Guild Wars 2

If you have trouble imagine how ridiculous and fun it can be, see the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSOweID-oO8

Anyway, I wish I could join, but I’m in NSP. Good thing is we don’t face super size zergs, generally roaming squads. Maybe its good for raiding?

I’m surprised no one mentioned chronomancer’s signature shield, too dark for people’s taste?

http://i.imgur.com/3IfAbMz.jpg

I wonder if F5 helps you “rally”…

Anyway, that certainly is an option. But frontline will likely activate stability in the first pulse (especially after everyone know gravity well), making it harder to trap anymore people. Backline…maybe? but you may not trap as many people as you wish due to less tight formation.

Unfortunately necro roaming is incredibly difficult. If you’re running solo chances are you’re going to die here and there. If you’re running in group you need a lot of protection from them. Necro are usually one of the first ones to target due to lack of stealth/bailing/escape skills. Other roaming group also does this to prevent necro from building their life forces.

Mesmer on the other hand has several options due to stealths and blink. You can try standard power shatter but you might need someone to roam with in the beginning. Alternatively you can try PU power or PU hybrid as you requested, since PU provide sufficient room for mistakes and help you survive.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsfRlknpRtlpxINcrNSrxY6XG5ESGQBl8iqB-TVCEAB2t/ABHBgEV/ZLlgGcIAYS5Xb6DA4EA8wDAAA-w
This is a PU power build I run with, I also try standard shatter and condi shatter depend on my mood etc. You can check those builds on metabattle. And yes, I do use mirror blade + mind wrack quite a bit in PU power so I feel mental torment does more than empowering illusions.

You can also get a bit creative with hybrid PU, just generally don’t be far from those trait setups. Tweak that build editor a bit to find what you need.

hmm you guys does make a good point, continuum is probably not the best skill to use when dying.

S/D is most certainly not gone, but a lot of them will trait into deadly arts due to how powerful it becomes. But feline grace nerf can really tone down how much dodges acrobatic thieves have, regardless of 20% extra effectiveness on vigor. Good point on hard to catch though.

Where is the AoE torment?

Hang onto your hats Chaos, the next news may blow your mind.

http://dulfy.net/2015/04/27/gw2-mesmer-elite-specialization-teaser/

CS is going to have 5s CD, so you’re only going to stun one person per chaos storm, and hope it isn’t wasted on the one guy that’s rooted by immobilize as well.

Mistrust is an interesting one, if you’re lucky and the blob is spamming auto then you can stack 2-6 confusion in one hit. Confusion together with weakness, chill/cripple/blind and vulnerabilities can potentially protect immobilize and drag their advances.

Speaking from a thief perspective (yes I play both), a dazed thief still has lot of dodging and kiting to buy them time, but a stunned thief is a totally different story. With CS being 100% stun and in adept tier, a good lockdown mesmer can bait out a lot of thief’s stun breaks. Next thing you know they’re casting shadow refuge to re-organise their pacing.

What determines the outcome of the game is really how well the mesmer knows thief animations and habits. Indeed thieves have lots of evade skills, but there are also windows where stuns can make a difference.

But I agree with Pyro, too early to determine anything right now. The devs specifically said they’re reevaluating thieves’ stolen item. Whether it could be for the worst or for the better to mesmer, who knows.

Anyone feel like ((Sum of All Fear)) doesn’t belong to master trait illusions? 1 torment stack when having 5 confusion stacks (5s CD). Compare to malicious sorcery (50% extra torment damage on moving foes) its like a no brainer.

They can at least make it associate with the name like causing fear when 5 stacks of torment is applied.

Currently almost no mesmer specs x/x/x/6/6 due to shatter (heal or condi cleanse) being so tightly associated with DE. So I’ll say 15% recharge is free

I can see 6/6/0/6/0 being a more balanced set up, having sufficient condi cleanse with decoy/blink/mantra of distraction. Currently lockdown mes has to sacrifice condi cleanse for extra dazes (later being stuns!) or become clumsy by swapping ether feast/decoy/blink or for mantras. With shattered conditions you probably don’t even need mantra of healing.

