This is worth bumping, because I’m actually about to download the appropriate software while I lay restlessly in bed!
What Ross said. <3 Hope to see you tomorrow in some Stronghold, will you be able to play?
Thanks so much for this thread. I’m super excited to test some builds out! Hopefully people participate. Maybe OMFG can set some pvp boosts for everyone???
Ross is totally being passive aggressive towards me, because he knows I’ve been procrastinating learning how to do vids.
Just like our patron Lyssa, Mesmer’s love each other and sometimes not.
Never know which face of “Lyssa” will show itself around here.
Exactly true!
That was a fun video Messiah. You rekted a lot of folk.
lol @ Ross & Messiah <3 <3
I’ll watch the video when I get home tonight!
Welcome to the Mesmer forums!! We are quite the passionate bunch here with various opinions. We can be whiny sometimes… but there’s an opportunity to learn from everyone. Don’t take our heated discussions too seriously.
I’m happy you’re enjoying power/condi shatter. Those two along with CI interrupt are the best we have. However, there’s A LOT of builds you can play at many tiers, making the Mesmer class the most flexible when it comes to builds. I implore you to explore everything we’ve got.
I’ve been out of town for a while on some business, so I haven’t been able to play, but I’ll be checking your stream out when I can. Feel free to whisper me in-game!
Love love loved this vid! I really don’t enjoy wvw, but that was a super great video to watch. Give us more.
eta – Your music taste was as impressive as your gameplay! #NoWayOut!!
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There’s definitely several limitations to MtD that are worthy of critique, but the posts I’ve seen in the last few weeks are extremely biased and borderline ridiculous (Saturn pointed out some of these quite nicely in his last post). I’m a bit exhausted defending MtD. I figure I’d just wait till I learn to take vids of my teams in un/ranked, and show everyone how much it rekts decent players. \(^_^)/
While extremely fun to watch, Messiah’s vids haven’t shown much in terms of conveying MtD’s strength. Keep giving us vids though. I appreciate them.
However in the past week or two I actually made a variant of my build that I dare say performs better than my standard build.
Countless
http://www.livestrong.com/article/267917-stages-of-acceptance-in-cancer/
The first phase happens when a diagnosis is given and rapid education must occur in order for informed decisions to be made.
aka Be quick to use your condi clear before it’s too late! #panic
During treatment, the patient and family must deal with the side effects as well as dramatic changes in the daily routine.
Your team can still come back after you’ve gotten rid of the cancer. But don’t catch it again, because you just used your condi clear!
If the disease is terminal, pain relief and spiritual peace often become the focus. Anticipatory grief is the sadness that the patient and her loved ones feel when death is expected to occur.
Unfortunately, if your team gets beaten by a condi Mes, then you just have to accept it. Some cancer is indeed terminal. 
YOU BEAT ME TO THIS POST! I was literally going to post about it. #bitter
How about you edit your first post to include the link to the announcement. I’ll be posting my build here soon that I’ll be using on the 14th.
Sup MailMail. I post then leave for a few months then come back to see if anything is new….and there usually isn’t so I leave for another few months. Thanks for the shoutout! Yeh, I’m lucky to have people keep me company and yell at me for my terribad gameplay while I roam or PvP.
Yeah, we’re some interesting folk here on these forums… lol
You’re so humble. Anyway, I was telling someone about your stream and was wondering why you weren’t playing for a while. Didn’t you have some computer issues for a bit? Regardless, I’m glad you’re back!!
I love that Calypso is posting on the forums recently! I’ve seen your stream, and I have friends that are fans. You’re a boss Mesmer!! Everyone check her out.
Unnecessarily shady quotes of yours in this thread. Tone is key. Ross has a trollish attitude at times like you mentioned, but you’re throwing stones while in a glass house.
Other than that, nice job on spamming your phantasm on people who are not aware of you
No that’s just facerolling your keyboard on people who just installed the game. If that’s your meaning of smart then the build surely fits you.
