupts and its aspects you mentioned, are you just talking about this build or interrupts in general?

I’m talking interrupts in general.

This build has staff, focus, and diversion. The only other interrupts you could squeeze out would be imbued diversion and the mantra. Imbued diversion has problems with an interrupt build cause of the x/x/30/x/30 issue and DE, and the mantra is pretty much a dueling utility, not a team fight one. What I’m getting at is that this build more or less is the limit of mesmer aoe interrupt capability.

Despite that, it’s entirely unable to be useful with interrupts. Maybe if every single one of that 1 interrupt per minute was a clutch heal interrupt…but it wasn’t. In fact it was the opposite way. Many of those interrupts were just incidental interrupts from chaos storm or temporal curtain that did nothing more than stop a random attack and apply a short immob.

Now, interrupts in a dueling scenario can be very different. You don’t have random stability everywhere, you don’t have massive amounts of skill spam cluttering the screen, you don’t have surprise blinds blocking your skills. You can actually target and time your interrupts to make them work. This is why your phantasm interrupt build was actually highly effective, because it combined the single target nature of phantasms with skillful use of the single target nature mechanic of interrupts.

When you try to take that and expand it to a group though, it just doesn’t work. You can’t really see anything but the most obvious animations, and with the proliferation of asurans, you sometimes can’t even really see those. This means that you’re limited to just throwing out aoe interrupts and hoping they do something…and they generally don’t.

Ahh. I get what you mean pyro. But what if the scenario’s like this:

Yes, group fight, I am running at interrupt build but my role is to shutdown one player, would it still be related to what you’re saying about interrupts? I mean for the boonshare yeah I get your point, but for shutting someone down, it is a different case right? since you only focus on 1 target?

So how do you shut down that one player in a team fight? Let’s say it’s a warrior. Now let’s say that warrior is asuran. Being asuran, dodge, jump, jump dodge, earthshaker, and eviscerate all have nearly the same animation. You can deal with this to an extent in a 1v1, but when this asuran warrior is covered in flames and standing on top of a bunch of aoes and you can barely see their outline, how are you going to do this lockdown? Add to this random stability flying around from the bunker guard and it becomes close to impossible.

This scenario will happen with most classes, not just warriors. The pure amount of skill spam covering animations, that thief in the corner blinding you at unpredictable times, and stability when you don’t expect it makes it nearly impossible to effectively lock down even one single person in a team fight.

A 1v1/2v2 makes interrupts playable because it limits the amount of uncontrollable factors. It means less stability, less blinds, less skill spam, less animations, less of everything that artificially makes interrupts more difficult to pull off. It’s not just a target limit problem, it’s a problem inherent to what makes a team fight a team fight.

My 2 cents on this:

CI is an interrupt trait. CS is a lockdown trait. Interrupt is about, well, interrupting enemy actions, where lockdown is grabbing them and preventing those actions from occurring in the first place, with a sprinkle of interrupts on top. CS really facilitates lockdown by lengthening dazes and stacking a lot of stuns if you do it right, while CI simply boosts the effectiveness of your interrupts. They’re different traits for different purposes.

And then there’s power block, which is an interrupt trait designed to create a lockdown, but I’m only mentioning this just for completeness.

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

So note that I’m not trying to disparage your play with this analysis.

I watched to the 5 minute mark of ‘Washing up baddies’. Though it was a bit difficult to tell at times due to potato resolution, at 5 minutes you had:

• Used your signet 2 times in total
• Managed a total of ~5 interrupts

This means you got 1 interrupt per minute, and many fights you didn’t get any interrupts at all. This right here is why I absolutely despise interrupts. Even in a build built around interrupts, with a player that loves playing interrupt builds and is good at them, you’re only able to get 1 interrupt per minute.

For anything larger than a 1v1/2v2, Interrupts. Do. Not. Work.

Edit: In the duel against the thief on Khylo, you got 1 interrupt the entire fight. You got a couple more in the second duel though.

Edit: Watched the ‘Bitter Defeat’ video. You got 11 interrupts, so just a hair over 1 per minute, and you used the signet 3 times + 1 time with no teammates in range. It just doesn’t work. You’re winning matches through pure shatter damage and playstyle, not through boon-sharing and definitely not because of interrupts.

Out of due respect pyro, with the matter of interrupts and its aspects you mentioned, are you just talking about this build or interrupts in general?

I’m talking interrupts in general.

