Guild Wars 2

Staff is Viable as ever, phase retreat still is one of our best mobility tools in game, chaos storm is a bless and fact is Im not as sure chaos armour got nerfed, overall I have 2-3 proced chaos armour from staff phase retreat and sword leap for every staff nr 4 chaos armour. Consider Blind now is working, and you can get protection form the proced chaos armour I look at a buff more than a nerf.

You made me curious mate, ty for post your build. Had to try condition for once, strapped on my rabid gear tweeked some with traits and run a rather simmilar build to yours.

/Osicat

Testing Condition build

Ty for lovely fights Drakkar

/Osicat

I have both GS and Staff in my builds, difference is that with a GS I rely on a group to stay alive if preasured. A staff offers far better mobility, defense and flexibility than a GS while GS offers the long range nuking capability.

Also staff is extremy good as a wep when you fight in the middle of kitten, facing multiple enemys at close range.

Interesting fight in my latest vid, the mesmer have a legendary GS and struggle to keep me at range.

Osicat

yeah, but see it like this Boom. In solo/duo team your survival is on your personal skill and utilitys. In a group of 10-15+ your survive is more based on your group (if you like me run with good players who regourp, heal etc) utiltys etc. So blink away from your team is contraproductive, to decoy is unnesesery as your enemy know where your are (in mid of your team) whle porlat is a team skill. Null field is both a offensive (drop stability of enemy etam is a GvG is fantastic) and defensive (clear criple and vurnability form your team is a must), Share boons, well if you sit on 25 stacks of might, regeneration, protection, ageis and fury why not give it to your team

/Osicat

@Shadowresil, A Shatter Cat Heavy 3.0 with portal nullfield and " share the boons" signet, is extremy strong froup build I found out, you do good group dmg, focus give mass interupts and 25 might stacks, when alot of boons up share the might etc to team, focus give a speed boost abiliy for team. Also you never realy die, so no free rallys for enemy team.

If not that build I would go with Shatter Cat dmg and support, the gs build.

Acended help as there is no exotic chavaler gear. If not accended I would replace al chavaler with knight..

/Osicat

Haha Defcon, idd, or do a portal stomp in the middle of ppl and se the reaction. Best thing ever.

/Osicat

Pyros and Natus builds booth seem wery interesting. Condition is not as bad as its reputation nowdays. I do miss the self controll from direct dmg when go full condition so I lean towards hybrid/synregi direct dmg builds as my favorite. Its harder to conuter aswell as alot of ppl lack condition removal.

Personaly I latley been more into a high direct dmg setup but with condition dmg synergi. I wont ninja this build thread with my latest vid but can find in my guide.

Interesting is that with bounce conditions/boons now viable I often find ppl confuse me with a shatter ordered clones as my behavour is run strait towards ppl while my clone and me pepper the player with staff bounce.

/Osicat

@eldenbri, Idd the community. I just love al helpfull ppl and the good communication between players. There is something special, like a secret bound of buttreflies between the ppl in the sub forum.

/Osicat

Had a LOVELY fight versus a Legendary ROF Mesmer from [SfF] and a Thief from [PWNY] in my latest run before my vacation week. Im back now and just want to ty, here is the vid of the fight if you remeber. Good escape skills on the mesmer, wery fun fight.

Prewev for new mesmer build for the shatter cat guide:

Shatter cat heavy 3.0

/Osicat <Judge>

Back from Vacation

Hi, just want to tip about my new updated wery flexible WvWvW/sPvP build Shatter Cat Heavy 3.0

Enjoy

/Osicat

Hi All

Back from Vacation. Been lovely but feel good to be back aswell. I promiced you a update to my builds. First out are the new imporved Shatter Cat Heavy 3.0.

The updated post patch verison of my most popular build. Its tweeked for better group combat abilitys without give up solo and duo gameplay dmg. The rule is, the build get stronger the more enemys your fight and the longer the fight is up to 10+. After thakittens at max strength but personal preformans have lesser value and survival + group dmg get more important.

