You need to add a bit of something else. Like ppl already said you can’t really count on your phantasms do more than just the first attack. So add in a bit of shatter or halting strikes you’ll be fine.
in pvp the sigil and runes ARE your stats because all armor and weapon have the same stats .
in WvW you want to stack power/precision/Ferocity but imo you may want to add a bit of toughness .
Skills I’ve pretty much never used:
MirrorArcane Thievery
Illusion of Life
Mimic
MoP
pDefender
Sig of Dom
Sig of MidI used to run Moa a long, long time ago when I roamed on a phantasm build.
lol I have Thief, mop and sig dom as perma skills …
edit : forgot Mirror is my main heal in wvw roaming too
roam roam roam……..
You guys are being too kitten him. Anyone willing to take the time to explain a build is always helpful in my books
no diff. than the warriors who run away when they have lost to get out of combat regen then come back or perma stealth thieves or rangers who jump in water when they are about to lose 1 v 1….
You can only back up your argument with nothing but words
I did back it up with a lot of examples, please go think about them.
and a ranked example which I countered with my own rank.
Your own rank means nothing. Please go to the pvp forum, and inform yourself how the current system works.
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lol I never mentioned rank in my first post, the only reason I brought up my own rank is because you are saying that there is a top 300 ranked player who is doing well with none shatter therefore I must be wrong.
The facts I presented you are examples from other professions, where exactly the same happened. Since you recently started playing, this might be something new to you, but EXACTLY the same happend with every other profession.
Only Bullet Punch played berserker medidation guard successfully at a top level. Then Fraelina and Tage followed, and now almost every guard you face is using their trait setup.
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Lets look at your examples , Medidtation Guard and Long bow rangers. Lets read some patch notes. What changes did Anet make to guards and rangers… SURPRISE!! THEY BUFFED MEDI GUARDS AND LONGBOW RANGERS!!.
If we loose, the build must not work, and since the few top players are not using it, it must be bad. Better continue QQing and not trying to get better ourselves!
You are only limiting yourself.[/quote]
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If we are not wanted in pvp teams , when the best mesmers on those teams admit that mesmers are under powered and when most of the pvp player base agree that mesmers suck in pvp then maybe just maybe Anet needs to change their thinking and give us something useful rather than useless condi buffs.
Your logic is total backwards. You can’t argue that because other classes have build diversity therefore mesmers are fine.
My argument is, that thinking shatter is the only viable build might also just be purely the own perception, and does not rest upon objective facts.
The other professions I mentioned had the same problem.
Not a long time ago offguards were very rare, most players argued that only shout-bunker is viable.
You can basically see that with all professions.
Ele: Most players though only Cele D/D was viable, who has thought about staff, D/F or even S/F fresh air?We want diversity , we want to play different builds. But the fact is no one plays condi mesmer in pvp means whatever Anet is doing doesn’t work.
No, it just means, the players (including myself) who have tried it out were not good enough. Or the team composition in which they have tried it out was not suitable.
Well I also don’t play shatter and I’m top 100 on leaderboard.
No, you are not.
Your current rank (195) on the ladder does not matter at all, since the current ladder is a farm-ladder. You could also be at the bottom end of the MMR and just holding your 50% win chance and farming points, we just don’t know.
Prior Dec the 16th where you were primary ranked by your MMR you were not even in the top 1000 in NA.
lol I’m ranked 75 right now and 50% solo Q win rate may not be the best but I like to see you do better. I didn’t do pvp before the patch so my rank was low. Anyhow regardless of how good or bad I am the point is the same.You can only back up your argument with nothing but words and a ranked example which I countered with my own rank. I can back up what I say with facts like no one plays condi in pvp. It’s rather arrogant to think that the ENTIRE mesmer player base are wrong about condi not viable in pvp and somehow you know better than all the rest.. If you do indeed know better then you need to back up what you are saying with some facts .
imo the problem is Anet refuse to see us as a spike damage class,
We are already a spike-damage profession, and we are in a good place with that.
Shatter does not need any buffs.everything they have done is to push us into more condi CC class . It simply does not work because our main form of defense is NOT getting hit where the real condi cc classes like engis and necros have hp and toughness/armor as defense.