This build has staff, focus, and diversion. The only other interrupts you could squeeze out would be imbued diversion and the mantra. Imbued diversion has problems with an interrupt build cause of the x/x/30/x/30 issue and DE, and the mantra is pretty much a dueling utility, not a team fight one. What I’m getting at is that this build more or less is the limit of mesmer aoe interrupt capability.

Despite that, it’s entirely unable to be useful with interrupts. Maybe if every single one of that 1 interrupt per minute was a clutch heal interrupt…but it wasn’t. In fact it was the opposite way. Many of those interrupts were just incidental interrupts from chaos storm or temporal curtain that did nothing more than stop a random attack and apply a short immob.

Now, interrupts in a dueling scenario can be very different. You don’t have random stability everywhere, you don’t have massive amounts of skill spam cluttering the screen, you don’t have surprise blinds blocking your skills. You can actually target and time your interrupts to make them work. This is why your phantasm interrupt build was actually highly effective, because it combined the single target nature of phantasms with skillful use of the single target nature mechanic of interrupts.

When you try to take that and expand it to a group though, it just doesn’t work. You can’t really see anything but the most obvious animations, and with the proliferation of asurans, you sometimes can’t even really see those. This means that you’re limited to just throwing out aoe interrupts and hoping they do something…and they generally don’t.

@Rylock: I understand that you and chaos and others find the interrupt playstyle really fun to play, and I see this as valid in small fights (2v2 or less). However, there is no such thing as a group interrupt playstyle. How can you call this interrupt play when you’re getting 1 interrupt per minute? It’s not even a matter of good or bad, it’s just not there. Hardly any interrupts = no interrupt playstyle to speak of. The only thing left is 30%+ of your build/traits being geared towards a mechanic that doesn’t work.

So note that I’m not trying to disparage your play with this analysis.

I watched to the 5 minute mark of ‘Washing up baddies’. Though it was a bit difficult to tell at times due to potato resolution, at 5 minutes you had:

• Used your signet 2 times in total
• Managed a total of ~5 interrupts

This means you got 1 interrupt per minute, and many fights you didn’t get any interrupts at all. This right here is why I absolutely despise interrupts. Even in a build built around interrupts, with a player that loves playing interrupt builds and is good at them, you’re only able to get 1 interrupt per minute.

For anything larger than a 1v1/2v2, Interrupts. Do. Not. Work.

Edit: In the duel against the thief on Khylo, you got 1 interrupt the entire fight. You got a couple more in the second duel though.

Edit: Watched the ‘Bitter Defeat’ video. You got 11 interrupts, so just a hair over 1 per minute, and you used the signet 3 times + 1 time with no teammates in range. It just doesn’t work. You’re winning matches through pure shatter damage and playstyle, not through boon-sharing and definitely not because of interrupts.

Carighan.6758:

What is it now? A Shatter or PU spec? Or a Phantasm spec?

Obviously, the answer to your question is ‘yes’.

Sublimatio.6981:

illusionary elasticy should work for clones on staff too :/

As much as this bug should be fixed, I honestly dislike the builds that will come from it. Nobody likes builds that function purely through spamming one skill, so why would builds that function by producing 3(4) entities spamming one skill be any more interesting?

Autoattack confusion was removed in the betas. Confusion was buffed to 2x value in wvw and pve on release, so the nerfed value has always been the case for pvp anyway.

Logic? Ahahahahaha

Nice roaming. I must say though, the flipping back and forth between guard and mesmer got rather disorienting. You might want to hold it to lulls in fights or between fights.

Problems with various builds:

PU: You have to be in stealth to make this work. Persistent aoes take you out of stealth, and being in stealth without persistent aoes mean you’re useless.

Shatter: You have no clones to shatter. iLeap won’t work, so you can’t immob people for stuff. Basically you’re stuck just using IP for shatters…which is very underwhelming. Also, blurred frenzy kills you from retaliation now and then.

Mantra Heals: You have to stand around channeling mantra heals. You can’t do anything else, you can’t do damage, and it’s difficult to channel mantras when you have lag.

Boonsharing: You don’t have any really great ways of generating boons. You have to rely on other teammates to give them to you, at which point you can double them, but this isn’t really reliable.

Glamour support/confusion spread: We all know the problems with this. Glamours are great support….but confusion is very weak and will get cleansed.

As of right now, the best role you can play for your team is tanky enough to not die ever with veil on your bar. That’s the unfortunate truth. Maybe after the rebalancing things will change, but for now that’s about it. We used to have some use with the iLeap/iSwap for aoe immobilize…but we know what happened to that.