A extremly flexible build good for the romaer aswell as the commander of a group.

http://tinyurl.com/Heavy-3-0

Enjoy

/Osicat

@All, still on a vacation so I cant post vids or sort my build updates in a few days. Instead I dig dirt and gravel on my bike atm and gettin a sunburn. Back with updates for buids etc in 4-5 days.

@Boom, Incomming

Untill then, enjoy this, made a tear come to my eye watch http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gDqWHx6xhgU

/Osicat

@Pwnzor, Heavy 2.0 keep you alive, its give good utility to your team and with the extreme mightstacks you can also add sigil of buff em all to share. My opinion its a good commander build just for the simple reason you dont realy die in the build, and a dead commander is a dissaster.

@Isakura, chers, it warms.

/Osicat

Mate, I feel with you. Its never fun when your favorite build is totaly put upside down. Bute I must ask, why do you feel shatter is squishy? There is several builds, some extremy burst focused with low passive survival, but there is also some extremly durable shatter setups who leav high health, high passive survival and toughnes at the same time as the dmg output is amazing.

I understand you dont like shatter but just to show some durable shatter build have a look, this build will spon come with a refreshed setup after patch but the cpre is the same.

Gl on find a new build.

/Osicat

Pwnzor.5682:

osicat? will this work as build? for wvw zerg, dungeons etc? http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7dlwzqqHVzmGa9IhJFDH5nUQdpj6x1r+3B-jEzAocAcGMSDiCARLgJSA5wioxWfLiGrSGQzgpSXUtHhRrWIgJrBA-w

i dont wanne waste money to try it so i ask a pro mesmer :p

@Pawnzor. If you truly want to test out a Condition build and its effectivnes I would do some minor changes to your setup.

1 Drop blindning = confusion and drop 33% confusion uptime.
2 Get bouncing attack + 1 bounce.
3 Get shatter reset at 50%
4 Change runes to undead toughness = condition dmg
5 change food to condition uptime food.
6 Drop the nulification sigil, you already have 2 condition drops, get sigil of battle or 5% crit chance instead.

Last of the changes, consider to get the interupt = might 5 stacks, its wery good extra condition dmg with your already high igjt gain from shatters.

This is only my opinions and not the utter trouth but as you ask me you get what I think.

Gl.

/Osicat

@Chat, as a solo in a group the daze build dont offer alot. It was mostly a test of new abilitys but wont and is not in any of my builds connected to shatter cat guide. Still I found it extremly effective in a special situation, I used the build in our 10 vs 10 GvG and it totaly messed the enemy guids resses/ stomps up. We spammed nullfields and boonstrips early. As soon ppl was down on both sides I started mass daze /interupt.

Next real change in the shatter cat guide is a update to Shatter Cat Heavy 2.0 from the patch. Found some ways to make the build even more devastating in terms of dmg.
We realy got some strong buffs to shatter builds in latest patch.

/Osicat.

Il add my tutorials, might help.

voice ability tutorial

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KUVzPr52rEo

tutorial 1

2

/Osicat

This is a wery strong improvment for mesmer running might stacking staff bounce build. Personaly I use Staff bounce on Shatter Cat heavy 2.0, I improving the build atm post patch and will share the updated build when its tested enought.

Shatter Ceavy 2.0

/Osicat

@dC Ty alot for superb fun GvG last nght.

@Army Ty alot for good fights in open world.

Added some Judge fotage form last night

/Osicat

I had the time over to set a smal vid together from my run tonight. Its a experemental interupt build with mass daze. So far love it, extremly good team support and when i got a hang of it did a impressive amount of dmg.

Later we did GvG who i dont add here but in organiced GvG it was just a monster build. 10 vs 10 = daze al targets time after time when stomps/resses was going on + gave might and other boons al time. Never felt so usefull to my team in a GvG as I did tonight before.

