Guild Wars 2

It’s an attack that does no damage on the hit-check. Attacks that do no damage on the hit check won’t unstealth you. Examples of this are choking gas and caltrops.

Because you have 10% crit damage and 1700 power. If you want shatters to hit hard, you need to be using gear that is designed for power damage.

Yeah, those mobs are an enormous pain because somebody forgot to figure out how to make phantasms work on them. You’re just going to have to take it slowly and carefully. Something that I’ve never tried but might be worthwhile is actually traiting into more of a shatter build, as that allows you to do some significant burst damage. So just go into the light, do some cleave, do a shatter burst, then run back out to heal up and repeat until they die.

No matter how you do it, it’s going to take some time, no way around that.

eldenbri.1059:

Ah, timing is everything. I was replying to Elitist.

Thx for the explanation, Fay. Is pvp really that different than 2-man roaming in wvw? I do tons of 2v2, 2v3, etc fights in wvw with a phantasm build.

For sure, in fights with tons of AoE, the phantasms die before they get multiple attacks. I use duelists a lot (and use ether signet for 2 duelist burst). I find if I drop them on the edge of a 2 to 5 person fight, they usually last for a few attacks.

Thx again for the answers!

In WvW, fights are much more open. You have a lot of room to maneuver, and you use it accordingly. This spreads the fight out and lessens the pressure. In PvP, you’re constrained to a rather small circle that has a high intensity of aoe and cleave pressure. If your phantasm gets on that, it dies instantly.

eldenbri.1059:

Sorry if this question takes this thread too far off course, but why aren’t phantasm builds viable in pvp? I have only gone into dueling arenas a couple times – never played pvp match. But it seems like phantasm builds work fine there – including against PU condie mesmers and thieves just like in wvw.

And a question for the OP, why not phantasm? Is it because you think all phantasm builds are cheese or you don’t think it would be effective.

Feel free to tell me to start my own darn thread, but Fay was responding in this one

Phantasm builds are necessarily for 1v1 encounters. They don’t scale well at all into larger fights because the phantasms just die. This drastically limits their flexibility, and means that you only want to use them if you can guarantee 1v1 fights, i.e. trebbing on khylo.

Edit: I have nothing to say about the response the OP just gave other than lol.

TrueNoodles.3850:

He mentioned it twice that he clearly does not want to run a PU build yet some people on here keep straying off insisting that PU is viable. I guess common sense isn’t common anymore.

What OP explicitly asked for was a non-PU non-phantasm build that counters thieves and is useful in a team. This does not exist. Why should we bother trying to keep answering that question?

Shockwave.1230:

Fay.2357:

Shockwave.1230:

Thought about this just now and figured it’d be interesting to get feedback on.

What if a trait existed that made portal entre and portal exeunt randomly teleport enemies within it upon initial cast. Maybe a distance of like 750 units, not something crazy far, but far enough to give you some breathing room.

I think portal would see more use in PvE and I think it’d be an interesting way to utilize portal entre in PvP. I wouldn’t want to use exeunt for that purpose in PvP because the mobility is more important IMO, but I’m interested to see ppls thoughts.

This would have to be a PvP only thing. Teleporting monsters can break ai/instances/whatever faster than you think.

Why do you think this is different than Banish, Windblast, into the void, scorpion wire, or any similar CC.

Ever tried to toss a mob off of a cliff with normal cc? It doesn’t work. Teleports ignore that limitation though, and if you can get a mob to glitch out of their normal area of operation, it can result in really odd effects.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

I usually play shatter in PvP with a bit of interruption builds sometimes and I must say its hard to counter thieves. Whether you can win is much more dependent on how great the difference is between you and your opponent’s skill and experience. Which imo means shatter mesmers have a starting disadvantage, particularly for someone who just started playing that in PvP.

If you really want to stay at shatter mesmer, I have few advises for fighting thieves. Not instant remedy but can mitigate your damage:
- Mirror images+Mind Wreck: Some people may smirk at this but it gives you an unexpected instant burst if the thief thought he’s winning and decided to stick close to you.
- Run with someone who can immobilize/stun/trap thief much better: Team up with a hammer guardian/warrior/engi when fighting in the mid point. You have much better chance of hitting them than your ileap/swap. Plus that’s where shattered concentration and AoE burst actually benefits the most.
- Keep track of thief’s skill usage: See if he use blackpowder/pistol whip more than he should have.
- Illusionary Invigoration: can’t stress enough how good this trait is, allow you to pop distortion and diversion much earlier to avoid thief’s attack. It may also mean two Mind Wreck bursts within 10 seconds.