And with DE being in Dueling GM main difference between mantra of healing and ether feast is just 2 extra condi cleanse and 2k heal, whether its worth the 2.75s easy-interrupt recharge and 1s CD between heals (somewhat lack burst heal) is debatable.

Just want to ask about its viability in PvP/WvW. What do you guys think? Just listing some useful ones

Persistent image – retaliation (meh), but 20% phantasmal health
Mender’s purity - 2×2 condi cleanse as well as 7500 heal when use with mantra of healing. 2500 AoE heal as usual
Vigorous revelation - vigor on shatter as usual, probably going to get overshadowed by mender’s purity.
Protected mantra – Phantasm gain 1s distortion on creation, 10s CD (zerg option?)
Warden’s feedback - reflect in focus skills as usual.
Restorative illusion - heal around 850-1200 per shatter (would be interesting if IP bug still remain, making it 2200 heal, a bit sneaky though lol)
Phantasmal healing – phantasm increase your healing power and give regen (meh)
Shattered conditions - AoE condi removal, 1 condi per illusion you shattered
Illusionary inspiration - Summoning phantasm allows you to share your boons with others, but the kitten CD can make it awfully hard to control/utilize.

Pretty insane number of condi removals with alright sustain healing. Condi cleanses allow mesmer to slot in other essential utilities while keeping decoy and blink. Though this line still suffer self-crippling traits such as boosting phantasms only to shatter them.

I don’t see why others have to bring up turret again and again. Didn’t you guys get the manual? Turret’s going to receive crit damage and conditions (lol at the latter one).

Back to the topic, I think the reduction in clone death can be made up with bleed and confusion on crit. If domination is your thing then 100% stun on daze works much better than cripple. If you really lack cripple then take sigil of incapacitation, you have 60% chance to inflict 2s cripple on crit every 5s, and quite possibly >3s if you have condi duration food etc.

Am I the only one that thinks about hideous shatter + PU with 3 traitlines unlocked? Maybe even shatter PU lockdown if DE is the one that gets removed and incorporated into class mechanics.

Best of all mesmer builds and worst of all as well haha

Quick question since someone brought it up, what’s the use of archers? They seem like a regular NPC to me, do they have special skills?

Should be the range that’s indicated in the trait descriptions: 240.

MailMail.6534:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdWl0npKtlpxSNcrNyqhYqZneZwjl+SmAA-TJRJABveKAEqMAO7PAwTAAA

The build I will be using for stronghold will experiment with mainly running supply. I was extremely impressed with Aurora Peachy’s gameplay which focused entirely on running a ton of supply early on in the game. While the enemy team seemed to be ahead at first, the constant supply proved overwhelming towards the end, and her team won.

I focused on high mobility, self-sustain, team healing and boon duration so that I’d be able to get in there and get out as quickly as possibly. I’m hoping it’ll do a decent job. I think it becomes less useful as you achieve enough supply, but the focus reflects and AOE heal on mantra charge can help your team in the later fights.

You can never out-heal opponent’s damage though, let alone keeping NPC alive when they don’t know how to dodge. I think interrupt mesmer will have more universal role in stronghold, such as stopping supply lines and immobilize/stun foes while your skritt friends run for their glorious moments.

nah happy to see a constructive feedback. I’ve seen worst replies with no argument values. Just did a little bit of testing in PvP (not quite accurate). Sigil of renewal is kind of redundant and I might replace it with energy as you suggested. Protection on aura is rather too short so I might swap it for vigor.

I’m a bit puzzled by stats choice though, I’m thinking about mixing knight and zerker, how much zerker should I invest in while maintain certain survivability?

A build I posted somewhere else, but I don’t want to digress that topic.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMacW4wzBd0ANAC5h1iNal4CBWA-T1hIAByeCAA4BAgkyvt0DAnSQDV/5j9HIFgXDtA-w
Runes and stats can be varied, I’m more concerned with traits.