/Osicat

Update

Had some time to sort a vid from tonights guild run. Its experemental gameplay with a Mass daze build. Had alot of fights tonight and general the build was amazing, kept enemy from res / stomp + when I later got a hang of it did a impressive amount of dmg for a support build.

We had several G v G who I dont post here but same ressult, fantastic controll good dmg and 25 stacks of might often.

/Osicat

@All

So far only done 1 evening of testing. So far Im wery exited for the shatter cat builds. If we ignore al bad that happened versus the different alternative “non shatter/non phantams” or pure phantasm builds we have a wery good situation.

The shatter cat heavy with the now fixed Staff bounce mecanic in combination with some gearchanges I show later and 2 trait changes is a monster. Was destroying in both wvwvw and spvp al evening last night,

I also tetsing some wery cool stuff with scepter, the 2 clone is/was a bug but the setup there is now we might look at a totaly new shatter cat build to replace “Shatter Cat Original”.

I keep you updated but this patch was wery interesting. Saldy im off on my vacation (well sad for my gw2 gaming but fun for my biking and fishing time) on sunday so only a few days ti test new stuff.

/Osicat

Another thing fadeaway, with this change there is basicly no shatter build that can be considered vaible without 25 point in illusion, and if you 25 p in illusion its a big misstake to not go 30 for ip alternative mass interupt builds and get the mass daze.

So overall this change narrov the viable mesmer builds to 0-0-0-0-25 (30) and for al dmg dealing builds we look at 0-10-0-0-25. Sure there will be some experemental 10-0-30-0-0-30 interupt mass daze builds and some healing speed 0-0-0 30-30 but it will be hard to argue for any build without atleast 25 in illusions. This due to the fact it give a 20% ability drop for al our builds most important abilitys and utilitys.

Personaly as a shatter mesmer from the start I only se posseblitys in the changes as I already run mandatory 30 in illsuions, BUT the beuty of the mesmer class is the flexibility to run different builds, not glad to se that get worse.

Osicat

BMW f650 Gs, but saving for a 800 gs Adventure. No meaning to have a bike if you cant drive on al roads, I ride alot on gravel roads or forest roads aswell as asphalt. Have done 10 000 km so far this year and of those 4000 is on gravel or offroad.

Osi

@All followers of the guide.

I wont produce any new videos for a few weeks, 2~. This as first the patch hit and I will spend energy on min max my builds to have them up to date. As always I want to test and retest things several times and next patch give ALOT of things to test.

Also next weeks My vacation start from work, so have some trips to do on the motorcykle and also some traveling to do.

I will keep post in the guide when I have a computer close by thu and as always answer questions best I can.

/love Osicat

@Colesy. Hello.

Sadly I have no sPvP video in my guide bank but this vid show the moves etc I try use when facing a bursty thief. It work well for most of my builds With smal manipulations depending setup.

enjoy and hope it help.

/Osicat

Read the patchnotes, I like the fact we might look at a totaly new Mesmer build fauna. Biggest problem atm is that we atm have some extremly usefull traits that it hard to live without. 25 in Illusion, IP, and ofc 20 in dueling. Still, a interupt build looks tempting but more interesting is a Hybird condi and direct dmg build using the new condition. It al depends on if they make it usable for any other setup than a scepter block.

Scepter block as only way to apply a condition that penatilice movment is a horrible mecanic as the biggest value of this skill would be to prevent ppl form run away when they get low. Enemy at 20%, apply torment and force him to stay and fight.

Block only effective versus agressors and not a effective offensive tool.

/Osicat

A good way that I use is to force the enemy and controll the fight. You bust a mesmer down to 25%? you can bet alot that next skill he cast is massinvis or Heal. So basicly bust then setyup a interupt and folow with more dmg.

many example like this.

Interesting is the rumored interupt dmg, if you burst somone down low and interupt hes heal it might be enought to down him.