Edit: Phantasms: We all know this one.

There’s a couple odd things I see about this build, but I’ll stick with the most obvious one:

Why are you using PU? You have decoy and mass invis as your access to stealth. This means a maximum of 14 seconds of stealth every 90 seconds. It seems like a total waste to be going 30 points into chaos and taking a grandmaster trait when you don’t actually have the capacity to use it much.

It just seems to me like you’ve taken PU because its the default defensive trait for Mesmer without actually thinking about whether it makes any sense in this build.

Saturn.6591:

“Clones don’t die that often in PvE”… that’s why you go melee with Staff and trigger clone deaths manually (Deceptive Evasion) if they don’t get killed by mob-AoE/cleave already (which happens more often than you’d think). The confusion on clone death is a little extra which adds some extra-damage every now and then.

It doesn’t matter how many clones you kill, your damage is still horrid. One in 3 clones does bleeding, and 1 stack of confusion does no damage to speak of. You can blow up clones all day long, I’ll still out-dps you by afking in a zerker build.

Saturn.6591:

Also, if you time scepter 3 right (and I’m not saying that you should use it on cooldown; just when you’re at range and in that weaponset anyway), you WILL get at least one tick of confusion damage… more if there’s multiple mobs to hit with the beam.

Golly, one tick of confusion damage. We’ve got some serious dps over here!

Saturn.6591:

And as I said… I would NOT bring that to speedclears (not like I’d do speedclears anyway). Or to groups full of elitists. But for casual runs, it’s decent enough as long as you play it aggressively. Not optimal (that’d be full zerker), but a decent alternative if you really want to go condi in PvE.

No, it’s not a decent alternative at all. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the speediest of speedruns or the most casual of casual clears. This build is useless and you will be getting carried by your party. You do no damage and you have no utility. It doesn’t matter what type of party you’re in, those 2 facts won’t change. While a casual party wouldn’t kick you on sight, you won’t be any more useful just because you’re allowed to participate.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

I think cele is better tbh since you have so much might generation.

I’d have to greatly disagree here. The only might generation this build has is bountiful interruption, hardly ‘so much’ might generation. It doesn’t have any sort of might duration runes either. In order for celestial to work, you need to be maintaining 15-20 stacks of might at all times in a fight. This build will spike maybe 10-15 at the most, and be at 0-5 for the majority of the time.

Overall, this build relies an enormous amount on interrupts for its defense. This means you’re going to get dismantled by things like thieves and engies. It’ll probably work pretty well against rangers/necros, but then since you have 0 sources of boon strip, anyone that can get stability uptime is going to be hard for you to deal with as well.

The way I see a lot of fights going is that you’ll be pretty solid until your mantras run out, and then you’ll get absolutely ripped apart. Your only condition removal is in a mantra, your aoe burn and healing is a mantra, your main interrupt is in a mantra, and if you try to recharge any of them, you don’t really have any way to protect it. There’s really nothing stopping someone from just killing you during the time you have sit there recharging all your mantras. If you’re able to take someone out first, then fantastic…but if not you’re gonna be in a bad situation.

Dawdler.8521:

Saturn.6591:

Something like this might work out quite okay (not for dungeon speedruns, but for casual runs and open world PvE): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7alknpTtNqxINUrNCuxY2JCBl/MUZD4XA-ThSAABUcBCET5HAPAgQV/pjDCwFHABOOCA9s/Ah6WaTJIhAWsGA-e

You’ll still have that slight problem that confusion in PvE is completely pointless. You even pick 5 points in dueling for confusion combatants. Why? In PvE, your phantasms and clones dont generally die so fast and even then… a mob barely have the time to attack once during that confusion. Really, they attack so slow that the last time I tried to use my scepter against a mob (hey I logged off after WvW and was dropped on a mob when logging in the next day, had little choice) he attacked me, I raised block to smack 5 torment stacks on him (weeee) and… The block is over before the next attack comes only resulting in several awkward seconds of me staring at the mob and the mob staring at me. Mobs arent players. They dont use skills, they’re just plain dumb. If you’re lucky, a confusion stack will tick once.

I mean, all that can be said has really been said. If you use that build in a dungeon party, you’re just being a jerk to the rest of your group. Conditions are horrible in PvE for mesmers, and nobody should ever do them. If for some reason you have an unrelenting desire to play badly, then go for it, but don’t punish people in dungeon teams for your foolishness.

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

So it is really that bad. I still want to give it a go.

Also thanks for the advice.