Group comp will probably consist of this ele, a shout guard/war, and 3 zerkers (or 2 zerkers + 1 sustain build as it maybe hard to keep 3 guys alive).

Main role for this ele is to provide offensive protection such as shocking aura and other soft and hard CC. While buffing up party with protection/swiftness/fury from auras.

The ele (and other zerkers) still needs a shout guard/war for condi cleanse. Zerkers can be mesmer/fresh air ele/medi guard. Thieves probably won’t benefit much from this, rangers like to stay far far away, and necro is just a huge target dummy in terms of roaming.

I know going away from arcane power is scary, just want to get some opinion on this weird build. Wonder if there’s a brave group that want to try this

Healing power isn’t exactly necessary in PvE. People by this stage knows that reducing damage (dodging/protection) is more important than recovery and you’ll have less chance to use those stats.

WvW on the other hand you can support full zerker member and win some ridiculous outnumbered fights, provided that you and the zerker member knows what you’re doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVgGyZMLK_Y

I gotta admit though, healway guard probably does better job at group cleansing conditions, protection, stability etc. Ele has slightly better burst heals when traited but reducing damage>healing. Hence the importance of protection/stability. Ele’s aura can be invaluable but the protection uptime isn’t too long.

I do wonder the possibility of this build though. Any brave roaming group want to try this out in WvW?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMacW4wzBd0ANAC5h1iNal4CBWA-T1hIAByeCAA4BAgkyvt0DAnSQDV/5j9HIFgXDtA-w

What if phantasms can’t be crit or conditions can’t be applied to them? That’d add some extra survivability, may even let them live to deliver 2nd/3rd round of attacks. Also lore friendly since they’re illusions created out of opponent’s mind and thus shouldn’t be susceptible to conditions. Still trying to think of a reason for crit though

We can only dream lol.

SobeSoul.6910:

My issue with 100% bunking home is if your team happens to lose a fight at mid and gets wiped it allows snowballing. If a thief happens to decap/cap home and you win the midfight it is easier to get back.

An understandable concern. But if your opponent has couple of competent brawler (well-rounded sustain and damage builds) in mid and a thief with sufficient map awareness, the thief will decap your home (with or without capping) and quickly get back to mid to assist their group. With high sustain celestial meta dominating pvp, it’ll take couple of good zerker fighters to remove those sticky brawlers before the thief gets back. Ofc there will be change in strategy based on your comp, for example if you guys have too many glass cannons then opponent thief will try to take out those instant pressures before leaving their brawler to handle the rest. Such strategy are usually used because thief has superior mobility but alright team fight capabilities, particularly in 3v3 or above. Its better to utilize a profession’s strength right?

Nothing OP to worry about. With a projectile speed like that, it’ll take a couple of try before iMage actually hit a target.

Iris Ng.9845:

With a venom share teammate, a fresh air S/F ele can counter thief really easily. During team fight, it’s all the matter of positioning and enemy awareness. If I know the thief will jump on me, I’ll pre-cast Dragon Tooth on top of myself and get ready to queue all the aoe burst on top of myself. Thief has stealth but they lack invuln/evade and the ability to kite of mesmer who is far more annoying to counter.

Quite the contrarily. With the longer CD added into blurred frenzy long time ago, mesmer can’t afford to wait for the second blurred frenzy without swapping weapon. Distortion’s CD is too long, and mesmer stealth also has long CD so majority of time mesmer will be target-able. Phase retreat will nullify many CC-set up event and make melee dagger offhand difficult to land, but fresh air burst should still be able to reach it. The advantage of fresh air burst is shorter set up time (over mesmer, necro) and shorter time frame burst (over ranger), which allows ele to land burst more readily and efficiently whenever target is present. Once you get familiar with mesmer rotations and habits, you’ll know when to strike.

Been trying out scepter/dagger recently, not sure if the melee offenses worth it when you sacrifice most range protections. Condi is also a problem so I had to slot ether renewal or cleansing fire, but again condi is always a problem for fresh air eles lol.

