Guild Wars 2

Toolbox.9375:

And yeah, Insanemaniac, I didn’t intend to keep the skills the same between PvE and WvW. What I do want, however, is to not have to change which trait lines I have selected between the two. I like the idea of a Mantra Mesmer, but the traits I’d want to use are hard to pin down, and I can’t see much that could be done with it when I want to use non-Mantra abilities.

Mantra builds are rather specific, and you really have to find the right fit for each situation to use them effectively. That means changing trait lines often.

Better matches for you would be a support/glamour build or burst/shatter build. Both work great in wvwvw and dungeons, especially glamour builds, without messing around with traits too much.

Some condition/shatter builds work fairly well in PVE and amazingly well in wvwvw, but they can harder to find the right fit in some dungeon scenarios. Once you find your sweet spot they kick serious kitten tho,

@knackyknave:
No, although you can use a sigil of the earth to get some synergy out the runes.

Tulisin.6945:

Drew.1865:

If they want to have stealth then they should have to sacrifice some burst.

How would you propose this be accomplished?

Look here for starters:

My personal vote is not to kill thief burst/stealth builds, but to just make it harder to pull off so its not just a matter of spamming a few buttons for a 2-3 second kill. It should take several rapid, various attacks, multiple CCs mixed in, key positioning (at least BS requires this), and timing (NOT SPAMMING) to down someone in several (5-6) seconds. But hey, I think most burst builds are OP in this game from many professions. I’d rather see lower damage skills with lower CDs across the board.

It’s really not a hard concept, and applying it to the thief would mean lowering damage on certain skills (mostly auto attacks including stealth skills, but also probably CnD and HS too), while giving their weapons skills (especially melee weapons) better CC and defensive tools (weakness, daze, and vigor come to mind), so they don’t get blown up when their burst doesn’t instakill everyone with less than 2000 T/V.

There are no sliders for any body parts below the neck because Anet wanted to minimize armor clipping. Of course weapons still clip all the time.

Dhampyr.2104:

I agree that the staff clone would be better if I was focused on condition dmg, but I’m not. The staff itself is a good weapon, but the GS deals dmg much faster. I’m not a big fan of fights where I’m running around for 10min to get the win – I’m more of an in-and-out, leave-the-bodies-behind player.

I must be missing something here. How are you not focused on condition damage with prec/tough/cond gear? That is a full condition damage spec. Even with 30 in Dom, without any power gear your direct attacks pale to the potential condition damage you can put out, especially in wvwvw.

@Lordryux:
Just depends on how defensive you want to be. Personally, I find offensive (zerker) specs better on mesmer power builds while condition mrsmets can afford to be more tanky, because conditions tick even while you evade. But with a power mesmer, you have to cycle your damage around your defensive maneuvers, so it’s more critical to burst them down fast and hard so they can’t recover. However, this leaves little room for error, so you may be more comfortable with more D and less burst, and then the Knights will work for you. I suffer you try both in the mists before deciding and see what feels right.

BTW, the difference between a good power mesmer and a great one is the ability to keep pressure in even while put on the run. Osicat’s visa have great examples how to do this.

@Dhampyr:
Why are you using the GS in a rabid build? Even with SI, the staff clone will be better and you’d get more utility out of sword/pistol/focus/torch. Is it mostly for kiting?

Line of sight.

While I’m not overly impressed with Sharper Image damage vs some extra power for direct attacks (somewhat due to stacks disappearing with illusion death/shatter), I will second the nod to Critical Infusion. With a high crit chance it’s a beast, both for offense and defense.

jportell.2197:

Stupidly low health pool. Aside from that the system in WvW (Ie rendering/culling) is the real problem. This completely negates the 3s debuff when a Thief breaks stealth to enter combat. If it worked properly then thieves would be way deader. However as a mesmer fighting a thief is something i find challenging. Usually I win unless they pick me off when I am fighting someone else (Which is something Anet did intend) was for thieves to hop around the battle field picking off weaker opponents when they can.

Culling does amplify the problem immensely, but there is still an imbalance with the thief class that creates the problem in the first place. If it was just culling, there would be little thief hate on the spvp board. If you play spvp, or just look closely at the board there, you will see the heart of the problem so many people seem to miss.

