Guild Wars 2

Instead of an idiotic version of an already existing necromancer elite, how about an elite version of one of our class specific abilities, i.e., an elite mantra. Some people hate mantras, but honestly they are some the best things in game for the technically minded player. A mantra can be activated at any time, during a dodge, during casting something else, whatever. For example, MoD is insanley powerful once you get used to just using it whenever you need to. You can actually get really good at interrupting heals of people who don’t cover them (with stealth or something).

So, what do you guys think would be some good ideas for an elite Mantra? I’d personally love a Mantra that granted a stun, because of the above instant nature it would be imo infinitely more useful than signet of dom. My favorite elite from GW1 was Psychic Instability, which hit them with a huge stun if you interrupted, but did basically nothing if no interrupt. This could be something similar, except maybe instead of being conditional on interrupt, it just combined mantra of pain with a stun, so like an instant damaging stun. Imagine the possibilities for finishing someone who is low. Something like this:

Mantra of Domination: 2 Charges, 15 sec in between charges, 30 sec cd on mantra (or whatever cd’s make it balanced). Damages and stuns your target for X seconds (I’d say 1.5 or even 1 would be really awesome). Deals extra damage on interrupt (a la Halting Strike). Basically combines signet of Dom, mantra of pain, and Halting strike into an awesome elite mantra. Much more mesmery than a big purple lich form.

Any other ideas?

I only play mesmer, I love gw2, and the above (is true and) makes me sad.

The number 5 skill, the one furthest to the right is your flee button when moa’d. Point yourself in the direction you want to go and hit it. You will haul butt in that direction and often escape. Most people expect you to just sit there like an idiot when you get moa’d, not instantly and very quickly run away from them. You will frequently escape by doing this, as the movement is very fast. Give it a try. Obviously you will lose the node, but you won’t die at least.

After trying it out I feel FI is a waste, just as Chaos said he felt at first. With the 15 sec cd there is now way this grandmaster trait is better than either shattered concentration or great sword training in Domination. And the 25 pt minor in Dueling is trash compared to the 15 in Dom, unless you are running a clone death build.

If there we no cd then I’d consider it a tough call between FI and 20 in Dom. As it is, to me, there is no contest. Also, after being used to shattered concentration, fighting a guardian for example without it is a painful experience.

I also dropped the mesmer runes and it didn’t hurt me at all; I still landed the same amount of interrupts and I did’t notice the .25 sec missing from daze.

As others have said, I also find the pistol much more useful than the OH sword, especially having only a 1 sec daze on it that isn’t instant.

@ Xaveri: Interesting point about the heals and mantra, didn’t think of that. I’ll give it a try.

You mention Traveler runes. This is something I’ve been thinking about too. I’ve been running mesmer for the 33% (really 25%) daze increase, but have read a lot that traveler helps a ton in wvw, that’s aside from out of combat mobility. But I’d be giving up a lot of power and the 25% daze increase. Not sure which is worth it.

From a “lockdown” perspective, I find that the interrupts are what really make the lockdown/shatter effective, as without CI and running a staff I don’t think you are really able to shut people down with chain dazing etc. What wrecks people is having their rotation stopped and that skill put on 5 sec cd. The daze duration increase doesn’t affect that at all. Kind of makes me look at lockdown and daze a little different, as solely about interrupts rather than blanket control. Looking at the mesmer control toolkit, as far as Daze goes, everything we have is so short duration, but lends itself to interrupts very well via diversion and MoD, both being better than instant (usable during other actions). It’s almost like trying to extend the duration of the daze is missing the point of the Dazes we have, the strength not being the duration but the instant application allowing for much better interrupting. With MoD, you can go be throwing out all your dmg and land an interrupt without missing a beat. No other class can do that.

Along those lines I’m thinking of losing offhand sword for pistol, as the OH daze is the only one I have that isn’t instant, and so is a kind of fire and hope for the best. Might as well make it a 2 sec stun. Any thoughts on Pistol vs Sword for offhand?

Makes me want to ditch the Mesmer runes and get furious interruption. That would also shift the build to be even more spiky, losing power but gaining the 10% crit dmg. If not travelers, what other rune set would you guys think would really benefit an interrupt/shatter build?

@ Trooper: Currently running Blink (treated), MoD, and Decoy. I actually tried running with Torch last night (in sPvP) and I found that it really didn’t add anything for me when I needed it to. I used to rely on stealth a lot, like watching Vash for instance you can see he uses it frequently, but I find that during those moments when I would go for torch sending out the daze and the swordsman tends to keep the pressure on more. I noticed that when I would stealth, because for those three seconds I wasn’t putting out pressure it actually allowed them a breather, which I think for me in a lockdown build is bad. The more I learn to get in their face and stay hyper aggressive the better it goes. So that’s why I go for sword instead of torch. I actually find the block/daze on sword is better defense that going stealth.

I’m considering giving up 10 in dom to go for Furious Interruption. I’ve never seriously tested it. Anyone have experience with it? Is it worth it over the 15 and 20 talents in Dom? Does it actually increase your dmg that much? The 15 sec cd seems a little lame, so your only getting max 3 sec of quickness per 15 sec, and you can easily land an interrupt more often than that. I guess it comes down to which adds more pressure, the 15 and 20 in dom or Furious interruption. Thoughts and experience?

Yes thanks, I gave a shout out to shatterlock in my first post. Great build and inspired me to go all out trying to merge lockdown and shatter. I personally just couldn’t make the shatter side work without DE. For me, if it’s between CS and DE, going shatter, it seems DE is hands down more essential.

But anyways yes, Shatterlock was the first shatter/lockdown build I tried, so again credit and thanks to Chaos for coming up with it (grats on BOTM too btw).

