Guild Wars 2

I’ve a very similar 20/20/30/0/0 prismatic build, but use Sw/T + Sc/Sw instead. Against a necro one thing I do if I get condition bursted is to Prestige and then stand in my own Null Field. I often will try to stay stealthed or LOS and keep my distance when possible. You’re also forced to save your stun breaks for fear. Necro shroud just got nerfed too, so feel free to burst the last bit of life force down now. I also tend to leave more clones up verse a necro to absorb some of the condition aggro.

I assume it would be Rabid. Is there any others I should consider? I was also thinking of going mostly ascended celestial on my trinkets.

What about Runes and Sigils for someone spec’n marks and corruption?

Mogar.9216:

mass invis > all

This currently. It’s a shame what they did to TW.

This build
is essentially what I currently use in pvp. I use divinity runes though. Signet of inspiration works well too in place of feedback.

It’s my primary weapon in wvw. iBerseker is awesome verse a zerg. All the other skills are highly effective as well.

I’ve tested condition glam verse zergs recently for a week and it is not worth it. It does not do enough damage (i used rabid) and confusion is not triggered enough. I suggest you stick with Knight’s gear. Beyond that I’ve had good success with prismatic builds in wvw and pvp.

All Call for the Knights of the Temple. Please everyone join up and help us defend Blackgate against the evil red hordes of Tyria!

I would agree that finding a class as fun as the mesmer is a challenge.

In regards to finding reasons to login, I’d find an mmo family to adopt you, aka a guild. Look for an active one that is open to doing lots of stuff. Currently, the three endgame choices appear to be Fractals, WvW, and tPvP.

However, if you are just a single player, achievement seeker then I think you might look towards other mmo’s. Try this site http://www.mmosite.com/ for decent mmo news. It looks like Archeage (beta) and Blade and Soul are where to start. Swtor and Tera Online are FTP and worth a try as well.

Revelations.3154:

I’m glad calmer heads of prevailed in this…

Troll! Troll in the dungeon!

I didn’t come here to troll

Too late…

I’m all for the scepter, but I don’t think your approach is well received.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@Helios: Mender’s purity does not activate on mantra charge with restorative mantras.

Well kitten . Still, two cleanses every 10 seconds or three with Harmonious Mantras isn’t terrible.

Sounds like a standerd shatter-burst routine. Granted, there’s nothing standard about it as it is an exceptionally fast and effective burst. I like to say that mesmers are a higher form of life to razz other classes.

Mender’s Purity + Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Recovery(or any other mantra) = Sweet mercy that’s some cleansing goodness

Assuming Mender’s Purity triggers on Restorative Mantras.

Guardians are the foil to our phantasm build. This is due to their durable nature and retaliation which ends up destroying your phantasms quickly. Confusion never seemed to work well against them either because guardians are typically slow.

The only way I can routinely drop a guardian in good time is via a vulnerability shatter build. Such builds have good interrupts which help as well.

I suggest… a mantra build since you’ll never use it after you hit 80. Take Protective Mantras and Restorative Mantras and you’ll get some pretty sweet heals.

How do you intend to win a 1v1 with such low damage potential?

Also, torch rocks in WvW. Stealth, aoe burn blast, and cleansing? Yes please. Plus, iMage sounds like he’s firing a cannon. It makes battles sound so much more epic.

burn them with traited torch

For leveling, I suggest you run GS + Staff or GS + Sword/Focus. Dump skill points into Domination(GS and interrupts) and then Chaos(Staff, defense, and interrupts) or Inspiration(Focus and fantasmal phantasms).

WvW is a more complex concern and depends on what you’re going after. Either way, it’s hard to go wrong with the 20/20/0/0/30 vuln shatter build or the more durable 0/20/20/0/30 might shatter build.

i’m a fan of Confusion Cry over Masterful Reflection just due to the CD. Precise Wrack is okay too.

Mesmers, where being pink is cool and deadly.

I dunno if I want to depend soley on my low health phantasms for damage verse a zerg. Additionally, combining etheral fields with your phantasms is a nice combo to stack confusion. With the addition of torment and the buff to the scepters condition damage, it might be worth while to (once again) go for a condition bleed/confusion/torment build.

I’m thinking a 20(III,VIII)/20(II,X)/0/30(II,VII,VIII)/0 condition build. Take GS(bleed on crit) + Scepter(condition stacking)/Focus(bleed on crit) and utilities Feedback, Signet of Illusions, and Null Field. Deceptive Evasion is only there because there’s not much else to take with those last 5 points and it will help feed Cry of Frustration and Distortion. With this build, I would try to maximize your condition damage. I think 2200 condition damage is attainable which resolves into 230 damage per confusion stack. That pales to the 400+ dmg per stack we used to do, but it might effective enough if you go for broke.