Let me just restate what I said though. Do not attempt to use this in dungeons. It’s all well and good to muck about in open world being useless, but the moment you join a party you’re now punishing them for your poor choices.

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

That been said, I still want to know how to play condition and please answer the questions and not say it is no good.

I can’t in good faith give you advice instructing poor play. Additionally, I won’t do it because then you’ll take that build into a dungeon and force some poor team to carry you because you’ll be completely useless.

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

Hello, need a little help,

I have always played a power build or an illusion play style. I now won’t to try my hand condition damage play style. I am hoping you can help me with the following questions.

1. The basic condition PVE build. Not really looking for the best cause I will eventually change it to suit my play style.

There is none. Conditions are abysmal in PvE. Don’t even bother with it. You’ll do no damage, have little support, and overall be useless. Condition Mesmer is in the ‘kick on sight no questions asked’ tier for dungeon parties.

points to stickied threads —>

You’ll find some helpful ones if you just look.

Malakin.2809:

Fay.2357:

Acting like a clone will only give you 1-2 seconds against bad players…and if they’re bad players the fight shouldn’t be tight.

Could you explain why only bad players?

Against good players:

You will be targeted, either with or without a true target lock. You can’t just up and start acting like a clone, you have to drop that target first. How do you drop the target? You stealth. Unfortunately, stealthing itself targets you as the real mesmer. Clones don’t stealth, so when you enter stealth that allows your enemy to note all of the clones. Clones don’t unstealth, so exiting stealth allows your enemy to once again note you as the real mesmer.

There’s no possible situation against a good player where they won’t know the real mesmer.

Holl.3109:

Why would I care about another’s build strengths and weaknesses when I’m playing a whole other build? I only shatter 2 for 6 stacks of confusion for 3 clones and 4 for save stomping ressing. The rest is meh.

Not entirely sure what you mean by this.

Holl.3109:

But thanks for the reply. I don’t intend on going really far with a condi mesmer but I’m pretty tanks and if I spam staff AA with 3 clones I can take out most people.

If you kill people with staff autoattack + 3 clones, they’re really really incredibly bad.

Holl.3109:

If you don’t reccomend confusion duration, what other adept trait do you reccomend?

I recommend not touching the illusion line for the reasons I already said. Illusionary Elasticity is broken, and none of the adept traits are any good. Use domination or inspiration as in the builds I posted.

Daishi.6027:

PU is useless in PvP, unless your just going to screw around hot joins. I personally think 0/4/4/0/6 condi shatter or your 0/5/5/0/4 will serve your intentions.

PU is actually very viable at all levels of solo queue, and up to roughly the top 200 of team queue, potentially even beyond that. The only place it isn’t effective is if you’re fighting one of the top 5 teams. Condie shatter will do nothing but get you destroyed, as it’s basically got all the weaknesses of shatter builds and none of the strengths.

As far as non-PU condie, my recommendation would be something along the lines of 4/5/5, staff + scepter torch. It’s basically the same overall playstyle, just you’ve got additional aoe confusion on clone deaths and shorter stealths. You can modify it to 2/6/5/something if you wanted to go more along the lines of scepter/pistol and take phantasmal fury.

Going into illusions in a staff + sc/t build doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. There really aren’t any good major traits there for you, since confusion isn’t worth increasing the duration of (because the base duration is so low), you don’t have any good phantasms, and IE is broken. Domination has a lot of great traits (crippling dissipation and torch traits), but if you wanted to avoid domination, inspiration would be the next best line, with mender’s purity and scepter cooldowns.

This for 4/5/5: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7flknpMtFqxRNcrNSpxY2cOikBURZHpcA-TJRHwAw2fIZZABXEAAPBAA

This for 0/5/5/4: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7flknpMtFqxRNcrNitxY2LK5k1kTZDYYA-TJRHwAw2fIZZABXEAAPBAA

Utils and sigils remain the same no matter what build you go for basically.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Builds-Guides/page/4#post4196646

Go crazy. We’ve already done that.

Holl.3109:

Ah ok. Than i asked the wrong question….

Updated question: what is a good/well-used condi mesmer build not using PU?

For what type of gameplay?

Holl.3109:

4/4/6 in what lines? And are there condi builds not using PU? I dont want to be another PU mesmer that constantst stealths.

There sure are, but you asked for meta. PU condie is meta.

Terekhov.3670:

pu is forbidden on angz server

While an explanation for why PU isn’t used in these builds, it doesn’t change the facts of what I said. I’m also unsure of how worthwhile making builds specifically for 1 particular dueling server is.