Iavra.8510:

Yeah, i would much prefer for clones to shatter instantly against stealthed targets. Not only for F4 (which doesn’t really care about the target) but for all other shatters as well. I often use F2, or sometimes F1, to dispose of my clones when i’m up against a /D thief and know he will CnD off a clone the next second.

I’d much prefer illusions chase stealthed opponent (as most skills activated before stealth) until they actually dodge, surely I’m not the only one? lol

Just out of curiosity, do you guys deal with turret first or engi first? If turret first then which turret first, second, etc? Decent shatter is able to nuke a turret rather easily, so taking the right order seems quite important in draining the engi (though I understand mesmer will be exhausted doing so as well lol).

I won’t be so sad if one shield skills is a useful (hopeful thoughts from trailer) AoE + combo field and the phantasm has blast finisher. Just think about it, 3 phantasms with blast finisher will create our might stacking potential (still need fire from others) in PvE. And maaaaayyyyybe mesmers get their own celestial meta in PvP? I know the useless stats and phantasm die too fast to produce plenty of blasts so it certainly won’t be OP lol.

More realistically, I just wish those 2 skills have low CD like sword offhand. Even if we get a 5 skill weapon it may end up like staff where majority of time we’re just pressing 1 or 2.

Some overlapping with halting strike but why not. Maybe we can create an instant burst build (like fresh air ele) but that starts with interrupt lol.

Can’t wait for frifox to do some calculations. Talking about solo dps on boss ofc.

Mesmer hambow! Nerf!

I could imagine this will make chaos storm really intimidating though. Perhaps it’ll make casting it on the enemy more appealing than casting it on you.

Luckily the only thief skill that has both condi removal and stun breaks is a two steps skill, and condi removal only activates on the second step. So thieves under taunt must choose between torment or confusion

…..
I sense a nerf cry storm if mesmer gets taunt lol

Not quite BlackDevil, it was advertised to locks all skills except 1 and stun breakers. Its slightly different from forced attacks. Opponents still have the choice to sit through confusion or use stun breaker (which deals confusion damage unless stun breaker is tied to condi removal). It does, however, advertised to cause opponent to run towards you so torment still synergize well with taunt.

Any videos on taunt yet :P?

Apparently this ladder tests is for a new leadership board data collection.
Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/The-Reality-of-New-Leaderboard-Algorithm

Quite possibly has no implication on discovering mesmer problems or trying to improve mesmer in the future. Heck, I’m not even sure if the balance team will be involved if this is just for leadership board algorithm.

For those who are interested, LB in the past values amount of matches played rather than players’ skills in those matches. I think they’re priority now is to address that rather than professional balance.

DarkSyze.8627:

So i am low skill player and no ranger with high skill can show evidence of where in Arena net ranger class description of ranger arrow track stealth stealth and attack through stealth??

Do you want me to ask Arena net to help for evidence?

Since I’m bored and you clearly don’t know much about debates. Let’s have a little debate/argument lesson for you, perhaps you should look at the meaning of Burden of proof.

Now that you made a statement that claimed rapid fire channeled through stealth is broken, you have the burden of proof on you. You must be able to provide a solid evidence that rapid fire is against the intention of ANet. Or your statement won’t have much validity in the debate.

However, you resort to the weakest foundation for your supporting evidence. You claimed that rapid fire is broken because no information says RF should go through stealth, but you forgot that no information says RF shouldn’t go through stealth. Now, if Puck didn’t bring out that information from about channel skill going through stealth, both statements can’t be proven right or wrong. This means we’ll suspend both claims and return to default position, where rapid fire is indeed going through stealth at this instance and are NOT against ANet’s intention.

But…
To make things worst at your end, Puck did provide a wiki info that states channel skill goes through stealth, this means you’re claim is false.

So case closed really, unless you can provide another strong evidence on why RF is broken. Not this mumbo jumbo about “Oh ANet didn’t say RF can track through stealth therefore RF is broken”.

DarkSyze.8627:

This is Arena net Channel link description: where do it say in channel description- firing through stealth or attacking through stealth?