Post confusion patch I ran a phantasm build. After the latest patch I’m running a standard shatter build. In the end though, mesmer was always strongest in wvw as a condition-based glamour build. Neither pure phantasm or shatter build ever performed as well as glamour condition, which typically includes heavy amounts of reflection.

One solution would be similar to guild rush. Devs could add a couple non-obvious milestones throughout the JP. If you don’t get near each of those milestones you don’t get credit for the JP or the reward.

JPs are one of my most favorite things about this game… That and knocking people off cliffs in WvW

While I’d rather just CC the thief, landing a block verse a stealth thief is very effective. Land the block, blow mirror images and F1, and you’re done. A roasted thief will appear perfectly cooked out of thin air.

This is exactly the case. I tried scepter/torch for a while after the patch. It’s a frustrating combo that doesn’t work well. You usually need to be visible to block… On the other hand, the sword/torch combo is excellent. I use that in my current build going 4 > 3 > 3 > 2 (then mind wrack) with excellent effect.

I’ve yet to try scepter/sword, but the double block is intriguing. I assume you’d block first with the scepter, then either block or daze with your sword, and then channel confusing images (or just swap weapons at this point and start that combo series).

Another consideration here might be to go with divinity runes to have a slightly more balanced build given the weakness of condition damage.

I’d wish mantra worked. The animation and chanting is so cool. However, so far in pvp it’s impossible to use well verse multiple opponents. In a 2v2, if you are focused, your only option is to run in a circle like an idiot while you try to charge up. In the end, all that healing and toughness is never enough when two people are bursting you down. Avoidance is simply superior.

The fix I suggest for mantra is to push the recharge time down to 1s. Additionally, allow us to do ANYTHING (except charge another mantra) without interrupting the recharge. If we do anything other than running (or whatever we are allowed to do now) then it will add 2s to the recharge. Once one recharge is finished, you can start another. This would allow mesmers to play more fluidly when they need to, but also take advantage of quick recharges when able. Also, make it more obvious a mantra is ready or not ready.

I was looking at trying a mantra build for fun. One potential build would be a 30(II, IX, XI)/20(VI,VII)/0/20(IV, X)/0 build. Take all mantras except Mantra of Pain. Also take Mass Invis and Torch and Staff for more survivability. The idea here would be to constantly daze, stack vuln, and outlast. This build would have a lot of cleanse, heals, and toughness which would increase your eHP quite a bit.

I never played GW1. However, mesmer feels like the “leftovers” class where all the class designers’ ideas went that didn’t fit into the other classes.

Okay, we can play this game. Let’s remove one of the defining traits of the mesmer. Let’s remove portal. However, if we do that, then only to be fair we have to do the same to the other classes. Therefore, we also need to remove Shadow Refuge from thieves, Elixer S from engineers, Lick Wounds from Ranger, Static Field from Elementalist, Epidemic from Necro, Battle Standard from Warrior, and Stand Your Ground from Gaurdian. It could be argued that every one of these “break” the game and are overpowered in some way. But you know what? I’m sure ANet would drop portal and think nothing of it because nerfing the mesmer is something of a minigame in gw2.

It’s my guess that the OP is one of the foolish ones who took a mesmer backtrack portal the wrong way in the new JP. Disregarding the 60s item, if people are bypassing content then I’m not sure why they are playing the game.

TheKidHenry.5732:

To make life easier here’s a link to the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArc8flwzSqHTzgGb9IyJFQn0hmx2ddlZwbXIA-TwAgyCpIaS1krJTTymsNN+YVx+jZFA

I think it looks solid and was theorycrafting something like this last week.

There’s a few things I’d change. First, I’d swap the carrion jewel for a rabid one. Toughness is more valuable than vit and precision is more valuable for bleeds. I might also take mirror heal over ether. I like reflection and it triggers your mender’s purity more often. Finally, iDefender is less usefull these days. I’d probably swap it for Decoy.

If they are moving, it’s around 4 to 5k damage when you spec for it. The problem is that it’s strictly a single target dot and confusion is no longer worth while. Hence, yes, I can take one guy down if I manage to land a block and he’s too kitten to cleanse, but I’ll do practically no damage to everyone around him. The necromancer torment is a thousand times more effective so if you want to whine, go to their thread.

Mantra charging is a self inflicted interrupt for nearly 3 seconds and you simply don’t get enough for it. The toughness and heal should come standard. On top of that we should be able to trait into 1s of stealth when charging mantra and 2s of stability. On top of that, you have to micromanage them to make sure they are charged or not. To fix that, just allow each to have 3 ticks standard. The third tick automatically causes you to recharge it.