Darkheller.6437:

You will not die lot quicker if you get skill… you shouldn’t lose never if you use correctly the builds… if you are a noob… sorry but you ll die lot quicker

That’s very incorrect. While you can certainly do well if you play any build skillfully, you will still die quicker in your builds that have no PU than in similar builds that have PU. Skill is only a factor for how a build plays when only looking at that build. If you take skill as a constant between builds, PU builds will absolutely survive a lot longer than your builds without PU.

Well, I’m a bit curious. Generally mantra builds are significantly weaker in PvP than other builds, particularly in 1v1 scenarios. The opposite holds true for PU builds.

What is the exact PU build you’ve been running, and what exactly do you mean by mantra builds?

EnderzShadow.2506:

No actual commentary on the builds he listed?

I mean, it’s really just a whole bunch of small variations on a general bleed stacking condie build using iDuelists with a touch of clone death. They’re more offensive than PU condition builds and they’ll die an awful lot quicker too. That’s about it. Oh, and one phantasm build and one ‘immortal’ build.

a t s e.9614:

PU means : Im bad at this game, so I use a selfish traitline that deals no damage whatsoever but keeps me alive. I’m useless everywhere except in 1v1 against people who have alot of time to waste.

Ohey, long time no see a t s e. Seems you’re as delightful as ever

You should not use GS in dungeons.

In open world PvE, I’d recommend probably bloodlust and fire.

Malakin.2809:

Actually acting like a clone can give you 1 or 2 seconds that may make a difference in tight fights (if no one moves like the real mesmer then the enemy needs to target the clones to check for buffs). It’s best when you use a staff: just stand there and autoattack. Because the attack takes time to reach the target it’s not as noticeable where it comes from and how fast you’re casting it. But anyway it’s not really something you want to be using often. In my opinion, an improvement to the class would be for the clones to copy all the boons (also sigils, mantra charges, food, bloodlust and possibly conditions) of the mesmer on creation.

Acting like a clone will only give you 1-2 seconds against bad players…and if they’re bad players the fight shouldn’t be tight.

Menaka.5092:

Now we have chickens playing mesmer. Where will this class go next?

(I’m sorry. I’m not a native english speaker and I find the use of that word to describe a person quite distasteful)

…what?

frifox.5283:

I got the best solution. I predict we will get nothing but then when time comes and we do get stuff, we’ll praise ANet for actually caring about mesmers…

Hmz, I think I’ll grudgingly give them a slow clap for finally …[redacted]

SlimChance.6593:

Just to be thorough, add iWarden to the list. Spawn him on a down player and its pretty much a guaranteed kill.

Wat. Spawn it on a downed player and hope it doesn’t bug out and even if it doesn’t, it won’t do huge amounts of damage?

SlimChance.6593:

Plus, why he’s attacking he’s blocking the downed players attack. And if the downed player is off the node, you can cap while he does his thing.

You mean to say he’s blocking the attack from engie, warrior, and only the basic attack on thief.

Well, first I’d like to note that you say groups of 10-20 people. This not really a normal range. A 10 person roaming group is closer to a fast-moving kill team. A 20 person group is verging on a full raid that’s going to be slower, but carries enough supply to make legitimate assaults on more well-defended objectives. The dynamic in these two groups is vastly different, and so is the mesmer’s role.

In a 10-man group, you primarily are going to perform the role of aoe boon strip + heavy burst damage in a mobile and glassy shatter build.

In a 20-man group, you primarily are going to want to perform the role of ‘veil in front’ in a tanky build that won’t die in larger clashes.

What you’ve got here is a bit more geared towards the mobile and glassy shatter build, but not at all good for the larger group utility role.

Because that’s hard, and not doing anything is easy.

Absconditus.6804:

Illusionary Leap doesn’t have a correct tooltip now either. It doesn’t even have a correct skill name! It should be Illusionary Charge But I’ll Potentially Stop To Admire Stuff, with a description explaining that the clone will charge towards your target, but randomly stop if it sees something interesting on the ground. Such things may include rocks, strands of grass, pebbles and ants.

Illusionary casual stroll is what we called it in the betas.

Note that this is not a rework. This is a full redesign of the class. That’s why this will never happen, not even a little bit.

Darkheller.6437:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Why would you use any of these in PvE?

I know there is this slightly elitist talking that anything works in PvE, but hey, why make your life as mesmer even harder than it is?