It’s not that thieves cannot be countered by L2P. They can. It’s not that you can’t make decent roamer builds with most classes to counter them. You can. What makes the imbalance, and makes thieves OP for much of pug spvp and wvwvw content, is that the skill required to play a hit ’n run thief is much lower than the skill required to counter it. Yeah, I see all the elitists here giving tips, but guess what? That should only be required for ranked spvp and tpvpv, but not wvwvw and pug spvp. Many casual players may not ever reach the amount of skill required to counter even a mediocre thief, though probably a bad thief, and there are lots of those.

You are always going to run into better players and get your kitten handed to you, but it shouldn’t happen when you run into someone of equal or lower skill which is what is happening. Let’s face it, 3 button clicks and then spamming #1/CnD or HS does not match the skill required to twitch your stun breaker, evade, counter with CC against an unseen or highly mobile target, and then DPS them down before your CC wears off and they run off.

Now if Anet wants to cater to higher skilled play, then likely they don’t see this as much of a problem, and thus we haven’t seen much movement here. Hey, they already said they want to focus on the e-sport aspect. But let’s not deny it IS making the game imbalanced for the majority of players here and many ARE leaving because of it. So, Anet has to decide what direction they want to take with this: focus on the smaller, more prestigious ranked spvp arena, or implement some balance for player of average skill to stop more exodus.

My personal vote is not to kill thief burst/stealth builds, but to just make it harder to pull off so its not just a matter of spamming a few buttons for a 2-3 second kill. It should take several rapid, various attacks, multiple CCs mixed in, key positioning (at least BS requires this), and timing (NOT SPAMMING) to down someone in several (5-6) seconds. But hey, I think most burst builds are OP in this game from many professions. I’d rather see lower damage skills with lower CDs across the board.

Deceptive Evasion can also be used to get 3 clones out real fast together with Phase Retreat. Some condition builds that prefer not to shatter still take the trait for that, but, yes, it’s mostly for pooping clones to shatter or as a stellar defensive skill.

As for your other question, I use a condition build in PVE (and wvwvw) that shatters often and it works very well. Because of my happy shatter habits, I forgo Illusionary Elasticity for Illusionary Invigoration, Master of Misdirection, and IP. This allows me to slam 2 CoF back to back for a massive 16 stacks of AOE confusion with +33% duration so I can usually peg the mobs twice, then hit sword #2. Very little lives through that and I am invulnerable. If I have enough vigor and skills for more clones, I could even throw a half-powered Mind Wrack down for some extra pain, though I usually save them for defense unless all the mobs are just about dead. I also find Illusionary Invigoration invaluable as a defensive trait.

As an additional bonus for wvwvw, confusion is awesome there, so the extra recharge and duration are great for controlling smarter foes that will wait out confusion. The longer they don’t attack me, the more pressure I can put on them. The stupid ones just spam skills and die, so no need for extra DPS there.

Leo Paul.1659:

Yea what is bugged with mind wrack? I haven’t noticed anything significantly different yet.

Apparently if you press f3 with 3 illusions up (and possibly other shatters) and then generate 3 more clones and press f1 before the first 3 make it to their Target and shatter, MW calculates all 6 illusions into its damage. Huge bursts aRe generated. Haven’t tested this myself, but I’ve seen the screenshots.

Yeah, I’d kind of accept it if the mesmer wasn’t advertised as being a mobile class. I would of just picked another class. Now its the biggest pain I have to deal with. Shame I like just about everything else about the mesmer.

@Aank:
True, but good luck for a new player just trying to get the basics of weapon effects, swapping, dodging, getting the feel for the CDs, etc. It’s too much for a new player to have to manage direct attacks, illusions, and shatters. Some casual players never learn to do the latter 2 effectively. Yeah, the mesmer is supposed to be a harder class to play, but requiring that much early on is bad design.

And the current balance changes that encourage even high level players to use more shattering only compounds the problem for those that don’t want to shatter spam or aren’t good at it. Yeah, being optimal might require heavy shattering, but it should be reasonably viable to not rely on heavy shatters, too (for more than just a few builds anyway).

quercus.9261:

Thiefs in WvW are easy to play and extremely strong. There are counters but the skill level to counter on other classes is much higher. Most of the time the counters are limited to specific builds and weaponsets. For instance on my mesmer I need to play a shatter build with offhand pistol or thiefs will gank me all day long.