Neither does it says channel skill must not go through stealth. Your play on words is irrelevant here, because it IS tracking through stealth right now and there is NO indication of it being bug or broken. The choice of canceling a skill depends on the player that activates the skill, unless he gets CC’ed. Don’t mix your perception with facts.

DarkSyze.8627:

From Arena net evidence channel description: Guardian, Warrior, Engineer, Thief, Elementalist and Mesmer have channel skill, so why only Ranger channel is only one that track, fire and attack through stealth?

You couldn’t be more wrong here, most range skills go through stealth if it is activated before stealth. Heck, if you stealth while the necro is charging up his life blast (so he activates it before you stealth), life blast will fly towards you.

Btw I can’t agree with you on Sic’ em Wolfey, despite I acknowledge its strength. For obvious reasons you can see that this will reduce diversity in ranger’s utility option, and LB rangers will be forced to take Sic’ em if opponent team has a thief. Again I must emphasize that 4 of the 5 LB skills needs a target to even function, and 40s CD Sic’ em only provides few opportunities throughout a match. The fact that most thieves are limited to stealth or S/D acro means LB skills alone will rarely hurt majority of thieves if channeled skills can’t go through stealth. Thus effectively shutting down a ranger weapon option when thieves are present.

Déjà vu?

Must be Déjà vu, right?

Anyway I can summarize the consequence of your choice in one sentence: LB will hardly hurt most thieves because 4 of the 5 LB skills need a target.

Retaliation scales horrible with power. But if you try to maximize it and don’t mind using guardian, it can deal around 500 damage per hit. This can be achieved if you’re running a guardian with radiant retaliation (retal scales with condi and with better coefficient) + kindled zeal (% of power convert to condi) + carrion armors (power, vit, condi) + scavenger runes (condi boost + % vit convert to condi) set up, which gives maximum retaliation damage I can think of. Without that 33% damage nerf this build can deal up to 700 damage, which is quite respectable imo. Unfortunately that 33% nerf is intended so yeah, 500 it is

MailMail.6534:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpRttpxQNcrNCrBh6rslfSyEEgS2hrB-TJRHwAC3fIZZABnCAAPBAA

You’re welcome. I never have issues against cele ele or cle engi 1v1 using this build. Maim the Meta.

The only thing besides thief (or a good condi ranger) that will give you trouble is cele Warrior, but that’s only if your 4 teammates completely suck. With this build, your shatters alone will be on par with their condi cleanses. Better yet, you’ll be ripping ungodly amounts of boons from them, which will render them pretty useless at being “bruisers”.

dam you got there before me xD

Just want to elaborate on what Exciton said, while staff auto (with zerk amulet) can apply constant pressure against other zerk builds, this isn’t exactly the case against celestial builds due to their accessibility to heals/burst heals. I think you should play aggressively after you successfully burst celestial builds and use staff for defensive manoeuvers.

Also try scepter+x/staff maim build if you feel like something new. The accessibility to 5+ torment is a real test for D/D ele/celestial engi’s skill in condi clear rotations, and any mistake they made can be very punishing. Not so much when you face celestial turret engi who just stand in the same spot though…

Shatter is good against non-elite/champ mobs due to how fast you can kill them in open world. Against tankier opponents (which you’ll run across a lot in Silverwastes) you may consider phantasm builds for long sustaining fight. When running phantasm build you can have mantra of pain to tag AoE mobs, but mesmer has little options in high damage AoE compared to other classes.

Kind of wish you can have premade trait setups/templates…it’ll be a life saver for mesmer to adapt to different situations.

Can you elaborate more on how to address thief problem or how to make mesmer more favorable in those matchups? Sure there are condi builds here and there but most thief builds are funneled into zerker builds like mesmers, so you should consider making a balanced judgement that doesn’t involve in nerfing a class into the ground.

Zenith.7301:

Celestial meta ain’t pushing mesmers out, berzerker thieves are.

Funny I gave you this connotation. I’m saying mesmers are unable to affect celestial meta significantly, NOT celestial meta is pushing mesmer out.