Again these advises aren’t instant remedy and success rate heavily dependent on the differences between your (plural) skills, particularly the 3rd one. Now that I shared few things I’m ready to be shot down by Fay haha.

The things you mentioned are all great pieces of advice for combating thieves. They don’t avoid the issue I mentioned though, which is if you’re spending your time focusing exclusively on fighting and avoiding that thief, you’re not performing your job that your team brought you to perform. The one bit that does help that is the ‘team up with another person’ advice, and that’s basically just getting your team to peel the thief for you.

Shockwave.1230:

Thought about this just now and figured it’d be interesting to get feedback on.

What if a trait existed that made portal entre and portal exeunt randomly teleport enemies within it upon initial cast. Maybe a distance of like 750 units, not something crazy far, but far enough to give you some breathing room.

I think portal would see more use in PvE and I think it’d be an interesting way to utilize portal entre in PvP. I wouldn’t want to use exeunt for that purpose in PvP because the mobility is more important IMO, but I’m interested to see ppls thoughts.

This would have to be a PvP only thing. Teleporting monsters can break ai/instances/whatever faster than you think.

Xaylin.1860:

I don’t think that being ‘on shatter’ represents an issue for BD. Actually, I feel that this was a smart move of ANet in general. By introducing an ‘on shatter’ effect they tried moving away from ‘per Illusion’ effects which are the main reason for DE and IP basically being mandatory for shatter builds. However, the devs screwed up the implementation of the trait due to different reasons.

Being on shatter isn’t a reason on its own exactly, but think of it as a compounding factor.

Shatter traits are required to have 1 of 2 qualities:

1. Be in master or lower tier
2. Be powerful enough on their own that they are worth sacrificing either DE or IP for

BD doesn’t fit the second criterion even remotely, and so that makes it bad. It’s generally weak as well, the boons are short duration and underwhelming, but it’s the on-shatter that really kills it.

Jurica.1742:

The watching whats happening on the map, rotating to cause imbalance is something you do as a good pvp player. No matter if you’re in shatter, phantasm or PU. You go where you’re needed to give your team an advantage in xyz way.

Fixed that for you, and you’re right of course. PU condie just requires using that information in a relatively unfamiliar way for most people.

Jurica.1742:

The part about the misconceptions, I don’t understand what caused the 1v1 part? I didn’t get the point accross well. I was trying to say that it is what a PU mesmer can do (regarding either making a team loose a point or have 2-3+ of them on you, making the numbers go in your teams odds, I wanted to get that accross in the part where I wrote about the fact that PU is in a way a bunker against a bad team in sPvP.). However, that will work against bad players, the part about loosing the point against good teams will maybe be possible to pull off, but not going to be as effective as in some other matchups.

Again, this just falls under the category of ‘how good are you at playing PU condie?’, and from the strategy side, not the just killing things side. You need to constantly adjust your strategy, keep an eye on what’s happening on the map and where. Rotate quickly and effectively, and create that imbalance, don’t just hope that it’ll be handed to you.

Is this easy to do? Not really. It took me the better part of a year to really figure it out properly. Are most PU condie mesmers proficient at it? No, not really at all. That doesn’t make it less effective or possible though.

Jurica.1742:

I understand about the watching people kill themselves, that never gets old, but don’t you feel like few people know how to fight you and that you, because of that, can’t really be touched in PU condi?

I enjoy challenges, but I don’t really care where those challenges come from. In PU condie, I get my kicks from maintaining/winning a 3v1 without dying.

vincecontix.1264:

Yup I agree condi is fun to play at times only works in Soloq though and maybe low level teamq.

Works fine in team queue too. I’ll generally get up to a bit above rank 200, hit a few premades and drop down a bit (as I never do premades, too much effort involved), and repeat.

Jurica.1742:

I usually side with you, Pyro, but I think Ben is mostly right here.
55HP Monks and TCG both had mesmers in their class composition (Misha and Helseth if I’m not mistaken), so mesmer is perfectly viable for top team play, infact all classes are!

Yeah, as I had mentioned, you can use a mesmer, but it requires that your entire team be built around peeling thieves. 55HPM and TCG are willign to do that, most teams are not.