This whole dynamic is very unfriendly to new players who get destroyed and some never come back

This is pretty much the heart of the issue, along with the culling issue. It’s not that you can’t L2P and beat thieves or that you can’t build to defend yourself against them. It’s that the skill requirement to defend against glass cannon thieves is way higher than the skill required to use a glass cannon thief, and you shouldn’t have to build just for 1-2 builds from one class, respectively.

And for those claiming you can’t get “forever stealth” because you don’t have the initiative to keep up a 3s stealth. Remember, its 3s on your screen but 5-6 on theirs, so you only have to hit it every 6s and you are merely more that a split-second blip – and then only if the opponent has a decent gaming rig/connection.

Fortunately for me, I main a tankish mesmer so I don’t suffer as much as some others, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel for others trying to pick up wvwvw and getting frustrated over one overly used, easy to implement but somewhat hard to counter build. Sorry, but if it’s causing these problems for that many , for whatever reason it’s an issue that needs to be addressed by the devs soon before too many people leave the game.

And if things should be done the same way they were in Guild Wars, we’d be playing Utopia, not Guild Wars 2.

It is kind of sad that the Illusion line feels somewhat necessary these days, but it doesn’t just extend to traits. I do agree with Kupi that it seems like Anet is encouraging us to use shatter builds whether we wish to or not.

Ideally, I’d rather have greater build diversity, but I think the strains of class balancing are getting to them. They did say GW2 would be much easier to balance due to less complexity with single classes, but I think traits just replaced the secondary class mechanic from GW. Perhaps they underestimated the complexity that traits add to the classes.

@EnRohbi:
The problems with that are that it makes phantasm legion (and similar) builds nonviable, which may be what Anet wants. It certainly seems so given the recent balance adjustments. For a game that advertises developing your character how you want to play with the class’ resources, it seems counter-intuitive to enforce such a policy, though.

Another problem with that is how the trait lines are set up, and thus how Anet implements these balance adjustments. It practically forces someone to use the Illusion line for effective play save a few niche or more eccentric builds. Though there are a few general builds out there that don’t use Illusion, but not many.

A final problem is that it also makes the class even more difficult for new players to pick up, since managing illusions plus shatters can get pretty hectic. The class would see a lot more casual players if they could spec into only managing illusions while not having to shatter so much or just being able to shatter on CD while pooping illusions and forgetting about them. Sure they’ll never be great player doing that, but many players just aren’t good at complex video games anyway. They should still be able to enjoy the class.

@Kazhiel:
Well he said he needs a minute to set it up which is about the time needed for 3 traited iMages. Probably something like a 20/x/x/10+/20+ staff + scepter/torch build using Cry/iMage/glamours. I know because I use a very similar build, but I run with dueling instead of inspiration because I prefer a sword most of the time. I always have the scepter in my pack tho, for certain bosses.

@Nijay:
Conditions and boons either stack duration or intensity, but never both. Confusion works much better stacking intensity than duration, which is why you don’t see it refreshing. Bleeding and poiison cover long duration pressure DOT while confusion and burning are for bursts, confusion especially so since it acts as a shutdown, too.

Great suggestions so far. I’ll add Blade Training simply for the 25% invulnerability if you run with a sword. Yes, please.

@Kobeathris:
I run 20/20/0/0/30 on a condition spec (well it’s almost automatically considered hybrid with 20 in dom anyway, and I also run centaur runes and some knights/carrion pieces for extra D too), and have a few suggestions to add versatility and flexibility.

Firstly, this spread allows you to quickly switch into a pseudo-glamor build on the fly with Confusing Enchantments, glams cause blind, and confuse on blind. I use this in wvwvw when I meet up with a zerg in the field.

Dom obviously has more offense than chaos, but it also has decent defense, too, especially for me since I run centaur runes and a torch for when I want to play with more survival. The condition removal and +20% recharge on stealth works very well, and the cripple is great with swiftness + stealth. Boon removal on shatter can be great against certain bosses and PvP specs, but it is situational.

Just something to consider.

Please let’s enjoy the game as it is ….