That being said, the reason why I focused on boon strip before is exactly what many suggested here: mesmers’ DPS roamer role is easily filled by other class. Not necessary better filled, but easier. So any idea on what can be done about mesmer’s DPS roamer role other than providing better mesmer/thief matchup option? Also can anyone suggests specifically on what can be done to improve shatter mesmer/thief matchup?

Retaliation damage also suffers 33% reduction in damage for WvW fyi. Even so it is still enough to kill people who spam AoE/pierce/cleave due to amount of players involved in zerg.

I’d love to see selfless daring back to 100% coefficient. It can potentially bring healway guards back to PvP, but this is just a wishful thinking. The potential in healway guard + one or two zerk teammate is quite a potent combination, but D/D ele can provide similar healing with more damage/mobility.

What builds are possible when DE is built into mesmer mechanism
I know its kind of…well not even close to kind of…impossible to have this but what do you guys think? It can potentially opens up a lot of viable builds that doesn’t invest in dueling. Let your imagination go wild and we can see if its truely as OP as some may suspect.

EDIT: Just an example
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAscWlknpRtFqxGNcrNiphY6Xxyh6ynnTqAA-TZhFwAAOBAz2f4whAIxTAYaZAA

Ravenmoon.5318:

You know, I know how to dodge properly, but the hambow need to stunchain you once. And it has happened to me before, and it is not pleasent. 1 stunchain is all it takes to kill a thief

Wow, such OP. Nerf … thieves should go down after a single normal attack!!!!!!!11eleveone

Your argument is poorly supported. Before you cry about thieves status you should acknowledge the strength of S/D. S/D acrobatic thieves have the most accessibility to evades/dodges than any other builds in game, and many warrior hammer skills have the most obvious animations in game. So you really are just making yourself look bad by saying you get caught in stun chain and was unable to break out of it.

Back to mesmer, I want to re-emphasize mesmer’s role in boon stripping as Selya suggested. We all know that mesmer’s have the highest accessibility to boon strip, so why isn’t mesmer dominating celestial meta? Mesmers should be the nemesis for builds that heavily relied on boons, yet mesmers are rarely seen in teams. Maybe its because mesmer’s boon strip can’t match the speed of boon reapplication, or maybe the need to defensive peel far outweighs ways to make opponent vulnerable. Either way the state of celestial meta plus lack of mesmers shows that mesmer has become lackluster in fulfilling its role in boon stripping.

There are still a lot of underused mesmer traits, perhaps future updates can try to give them more purpose. A good example will be changing furious interruption to corrupt boons on interrupt; bountiful disillusion allows illusions to steal boon for mesmer when destroyed (with CD) etc.

Seems unlikely to instant kill you with just mind wrack in that toughness, but he can seriously injure you if not careful. Look for a flying blade because that’s usually followed by shatter.

Love the concept ASP, lots of variability and fun to play tbh. It’ll certainly make shatter mesmer invaluable at later stage of transformation.

I’m pretty sure we’ll get a thing that bypass stability Me Games Ma, and that’s slow. Hopefully slow will have significant effect like chill. I agree with you on this is more of a buff than nerf, but I doubt boon strip will be different from what we have right now unless they buff shattered concentration. Either way you had to agree that playing boon strip shatter mesmer will be less enjoyable when its been reapplied every 3 seconds.

As a side note, I think this x seconds reapply sort of reflects on why shatter mesmer isn’t dominating the celestial meta. In theory celestial builds should suffer a huge DPS drop/moderate survival drop due to boon strips, but in reality our boon strips simply can’t keep up with boon stackings. This sense of lack luster will feel stronger once the patch hits, but not by that much since necro can’t run in lich form all day.

I think the concept is alright and fair, since you don’t see lich/rampage that often. But 3 seconds are rather short for the team to chain CC. Considering the CD that other teammates have, more often than not the shatter will go into waste. This might means one less reason to bring boon strip/shatter mesmer, perhaps 5 seconds will make a happy medium?