Jurica.1742:

While PU condi does work in PvP, it only works against bad players (meaning like really newbies) as a halfway decent PvP player will just instantly know you’re PU and that it would take too much time to kill you and leave you alone, worry about other points. This can pretty much give your team a permacap on a certain point in some cases, while most sPvP players are so bad that they would let something like that happen, a lot of tPvP teams aren’t (you said you don’t play tPvP much, so I can understand why you think a lot of players are that bad – I think we even spoke about how bad people in sPvP are in game a few times)

This is sorta the first level of understanding with it. It all comes down to using the strengths of the build. If you just walk over to a point and sit on it the whole game as PU condie, you’ll keep that point and lose the game. This, of course, is the same for any bunkery build that decides to just camp a point the whole game, you have to rotate intelligently. PU can function in a team fight just as it functions in a 1v1. It allows you to do a large amount of aoe condie spread on a point, softening bunkers and mitigating glassy attacks through the aoe weakness. The pDisenchanter that I always run with allows for heavy boon stripping as well.

In general though, the idea with PU conditions is to force the enemy team to do 1 of a couple things. You can force them to 1v1 you on a point, this allows you to kill them quick, take the point, and move on. Alternatively, you force them to 2v1/3v1 you on a point to avoid losing it. In this case you draw out the fight and play defensively. You lose the point, but successfully occupy 40%/60% of their team in the useless act of chasing you in circles, allowing your team to gain a numbers advantage in all other fights.

Jurica.1742:

I can not beat you, I’m sure as you are 10 times more skilled than I am, but most other mesmers that run PU condi I killed quite easily in PvP -> only due to the fact that shatter mesmers eat boons, while other classes don’t really have that ability + a lot of players don’t really know how to fight PU while I, as you know, used to play PU condi a massive amount so I know the “pressure points” on them.
PU condi in sPvP is sort of a bunker that puts out a lot of conditions along the way in my eyes. Its a bunker to people that don’t really understand the importance of keeping points, just want to kill and don’t realize they can not do that at their skill level or because of their build.

These are some common misconceptions about how you can play PU condie. You don’t actually need PU in a 1v1 fight. The build itself has a lot of active defense, is quite tanky, and has strong healing. You can almost entirely avoid using stealth in a 1v1, and this allows you to both hold and capture points against a single opponent easily. If this was all I wanted to do, I’d probably run something more like 4/5/5.

Where the stealth duration and boons are necessary is in an outnumbered fight.

If you just want to take out a point real fast, play a thief. If you want to have the capability of sustaining a 3v1, you play a PU condie mesmer. As I explained above, the idea isn’t to hold the point, it’s to force the enemy team to make the choice of either devoting multiple people to you or losing the point. It’s a lose-lose situation, and the skill is in figuring out how to create it. I go into more detail about that in my guide.

Jurica.1742:

A thing that kind of surprised me -> You said you play to win.
That means using a build that will ensure you the easiest, lowest risk win, but it takes the fun out of it in most cases.
I remember you saying so many times to enjoy the game and not worry about winning, getting ascended gear ect.
This kind of goes against that..

Losing isn’t fun, nor is getting my kitten chased across maps by S/D thieves when I’m on a shatter build. I’ll play shatter now and then, and it’s fun to play, but I also enjoy the condie mesmer playstyle, PU notwithstanding. Counters and condies are fun to play with, and it amuses me to watch people kill themselves. It isn’t fun for everyone, and I’m sure it isn’t fun for the people I kill, but I have fun, and that’s all that matters.

Benjamin.8237:

I equally disagree, even in normal tournaments those builds aren’t viable. The builds don’t suck, and I don’t care if people think they are cheese or not, but they still wont perform as well as a Shatter Mesmer. That fact cannot be denied, they don’t bring anything to the table. Of course you can play one of those builds and do well if you are a good Mesmer, but other classes can provide the same thing, leaving us with Phantasm and Shatter. In this situation Shatter helps the team more.

Shatter theoretically helps your team more, but unless your team is able to peel thieves, you’ll be completely useless. This is seen in the teams 55 hp monks and TCG that you mention. They’ve built their teams around having a mesmer and peeling thieves for that mesmer. Without that build direction, the mesmer is useless.

Benjamin.8237:

Second of all, 55Hp Monks have Misha…a top team Mesmer. TCG have Helseth…a top team Mesmer. BOON have Sensotix…(he still plays his Mesmer). Mesmer is completely viable at top level, if you know how to play effectively…yeah skill matters more for the Mesmer compared to a Warrior.

Again, in order to use a shatter mesmer, you need a team completely dedicated to supporting that mesmer, allowing them to actually perform instead of spending their time kiting thieves. The vast majority of teams opt not to do this.

Benjamin.8237:

You don’t need a team to peel for a thief if you are capable of handling them kittenter yourself either.

I mentioned this earlier, but I’ll restate it. It’s possible for a shatter mesmer to fight a good S/D thief, it’s even possible to win. However, in order to do this you’re forced to completely pull out of a fight and devote your attention to thief avoidance and combat. Doing this means that the thief won, even if you eventually kill it. The thief’s job is to take you out of the fight, not necessarily kill you. Your job is to provide heavy aoe damage support, and you can’t do that if you’re fighting a thief.