So, if it currently does not work, why should arenanet not push that further?
I like it, that they are only doing small adjustments to not overbuff condi-mesmer.Last night a berserker medidation guard and a beserker lb ranger both qualified for the WTS. Not long ago many people would have said, that both are not on par with ele and engi. Zoose still played fresh air, and did great, even tho they lost in the end.
I am using my own mantra-shatter variation, and I’m doing fine.
Nieslysze on EU always plays some kind of strange defense support build, really hard to kill him, he holds a point and still supports his group. He always played on the Top 300 of TeamQ and SoloQ, I’m sure with the new system his MMR is still high.There are still enough non-meta mesmer variations that are viable. Most of the time, the problem can be found between the screen and the chair, and not in the build options.
Your logic is total backwards. You can’t argue that because other classes have build diversity therefore mesmers are fine. We want diversity , we want to play different builds. But the fact is no one plays condi mesmer in pvp means whatever Anet is doing doesn’t work. The only example of mesmer you can give is yourself and some guy who is top 300 on leader board. Well I also don’t play shatter and I’m top 100 on leaderboard. But I’m not fooling myself into thinking my role on a good team can not be filled better by a thief unless I do play shatter .
imo the problem is Anet refuse to see us as a spike damage class, everything they have done is to push us into more condi CC class . It simply does not work because our main form of defense is NOT getting hit where the real condi cc classes like engis and necros have hp and toughness/armor as defense.
I’m a mesmer when I team up with a turrert engi it’s always crazy fun. A bit oped imo .
Warr/Guard duo is also very good. Condi ranger with Necro.
shatter build is a team build he is never meant to 1 v 1 anything. But he turns the fight for his team because of the huge dps spike. Shatter is so glass there is no margin for error that is why I always posted that classic shatter is not the way to go if you are not crazy crazy good.
been running pu for a while now. It’s not the pu it’s the extra toughness . you can switch out pu for anyother chaos grand-master trait and you will be just fine. I don’t run blink instead I run mop. I switch arcane to sig of dom when I face a lot of dps class as well.
edit : I run a power build. same idea though
(edited by Mogar.9216)
put on your headphone and surf the web while you wait. I would not pvp at all if the horn didn’t exist.
It’s very few players that are just jack kitten . But they do exist, just wait a few min. before reque and you’ll miss them altogether. Else do what I do, poke them and get them to fly in a fit of rage and send you tells even after the match. Send back a good insult and block them right after .
It would be nice if they showed ppl’s mmr in score at the end
I never understood why stealth do not break on a failed attack…
I don’t think they will do anything to reduce the number of players in ranked. If anything the problem is that there aren’t enough players in ranked which result in a small pool of players which result in you get matched with bad players who have low mmr.
I think maybe they should let us set our own hard match making wait time. If I want a quick match I can set it to 2 mins and take whatever I get, if I want a fair match I can set it to 10 mins and wait till match making can give me a good match.
not enough players. You can clearly see this by the quality of matches at different times. I play mostly at prime time and the match making in general is pretty good a lot of close matches and comeback win/losses . Once in a while I play during the morning , man it’s always horrid at those hrs, you pretty much know if you won or lost the match in the first 2 mins.
hammer!!!! hammer!!!
I would not go phantasm build anymore. It just doesn’t have enough burst to kill anything. You should mix in a bit of shatter
I have only been back about a week but is this something you only start seeing in ranked? I have been running 2/4/3/5/0 Sword/pistol and Staff and I haven’t seen issues with not being able to burst hard enough. maybe it is that I don’t face many real bunkers or what? I can’t 100-0 in seconds but I feel quite safe running zerker amulet and by the time I swap back to sword/pistol to send out a second duelist the enemy has either given up the point or is going to get stompe.
Again I can’t say I am current at all I am just shocked at the claims of not enough burst what is the definition looking into more competitive play?
ye I was talking pu phantasm build like the op stated . Your 2/4/3/5/0 build should pack enough punch once your got 2 phantasm out. I don’t know how you don’t melt to a good shatter or thief or power ranger with that build though…
I think if you factor in mmr and assume that match making is more or less fair. Then the person who has more pts than their number of wins is the better player. Of course the number of games played should even out the lumpiness of match making error.