Kind of hard to do when others are able to run ahead of you and the “enjoyment” is half done by the time you even get there.

Everything else I can work around without a major gear investment, even skilled players seeing through clones. I just changed to a shatter build and stood behind my clones when shatters are on CD. Now I agree it shouldn’t be necessary to have to change builds just because of the latest patch, but unfortunately this is happening because bugs are nerfing some builds quite a bit too much (and a few intentional nerfs did this as well like the latest nerf to Ill. Membrane), and without patch notes its hard to track them all so you don’t always know why you suddenly suck.

Some other players more skilled than me may be able to make their current build work when nerfed, and all power to them. I’m just saying what worked for me and what is not working (or at least what changes/issues are making the game much less enjoyable for me).

Yeah, I think I’m with you on PU. It’s sooo tempting, but I don’t think I can give up DE or IP either. Losing crit bleeds are a major DPS loss, too.

I’ll just try 20 chaos vs 20 dom to see what works best. Currently I run Centaur runes, so the cripple in dom also helps me control position to stay alive. Giving swiftness to clones for shatters is nice too. I also like the ability to switch into a glamour build on the fly when I run into a zerg, but that 20% redux for staff is very tempting. I’ll let you know how it works out.

@juno:
The thing about that is high mobility and fast movement IMO should be a build spec that classes can go for, just like support, control, and damage. The uses for such a build in spvp and wvwvw are clear, so you should be able to invest in that. The problem with giving everyone the same OOC speed, is that these builds would go away. Everyone would be equally as good at running between cap points and supply lines.

Ideally, I’d like for such things as passive or high uptime speed burst to be build options with moderate investment (more than swapping a utility and less than needing gear/runes) for all classes. Traits are a good spot for that. I’d take all passive and high uptime speed buffs off skills and put them in adept-master traits. And in lines that make sense (that means Dueling for mesmers). That way, only those running certain builds would have the advantage they want instead of certain classes having it inherently and easily.

Since that would be a major overhaul for many classes, the simplest thing to do it give mesmers a movement based utility that is more than 1s of movement on a 30s CD or only has a 13% chance to hit.

Not to mention that build options are limited when you have all that cond gear.

@grimmson:
Very nice. I run a very similar build but use a sword (w/ trait) instead of a scepter and go 20/20/0/0/30 for more invis time and a bit harder hitting MW/BF combo. Less condition burst but more direct burst.

I was seriously considering a spread closer to yours but with dwayna runes to test whether I get more survival out of the extra toughness, protection, and staff CD versus the invis, cond removal, and BF. Too bad membrane got nerfed otherwise it would have been a lock, but I’m trying to find a way to work PU into it now with the recent buff. Maybe 0/10/30/0/30? No DE though; not sure I can live without that.

psykles.1573:

I’ve been using blink all day with no problem (in spvp). Countless times, 0 problems.
There are TONS of mesmers in pvp, sometimes 10 in a game, average 3-4 per game.
I’m always in pvp because I enjoy it, no repair bill, free respecs to try everything out.
Endgame content is whatever you make of it.

25% passive speed increase in combat for mesmers is a bad idea.

It’s 4:30am. I’m going to sleep now and probably never coming back to this thread again.
Enjoy.

iLeap is bugged and unreliable in WvWvW. Besides, if you really want to stop a runner we have CC skills for that that work better than any of our “mobile” options.

More to the point, none of your comments address the most pressing issue for mesmers: it was advertised as a mobile class and we were told we’d be getting more reliable swiftness, but we still have trouble keeping up when trying to move around or cross a map. So no, it was not constructive because it dodged the real issue: MOBILITY. How do you get around after you blow your Blink CD? What if your iLeap or Swap misses? What if your target drops the immobilize?

I’m sorry but 1s of speed burst on a 30s CD and a 600 range leap requiring a target are NOT reliable mobility when other classes can leap and use speed buffs even out of combat/without a target.

I also think you don’t understand that speed buffs for us do not affect our clones. Even if we get a speed burst we cannot blast those 9K shatters you like to advertise, because our clones will still be too slow to get there. Personally I like to use Runes of the Centaur simply because you can give swiftness to your clones for those shatters, but I’d rather not have to use my rune setup for that because it gets expensive. That gives me an idea: a signet that gives us a passive speed buff, and the active gives our illusions swiftness, protection, and stability for 3s.

