Guild Wars 2

Well, you pretty much nailed it. I’ll add:

Bountiful Disillusionment.
The stability is nice, everything else is garbage. 5s of retal on MW? Really?

Restorative Illusions.
Very low amount and doesn’t heal allies. It’s amazing this is in master tier and Mender’s Purity in adept tier.

Sounds like fun. Too bad I’m a hermit and in EU.

fluxit.8247:

Speaking of which, im a little disappointed that they decided to balance the f5 skill with a destructable node. They need to give this sucker a decent amount of health. If they dont, like all mesmer constructs, it will be destroyed by a single cleave wasting our cooldowns because theres an ele pressing air12345, fire12345, earth12345…etc.

It needs to have an obvious weakness that you must protect, considering how strong the F5 will potentially be.

You can chain 10 seconds of stuns with F5 → Pistol #5 → Signet of Domination → F5 → Pistol #5 → Signet of Domination for example. Or you can double Moa.

My sylvari one. I think he’s pretty cool.

I wish there was purple Seraph Shield.

I think it depends on will the overall damage in the game go up, down or stay the same. Lower TTK (time to kill) generally favors classes that get the first hit and/or have good ways to avoid damage.

New Confounding Suggestions and the blind on shatter trait are gonna be huge help against thieves. Chaos will also be more accessible which helps against D/D a lot.

Don’t know about others, but even when I do have chaos armor up, I don’t want to get hit. It just makes hits a bit less painful.

Yes.

I don’t think there’s many MMO developers that don’t listen to their players. Some are just more ignorant or cautious than others when looking at suggestions. Wildstar was a good example what happens when you don’t take your players opinions seriously.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

…since launch.

A bit off-topic: I’ve always liked Anet, but their pace at improving and fixing their game isn’t too impressive. The only reason GW2 is as alive as it is, is because there’s no subscription fee.

As adept trait it would be a no brainer, and no one would take the other ones.
As master trait it would be easy pick on power builds, but tough choice on condi builds.

In my fantasies it would be minor master trait and IC would be baseline.

Trigr.6481:

Noss.4105:

I wouldn’t worry about PU, no way it’s gonna hit live as +100%. I myself would just keep it at +1s and add some utility to it, like 1s of distortion on entering stealth.

I absolutely love the Mimic idea.

Thanks man. And yeah the only thing I think they should really reconsider is giving you the option to choose 2 master traits, or even adept for that matter if you wanted to. It would open up more build diversity.

Countless

I’m totally with you on that. IMO, the traits are pretty well placed in their rightful tiers (few exeptions here and there. New Mender’s Purity and Restorative Illusions could swap places for example), so I don’t really understand why they decided to limit the customization. I guess it makes balancing a bit easier.

I wouldn’t worry about PU, no way it’s gonna hit live as +100%. I myself would just keep it at +1s and add some utility to it, like 1s of distortion on entering stealth.

I absolutely love the Mimic idea.

Nah, celestial already has more stats than other gear.

Offerande.5240:

But the bassist remains the same.

I let out a small gust of air through my nose when I read this.

No matter how hard he tries, a bassist will always remain a bassist.

Putting aside the fact that it’s not a PU, nor a hybrid build. Looks more like a phantasm build.

Phantasmal Fury/Deceptive Evasion over Empowering Mantras. Outside of sword AA and Blurred Frenzy, you are not doing much damage and EM doesn’t affect your illusions damage.

Crippling Dissipation and Debilitating Dissipation are both good traits in this kinda build, but without DE you’re not getting much out of them.

It’s not a frikin PU build if it doesn’t have Prismatic Understanding.

SlimChance.6593:

But I haven’t seen anyone comment on the Confounding Suggestions change. It shows the trigger chance as 100%. So EVERY daze is a stun??

It has 5 second ICD.

So what does Master of Fragmentation do? Just reduce shatter CDs or am I missing something?

Yawn, Inspiration looks boring. Mender’s Purity is pretty neat though.

tobascodagama.2961:

Xaylin.1860:

We also don’t have a heal which would properly benefit from Glamour traits so I don’t see this happening either.

Chronomancer could have a Glamour heal. A healing field that we drop on the ground would make a lot of sense if it’s a defensive/supporty spec, which seems likely.