I play a PU hybrid shatter build doesn’t fit into any of the standard . All I do is solo Q ranked all day, I do jut fine.
Standard shatter imo is THE way to go if you have a premade team.
CI is very good if you are good at interrupt which takes a while . I don’t use it because while it shines in 1 v 1 it does not have sustain .
I play my build because it suits my playing style, it’s forgiving and still pack enough of a punch . If I’m really on I drop PU and go more shatter.
I would not go phantasm build anymore. It just doesn’t have enough burst to kill anything. You should mix in a bit of shatter
I’m with you. I can go for a week of having fun matches and then just hit a day or 2 of pure hell. I had a few 10+ match losing steaks that are not close at all. But then after a day or 2 it gets all good again back to 60% ish win rate.
I’m curious why we have armor/runes/sigils/etc. that exist in PvE/WvW but not in PvP (stuff like sigil of malice, dire stats, perplexity runes, and so on). I’m guessing the reason is a perception of imbalance? If that’s the case, why do they exist in PvE/WvW? If it’s too imba to put in PvP, why is it allowed at all?
food buffs guard buffs make pve ad wvw not even the same game a pvp.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I can kill him/her this shouldn’t be too hard
How do you feel about your odds of winning?
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better than 90%
Strategies and tactics?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Burst in their face . It’s all about landing my burst and force the other mesmer into survival mode. If they are shatter build it’s about how to avoid their burst and land mine. If they are condi then it’s about using my range and movement . If they are ci build then it’s gonna be tough or real easy. most ppl don’t have the timing on interrupts which makes a lot of ci mesmers rather easy. The one or 2 that are good at it will beat me more often than not.
What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
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First dodge
How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
one of the weaker class in pvp
+1 all for this. However I think at this pt Anet is never going to admit conquest was a bad idea.
clone death effects on shatter …. one can dream
So it’s Saturday afternoon, a lot of players on. played 7 matches felt like horrible match ups never had much chance to win any of them and the 1 I did win was a blowout for my team. How can this happen when there are so many people on?
Maybe I’m just playing bad today but to be honest I felt I play pretty good every match. I’m really interested to find out what my %chance of wining those matches were…
I lost countless games after holding 2 pts then ppl rush far and lose mid + home. what can you do really….
great idea lol I’m gonna try it.
pretty much every build need dodge for clone. Make that a minor trait would enable a lot more build diversity.
I’m going to throw in my 2c on this topic.
Imo who you are fighting has a lot to do with why shatter is better than ci. Speaking from my own experience , the real good bunkers from top premades are not the same as your standard guys . They are just slightly better , how much better? To me they are about 15-20% harder to kill. That 15-20% imo is more or less the difference between CI and Shatter.
Shatter hits about 15-20% harder and is 15-20% softer than CI.
I run a build more like CI than shatter, in 95% of my matches I do just fine vs cele bunkers. But I have to say when I face the real good players from real good premades. I feel I just don’t have enough DPS to make a difference. Sure give me enough time I WILL wear down a bunker but the amount of time it takes is just TOO long . As a roaming dps mesmer’s job is to win 1 v 1 or finish any 2 v1 or 3 v 2 in your favour as fast as possible. I feel my dps is just not getting the job done vs the high end players, that extra 15-20% damage would make all the difference. However I still don’t run shatter because I’m just not good enough to use it as solo Q , way too unforgiving. Like I said about the damage is good enough for 95% of the matches anyway :P
standard shatter is very very glassy, that is why rangers is such a problem because rangers negate the biggest defence of gs/staff build which is range. CI on the other hand should faceroll rangers because rangers only have a few get out of jail free cards that been their sig of stone and invis. But if they are dazzed they are soft as heck will die to 1 burst. CI also screw up their RF which is a main source of damage.