Benjamin.8237:

I just don’t like people recommending these builds for people to play in a tournament, I wreck over them and more importantly most of the people I have met, in guild, or in the dueling servers…wreck over them. Not a boast but a fact.

Also you cannot bring the leader boards into an argument (as you did above) when they count for nothing and are purely luck based. Also I cannot find that you have been in the top 200 as you claimed, and according to the leader boards you’ve never been in the top 1000.

Note my signature and previous posts in this thread. Additionally, to say leaderboards are purely luck based is totally misleading. Sure, there’s an element of luck involved, but all the top players on the top teams are at the top of the leaderboards. Luck?

Benjamin.8237:

Play what you want, but don’t expect a Non Shatter build to be “viable”. It might seem to work for you, but it wont vs skilled opponents.

Again, PU conditions won’t work against the 5 organized teams in this game, as I’ve stated over and over. Unless you’re fighting those 5 organized teams, it simply performs better as long as you know how to use it. It isn’t subject to the luck of having no thieves or bad thieves on the other team. Maybe you’re ok with taking the chance of being removed from a game by an unlucky enemy team composition, but I prefer to go with what I know will work.

Mesmer downed skill 2 can guarantee to block any number of stomps from any number of enemies if you use it properly, as it generates stealth, and that’s really all you can ask from a downstate skill. Downed state isn’t generally a position where you come back to win, the skills you have are to avoid getting stomped long enough so that your teammates can pick you back up.

Pwent.2639:

Well nice to see you back Fay, but i have to say learning how to shatter before learning how to PU is definitely a smart move just for the playstyle it opens up and makes you a better mesmer imo. Yes most thieves have the upper hand on me but then again i get way more than 50% of them with a disruption before they can cnd or hs or such and burst them down hard. The one thief spec that i am having the most problem with is s/d but then again i have only fought a few of them in wvw and they have been good players and close fights. Im not a fan of Pu just because i find so many traits to have more enjoyable playstyles, again IMO.

S/D thieves are by far the most common spec you’ll see in tPvP because of their effectiveness at countering mesmers. Is it possible to beat one on a shatter build? Sure, but you have to drastically outplay them, and that’s not always possible.

Benjamin.8237:

Oh my god all the people saying PU is viable, Condi mes is viable, Phantasm Mes is viable…

None of these builds are viable in a tournament, it’s play a shatter as good as you can or don’t bring a Mesmer at the moment, which is unfortunate but true, these builds don’t bring enough to the table and get countered easily.

And by ‘in a tournament’ you mean a real tournament, one that includes the top 5 teams we’ve been mentioning, or just normal team queue?

If just normal team queue, then again you’re wrong. PU condie works just fine, and phantasm builds work just fine on khylo as the trebber. When I bother doing tPvP anymore, I use them and I win.

Are PU condie builds or phantasm builds viable in tournaments against the only 5 organized teams in this game? No. Is mesmer viable in tournaments with those teams? No. This whole argument about what is viable becomes completely irrelevant when you begin discussing tournament play at that top-most level, because mesmers aren’t viable at that level.

What I play and what I advise others to play works in all situations other than that. It simply works the best if you know how to do it. It counters thieves, it counters hambow, it counters condie spam, it counters whatever you want to throw at it. I play to win, I don’t play to theoretically win if I have a team coordinating and peeling thieves so I can get shatter bursts off.

Elitist.8701:

I would never play a stealth spam class.

…mains thief. Ok.

At any rate, what you’re looking for doesn’t exist. Why do you think mesmers don’t exist in the 5 competitive teams?

Fox.3562:

Teaching people bad habits isn’t good advice either. Why would you try to get proficient at a spec that’s only viable against bads? It’s not as if chaotic interruption is some god tier spec that only people with 5k+ hours can play. PU is a crutch, chaotic interruption has value.

There’s difference between ‘bads’ and ‘people/teams that aren’t part of those 5’.

Since the vast majority of players do not and will never compete at that level, why bother playing builds and using strategies that are objectively worse unless you’re at that level? Play to win, not to win hypothetically if you’re in one of the top 5 teams.

Edit: Those top 5 teams don’t use mesmer anyway, so this whole discussion is purely hypothetical. If you’re at that level, you’re not playing mesmer, at least in NA.

Fox.3562:

The point was to show you that I’ve lost more games than you’ve played total. And maintaining top 50 means I must be somewhat successful at it.

Maintaining top 300 in a game with the number of competent teams you can count on your fingers isn’t something to brag about by the way.