He meant WWW, and edited it just now.
+ PvE is not dungeons, I use shatter in PvE too.

yeah, i use shatter too with torch for wvw or gs/s-f on dungeons, but i didnt create that build and therefore i coudln’t put the shater mesmer in the post xD

Yeah…don’t run shatter in dungeons. Mesmers are already only questionably worth bringing in most dungeons. Shatter Mesmer leaves no question, I’d kick on sight.

Any build with the torment shatter trait is necessarily worse than other builds that could exist. That trait simply doesn’t provide enough of an effect for shattering, causing you to burn large amounts of resources for uncertain, low damage.

Can it kill some people? Sure. Unfortunately, it’s countered extremely easily through dodging or blocking the shatters, which is a counter the doesn’t exist for clone-death builds. PU power builds (imo) aren’t very good, but if you think PU condie requires people to target and kill your clones, then you were playing it incredibly wrong.

It also forces you to avoid the stronger defensive traits that Mesmer has in favor of shatter traits to make it work. This in particular is why you’ll have much more trouble avoiding roaming zergs in that sort of build compared to PU builds. Basically you end up with all the vulnerabilities of shatter and none of the insane burst. It’s a shame because the trait is fun though.

My thoughts in this thread:

“Hmm, I do love it when people cry, I should use moa more often! Oh wait, the skill is bad and MI is way better. Guess I’ll just keep on not using it…”

Absconditus.6804:

Since our Goddess is Lyssa, I’ll take the changes (that’s not written in the notes either) to the Lyssa backpiece, where it’ll now rotate between Lyssa’s two faces, as a positive patch to our profession. Best patch 2012-2014!

PS: I do believe it’s the first time we’ve seen anything towards the way she was presented in Guild Wars though, with her dark and bright dual-personality/embodiment appearance.

Yes…in the backpiece that was the center of a droprate fiasco and even after the ‘fix’ had a droprate of less than 1 in several thousand. How nice of them.

ITT: I like being the only class that is useless in most game types

You don’t. Skilled opponents will always recognize which is the real mesmer instantly, so you aim your playstyle to beat those skilled opponents. You use your toolkit to avoid/disengage/etc, but not to fool people.

trollling in 3…2…1…

Dracatis.1908:

I’m ex-military, you don’t ‘duel’ with guns, guns just flat out kill. There is no honor, no drama, no mesmering, no theatrical if it wounds unfatally it’s purely by luck and accident, it takes nearly no skill beyond common sense.

This is guild wars 2, not Iraq. Dual pistols are the typical archetype of a dueling class.

Dracatis.1908:

And while duel welding is only dramatic in it’s overkillness in the same way Micheal Bay movies are dramatic, you are just stunned by the stupid excess. Try to imagine the Man in Black vs Inigo Montoya in Princess Bride with guns. It wouldn’t work, it isn’t theater. Mesmer is about leaving someone on the floor wondering what just happened, not ‘dur… I’m gonna shoot you tell you die from it!’

/facepalm

Dracatis.1908:

1. Nope, one of the most viable beams in the game, don’t tempt them to make it a projectile.

If by viable you mean does bad damage and gets obstructed by everything then….sure?

Dracatis.1908:

1. Would be nice, though they’d have to drop the damage, so meh.

Drop the damage? It’s already weak…

Dracatis.1908:

1. Maybe it’s just me, but I just don’t see thematically a Mesmer using a pistol. I mean if your just going to shoot something in the face… why mesmerize them? Off-hand I see it as a last resort for sucking at Mesmer’ing.

Lol. Offhand pistol you see as a last resort for sucking at mesmer, and you don’t see dual pistols being thematically appropriate for a dueling class? I’d love to hear an explanation for both of those.

I agree that getting caught with a focus can be a very bad situation. The way I use the focus is double-click—>4—>double-click. This way it’s never equipped for more than about 1 second at a time. Even so, there have been one or two times when I’ve been stuck with it, and those weren’t too good. However, I see that as a minor price to pay for using runes that actually work for what I want.

Neither traveler runes nor permaswiftness will allow you to outrun a Zerg. You avoid zergs through good map awareness and creative use of your stealths and blinks to gain and create distance…not in a straight line. If you do it right, you can often get the Zerg to chase you in circles for a few minutes before they realize that they have something better to do.

I suspect part of the reason for your reliance on traveler runes is that you’re running a bad build. Since torment shatter builds are bad, that necessarily means you need more help to just survive at all, whereas a better roaming build wouldn’t need that.