/Osicat

There is a number of good builds who work both for wvwv and pve. Simply by change utilitys and change most gear to berzerker when you do pve + change a few traits for more ofensive without respec.

Also change Staff for GS in instances ia popular way to pimp the dmg.

/Osicat

@Genocide, I Play a condition dmg hybrid whith superb survival and good zerg fighting abilitys. Hvent found alot of weakness in it yet, easy to swap in a GS when needed aswell.

In general you want to gear more for diect dmg and less for condition as a mesmer, the condition is good but as it look now its better as a bonus and preassure and let the direct dmg be your core dmg.

This is the build I use atm who remind most of what you ask for:

can be found in my guide.

@Ryn, First impression of build, good synergy, no conflicting traits. Wvwvw is focus os mobility + is wery important, focus as you say might be a winner. Staff fors sure is a winner. Pistol I generaly would avoud even if it has its big wins in many situation you in wvwv endup in to many situations where you better off with a focus or even a sword.

I understand why you took the fury istead of sword cd, as its a phantasm spec, cd on staff is there atleast and its a big life saver in wvwvw.

20% hp on phantasm is not overkill as you do wvwvw, if it was pve it wouuld be a different situation. More hp not only mean more uptime but also more retaliation dmg on enemys.

I would personaly change the sigil of air thu, its single target dmg is to unpredictable in wvwv, fight a pet class and you endup hit blood worms with your proc. A sigil of fire would be better but this is my oppinion.

Also I would think about change 1 of the 5% crit chance fora preci stacking untill you have 20+ stacks, then swap back to the 5%, this would give alot more crit chance.

/Osicat

@NapoleonNP, Portal bomb is in general the group attack thru portal and explained in latest posts. Still it can also be done in solo gameplay like I show in the solo portal guide. In general is about land a burst of skills thru distance using a portal. Have clones attack enemy, portal out start shatter, start a phantasm cast and just kittenter hits take the portal, leap and frenzy as you phantasm hit.

Trick to know both for the ele want to do earth aoe bomb, or mesmer who want a pantasm instant cast is that portal use dont brake a cast. So if you target a player close to other portal, then start cast a phantasm and then take portal your phantasm pop nstantly as you pop out of portal, leap and blurred +shatter make a evil dmg combo.

Same with heal, always start a heal before you tale portal if you can as this save some cast time.

/Osicat

Adding a video of last nights solo roaming, alot of portal usage.

/Osicat

Goot tip is pracitce your movment in combat. Not many other classes is so depending on mobility ingame as mesmers as its a source of our dmg aswell as a way to stay alive. Practice on keep enemys just out of reach, have em bunched up in piles and deal dmg in bursts of aoe.

Also life gets ALOT better for a mesmer at 40 but even there mobility is a key.

/Osicat

Cya mate and enjoy this Rl thingy :;D

Update

New Video 2013-06-18. Enjoy, no guide, just general fun and some serious trolling.

/Osicat

@CharrabungaDude, first that name is seriously hard to type

Second. See sword Oh as the shield you carry in your oh to have extra utility (phantasm come form oh weps or 2 hadn weps) and a block. Like a fenzer you block with your oh and attack with your mian hand. The block thu is a fantastic pool of dmg who few ppl dive in. It create a clone the core of our dmg and it deal some nasty extra dmg. The pahntasm is a single target high cortter. Bets of all, sword is the ONLY oh you can get 20% less cd in tier 1. Specc 10 points in dueling and get both your OH and MH 20% less cd.

See my shatter tutorial, based on 2 x sword shatter setup.

/Osicat

Big bursts of shatter often help.

Some Ppl who run GS, do Berzerker, thow sword of bounze and mindwrack followed by iWarden and pull then cry shatter.

Personaly for tagging I use last shatter sequense in this tutorial starting at 1:26:

Enjoy.