And giving play advice that only applies to playing with or against those 5 competent teams is also quite foolish.

Fox.3562:

Solo Queue

Rank Name Character Wins Losses Win % World
41 Fox.3562 Potato Plant 533 345 60.71% Maguuma

Everybody else arguing here is either EU, or not ranked on the leaderboards on NA solo queue or team queue, except this guy:

Team Queue

Rank Name Character Wins Losses Win % World
24% Wyrden.4713 Lawyrda 49 39 55.68% Maguuma

Just for some perspective on everyone’s experience.

http://www.gw2score.com/PvP/player/pyroatheist9031

I’ve been enjoying Dragon Nest more than gw2 lately, so I haven’t played much.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Fox.3562:

All I read was you saying “Mesmer X plays it so it must be good, and here’s why I think it should be good”. I’m telling you from experience that you’re wrong.

Rofl, Fay is Pyro, and Pyro speaks from experience. So where does that leave your argument?

I’ve used PU, I know it’s strengths, I’ve come to know that from my experience, so again to your argument…

Just admit you made an error and move on.

The issue is that Fox is speaking from the perspective of playing with GF. PU condie is questionably viable when you’re playing with/against one of the like 4 teams that actually are any good in this entire game. That’s about 20-25 people in total. What applies for that level of play doesn’t apply in any other situation.

Fox.3562:

All I read was you saying “Mesmer X plays it so it must be good, and here’s why I think it should be good”. I’m telling you from experience that you’re wrong.

And I’m telling you from experience that I’m right. You obviously didn’t read anything that was mentioned in this thread with regards to how PU condie works effectively in tPvP, and I quite honestly don’t have the energy or motivation to argue with you.

I’ll just leave it at if you want to use shatter in tPvP, go for it. It will be very difficult, and having thieves on the enemy team will make your day absolutely miserable. PU condie is very viable in all but absolute top level play, which I know for a fact none of the people in this thread asking for help do. If you want to learn how to do it, just look at the mesmer’s guide to solo queue, and or send me a PM on the forums and I’ll be happy to help you out.

Elitist.8701:

Ok, explain to me at what role PU is good at. Condi spam? Necro and engi are way better, and necro wrecks guards with boon corrupting. Point holding? LOL Stealth can’t cap. Killing 1v1 fast? Warriors can LITERALLY ignore you. Portal bot is the only thing, but shatter mesmers can portal and have a role. PU doesn’t even counter thieves either, at least not good S/D thieves.

What a PU condie mesmer can do in tPvP is detailed here in this guide: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-A-Mesmer-Guide-to-Solo-Queue/first#post4060868

However, I’ll go over it briefly. PU condie allows you to contest points for a long time if played properly. The stealth shouldn’t be needed in a 1v1, if you’re a good player. Against multiple players, the stealth allows you to survive. This forces the other team to send several people to contest the point, giving your team a numbers advantage.

You also need to choose your battles of course. If you try to debunk a bunker warrior, you’re doing it wrong. If, however, you snag a decap, and a warrior tries to come and get you off the point, now you can tear them apart, as they are forced to attack on the point to kill you. PU condie mesmers excel at on-point fighting, because the clone explosions will almost completely cover the point. This provides excellent condition load.

A properly played PU condie mesmer counters every build in the game except for a properly played phantasm mesmer, which you probably won’t encounter. If you lose to an S/D thief, it means you got outplayed.

Take a look at …someone’s…guide to solo queue strategy here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-A-Mesmer-Guide-to-Solo-Queue

It should give you a good idea of some builds you can use and the roles you need to play.

Elitist.8701:

No way I’m using PU though. Yes, I play cancer ele and S/D thief, but PU is a whole new level of cheese. Guess my dreams of being a mesmer will never come true.

Cheese is a term made up by scrubs who don’t fully understand how play and counterplay works. I don’t call any build in this game cheese because I understand how to counter every single one.

Now, if you don’t want to play PU because you don’t think it’s viable, then you’re incorrect there. It’s perfectly viable, you just have to be good enough with it. When I bother to PvP at all, I maintain higher than rank 200 on both solo queue and team queue leaderboards playing exclusively PU and phantasm. If that’s not generally viable, then I don’t know what is.

PU condies is a very viable build in tPvP, made more viable by the fact that it counters thieves. This goes similarly for phantasm builds, though they’re much more limited in application.