How about reverse-confusion field that will heal allies on action instead of damaging.
Or a swarm of butterflies that would bounce on allies, healing, granting a random defensive boon and restyling their outfit.
Or immobile phantasm that slowly breaks into butterflies, healing nearby allies.

O.O

There will be some sweet new builds for mesmer. I’m personally excited about Lockdown shatter, lockdown+PU and PU+MtD hybrid/condi for WvW.

But I’m a bit nervous about all the hellish thief builds that will arise to feast on us. I hope Anet won’t screw up the new stats from gear, since thieves will have access to quite a few +dmg traits.

Any build that beats you I guess.

Will be interesting to see what they do with Domination -line. There’s so many good traits.
I guess they will drop one adept major to minor and get rid of Illusion of Vulnerability.

DE. IP feels essential only if you’ve played nothing but shatter.

Looks a bit like they’re going the same route that Blizzard went with WoW from Cataclysm onward. Sure simplifying things makes balancing easier, but it also cuts from customization, and I don’t like it.

Buuuut It’s a bit too early to say how these changes will turn out.

Dueling already has mantras, so if manipulations would be merged they would likely be in chaos.

collapsed.7592:

Haha that’s what confuses me about this game!
Everybody’s got different opinions on builds / weapons. I’m guessing there are more viable combinations I can use so in the end I will just have to wait and see.

That’s why you should try everything yourself!
At early levels your “build” is pretty limited due the lack of traits. But at lvl 80 you’ll see that mesmer has tons of viable builds.
Can’t remember when you get 4 trait points, but when you do, you should probably get Deceptive Evasion from dueling line. It creates a clone every time you dodge and it’s the most important trait mesmers have.

Chance.2365:

Noss.4105:

Double cooldown reductions. Blade Training and Illusionist’s Celerity stack, lowering your #3, #4 and #5 to 7, 9 and 12 second cooldowns.

edit: You also dont have any shatter traits apart from Shattered Concentration, so I wouldn’t call that a shatter build.

Oh ok, I see. I though the #4 blade was broken when you stack those two !
Yes, it’s principally a Lockdown build, but as I said I’m trying to work on a synergy between the two. You seems to know better than me on the subject, what would you change in the build to be more effective ?

The ingame tooltips don’t show the double reduction, but they’re there.

I would swap fire and hydromancy for energy sigils, Debilitating Dissipation for Master of Manipulation and runes for probably Travelers/Pack/Mesmer.
I personally prefer Mantra of Resolve over Arcane Thievery, but with lockdown my utilities are Decoy, Blink and MoD, so usually I don’t have any condi cleanse. But that’s just me.

Just take your build for a spin and start tweaking it to your liking as you go. 4/4/6/0/0 is really good trait setup for lockdown, and most traits are no brainers.

I’m usually not into shatter vids. One shotting other glass cannons just isn’t something I personally enjoy watching. But you had some really cool fights against worthy opponents. Music wasn’t too bad either.

Nice job! Really good video.

Chance.2365:

You don’t have to lose Ci & BI for Sword Training, because it’s on Dueling line. I have both on the linked build. Yep, iSwordman is not meant to be shattered anyway !
I wanted to try Shatter/Lockdown build because of Chaotic Interruption’s root in synergy with shatter burst.

Double cooldown reductions. Blade Training and Illusionist’s Celerity stack, lowering your #3, #4 and #5 to 7, 9 and 12 second cooldowns.

edit: You also dont have any shatter traits apart from Shattered Concentration, so I wouldn’t call that a shatter build.

Chance.2365:

Hello !

I’ve been recently thinking about a Lockdown build, because it’s so much fun to play. I really want to play Sword / Sword as no one play this exept in PvE. I really like the surviability you have with either Sword 2 and Sword 4. Plus, you can daze with Sword 4 if the guy isn’t attacking. Also, the iSwordman hit like a truck and follow the target.

I want to roam with a build like this. I didn’t try the build yet because I’m still working on it.