/Osicat

No
and ofc no

/OsiNo

RedCobra.7693:

Osicat.4139:

There are some things that can help, but in the end I think it come down to what you specialist in. If you want to be fast and do speed roaming focus and or/ speed runes are needed, for this you give something up, dmg runes and pistol/torch/sword oh. You get stronger in speed but lack in some other area.

If you want to do superb range dmg in instances or wvwvw you specialize in this but give up defense versus fast moving melee.

I think that If you want to run a GS build in wvwvw you will have to accept that you have some weaknesses, even if you ofc get stronger in some areas. One weakness is that thief’s and even shatter memsers will focus on you as they benefit by stay close on you and go for you early in a group fight.

To counter this best way is accualy to play with other ppl, team up with some ppl and stay close to a guardian, if you get down have somone who can res you, tis while you kill ppl at range.

In 1 vs 1 ofc GS as phantasm is strong, but phatasm spec is faar from optimal in wvwvw and lack in many areas.

/Osicat

yeah i agree osicat :P but youre missing a vital,

people sword pistol is best for thieves, keep up that invulnerability and stack iduelist, albeit a smart thief will terminate your stacks give them retaliation so he will take damage no matter what, try to outstealth him while your stacking your phantasms, when he’s weak he’ll refuge, switch to greatsword and 5# knockback and watch them flee, the GS 1200 range will make mincemeat of them xD i deep down honestly have no trouble with thieves but i did have to roll one to 80 to understand them :C

Yeah, this is true, to a sertan lvl. In a 1 vs 1 planned duel, random open world or spvp duel its true. Problem is when it come to wvwvw roaming, you mabye in a smal team facing another team, or get into a 1 vs x or 2 vs x. Now the duelists/phantasm wont al be standing wating for the thief to unstealth tehy will attack clones ppl pets etc when he stealthed. The pistol stun will be harder to land and your GS will be a liability as the theif and probobly everyone else will focus you.

In this situation a staff with chaos storm, chaos armour, phase retreat and bouncing balls of boon/conditions will not only keep you alive but make a theif alot less interested in target you and he more likely go for some easier target in a x vs x situation. Add focus who pull him out of shadow refuge, Iwarden who clear conditions and stop bullets plus ofc 6 sec cripple and you be a nightmare for alot of players.

Still not saying GS is unviable, far from. Just taht you need to accept in a bigger scale than planned 1 vs 1 duels you will be a target and have problem keep mele from you. You cant se the phantasm as a reliable defense or dmg towards a single target, especialy if enemy team have stealth who go on and off plus AOE more often will take them down. Never seen a player have 3 phantasm up for a serious amount of time in a 5 vs 5 fightin wvwvw. I have thu seen theifs 2 theifs or 2 shatter mesmers in a 5 vs 5 pick the GS mesmer, staff ele or longbow ranger and focus burst him time after time untill hes down.

/Osicat

How do you mean? Th cd lowering? Tooltip is messed up but block is affected and so is iSwordman as I understand.

Alot of good tips. Cant add alot but can tell hwo I play in spvp/tpvp in 1 vs 2 ~situations.

Spec I use is 0-20-20-0-30 shatter cat heavy 2.0, Holebreak runes and battle sigils. Clesial amulet. I keep use the focus to land my cripples and shatters on more than one target, the might stacks + celesial amulet put a steady preasure on several oponents. I simple keep preasure steady and when I se one player take more dmg than the otehr I start focus him.

Delayed leaps is effective versus skilled players like Alissah say. So is a focus pull + mindwrack shatter withoutleap. Put down a pull field when you have 2-3 clones up, make a curtan pull and start a sword 2 + shatter when they land at your feat, they ofetn take dmg and then use aimmunity or escape, folow up with your iLeap + cripple and keep preasure up.

/Osicat

Hi.

For solo raoming you need to face the fact you cant controll the numbers you will face. To build for 1 vs 1 is not optimal as you for sure will endup in 1 vs x. You need a few key elemnts for be effetcive in solo roaming.