I tried a build that had Mantra of Pain in it after the patch. The only way I could make it work at all was to recharge only when in stealth.

Fair enough Pyro. If you went sword then perhaps go 20(V,IX)/10(IV)/30(IV,X,XII)/10(II)/0. Granted, the biggest weakness here is lack of stability and the only way to get it by youself on a mesmer is via mantra.

Perhaps you could setup some kinda super tanky mantra build for it. The +400 toughness is pretty sweet. Forget doing any damage though since you’ll just be spamming mantras the whole time. At least with guardian you can spam staff 1 occasionally to get tags.

similar to what others suggested, I’d suggest engineer or necro.

I would base the build entirely on the Prismatic Understanding trait. For weapons I’d go Staff + Scepter/Torch. Utility I’d go Veil, Decoy, Null Field, and Mass Invis. Grab Glamour Mastery and… perhaps 20 in Inspiration and 20 in Domination to trait your Scepter and Focus. I think your tag is still visible when stealthed so this build would allow you to lead, but not be targted most of the time.

it’s better as it is.

Jester.1236:

PU with cleansing conflagration is just a fantastic combo for World V World. When stunned I decoy, gaining protection, regen, and cleansing all my conditions while breaking the stun.

I’m a bit at a loss here. How are you dropping ALL your conditions? I could see being able to drop two at most with cleansing conflagration . Does it actually drop all of them? Granted… even if it doesn’t… the more cleanse I can get the better these days. Nice find. I totally forgot torch did that.

I find Mender’s Purity less valuable now due to the Inspiration tree being so weak. It used to be one of my favorite traits though. One alternative is the purity or (expensive) generosity sigil if you have crit chance. If not, another alternative is to use the Focus weapon’s iWarden + Temporal Curtain whirl finisher to produce cleansing bolts.

The problem I have with arcane thievery is that you have to micromanage it. First, it will not work unless you are targeting another player that’s in range. Second, you don’t want to waste it on insignificant conditions due to the high CD. Granted, it’s nearly a must in pvp. The problem I have with null field is that it confines you to an obvious area you have to stand in. It removes one condition per tick so if a necro or engineer just condition bursted you then you’ll be standing there for a while.

Leek soup (lemongrass is expensive) is your best first option paired a more passive regen like purity sigil or mender’s purity is probably best. Runes of Melandru are very good too if your build isn’t dependent on another rune. Since you are running blink and decoy you shouldn’t be attracting too many conditions as is (unless necro facerolls his torment… sigh).

I tried using Mantra of Distraction to supplement my interrupt build last night in pvp that had Chaotic and Bountiful Interruption along with Halting Strike. It was awesome when it worked. However, it appeared to work only a third of the time.

Aberrant.6749:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Castervania.3560:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Castervania.3560:

Same thing different ways of expression. Did you notice how op are other classes compared to us now?

Strangely enough, I didn’t. I still seem to be facerolling everyone I come across. I wonder why…

Please tell me what server you are on and what do you play wvw, spvp or tpvp? i would like to get to know you more personal.

I am on dragonbrand, and I play wvw and occasionally tpvp.

@Abberant:

Has anyone done this before? I assume most have. If not, when fighting a thief, you hold onto your Illusionary Wave until the thief drops refuge. When they do, just hit the refuge with Illusionary Wave (GS 5). When you do it knocks them out of the refuge and destealths them regardless of refuge stealth ticks.

The oddity of this is that they often will just sit there for a full second or two still attempting to get refuge ticks. I think this is because the refuge animation disppears early. Unfortunately for them, everyone opens up on the stationary thief typically dropping them in a couple seconds. Match this with Halting Strike and it’s a nice double whammy.

Into the Void works as well, but is a bit harder to use after the patch.

iDefender is no longer a worthwhile choice after the uber nerf to the Vengful Images trait. On the other hand, iDisenchanter’s attack sound effect is freak’n awesome. It sounds like a machine-gun-cannon!

i’d say thieves are about as powerful as mesmers now. If you were beat then adjust your build. If that’s not the problem then you were outmatched.

chat.4062:

@ Helios : sorry but he won t have stack of might , organize groups of peoples use stability, so chaos storm won t proc anything.

You’re right regarding stability. I had mixed results last night in wvw verse SoR’s blob. I was able to get a stack of 14 might at one point that lasted a while, but generating stacks wakitten or miss. I feel like you need to combine it with null field vs a zerg or arcane thievery vs a single target. My survivability was very high and I typically had 8+ might stacks for every engagement. In spvp this build was okay, but certainly not optimized. I was getting roflstomped by scepter/shatter mesmers and stun warriors.