Link >> http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8clknpNtlpxGNcrNipxY6biJHSGQDlslxB-TpBFABCcBAY4IAUy+DUXGotDCAAPAAA

It’s a mixed Lockdown & Shatter build, or at least I tried to do so. I’m kinda thinking about switching Arcane Thievery for Decoy, MoResolve, or even Mirror Image for insane instant burst (after one interrupt for example, F3 then Mirror Image + F1 because the guy is immobilized) or MoPain (good amount of damage, but two mantra is hard, and I lack surviability).

What do you think ? I love playing Lockdown and if I played correctly it’s really fun and good. I want to lockdown aka imobilize into a great shatter burst.

Hey,
I’m a big fan of dual swords aswell. I played GS/Sw+Sw as lockdown way back when I was in shatter rehab, and recently as a “brawler” just for fun in WvW.
You really want double energy sigils with those weapons, or atleast in one sword.

Also iSwordsman hits hard. It basically does untraited Mind Wracks worth of damage every 5 or so seconds, so you don’t really wanna shatter him for damage most of the times. I don’t really do sPvP, but I guess his lifespan isn’t too impressive on points.

Double cooldown reductions help dual swords a lot. 7s on #3 and 9s on #4 will up your defense quite a bit, but I don’t think it’s worth losing CI and BI for.

I used greatsword/sword+sword on my second mesmer for the little PvE that I did with it, and it got the job done well enough. Don’t forget to buy new gear off the TP every few levels.

Well that’s a warrior.

I’m not proud of it, but I’ve listened to that song 3 times in a row now. That’s like the mesmer battle cry. Fabulous.

To all non mesmers: We don’t actually mean to hurt anyone. The amount of love we emit is just too much for some to handle, and that sometimes leads to unfortunate deaths.

Thieves are frustrating with any zerker build.
I find GS/Staff probably the best set against thieves. Staff is just amazing defensive weapon and GS has lots of pressure to throw them onto defensive.

I have a video in my sig where I run GS/Staff with hybrid MtD in WvW. It’s a really solid build for solo/small scale WvW.

I got a new video up.

The Sword, The Great Sword and The Greatsword

So, I wanted to try a more “fighter” type of mesmer with dual swords, and after some playing and failing I settled in 4/4/3/0/3.
I’m not really happy with the quality of fights I’ve had in the last week or two. Our matchups haven’t been too good for solo roaming, especially with this kinda build that is pretty limited on the fights you can handle.

I wanted to get good thief fights in the video, but for some reason most thieves I saw were bad or in packs. So I only got one thief fight in there that i kinda effed up.
The ellie fight is also pretty poorly played from my part. I haven’t fought many good elementalists in the WvW after my long break, and I’m pretty rusty against them.

Anyways, again nothing spectacular. Just a pretty goofy(but kitten cool!) build that I can’t recommend to anyone.

Oh, here is a little bonus clip that I didn’t want to throw into the vid, since the enemies don’t seem to have too much PvP experience.

ASP.8093:

I have two mesmers, asura and sylvari.
I made the sylvari because I got sick of the asura animations.
Now I only play the sylvari.
YMMV, of course.

Oh. My. God.
I did the exact same thing for the exact same reason few weeks ago.

Now I feel kinda bad for not playing my asura. He’s been my main for so long.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Here is Dire PU MtD (so no DE) that I put together and ran the other day because someone was running a rabid variant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIfVyOBAK2E

It’s fine. You’ve still got good clone output but can’t spam 3 clone shatters like you can with DE in the mix. Given this, you just have to alter your playstyle a little and you can achieve victory.

omg you tried to stomp a clone. Get yourself together, man!

I hit a thumb up, but only because D/P thief died in the video.

For “entry level” builds you’re on a right track. Condi builds are generally a bit more forgiving because you likely have quite a bit of toughness, and the builds usually run staff and torch.
I’d suggest you try 4/4/0/0/6 MtD shatter with staff and X+Torch. The skill floor is lower than standard shatter and you still learn to use shatters and boonstrip properly.

Well, desperate decoy looks kinda bad in that. you will basically always have staff projectile in the air, and if it procs while you’re autoattacking (which you mostly will be doing), you’ll get revealed right away.

Anyways, looks like a really passive and boring build. Just autoattacking and phase retreating.