It’s gonna be tough to match the DPS a warr or thief can put out, but you can do great damage with a mesmer. The difference is that it won’t come from just one or 2 simple button mashes like some some other classes you are used to. For a mesmer it’s a complex rotation of phantasms, shatters, and direct attacks that you have to line up and watch CDs to achieve great DPS. Much higher learning curve.

The other difference is the other thing you ask for: what’s special. What’s special is that unlike those simpler classes, a mesmer can melt faces while providing a ton of utility to their team and with great survival even in glass cannon gear that those other classes can’t match.

But you won’t get it until you are pretty high level; 40 is where we take off and 60-70 is more likely for spreading out your talents effectively beyond what warr and thief can do.

Aether McLoud.1975:

Low mobility is a mesmer weakness, deal with it. Can’t have everything of the cake.

Only problem with that is that the mesmer was advertised as one if the most mobile classes. I chose this class over thief largely because it was supposed to have mobility, stealth, and long range magical firepower (GS). The cool utilities are a nice bonus that tipped the scales, but right now, none of my most desired features are working properly right now. The stealth and GS bugs I can work around, but the lack of mobility is killing me.

I’m a full-time worker and father that doesn’t have time to roll another 80 in few weeks everytime something shifts. I feel jipped.

#4:
The Pledge: Blind nearby foes. Field: Smoke.
->
The Turn: Deal 300 damage to nearby foes. Finisher: Blast.
->
The Prestige: Cause burning (2s) to nearby foes.

#5: iMage: Summon a phantasm that applies 4 stacks of confusion for 5s. Each hit also applies retaliation (3s) to all nearby allies. Number of bounces: 3.

Ayanavi.1904:

-Attach the hilts of your Greatswords together and rotate them while they shoot lasers, creating a flying buzzsaw of purple death

You mean like this?

I’m going to expand this topic a bit and bring up an idea I suggested in beta.

The GW2 class are woefully undeveloped for general/exploratory/RP/etc scenarios that do not involve fighting. Each class should have 2-3 out of combat only abilities that they can slot ONE at a time. These abilities would only be available when not in combat and all effects end when combat starts. Some of these would affect movement and allow each class to at least keep up when traveling. Now obviously something like this probably won’t show up, and certainly not until an expansion, but it’s fun to dream some times.

Here are a few ideas (I’ll start with mesmer since we are here):

Mesmer:
Teleport: TP up to 1200 range (CD: 15s).
Illusionary Disguise: You transform into a neutral animal present in the current map while active with no skills. (Mesmer Mind Trick)

Warrior:
Marching Orders: All nearby allies receive +15% passive movement while active.
Field Repair: You repair one piece of damaged equipment (CD: 10 min).

Ranger:
Tracking: Reveal enemies on the mini map and reduce your aggro range by 50% for 10s (CD:30s). (Yes, this was a beta ability, too, but slightly modified.)
Animal Rapport: Control your pet while active up to 3000 range.
Pathfinder: +25% movement for you and your pet.

That’s all I have time for now. Don’t get me started on what the engineer could do.

@Juno: Yeah I’m like you. Somehow I have the feeling more “reliable” means just fixing curtain so it stacks with other sources of swiftess.

I have found berzerkers are better for offensive burst builds while condition damage is better for defensive builds or confusion/shatter builds (which the latter are more niche). This is because direct damage tends to do more instant damage and with good weapon swapping and shatter timing your can keep the damage going pretty regularly even in a burst setup.

Condition damage shines in defensive builds with rabid gear where you use more defensive skills and playstyle because the conditions keep ticking while you defend yourself. Obviously condition damage builds are better for confusion bombers, but that is mostly optimal only for some wvwvw modes, but it really kicks kitten there.

Not a big fan of rampagers personally because if I’m going for a condition build, I want more toughness for my clones and phants that you get with rabid, though I do admit I use some knights and carrion gear for extra power and vit which helps most condition builds (you should almost always be using MW anyway except in phant builds) and every weapon set benefits from just a little power in any build.