Thieves are a very hard counter to glassy shatter-based builds. That’s literally their job description: Harass/kill the enemy glass caster. You have 2 options to counter thieves in tPvP:

1. Use PU conditions and/or phantasm when on khylo
2. Get an organized team and have them peel for you

It’s possible to kite around and not get killed by the thief. You can devote all your attention to the thief on a shatter build and not die, and potentially even kill them. Unfortunately, doing this means the thief has succeeded in their job of taking you out of the fight, and you’ve failed in your job of being heavy aoe damage support. Unless your team peels for you, you need to change builds.

Veprovina.4876:

What’s wrong with a greatsword all of a sudden? When was it not acceptable? No one ever gave me any kitten for having one, and all the other mesmers in EXP, and zerker only have them.

Fay.2357:

At least personally, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I won’t ever kick someone on sight, I’ll at least give them a chance to fight the first boss and see what happens. That being said, if I see a mesmer using Scepter/torch + staff during a boss fight, I’ll kick them immediately afterwards, and I’ll tell them why. I’m accepting up to a certain point, but I’m not willing to drag random pugs through dungeons for no reason whatsoever.

You kick people during boss fights or after the dungeon is over? Because, then they just leave anyway so i don’t get it…

If you’re gonna give someone the benefit of the doubt, at least let them finish the dungeon, or kick them at the start. You can see what they’re wearing at the start, so why waste their time by letting them think they can finish the dungeon?

I mean, if i make a party, and say speedrun, EXP only or zerker only, i’m not gonna allow scepter mesmers. But if i don’t care and say, write everyone welcome, i won’t just kick anyone just because they suck with their build. There’s others too.

PRO tip: Better kick someone on sight rather than allowing them to feel like they’ll finish the run with you, then kick them after the boss fight before they can get their rewards. They did just go trough the dungeon with you, and you did allow them in the party so at least let them finish, that 2-3 minutes of extra time from the lack of DPS isn’t going to hurt anyone, and there’s nothing worse than wasting people’s time by doing this…

Not after the boss fight obviously, after the first boss fight when I can see if they’re actually horrid or not.

Post patch: 1500. 4 favors of the pavilion, 1496 tokens.

maha.7902:

A few months ago there was an age of enlightenment in this subforum where people were forced to accept that greatsword is bad for dungeons – so maybe that enlightenment has filtered down in to pug groups.

I can’t remember what my exact numbers were, but GS @ 900> range was like 60% of 1h sword’s dps – and then if you include the fact that duelist and swordsmen are higher dps phantasms than berserker, it pulls ahead even further.

“berserker” isn’t good enough, you should be using the right weapons.

At least personally, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I won’t ever kick someone on sight, I’ll at least give them a chance to fight the first boss and see what happens. That being said, if I see a mesmer using Scepter/torch + staff during a boss fight, I’ll kick them immediately afterwards, and I’ll tell them why. I’m accepting up to a certain point, but I’m not willing to drag random pugs through dungeons for no reason whatsoever.

Just a note on mesmer conditions. Most mesmer condition application is either based on counters, enemy attacks, RNG, or a combination of the above. These factors make it quite strong in pvp, because enemies attack and the RNG cycles between various good control conditions and damage conditions.

In PvE though, mobs attack slowly, so it’s harder to get uptime on conditions with the counter, and weakness/vuln are useless compared to bleed/burning. Where in PvP permaweakness is awesome, in PvE all that weakness is simply 3 less bleeds per proc.

The build looks potentially decent. I have some worries though.

It’s obviously built on the same sort of meta-build as celestial eles/warriors/insert might stacking class here. You take the celestial amulet for general stats, then rely on constant might stacking to make up the difference in damage. There’s just one issue, and that issue is that you need constant might stacking.

Most of the classes that do this can stack might with either long duration skills (20s duration) or blast finishers (20s base duration as well). This long base duration scales impressively well with the strength runes % increase. However, the only might access you have in this build other than battle sigils is from BI, and that has a 10 second base duration. So instead of getting nearly 30s of might per application, you get only about 15s. On top of that, you also rely heavily on interrupts to get that might stacked, you can’t maintain it on your own.

Basically, I’m very skeptical that you can reliably maintain enough might to make this build work effectively. Yes, you’ll have times when you built up a load of stacks from a couple interrupts in a row, but that’s the exception to the norm. You only have 3 interrupts in your entire build, all of which are on cooldowns of 30 seconds or higher, and 2 of which are single target. In order to maintain even 10 stacks of might from interrupts, you need to hit with every single interrupt you have, immediately off of cooldown. I just don’t see it working.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Eucalyptus.9784:

frifox.5283:

Eucalyptus.9784:

Bosses were never meant to die in 15 seconds from their own projectile mechanics. Use your brain.

We did. That’s how we came up with a clever way to punish the boss for trying to unload so many projectiles at once.