I think… one way to maximize the potential of this would be to add Imbued Diversion and go for a 0/20(II,X)/20(V,VIII)/0/30(I,VI,XII) shatter build along with signet of illusions and null field. One trick to this verse a zerg may be to use the 2 skill on GS verse their mid-line and immediately diversion shatter the generated clone before he dies. If they don’t have stability that little clone should push you up to 20+ might stacks right away. Then spawn berserker and witness the horror Pop signet of illusions and do it again.

Vuh.1328:

Walse.1749:

Vuh.1328:

Walse.1749:

I disagree, just let people get used to the new toys we got, it’s all very easy to counter and necro’s can still get CCchained easily. Necros were always able to condi burst someone from 100-0 with a good combo. We are viable for competitive PvP now, but by no means OP. I would say good job anet, necros finally got what they deserved.

You are a bad necro so your opinion doesn’t count.
But really, we have played with a necro for long time and never really felt it was not viable dmg wise.
This is just bullkitten, HGH engis was balanced compared to this kitten

I hope you are trolling, if not let me clarify something. The last time i played with you was 4 months ago in february after a 1 month break with a troll build and you keep complaining about 1 bad match.
I have 900 tournament wins with necro and can’t remember the last time i lost a 1v1. If you don’t mind i would duel you when you have the time.

It’s the rage talking, got feared to death from 100-0 with 24k hp

This happened to me several times the past couple days in pvp. It’s brutal. Even if you stun break, you simply can cleanse enough, heal enough, or block all at the same time. Worse, if you have key stuff on CD you die in 2 seconds flat. At least you can dodge from a thief or mesmer to have a smidge of a chance. Cast arcane thievery and the necro just heals and laughs at you.

I’m all for good fights and until this patch i considered necro’s a good fight. They definitely needed a little buff… but nothing like this.

Zumi.6384:

Helios.3598:

If it actually adds 5 stack per intterupt then that’s incredible. I’m definitely traiting it for WvW. I’m thinking of going perhaps with a GS/Staff, 20(II,X)/20(II,X)/30(IV,VIII,X or XI)/0/0, hybrid build. I’ll prolly stick with Runes of the Centaur and perhaps some boon duration food.

Yep, it does add 5 stacks. I thought the same thing at first, because the tooltip is worded very poorly. The build you described is incredibly similar to the one I posted a little earlier. Check it out, it’s a hybrid phantasm/support build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Phantasmal-Boons/first#post2302442

Cool. I think that if you hit a 15+ man zerg with Chaos Storm you should easily hit 25 stacks. With 30 in chaos, signet of midnight, and some boon food you’d have that up for a good 8+ seconds just from Chaos Storm. Similar to your build I could run signet of inspiration to give those boons out. Then possibly run Diversion + Signet of Illusions to keep my might up while Chaos Storm is on CD. That and hit people with Illusionary Wave.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Helios.3598:

“Bountiful Interruption: Gain might for 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe, then gain another boon randomly.”

5 seconds, not 5 stacks…

You are wrong, it works as the OP stated.

Really??! Here is my reference . If I’m wrong then I apologize. The spell description wording is very poor.

If it actually adds 5 stack per intterupt then that’s incredible. I’m definitely traiting it for WvW. I’m thinking of going perhaps with a GS/Staff, 20(II,X)/20(II,X)/30(IV,VIII,X or XI)/0/0, hybrid build. I’ll prolly stick with Runes of the Centaur and perhaps some boon duration food.

“Bountiful Interruption: Gain might for 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe, then gain another boon randomly.”

5 seconds, not 5 stacks…

juno.1840:

Sounds like we’re not face-roll easy any more which is good. I’m tired of seeing all the mesmers in PvP and WvW. Maybe a higher skill floor will scare away the bandwagon players.

I might agree with this if all the classes were balanced. Instead, Necro and Engineer took the place of Mesmer and Thieves. That our class was nerfed overall and other classes received major buffs seems too unbalanced. I wouldn’t blame anyone for class hopping until things are rebalanced.

what about Chaotic Interruption + Imbued Diversion along with Staff and possibly Focus?

guardian and necro for me. Engineer is a distant fourth.

colesy.8490:

Thanks for the help guys, just played against some thief that used basilisk venom so I blinked away, next burst I used blurred frenzy and in between I was dropping phantasms, magic bullet stun, Gs knockdown etc. etc. and he died pretty quick after using up his stealth.

that’s pretty much what I do. Just counter his stealth with CC and he’s done.

Yes, if you take phantasmal haste and it isn’t bugged. I’d still take vengeful images though. It also depends on which weapons you wanna run.

for reference here’s my previous build

@fadeaway: the uber buffed halting strike with an aoe push and pull and diversion should replace the lost empowered illusions damage.