Menaka.5092:

Yep, but Mind Cripple only has a 33% chance to apply Slow, so – on average – 1 clone death every 3 will apply it (if it doesn’t get dodged/blocked/etc), doesn’t feel really OP to me, but again, numbers can be tweaked…

Oh right, I missed that. My bad.

@Menaka
Yeah, I think the stats for the weapon traits are too strong, considering you’d potentially get CD reductions for both weapon sets. Just compare to other weapon traits across the professions.
I like the idea of Chaotic Generosity, but without ICD you could stack yourself full of boons with staff.

Also I think you’re mistaking Crippling Dissipation with Debilitating Dissipation, Crippling Dissipation is always cripple.

Some are pretty OP, like: Blade Mastery, Malicious Dampening, Chaotic Generosity, Empowered Generosity and Mind Crippling with Crippling Dissipation.

But loads of really good ideas!

Also triple cooldown reduction to offhand sword? Yes please.

edit: and “Ethereal Dazzle, Domination Adept Major: Ethereal fields pulse Blind for 1s each second. (maybe too strong for Adept?)” would be way too strong even for GM trait. This would make all our fields throw in a free Well of Darkness.

I’m just gonna say one thing. You really need to edit your videos if you want people to watch them.

cbezzant.7154:

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?

That’s kinda how shatter work. There’s a downtime where you “build” into the burst. With MtD I use MW mostly as a filler, and CoF for the mega condi pressure.

Ross Biddle.2367:

messiah.1908:

i put out the vid to show the DMG not my or the enemy skill

See, devils in the details, and context is everything. Haters were so quick to scream “bias!”, all the while inserting their own bias into their knee jerk responses. It’s easy to judge, not so easy to judge soundly.

Do you seriously think that video was a fair comparison between power shatter and MtD, and not biased at all? A simple yes or no.
He took a short clip where Helseth(?) was stuck in staff against some of the best players to represent power shatter. And then best fights from… dunno how many days of footage(edit: reread the OP, and it’s from 2 fights. my point still stands though) against random pugs to represent MtD.

I’m not taking sides on this debate. I love both builds and I hope MtD is very viable in high level tPvP, it’s absolutely amazing in WvW. But if that video isn’t biased I don’t know what is.
If he had just cut off the power shatter part and named the video “damage with MtD”, I would’ve just said “ok, that’s cool”. But that kinda video is almost lying, and it kittenes me off.

I don’t have enough experience in sPvP to give an opinion about this.

But yeah, the video was very biased. You should’ve just left out the small power shatter part or made a fair comparison.

Let the debate begin!

Vikkela.7261:

yeah i know the feeling, my memory isn’t that great either, this just got stuck in my mind

ok so it went like this: 2 drakkar guards trying to cap quarry -> i run in -> hold it as long as i can -> everything ending up on cooldowns eventually -> 1k incoming burning damage nullyfying my heals -> an asura mesmer shows up stealthing me and buys me enough time heal up and get stuff off of cooldown -> we kill the drakkar lake guys -> asura mesmer apologizes for stealthing me

think it was you but even if it wasn’t, GO GUNNARS HOLD and keep killing the drakkar lakes, i enjoyed every moment of watching the video

Oh, might have been a different mesmer then, the apologizing part doesn’t sound like me. I remember a situation where someone was downed in quarry and getting stomped by 2 DL guardians(or warriors) and I came with mass invis and ress just in time.

Anyways, glad you enjoyed the vid!

I kinda agree with Pyro here (didn’t read all the math, it’s too early in the morning) that the condi damage doesn’t look like enough. Not really because it’s too low, but the build doesn’t look like it can apply conditions well enough.
I’ve run hybrid shatter build with around the same amount of condi damage with pretty good results. However it has high(ish) might stacks from GS and shatters and MtD applies constant condition pressure. GS clones also do pretty good bleeds if you let them live.
Unless your weapons are set in stone, you could try with GS instead of Sw+Sw,

Vikkela.7261:

I think you saved my butt on sunday when I was holding quarry against 2 drakkar guardians, if it was you, then your stealth timing was perfect 5/5

I do have a vague memory of that happening, so could have been me.

But then again, that was 6 days ago. I barely remember what I did yesterday.