Also know as an exploit…

Reflects are exploits now.

http://i.imgur.com/9ZUeg0Z.jpg
^read that.

Btw, what other bosses aren’t reflectable anymore beside Malrona?

Just note that that quote is going on 1+ years old, and was made by a guy that no longer works at anet.

frifox.5283:

Ok, in OP I went under assumption that Tooltip might be wrong and the damage dealt was correct. Naturally I did another round of testing under assumption that tooltip is in fact correct and it’s the weapon skill that’s broken. What do you know, I did catch something very interesting.

If we assume the tooltip uses lvl 80 Exotic Sword weapon strength to calculate the damage number then when I use the derived coefficient on the data set of actual damage dealt vs the golem, it would actually match up 100% if… wait for it… Mind Spike uses EXOTIC WARHORN weapon strength for combat. Yes, exactly 814 – 900, as opposed to Mind Slash/Gash which in my tests came out to use the proper exotic sword’s 905 – 1000.

Honestly, I think you’re reading way too much into the tooltips. I’d just leave it at the tooltips are not and will never be a reliable source of information.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Maybe they did want us to kill bosses in 15 seconds with the right setup/knowledge. It’s not completely absurd if I mull it over. Who knows. I’m just saying, don’t be surprised when it does get nerfed.

I mostly replied due to the fact that not being able to 1 shot bosses is apparently a reason to switch classes. Sad.

It’s not so much a reason to switch classes as it is one less reason to bother bringing a mesmer into a dungeon.

Eucalyptus.9784:

That’s a really bad comparison, because in PvP the skill really IS supposed to reflect the projectile.

And this differs from PvE, where apparently the ‘projectile reflection’ skill isn’t supposed to reflect the ‘projectile’?

Explain that one please.

maha.7902:

Right – so when you solo champions you’re doing it because “ok it’s just me let’s see if i can take on this guy”. There’s a wrong way and a right way you can do this. You can either go “I don’t even care to learn the mechanics”, pewpew with your laser sword and kill it if after a year, or you can take the time to figure out the mechanics and melee it. if you just want a champ bag just write in the map chat that the champ is up and afk 111111 it down.

It’s simpler than that. Map completion is boring. Most of the champs I face I’ll never actually fight again. Combine those two, and you get me just soloing them down with gs to amuse myself while I’m pushing through a map.

maxinion.8396:

The question is ~why~ you want to GS camp, and in particular, why you are solo-ing this content.

I can only speak for myself here, but when I was doing map completion, my standard set was GS+sword/focus or sword/sword, because GS is just a nice weapon for open world. Now and then I’d run into a champion…so I’d kill it. It was in the way.

maha.7902:

Fay.2357:

Lynne Fitzgerald.9254:

I’ve read through the newest guides and builds and it seems S/S and S/F mantra phantasm build is the way to go, but I am not entirely comfortable with it since it has a bit less survivability and my phantasms die so quickly. I tried it vs some champion mobs solo and I mostly die with the phantasm build, while it’s much easier with conditions. It works in dungeons but I am not entirely happy with it, I feel like I’m missing something.

The standard S/F+S/S build is not a build meant for soloing all champions. It’s primarily a dungeon running build, optimized for maximum damage output at close range. If you want to solo open world champions, you’d be better off tossing on a greatsword and letting them chase you around while your phants kill them.

good god

why would you tell someone to use a greatsword to solo champions

Because open world champions often have awful ai. You can spawn 2 iZerkers and 1 iSwordsman for nearly permanent cripple, then just run around in circles as they relentlessly chase you to close distance. It’s probably not the absolute fastest way to do some champions, but it sure is easy.

Lynne Fitzgerald.9254:

Also, check out the new healing signet. It lets you summon back-to-back phantasms so ramp up time is non-existent. <— Ok this is amazing, did they change the other signets or does the boon signet still provide a very small bonus? I am glad mantras are now viable.

Thanks a bunch! This clears up the stuff I was confused about.

Mantras have always been viable in PvE. They provide a static damage boost and great team utility. The reason they’re not as viable in PvP is because players generally won’t stand by and let you charge them back up. Mobs aren’t quite that smart.

The healing signet is a new skill they introduced comparatively recently. None of the other signets were touched.

Lynne Fitzgerald.9254:

I’ve read through the newest guides and builds and it seems S/S and S/F mantra phantasm build is the way to go, but I am not entirely comfortable with it since it has a bit less survivability and my phantasms die so quickly. I tried it vs some champion mobs solo and I mostly die with the phantasm build, while it’s much easier with conditions. It works in dungeons but I am not entirely happy with it, I feel like I’m missing something.