You’re the one making video’s of 1v1’s in hotjoin, that allows me to comment on them. That’s just how youtube works. If you don’t like my comments, just straight up ignore me or don’t make them.
p.s. if these guys are actually queueing ranked I will eat my shoe and be happy I never get q’d with such people.
The reason I brought up all mesmer builds versus thief was in response to Elitist implying that thief was only a counter to Mesmer. I clarified that thief is indeed a hard counter to every power Mesmer build. You then decided to one up Elitist and defend his position that the match up isn’t as lopsided when on Shatter… While Shatter obviously does better than phantasm against thief, I correctly pointed out to you that this is a moot point and unproductive to even bring up.
If any mesmer, no matter what [power] build, would get locked out of any fight when fighting equal skilled thieves like you stated, then please tell me: why do so many teams still play with a mesmer?
Several reasons why thief shuts out power Mesmer viability yet it’s still played:
I would rather put my bets on a 1:10 ratio than a mere 5% with 10 being shatter. This build should never survive or kill an equal skilled thief at higher tier.
Neither should power shatter. And the only time it does is… guess… when the mesmer out-skills the thief! The same is exactly said for all Mesmer dps builds versus thief. I’m actually surprised that there are people who don’t agree with this frame of thought as I thought it was conventional wisdom.
This is very extensive and hard to fully take in right now, but I’ll thank you ahead of time for the effort you put into this redesign.
I’ve already spotted some really interesting ideas and concepts.
You’re preaching to the choir director here. Obviously, I think Malignant Inscriptions is the superior hybrid phantasm build! #hairflip
Power based versions could ideally take advantage of clone death traits as well, but where they lack is the sustain which is given by traited signets. There was some discussion of using power based versions in my thread. I’ve tested it out, and it didn’t feel great. It is a bit different, but I group them under the same category of phantasms considering your main dmg source in signets is your pDuelist.
Phantasm is inherently disadvantaged in conquest due to AOEs destroying your phantasms too often and the fact that it’s largely single-target in its focus with little team utility.
If I’m playing phantasm, I prefer the signet condition variety due to the fact that your clones dying ties into your overall dmg output. Click the link in my signature for a thorough discussion of the varieties it available. It’s a super fun build that I’ve helped to popularize, and I get a lot of positive feedback from it!! Still, even that build has some glaring flaws that can make it really hard to be viable in several situations.
As with universally all Mesmer builds, you will find it harder to be successful the higher you climb in tier based on skill level.
No I just dislike ross’ attitude and sadly my attitude doesn’t become much better from that.
While this mentality is immature and shows a lack of social tact, I totally get it. Fact is we all choose how to react to people that we dislike. You just come off as extremely aggressive in this thread… I don’t quite see where Ross was particularly nasty. In fact, it seemed like he was trying to make light of your previous skirmishes.
More on topic slash off topic since this thread is apparently about power shatter:
I disagree on that. Any mesmer also includes shatter mesmers. I already said before why shatter would have a much higher chance of being useful than this build.
And again, I say that any equally skilled thief should be able to handily shut down any dps Mesmer build in a typical conquest match. Let’s throw an imaginary number of odds out there to frame my point of reference: lets say a thief has a 90% chance of beating a phantasm Mesmer. Just because his odds against shatter Mesmer are 85% doesn’t mean it’s worth mentioning that Shatter specs do better against thieves. If you want to point out the weaknesses of Ross’ build (no offense to him) there are MANY other critiques you can give over this. That’s why I called it a moot point.
Its great to see them pull out the bias card across the forums on people and yet be so blind to the bias of their own blatant attitudes. And guys, again, this isn’t saying you don’t have anything constructive to bring to the table, but you drop the ball constantly in ways like this.
This is the problem. It seems like people are sometimes shady and demeaning towards others just because they can be. It takes away from the fact that they are actually smart players with a lot of constructive advice to give others. We can do better as a Mesmer community.
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Mesmer has Condi burst? Not even close. 700 DPS from 3 bleeds and 2 torment isn’t DPS or burst.