Yeah charr have the same issue. I really hope it gets changed at some point, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Morfedel.4165:

At this point, I don’t think anyone’s going to be convinced. I’ve been doing great with scepter, yet somehow I’m still wrong. Guess I’m imagining all those hours of gameplay with it. Regardless, I’m not being convinced.

And the naysayers have clearly made up their minds too.

guess i’ll just agree to disagree. Arguing with people whose minds are made up, including my own, is not only a waste of time but also tends to start engendering personal attacks as well, and I’m not interested in participating in that.

No, that’s not the point. Yes, I’ve said scepter CAN be put to good, even great use. But that’s not good enough. It had to be good for more than just a few types of builds to be good design. It’s one only four MH/2H weapons, so it needs to be good for more than just niche builds. The offhands should be used for that or we need another MH to cover general builds when we want to use a ranged weapon with our offhands.

I agree with Okuza. There are other options and ways to play a mesmer, but if you want to melt enemies and still keep your condition damage gear, the best way is to use Dueling. Not only will your illusions start spamming bleeds, but you can effortlessly poop out clones by dodging. A good crit rate will see you have plenty of vigor for it too.

My preference is 20/20/0/0/30 for shattertastic confusion. Even in PVE everything melts with 12-15 stacks of confusion+Blurred Frenzy+MW bursts, but I run a more defensive rabid/knights/carrion setup for some extra tough and power, so you may want to mix up the gear a bit.

Yeah, some kind of condition (or boon) to the #1 would help a lot. Scepter clones really need some identity. All the other clones can do something useful (even if GS clones need SI), but even with SI, scepter clones can’t really do much. It really makes scepter only good for condition shatter builds and subpar for everything else.

The other thing it really needs is to decouple the attack rate from the animation. Without the range advantage over sword, there’s very little sword can’t do better, except those condition shatter builds, and I even sword for mine for better survival.

I got a little time.

1) This what I tell everyone: GS+staff is a great combo with good AOE. Don’t stand at max range tho. Staff is much better at short-mid range, and even GS is OK due to Mirror Blade bounces and iWave. Unfortunately, GS is a little bugged right now. Still usable, but not optimal.

Sword takes some getting used to, but sword/focus is the highest damage combo you can do in PVE with power/crit gear. Focus also has the best mobility and utility for mesmers, but it takes some time to master. Once I mastered focus, sword/focus hardly ever left my bar until level 80 when I just wanted to try something new. Sword/pistol is a good set once you learn sword, and if you can’t get the focus down, but GS/staff/sword/focus are all better for AOE in PVE.

2) Clones do very little damage. You can get them to do some bleed damage with 15 points in Dueling, but they will never be primary damage dealers. Phantasms can do great damage, but they too are bugged right now. Once the delay is fixed, they will be back in their prime. Until then, they are still moderately OK.

3) Ether Feast as other say. Don’t waste your time on others until you develop a build. They are more specialized.

4) Decoy for starting mesmers. It will increase your survival better than any other skill while leveling. After that, it’s all about preferences. I found Feedback and Mirror Images to be really useful at all stages of play for many builds.

5) You’re quite far away from that, but when you get higher level, the Inspiration and Illusion lines are your best bets, unless you want to go for a specialty build like mantra healing. For now, put 5 points in Illusions and then start on the Domination or Dueling lines. Once you get to level 40, you can respec and unlock the master traits and find your identity.

Wow, that cabalist armor looks quite a bit different than on my charr!

The problem with sceptre isn’t that it can’t be good. It can. The problem with sceptre (and torch too) is that in almost every situation another weapon can do it too, and often better. This leaves sceptre and torch in unfortunate positions where they are only preferred in very niche builds that are useful in only a handful of situations.

Since most weapons can perform better in most situations, you almost have to go out of your way to take up a sceptre or torch. Not a very good design.

Mesmers can be really difficult early on. It’s probably not just you. GS/staff are generally a good combo for PVE, but GS is borked right now. I’d recommend going sword/pistol instead while also taking time to learn the focus. Once I got the hang of that thing, I almost never put it down until I got to level 80. You said sword stopped at 1/2 the enemies’ HP; focus takes down the other half and gives you a ton of extra mobility and utility once you master it. It can take a little while, though, especially getting the Void into Warden combo down.