I honestly believe unless you are in a premade , a good one at that you should not run a standard shatter. It’s just too soft. Someone who is crazy good can maybe get away with it, but very few people are crazy good .
ranked is a lot better than unranked. like someone else posted at the start of this season it was pretty bad. I have 2 10 match losing streaks, after close to 70 matches I’m almost back to 50% which was what I had before . I solo Q 100% so far btw.
Also prime time seem to be a lot better than off hrs in terms of getting even matches rather than blowouts.
s/s hits really really hard. It’s very very good vs warriors and guardians but not so great vs engis and necros .
watch the boons, shatter when their protection is down. So either at the start before they have protection up or wait the boon out. When they have 5-6 boons don’t waste your shatter.
As for what other mesmer do to you. sword 3 + shatter is somewhat standard but easy to counter with 1 phase retreat. Any one who run a sword is somewhat naked after that shatter combo , burst in their face right then :P
2x shatter with gs/staff vs other mesmer come down to few things:
1. Who can land the initial burst
2. Who can dodge the other’s burst
3. Who can win the stealth game (the one who enter stealth last wins, but if you save your stealth you better dodge the shatter and zerker)
4. Who is better at using los.
Mostly just don’t panic .
I don’t know the math anet use but I think match making has improved even though I was clobbered with like a 10 match losing steak in the first 2 days. It has gotten better because I almost never get matched against noobs anymore, I have to work for 90% of my wins.
It’s pretty easy to say if you have a team of 3 you bump their total mmr by 25% to calculate the avg mmr of the team. I think anet is doing their best to get good matches. It would be better if the scoreboard at the end of the match showed your %chance at wining that match according to MMR.
without a healing class this game does not make people group up as other games. A lot of people solo Q . When you solo Q, a lot is out of your control. To be honest I fell I play better solo Q compared to be in a premade. When you are solo you feel like you can’t make mistakes, the whole match depend on you play as good as you can. Where in a premade you can screw up here and there knowing your team-mates will pick up the slack. My solo win rate is barely 50% last season and my gp win rate is about 80%. I really don’t think the gp Q me should rank higher than the solo Q me. But then again no one cares about LB
One possible solution could be to put in a game per day limit . Something like the first 6 games you play every day count toward LB and the rest don’t matter.
the mmr wasn’t reset and I think there was some change . I am in the same boat as you are. What I noticed is that I never get to fight vs noobs anymore. So I guess that’s good but since I solo Q all the time vs people of similar skill level pugs will lose more often than not. just my guess . Where before I get a few ‘easy’ wins where now I never get a easy one .
remove 1 target as fast as possible. So most of the time mesmer and rangers or thieves. I do target guardians a lot because a lot of the time I can 1 burst combo down 1 when they are not paying attention. I do switch up right away though if the first target prove to be bunker rather than dps. like those condi rangers .
You started out going to home when you don’t need to. When there are 2 of you at home uncontested you should have moved to mid right away. In general you should move the whole match to kill ppl leave the capping to your teammates who can bunker the pt.
That’s all I can say, the combat is hard to judge you did nothing wrong but then again your opponents were pretty bad.
wvw: Thief hands down.
pvp: Celes Guardian
just like to add 1 thing if you go 4 , 4, 0 , 0, 6 you will be melted over and over. imo that build is only good when you are in a premade or have mad mad skills. I would start with a more defensive build if you are just starting out pvp or solo Que. To play a shatter style you just need the 4 , 4 the other 6 pts can be spend else where . You lose some burst but gain a lot less insta gibs by thieves and rangers.
That is so not true. Bunker meta has been around since release. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the best way to win is bunker up a pt. Since kills get you so little pts compared to holding a pt. What changed is cele meta made the bunkers do as much damage as burst as well. So the old meta that required 1 or 2 dps changed to all bunker now.
I play a mesmer and I use arcane thief all time. Even with a skill that has a long cooldown and misses a lot it’s still gold imo. If you time your strip right and follow up with a burst you can down a bunker when they are not expecting it. The problem is as many have pointed out boons get reapplied so fast you really only have a 2-3 second window to take advantage of the boon striping, so unless you are super bursty boon striping may be somewhat pointless.