Since people seem to be ok with my semi-derailment, it would be cool to see more lockout focused buffs to mesmers, and lockout centric elite would be awesome. Maybe an elite signet who’s passive was increase daze duration by 25% and activate was some aoe daze or something. Super Daze Signet. Probably OP…

Right, I just meant that I have the same sword cd’s as a 30/20/20/0/0 lockdown build a la Mindcrush, except for blurred frenzy. Of course you can take both, like in some kind of 30/20/0/0/20, but I haven’t seen anyone run something like that. So if it’s between 30/20/20/0/0 with Blade training and 20/20/0/0/30 without it, your sword cd’s are the same either way except for blurred frenzy.

Anyways, great thread and thanks for the reply!

1) Mesmer
2) Ele

Ha, yes no blade training is annoying in principle. Though illusionists celerity from Illusions line compensates, so actually all my sword cd’s except blurred frenzy, in particular my daze cd, are exactly the same as a with Mindcrush for example. So it all works out in the end.

I really feel like the lockdown play style is as core to mesmer as clones, but really that’s probably only true if you played a mesmer in gw1. Hopefully Anet will give us more tools in this direction, as mesmer is at it’s core counter play and controlling our opponents. Or instead they could give us a dumb version of Lich form…

Going into an off topic rant, but: Instead of giving us some idiotic version of a necro skill (Hey now I’m a giant purple target please focus me while I try to slap you) maybe we can get an elite on a short cd that buffs our control abilities? I hope the community really speaks up, in particular the lockdown players, to get some buffs to this core aspect of the mesmer. Right off the top of my head, if we are going to be just getting reworked versions of existing elites, let’s get a version of one of the thief poisons: “Your Mind is Mine”, your next daze is guaranteed to be a stun of the same duration. 30 sec cd. Now that would be an elite I’d take over mass invis.

Just want to say thanks to Chaos et al for introducing me to lockdown in gw2. In particular Allysah’s dueling video was awesome. I should say here I’m focused on roaming and solo Q.

I wanted to mention two things: First is I think CS as is pretty dumb as it is currently, as the stun overwrites the daze. I guess this is cool in group fight where preventing dodge is really important (?), but otherwise I would greatly prefer to just have a guaranteed daze on longer duration, as I think the lockout time is much more valuable. So they dodge, so what? You just forced a dodge on your terms and you have all your damaging abilities ready, a pretty good thing to do in a fight.

In my experience, only really good players react that fact that they just got dazed by insta dodging. The vast majority stand there for a sec looking, well, dazed. Especially true in the heat of battle with a lot going on. You start dazing someone and you are 90% of the time going to smash em with a follow up dmging attack. I think a 1.5 or 1.75 sec daze is incredibly more valuable than a 1 sec stun.

I think CS would be orders of magnitude more worth it if it simply extended daze duration by 50%. Then I might take it.

Along those lines, I wanted to say that, and credit to Chaos who already kind of went this way with his Shatterlock build combining the standard shatter style with some hard lockout can be very powerful. However I’d say that you don’t really need CS to make a hard cc build (and also IP without DE is just too hard for me). I just tweaked the standard 20/20/0/0/30 shatter spec, cause I’m sadly addicted to IP and thus DE, and I love the shatter+ lockout play style.

In Dom I take halting strike, which some might think crazy, but I have found it awesome, and then I take shattered concentration to have my many shatters strip boons.

Dueling is of course DE and I take far reaching manipulations, again because I’ve become completely addicted to max range blink.

Illusions is standard: Precise Wrack, Illusionary Invigoration, and IP.

Runes are mesmer to bump daze up to 1.25 sec (I know it says 33% but this is how the rounding actually works out). Doesn’t seem like much, but as said by Chaos, it adds up to make a huge difference. For example if you set up diversion right, the extra .25 sec can easily add up to an extra .5 or even .75 on the overall daze time, which is huge.

I use great sword or staff, combined with Sword/Sword. Greatsword allows more aggressive shatter play, staff you are little more defensive. I lean towards great sword because, as has been pointed out, lockout style requires very aggressive play, and although sometimes you can bait people into a super daze MW shatter combo with staff, overall I prefer great sword to put on pressure fast.

Only required utility is Daze mantra. Others are preference. I always take blink, and third varies; decoy, portal, mirror images, condo cleanse, etc. can all be fine.

So the main differences in build between standard 20/20/30 shatter are what you take in the Dom line, sword offhand instead of torch, and taking daze mantra.

The main difference in play style is replacing stealth heavy play to set up burst combos from prestige with aggressive lockdown play to set up burst. It seems like small tweaks to shatter spec, but I think you’ll find it’s a very different experience. You have all the shatter tools you need, just without prestige, and you have all the hard lockout tools you need, plus the boon stripping on shatter combined with tons of shatters on low cd and Illusionary Invigoration means you can deal with bunkers easily. Just daze em and Confusing cry to wipe boons before MW burst. Also want to point out that I’ve had no problem escaping in WvW using just blink and mass invis. Decoy makes it easier still. You in no way need prestige to survive in WvW, and that’s being mostly zerker (I basically match Vash’s setup, berzerker+some assassin to get high crit and valkyrie mixed in to get raw HP above 17000).

A shorter idea of how to play is to go watch Allysah’s mind crush dueling video, then go watch Vash’s shatter videos, spec the above and combine em. For those of you who love shatter, but get bored with relying so much on stealth, shatter lockdown with daze as above can be an extremely rewarding experience. The pressure you put out kittenter makes landing interrupts common and actually super easy when you get the hang of it. To me, landing a solid interrupt (on purpose) is the most satisfying thing to do as a mesmer, followed by landing a perfect shatter burst. Cool thing is, you can have both, and it is the most fun I’ve had in gw2 yet.

So thanks to all for giving me the idea to try and master lockdown along with shatter.