I agree that we don’t have much of a burst when it comes to condi. However, you forgot to add confusion and burning in there.
Sorry this thread is derailing towards a general MtD thread, but it’s better than the negative sword fighting that was happening earlier…
Currently not running any Domination because I like mender’s purity (arcane thievery over MoR) but I will try 4/4/0/0/6 again and see how it goes.
My build can be found here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpMtlqxQNcrNCrBh6rslfSyEEgSWhrB-TJRHwAC3fIZZABnCAAPBAA
In terms of offensive Mesmer builds, I think it’s always important to have some form of boon strip, especially in a meta that has a reliance on boons like protection and regen. Conditions aren’t usually an issue except for ele burns and/or some engis or necros. I use Null Field & pDisenchanter somewhat offensively while they obviously offer condi clear as well. They are usually in use, but the slots are interchangeable with other utilities. Other skills I use in place of it:
If you’re going into Inspiration just for the Mender’s, you can go for Glamour Mastery using portal+null as well. Lots of flexibility with MtD, but since condi is already a lower risk playstyle, I like to be as offensive as possible which is why I go into domination. Just my personal preference. I love Shattered Concentration too much.
Forgot to mention that I like Arcane Thievery, but I’ve recently gotten sick of it bugging out and not working when I need it to 100% of the time. It’s great when it works though. I really recommend trying out pDisenchanter. He has a high rate of attack and completely rekts in small scale fights.
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Thanks! I was actually just thinking of shatter 2 and 3, but you made me realize that 1 and 4 will apply condi too. Brainfart
It’s not immediately obvious to me why scepter would be better confusion burst than staff – do you just mean I’m more likely to have more clones out due to the auto attack?
How do I choose when to auto attack staff + clones vs trying to shatter? I tend to play a lot of far point roaming in spvp so if I take too long to kill they may get backup.
Distortion clones don’t run toward their enemies. Instead, there’s a delay, and they just explode where they are, so the conditions will only hit if your enemy is near. While all of your shatters are potent, depending on trait spread, your F3 will apply tons of vulnerability, which will soften them up for your high dps ally.
I only say F2 is stronger for confusion burst while on scepter because of 3 things:
I don’t suggest playing far point with MtD as it’s a bit slower to down good enemies. While MtD is a GREAT dueler imo, time is of the essence. You should focus on the mid fights and helping your home point guard when necessary. Leave the far point assault to someone quicker in both mobility and dps (this is unless of course you’re running portal). Please remember for the sake of your fellow teammates that it only takes 2 captured points to win conquest.
To answer your last question, I tend to use Staff AA strategy when I know I’m going to be waiting a short period for my shatter CDs. Like I said previously, I usually open up with Staff. Shatter twice. Switch to Scepter. I can get 2 shatters in here, stalling a bit with Prestige and creating distance with Blink. Then I switch to Staff for “clean up”.
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My top suggestions are to remove rewards from hotjoin all together, so win or lose the incentive is not to farm but to play, and take on the challenge of joining the losing team for ones own improvement.
You really want all those farmers to spoil your unranked/ranked games? Because losing a unranked/ranked game gives as much reward as winning a hotjoin game. If you remove the rewards from hotjoin they come to unranked/ranked to afk, voluntarily loose and so on. I’m quite happy that they stay away from my matches.
I’m super jealous that you haven’t experienced these people in unranked/ranked. That being said, I don’t believe they should take rewards away for hotjoin. Every game mode and sub game mode should be rewarding in some way. They should simply put an end to team loading like I suggested.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with my mtd mesmer, have one question/issue.
I feel like if my shatters are on cooldown I don’t really have a lot to do to hurt someone. Staff autos seem like my best option but they feel pretty lackluster.
Is that just part of the build I need to work around, am I misplaying?
I’ll be nice, productive and answer this question for you!
First off, all your shatters shouldn’t all be on CD for a long time. Learn to start with F3 then F1 while on staff. Save your F2 for Scepter so that you get a nice confusion burst. The idea is to keep constant pressure throughout an entire fight. Unless you know your enemy has no condi clear, it’s not smart to unload all your shatters.