Other than that, take decoy ASAP and also put 5 points into Illusions as soon as you get traits opened up. You feel a bit weak until level 40, and then you’ll faceroll everything when master traits open up. Deceptive Evasion was the game changer for me.

Not me. I run a slightly more defensive build that uses mostly rabid with some knights and carrion gear for extra survival. I would recommend full rapid with undead runes if you are going for a confusion spike build, but if you want to play a slower paced playstyle with sustained damage, some vitality will really help against other condition builds.

Some power will help too since most condition builds are not as spiky as power/crit builds, and you’ll likely be using some direct attacks with almost every weapon loadout. MW is mandatory on your bar, and I use for extra confusion anyway with the super low low CD, so even just a little power tends to scale better than a little extra condition damage.

Sounds like you don’t want to run a shatter build, though, so just consider whether you want to spike condition damage or sustain it. Personally I find condition spikes on mesmer subpar except for certain confusion spike niche builds (which are shatter builds).

Yup, make it a blast finisher, and I’d be good. Larger AOE would be nice, too.

Another consideration is your damage spec. If you are running berserker gear, you will get a better return from Runes of the Air. +10% crit damage plus Lightning Strike (which scales on power AFAIK) will do more for you than a bit of extra power. And the +15% bleed from centaur runes will do almost nothing for you.

If you are running rabid gear, then Runes of the Centaur are usually better, especially in WvWvW. Do yourself a favor and pick up a Sigil of Earth to take advantage of the +15% bleed. Every time you use Blurred Frenzy or Confusing Images you’ll be thankful for it, and more than likely that will do more damage than a Lightning Strike w/o any real power behind it. Even if my BF crits 3 times, that’s only 150 damage for me, but every bleed proc is over 500 damage.

The centaur runes will also give you a bit of extra power to help your MW not suck as hard (esp if you are using MW with a confusion spec). Not to mention rabid builds tend to run a bit more defensive so the extra swiftness duration is a bit more helpful here to kite or hit ’n run while your conditions do their thing.

Many of us have noticed the effects blind/obstructed/invulnerability have on mesmer phantasm skills, especially being able to blind/evade a phantasm’s first attack twice (once on skill use and another to evade the phantasm’s attack). I am not aware of any other mechanic that suffers from this limitation.

The delay on phantasm attacks compounds the issue. Jon Peters stated recently that the low/no delay seemed to be balanced and reduced the delay, but stated that it caused problems when reducing the delay to 0. We seem to have many bugs introduced the way phantasms are summoned.

So why not solve both issues by making phantasm skills like regular attacks that summon the phantasm at the end of the attack animation? This may have been brought up before, but I have not seen it. So would this work? It seems to me it would, because we would no longer be doubled tapped by blind, and even if the first hit on multi-hit attacks fail, the rest of the attack (including the summon) could still happen. It would just miss the target and then spawn the summon. This would also help out those mesmers that feel summons do too much damage and want to deal more directly.

Of course all phantasms would need to spawn with their skills on CD for balance. Here’s a loadout of how I could see each skill working:

Zerker: You spin around and swipe your blade as an ethereal image of your sword whirls over the AOE damaging and crippling foes in its wake. Where it stops, a Zerker is spawned and will use its skill after its internal recharge.

Mage: You throw an image of your torch (similar to Mirror Blade) at foes that bounces and grants confusion to foes and retaliation to allies. After the last target is hit, the image bounces a final time to the spawn point where the mage is created.

Duelist: You fire a barrage at your target. The last hit ricochets off the target to the spawn point where the duelist appears.

Warden: You create a whirling tempest with the skill’s effects, and the warden fades in at the end of the animation.

Swordsman: You thrust your sword out and hurl an ethereal blade at your foe. After the hit the sword leaps back to the spawn point and the phantasm spawns.

Warlock: You blast your foe with an energy beam that explodes and then converges on the spawn point where the warlock appears.

Disenchanter: Would work like the Mage except you wouldn’t throw a torch image.

Defender: Not sure we need a special attack for him. He’s fine.

Ayanavi.1904:

It was like a Anet didn’t need to know that Mesmers had discovered a method of farming we didn’t totally suck kitten at.

They already did. That’s why they made karkas like that: all the whining on the forums.