- Enought speed movment to be able to outrun groups chasing you,
- Stealth, a key element for solo roaming.
- Enought dmg to be able to take down a camp + 1 defender in resonable time.
- Enought survival to be able to in desperate times defend a comp or fight a longer 1
vs x fight
- Flexibility, the build you go for need to be able to fight greater number but also be
able to move the fight round without lose effectivity.

Two of my builds are extremly effective for solo roaming, witch you chose is down to your playstyle. I have gear and use both regulary.

Shatter Cat Mist 2.0:

Shatter Cat Heavy 2.0:

Hope this help, I recomend see both before make up your mind. they wery different in playstyle.

/Osicat

@Shadowraith, Hard to say, I keep find new usages for the focus al the time and we dont have any other weap who offers that kind of utility. Pistol is wery good in a wery narrow window. Its not flexible and in a big number situation its almost usless. Sword is a extremly strong defensive oh and a lovley smal number weapon. probobly our best 1 vs1 wep facing tanks. I say test them all, personaly I feel focsu is outsanding in flexibility.

@Tom van Leeuwen, cheers mate.

/Osicat

There are some things that can help, but in the end I think it come down to what you specialist in. If you want to be fast and do speed roaming focus and or/ speed runes are needed, for this you give something up, dmg runes and pistol/torch/sword oh. You get stronger in speed but lack in some other area.

If you want to do superb range dmg in instances or wvwvw you specialize in this but give up defense versus fast moving melee.

I think that If you want to run a GS build in wvwvw you will have to accept that you have some weaknesses, even if you ofc get stronger in some areas. One weakness is that thief’s and even shatter memsers will focus on you as they benefit by stay close on you and go for you early in a group fight.

To counter this best way is accualy to play with other ppl, team up with some ppl and stay close to a guardian, if you get down have somone who can res you, tis while you kill ppl at range.

In 1 vs 1 ofc GS as phantasm is strong, but phatasm spec is faar from optimal in wvwvw and lack in many areas.

/Osicat

Hi mate.

I helped Drakeco Dustslinger To do this tutorial “How to Shatter Mesmer” a while ago, its help explain some of our moves and how to counter them. Drakeco is one of the enginers AND duelist I have most respect for, duelied him about 10 hours and my guess is that we are at 50% ein rate atm both.

I add some of our duels from hes perspective here aswell:

/Osicat

Enjoy my solo portal guide:

For group usage:

/Osicat

Hi.

I dont play a thief alot, tetsed some to know the skills etc but I do play versus thiefs ALOT, i regulary duel thiefs with al different kinds of wep setup. Stubborn as I am I refuse to use the phantasm spec in 1 vs 1 as I think its op in a smal area but close to usless in amny other areas.

This leav my addition to this thread a bit one sided but I think I can add some things.

First, dont worry to much about the “find the real Mesmer”. Al the tipps are great but seriously after a few hundred fights with mesmers you click and attack the right one without realy know how. Its instinctive. A good player dont look for buff a or text y, he just know the right target without realy know why.

Problem is more the target drop as it risk one of your attacks timed wrong to land on a clone or just hit air. Also the good shatter mesmers dont care if you know witch one is the right target, he use immunitys and boon rotation to avoid dmg combined with mobility.

So how to beat him? Depends on hes gamestyle, most mesmers hate conditions so stack some help but the key is to put preasure. If you by preasure get the mesmer to 50% most players start play more defensive and spend more cd,s, keep preasure up and save up for a burst, at 50% if you get a chance send a full burst.

Some players also have hard handle shortbow spamming thiefs who kill the clones and put pressure. Keep kill clones and when hes low go in for a kill.

I also add a vid for some of my gameplay, this might give some tipps for how mesmers move in combat. The thiefs I fight here dont use same weps as you do buttry focus on how mesmer chaon boons and look for gaps in my defense, there si some times I exposed in the fights but the thief dont time a attack at thise moments.

/Osicat