Staff Clone AAs will rack up a lot of dps, but it does need time build up. You can’t expect to be doing a lot of dmg over a quick period of time like power shatter. The key here is to make sure you have at least 2 clones up while keeping distance. Don’t summon pWarlock except when you know you’re going to shatter as he’ll take up a clone spot that could be used for more Staff AA. Also time it so that you get Chaos Armor from 4 as well as a combo with Chaos Storm, giving you 10-15s (depending on trait spread) of protection until you can gain another shatter.
If you need anymore advice, don’t hesitate to ask or even send me a whisper in-game.
At this point, I’m just waiting for a BlackDevil video. That’ll turn this forum into a firestorm.
Omg you even gave BlackDevil a shout out! Maybe this is the start of friendship.
Great gameplay as usual, Ross. Love your build.
Only looking for power orientated builds too please!
So basically, you’d like a Mesmer to duel a thief who has a 90% chance of winning if skill level is equal?
I wonder why people dislike condition builds so much. Couldn’t be that they are, dare I say, somewhat effective?!
Here’s the general consensus.
If you’re going to play in tournaments: Condition isnt going to work (but then neither is mesmer in general)
If you’re going to play outisde of tournaments pugging it: No one’s going to carry you as a Power Shatter.
If you’re going to play outisde of tournaments pugging it vs premades: it doesnt matter, you’re going to lose the match anyway.
If you’re going to play outisde of tournaments pugging it, premade, vs pugs, casuals, whatever comes out of that low to high level silly MMR system: use anything you like, just be a boss with it.
This.
But I’ll add to the conversation with these general statements that should be obvious but might not be to some:
So to answer your question: yes, condition Mesmer is viable!! Really, the only thing that makes Mesmer viable in a general sense is the fact that there are so many bad players in pvp, but I’m not complaining!
It’s my opinion that the wording should be changed to “remove 2 conditions when using a heal skill” for the following 2 reasons:
Some other comments based on recent posts —
Anet Lack of Transparency [regarding just about everything important to our class].
What is new here and what could possibly come from discussing this?
News flash: Anet is incompetent when it comes to mesmers.
Your air of negativity isn’t exactly helpful? :$ Everyone has a right to be jaded about anet and the repeated failure they’ve been to the Mesmer class. However, I don’t think people should give their negative input just for the sake of giving it as it stifles effective communication even further. Just to be witty and snotty in return, what’s the point of not discussing this? lol It sucks when we complain and nothing changes, but it sucks just as much to not complain in the first place. I’d prefer to be in the first camp and continue to make efforts with Anet with the hope that change happens.
While it would be nice for the condi removal to also proc on cast, I’m glad its not solely so. I’d take the 6 condi removal on heal over 2 on charge if I had to pick between the two.
This is an unfair comparison to make. In order for MoRecovery to remove conditions at all, let alone 6, you’d need to make the 2 point investment into Inspiration, and take Mender’s Purity. You’d be surprised with how difficult this contingency can sometimes be with the way our Mesmer class works. No investment into Inspiration is necessary for MoResolve to remove 4 conditions.
Of course there’s also Confusing Combatants, which doesn’t seem to work for phantasms, and Dazzling Glamours, which doesn’t elaborate on its interaction with pulses (plus Portal doesn’t have a “target location” per se)
This is a little off topic, but not really? I had no idea that phantasms didn’t proc CC!! :O Can someone confirm this? There’s no room for confusion here: phantasms are definitely illusions as proved via Illusionist Celerity. If this bug is true, it would deserve a “hot fix”, but I we only get hot fixes when they’re nerfing things like Power Block. el oh el.
In reference to Dazzling Glamours, I always took “…blind foes at target location” to mean that the blind is applied only at activation of the glamour. i.e. if you walked into a Null Field after it was cast, you wouldn’t be blinded. idk if this is how it works, but it’s how I always imagined it. So this wouldn’t take into account the pulses of Null Field. No other glamour “pulses”.