The standard S/F+S/S build is not a build meant for soloing all champions. It’s primarily a dungeon running build, optimized for maximum damage output at close range. If you want to solo open world champions, you’d be better off tossing on a greatsword and letting them chase you around while your phants kill them.

Marioos.2835:

I agree with dodge/LoS but not with range.

What makes range any different from dodge/LoS? If you’re foolish enough to cast a skill at absolute maximum range without preparing it properly, then you suffer the consequence of losing that cooldown when they take a step backwards.

First, a note. Stealth is not a block/evade. A skill cast on a thief that goes into stealth during the cast time will still hit.

Now, for the rest of your question. This is absolutely intended. If someone dodges/LoS/runs out of range of a skill that you’re trying to use on them…why should you get a free pass? You screwed up, they outplayed you. You have to suffer the consequence of a wasted cooldown.

I opened 1500. Got 4 favors of the pavilion and the rest were tokens.

Swish.2463:

this is also the third time in a row that the skill was fixed for the exact same thing..

By golly you’re right.

Here is a Wooden Potatoes video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ozCg25--E

It explains in great detail how shadowsteps/blinks work. Definitely worth a watch.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Fay.2357:

Could you post this other build you’re mentioning?

Been running this lately, for a fast clone shatter build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8clknpRtlpxINcrNSqxg6verNSmQAl8kuB-TlCBABCu/wRK96T3AAXEgsUG4xDAghjAQCm+mQJYmq/IKoMC-w

It’s not full glass, but that’s kind of the point. I don’t want to play full glass. I want to be able to survive to pick up my bags after a fight.

Ok, so lets compare the two.

You’re saying that it’s substantially tankier. I think you’re a bit wrong about that. The retal build has about 5.5k more health. However, it actually has a little under 200 lower armor. These builds are quite comparable in their sturdiness.

Additionally, your standard build has more than twice the crit rate, and a higher critical damage stat as well. This means it will do far more damage than your retal build.

There’s another issue with your retal build that I forgot to mention. You don’t have DE. Since you intend to play this as a shatter build, you’re going to be massively lacking clone generation. I got away with no DE in my immortal build because it wasn’t a shatter build. It shattered for utility and a bit of damage, but it wasn’t using shatters as a true damage source. You’re just going to be constantly clone-starved in this build.

Eucalyptus.9784:

The 1440 is per clone, and that’s just the base that the skill calculator says. They usually hit 2k~ each clone when it says that on my other build. So that’s still a 6-8k non-crit shatter, more if you include me with IP.

I could swap out the Staff for a Scepter/Sword combo for double block to further the Retal stacking, but also throw a solid torment and iSwordsman in.

I’m really not seeing the lack of damage compared to any other build I’d be running. It might be like… 10% lower… but for WvW when you aren’t solo roaming, 10% doesn’t make a huge difference. Being able to stay alive while they kill themselves does, no?

Update: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQRAsd7cl0npStlpxPNcrRSrhcyj9Qd3zlJVgStB-TFCBABCu/wRK/yR9HAeAAJY+bClgMcCA0T/gogyI-w

Could you post this other build you’re mentioning?

Eucalyptus.9784:

In sword/focus, I’ve still got 22% crit chance without fury, which isn’t terrible (42% with). 2200 AP without Bloodlust stacks. My Mind Wrack 3x still shows up at 1440 damage. That’s literally only like 100 damage lower than my full shatter build. The survivability on this build is WAY higher. Especially with Mimic/Condition clearing on heal.

22% crit chance is incredibly low. That’s about a third of what any solid damage build has. If you could maintain reliable fury, then it would be a little better. However, you can’t. 1440 damage for a 3 clone mind wrack is so low it’s not even funny. A normal shatter build will do ~8k-12k damage with a 3 clone wrack.

Eucalyptus.9784:

I’d like if Curtain was a lower CD, but not sure what I could sacrifice for the extra 2 points. As well, won’t Phantasmal Defender give me double retaliation (for the first 5 seconds at least), since he will have it up, and I’ll have it too? Thus, the damage that’s redirected to him triggers it twice?

pDefender will give double retal for 5 seconds, yes. 5 seconds isn’t enough time to really do anything, and that’s why building for the retal transfer simply isn’t viable. That’s basically just enough time for him to spawn, run to the target, and actually use the damage transfer skill.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Suggestions/Discussion appreciated still. Constructive stuff to help develop the build though, not just “it’s not as good as <meta>”.

I’m not saying it’s not as good as meta, I’m saying it’s just not good. Look, if a tanky retal based build was viable, I would be running it right now, but Anet neutered that type of build for mesmer. What you’ve got here will be tanky and do pretty much no damage whatsoever.