Osicat.4139:

Interesting how you can use staff as a wep and shatter as a build, be extremy effective and still play totlay different and spec totaly different. I looking at embolism here who obious go for condition dmg build, dont bother with mirror immage or mindwrack and as I understand feel sucessfull. Me on other hand see condition as a bonus, mirror immage as a essensal part of utilitys and burst and think a extra bounce on staff is nowere near as important as 50% hp= reset shatters or 3% dmg /clone.

We both seem to agree that 10% crit is a minor improvment compared to the string alernatives we have in illusion.

I do thu even on well geared players see serious mindwrack dmg on top of al other. Confusion have a spot in any shatter build, Personaly I use it to controll the enemy more than accualy deal dmg, but ofc if he stupid enought to try strike back with 10+ stacks I bow and ty for the badge.

/ Osicat.

Yeah staff is a very versatile weapon, and it pairs well with several builds and other weapon sets. I have another slight variation of those skills/traits for you that makes for completely different gameplay: I have had great success recently playing a defensive sword-torch (or pistol)/staff shatter build with a hybrid condition/power setup (well mostly rabid with some knights and carrion gear too). Like Embolism I use CoF and Diversion with IP, but like you I shatter instead of letting clones live, and I also use MW and the 50% HP shatter recharge quite often too. CoF condition builds are soo much fun in melee range! Even makes PVE bearable.

I find MW does great damage with the combo of some power and the 4 stacks of confusion. At any given time, I have 6-15 stacks of confusion up and most of it is AOE. On top of that I can CoF+MI -> iLeap/Swap -> MW+BF for a nice confusion burst. If I hit it, it creates a great conundrum for my foes. Do they eat the 12-15 stacks of confusion by using a skill to escape or eat my full MW+BF+condition procs? To be quite honest, many players end up taking a fair part of both (and most mobs usually eat it all).

The weapon trait for torch removes conditions whenever you use a torch skill, too. On the off chance you run a x/torch build.

There are a few leveling guides floating around on the forums. I suggest you do a search, but here is a quick rundown since I am here.

Weapons: Staff/GS offers the best solo AOE for killing fast until you get good with sword/focus. If you can master them, you can move faster and kill faster than any other weapon set in PVE.

Gear: Doesn’t really matter except I recommend power over condition damage while leveling, especially if you plan to solo. The only reason is because it greatly speeds up your damage against constructs, which are immune to conditions, and they pop up in PVE more than anywhere else. If you are rolling with a guild/party, then go with your preferred playstyle. Power also works much better with sword/focus until you get Sharper images; then it is only a somewhat better depending on build.

Skill/Traits: Grab Decoy and Illusionist’s Celerity ASAP. Get good with Blink too. When you get to level 40, grab Deceptive Evasion. After that, faceroll everything.

EDIT: The build you linked is a beta version. It won’t work as well now. Sword or staff are better than scepter for leveling, too, though scepter does have niche use in PVP.

Power staff users do not rely on iwarlock only. They rely on warlock, blurred fenzy, and MW. They all hit like trucks in a power build and they can hit at about the same time when in melee range.

Personally, I’m a new fan of power/cond hybrid builds. I find the extra damage from MW and CoF and BF is outperforming anything I ever got from sharper images, though I do miss the extra vigor from my precision build.

Most successful mesmer builds use shatters regularly simply because they are 4 rather powerful abilities that you will always have access to. Though in many builds only 2-3 may be all that useful (MW and Distortion will always be useful). Simply, at least one of the shatters is almost always worth it at any given time unless you are running a phantasm army build. You just have to know the right time.

The only time I don’t shatter is when bringing down a gate or siege in WvWvW after the defenders have been disposed since 3 wardens tend to outdo MW and siege don’t move. I run a 20/20/0/20/10 power/crit build with GS/S-F, but even with only 10 in illusions I shatter often (generally as soon as my next phant is free). The rest of my damage comes from phantasm bursts, reflection (OMG I love Warden’s Feedback), and BF dashes.

For my next build I want to work torch into the fold instead of GS with a power/cond loadout for an even more elusive, skirmishing duelist concept. Not sure how it will work out, but I’m sure I will still be using my shatters quite often. I just can’t see many situations where they would be unfavorable, especially if you keep your power at a reasonable level. Condition damage for CoF in PVP is even more win.